Unions in La-La Land
Unions in La-La Land
United Teachers Los Angeles union President Alex Caputo-Pearl speaks to striking teachers and their supporters in Los Angeles, Jan. 14.
Photo:
robyn beck/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
‘Here we are on a rainy day, in the richest country in the world, in the richest state in the country, in a state as blue as it can be and in a city rife with millionaires, where teachers have to go on strike,” United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl declared Monday. Here we are with another teachable moment in the failures of public union governance.
The 33,000-strong L.A. teachers’ union went on strike Monday as the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) slouches toward insolvency due to unaffordable labor contracts. Despite a putative $1.8 billion reserve, the district is spending about $500 million more each year than its annual revenues and will be broke within two years, which could prompt a state takeover and bankruptcy.
Los Angeles teachers earn on average about $75,000 per year—about $6,000 less than the statewide average—though compensation including health and retirement benefits exceeds $110,000. One problem is the region’s high housing costs make it harder to retain teachers while more and more money is diverted to benefits and pensions.
Health benefits consume about 15% of the $16,000 or so the district spends per pupil. Teachers can retire as early as age 55 and don’t have to pay a dime for health insurance until they qualify for Medicare and then receive subsidized supplemental coverage. Few government or private employers anywhere provide this perk.
Nearly all California school districts are also being squeezed by rising pension payments that the state Legislature has mandated to shore up the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (Calstrs). School district pension costs have more than doubled since 2014.
Recall that in 2012 public unions and Democrats championed a tax referendum to soak the wealthy—putatively to raise money for schools. Voters in 2016 extended the tax hike through 2030. Well, state K-12 spending has increased 70% since 2012, yet pensions have swallowed the tax windfall.
Thus, school districts across the Golden State are scrounging to keep the lights on. Last year San Francisco voters approved a $300 parcel tax on each home to fund schools. Sacramento City Unified warns it could go bankrupt this year barring cuts to worker benefits. Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal last week would provide schools with modest relief by making a $3 billion payment to the Calstrs pension fund on their behalf.
But as LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner notes nearby, schools can’t spend money they don’t have. LAUSD has offered teachers a 6% raise over two years and to hire 1,300 teachers and support staff. The union is demanding that the district spend more no matter the district’s finances. Once higher pay and spending are in place, the union will then lean on the politicians to lobby for another tax increase via referendum in 2020. The tax-spend-tax-spend union ratchet never stops.
The union also wants to curb the growth of charter schools, which are a refuge for low-income and minority students. Only 22% of fourth-graders in Los Angeles scored proficient in math on the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress compared to 31% in other large cities. A 2015 Stanford study found that students at charters in Southern California on average gained more than 50 days of learning in math and more than 40 days in reading each year over their counterparts at traditional schools.
Three years ago, former Democratic state Senate majority leader Gloria Romero launched a charter school in Santa Ana, which last year led the state in math academic improvement. She plans to open a charter in Los Angeles this year, but the union wants to stop her lest she embarrass the failing results in union-run schools. Behold the new regressive progressivism.
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