Stalemate in the Schools

We should be clear on one point before getting into a discussion of negotiations involving the teachers’ union: Teachers are entitled to more money. They perform a vital mission for society at wages that simply do not reflect the value of their time, energy and intellect. The Los Angeles Unified School District offers to pay them 8% more this year and a total of 20% more over the next three years--generous by any standard except perhaps as a measure of a teacher’s ultimate worth. Yet no agreement on a new contract is in sight. The reasons are diverse and complex.

Under the school district’s offer, beginning teachers, who now earn $23,440 a year, would see their pay go to $25,316 now, $26,326 next year and $28,427 the following year. The school administration points out that these salaries would make Los Angeles teachers among the best paid not only in this area but also among large districts in the state and in the nation. The United Teachers of Los Angeles union wants beginning teachers to receive an 11% raise now, taking them to $26,000 immediately, and adding 10% more next year.

The union says that the school district is inflating the cost of its contract offer. The school district says that it will have to cut $100 million from existing programs and services if its latest offer is accepted. It may take an independent fact-finder to get to the bottom of that. The district has identified as areas for possible cuts items ranging from junior-high humanities programs to the cars that the district supplies for top staff and board members. It would be an important symbolic gesture if the district switched to paying mileage and had its officials use their own cars as teachers must do, but it would not go far in paying the bills.

Negotiations have produced some progress.The school district is offering a larger increase than its original proposal of 5.6% in the first year; the union has come down from its opening request of 12% the first year, and is now talking about a two-year contract instead of a one-year pact. The union does not want to lock teachers into lower salaries for longer than that because the state’s financial condition may change and allow larger raises. The district’s request for a three-year contract would mean that schools could avoid for a while longer upheavals like the one that they now are going through, and that makes sense. It shouldbe easy to write a triggering mechanism into the contract so that the agreement could be reopened if state revenues were to go up sharply or the Gann limits on spending were changed.

School Supt. Leonard Britton says that he will withhold paychecks from teachers who do notturn in student grades to the district by Friday. The union is going to court to try to stop him. This clearly isn’t the main issue in the dispute, although it has gotten everyone’s attention. It may well reflect teacher frustration at not being paid for performing duties that go beyond basic teaching, but neither side should have made it such a big issue.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that three school board seats will be at stake in the city’s April 11 election. While the current board will remain in office until summer no matter who wins, the election could produce a board more favorably inclined toward the union and toward more lucrative contracts in the future.

Parents are starting to voice some anger over continuing disruptions of schooling. Some of the hostility is directed at the school district for not paying teachers more money; some is directed at teachers because of their tactics. The schools need all the support from parents that they can get. Nobody benefits from such anger, no matter what its target.

Many working parents will agree with the school district that a pay increase of 8% is generous. They will consider equally generous the district’s offer to go on paying all medical, dental and life-insurance benefits, regardless of increases in the price of those benefits, although the teachers point out that they won this full payment by the district in lieu of salary increases in the past. A good number of people, then, want teachers to be paid more but think that this offer sounds decent, given the circumstances. We agree.

The next negotiating session is set for today. If there is no progress, the state mediator who is now guiding the process should call in that independent fact-finder. That report should lay out for the public just what money is available and what cuts can be made. This stalemate must end, and soon. Erosion of support among parents and legislators in Sacramento who pay most of the bills is one more problem that the public schools do not need.