United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz.
he Profile She’s Earned
Something’s spreading through newsrooms and it’s not the coronavirus.
Soon after Emma Green of The Atlantic challenged the well-worn talking points of NEA President Becky Pringle, we get Jason McGahan of Los Angeles Magazine going several steps further in an exclusive interview with United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz. The piece is titled, “Cecily Myart-Cruz’s Hostile Takeover of L.A.’s Public Schools.”
Here are a few of the more pungent quotes from Myart-Cruz:
“There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
“It is not radical to ask for ethnic studies. It is not radical to ask for childcare. It’s not radical to ask for police-free schools so that students don’t feel criminalized. That is not radical; that’s just fact.”
“Education is political. People don’t want to say that, but it is.”
“Reopening schools without…a broader improvement of schools will be unsafe and will only deepen…racial and class inequalities.”
“You can recall the Governor. You can recall the school board. But how are you going to recall me?”
https://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2021/08/30/los-angeles-magazine-gives-union-president-the-profile-shes-earned/
L.A. Teachers Union: Give us $250 Million, Or Keep Schools Closed
In exchange for 180 days of classroom instruction per year, the average LAUSD teacher makes over $100K per year in pay and benefits (grossly understated estimate because it doesn’t take into account paying down their unfunded pension and retirement health care liabilities).
The “modest” strike settlement negotiated between LAUSD and UTLA in early 2019 left LAUSD in worse financial shape than before.
Taking all expenditures into account, California spends, on average, over $20,000 per K-12 pupil per year. There is not a revenue problem, there is a spending problem.
An under-reported reason the teachers unions want to unionize – or abolish – charter schools is because they need to fold more pupil counts, and hence more revenue, into their annual budgets. Only in this way can they hope to spread their existing pension debt over a larger revenue base.
So where will $250 million (or more) come from?
At the federal level, the UTLA is calling for federal assistance including an emergency bailout, along with increased Title I funding, increased Individuals With Disabilities Education funding, and “Medicare for All.”
At the state level, UTLA is calling for passage of the proposed property tax increase that is already on the November ballot, along with a “Wealth Tax” of 1 percent a year, and a “Millionaire Tax” of up to 3 percent surtax on high income Californians.
And at the local level, UTLA wants to “Defund Police,” provide free housing to anyone, ten additional sick days for all private employees, a moratorium on charter schools, and “financial support for undocumented students and families.”
Pic of this bitch..
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/cecily-myart-cruz-teachers-union/
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/l-a-teachers-union-give-us-250-million-or-keep-schools-closed/