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Commentary: LAUSD may owe $13.6 billion for health care & pensions — and the strike made things worse. Obamacare is a way out
When then-President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the law immediately made some employee benefits offered by state and local governments redundant at best or regressive at worst. This issue is playing out in a painful way in Los Angeles. Teachers in the second-largest school district are now back at work after...
By Chad Aldeman | February 3, 2019
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Commentary: LAUSD board retreats from fiscal challenge again — and teachers union boss may be the big winner
Nearly a year ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Directors voted to approve a new three-year agreement with United Teachers Los Angeles and seven other district bargaining units, extending union members’ ability to earn free lifetime health, dental, and vision care for themselves, their spouses, and their dependents. Long acknowledged as one...
By Chris Bertelli | January 30, 2019
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Antonucci: Things you might not know about the Los Angeles teacher contract
Mike Antonucci’s Union Report appears weekly at LA School Report. *Updated The 40-page tentative agreement reached between L.A. Unified and United Teachers Los Angeles in the early hours of Jan. 22 has a lot of details and dense contract language. Teachers did not have much time to read and digest it before they had to vote, and...
By Mike Antonucci | January 29, 2019
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Commentary: With strike, L.A. teachers union came out strong fighting for its members. But who’s fighting for our kids?
As I watched the Los Angeles teachers strike play out over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been impressed by the strength of the teachers union. It is fiercely committed and stops at nothing to fight for working conditions of the adults it represents — the teachers. But lost in the conversation is the most...
By Alma V. Marquez | January 28, 2019
Investigation: Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died in Federal Boarding Schools
Podcast: What a Mentorship Mindset Can Do for Student Motivation
Black and Hispanic Voters Say Democrats Aren’t Focused Enough on K-12 Education
Teen Activist Rhea Maniar on the Power of Abortion to Turn Out Young Voters
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The teacher strike is over. Now parents who felt ignored want to be included as LAUSD and UTLA move forward with their new agreement
While tens of thousands of Los Angeles educators and families on Wednesday celebrated the end of the six-day teacher strike, about a dozen parents held their own news conference outside City Hall to make sure their voices were heard too. Wearing white to signify neutrality, they said they felt that parents, particularly those in high-needs...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | January 23, 2019
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A look into the LAUSD, UTLA contract deal ending the 6-day teacher strike
*Updated Jan. 22 L.A. Unified and its teachers union announced Tuesday they had reached a contract deal to end the six-day teacher strike, heralding “a new chapter” in public education that district officials say will protect the district’s fiscal solvency. The deal has to be approved by a majority of United Teachers Los Angeles’s 34,000...
By Taylor Swaak | January 22, 2019
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Antonucci: So it’s over
L.A. Unified and United Teachers Los Angeles reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. There will be plenty of analysis from all quarters on the details in the days and weeks to come, but for now we can all agree on one thing. It had to happen this way. The strike had to happen...
By Mike Antonucci | January 22, 2019
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Welcome but complicated — Mayor Garcetti, Gov. Newsom and the pressure to end the LAUSD teacher strike
*Updated Jan. 18 With pressure building to end the Los Angeles teacher strike, Mayor Eric Garcetti is now mediating contract negotiations between L.A. Unified and its union — a move education pundits say is welcome but possibly complicated by his prior disconnect and his actions this week backing educators. Education observers say Garcetti, elected in...
By Taylor Swaak | January 18, 2019
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As LAUSD teacher strike stretches on, students experiencing homelessness are hit hard
The Los Angeles teacher strike has now lasted a full week, and the work stoppage is compounding stress and uncertainty for students and families who rely on schools for meals, childcare and stability, especially for those experiencing homelessness. More than 17,000 students in L.A. Unified are classified as homeless, and the strike comes amid a...
By Laura Fay | January 18, 2019
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‘Painful truth’: 9 numbers haunting LAUSD as strike continues
*Updated Jan. 18 L.A. Unified reports losing a net $75 million in the first week of the teacher strike from low student attendance, stretching its finances further as the district struggles to remain solvent. While the district tries to satiate the teachers union’s demands, it’s teetering on a proverbial “fiscal cliff” — shouldering more than...
By Taylor Swaak | January 17, 2019