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After two teachers’ strikes in as many months in California, it is too soon to tell whether the labor disputes in Oakland and Los Angeles presage a new era of school-based activism.
But regardless of what comes next, this year’s strikes had much in common, and yielded valuable lessons and insights for other districts where labor troubles may also be brewing.
Unaddressed in both Oakland and Los Angeles are deeper structural issues, such as the impact of declining enrollments, the crushing costs of meeting pension obligations, and stratospheric housing costs.
Whether these underlying forces will trigger further strikes — still a relatively rare event in California — is hard to predict. In only one other California district — San Ramon Valley Unified centered in Danville, a wealthy suburban community to Oakland’s east — have teachers actually authorized their union to call a strike if contract negotiations break down, although labor conflicts are brewing in other districts like Sacramento City Unified and Fremont Unified just south of Oakland.
Update: On March 14, teachers ratified a new contract without going out o strike. Teachers in Sacramento Unified have called a one day strike for April 11 over a dispute on clause in their contract.
The fact is that even with gains at the bargaining table like those made in Oakland and Los Angeles, most teachers — and certainly beginning teachers who rely on a single income — will not be able to afford to buy a house in many urban and suburban districts, or even cover rents there. (In the current salary schedule, teachers in Oakland with a B.A. degree make $46,570, which in three years would rise to just over $50,000 under the new contract.)
Those realities will make recruiting teachers an ongoing challenge, even as districts struggle to find teachers in key areas like math and science and special education. And it will continue to create churn in the labor force, with some teachers being tempted to leave so they can live in districts where living costs are lower — or to leave the profession altogether.
That may help explain the surprisingly large proportion of teachers in Oakland — 42 percent — who voted against ratifying the agreement. This is one area where the Oakland strike outcome differed from Los Angeles, where only 18 percent of teachers voted against the contract. While making some significant gains at the bargaining table, many Oakland teachers sent a message that they were hoping for more.
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
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Joe Truss 5 years ago5 years ago
I agree. We need to find education to truly close the opportunity gap. Pay teachers higher than the living wage, decrease class sizes by half, and add more arts/intervention classes. Check out more thoughts here: http://culturallyresponsiveleadership.com/equity-free/
Dan Plonsey 5 years ago5 years ago
I agree with Mr. Freedberg that the "wins" in LA and Oakland are far from sufficient. In both cities, teachers will almost certainly lose money, in constant dollars, over the course of their new contracts, as cost of living in both areas has been increasing at ~3%/year; over 4% in the Bay Area last year. Why is it not possible for California to fund at least cost of living? Because California's wealthiest are still … Read More
I agree with Mr. Freedberg that the “wins” in LA and Oakland are far from sufficient. In both cities, teachers will almost certainly lose money, in constant dollars, over the course of their new contracts, as cost of living in both areas has been increasing at ~3%/year; over 4% in the Bay Area last year. Why is it not possible for California to fund at least cost of living? Because California’s wealthiest are still pocketing far, far more than their share of new wealth. How long will we teachers put up with that?
Other lessons learned: 1) Oakland teachers were not united with their classified staff. We are all in this together, and if teachers’ paltry raise is paid in part by letting go SEIU workers, then shame on OEA! 2) Rank and file need to insist on being better informed of what the current status of bargaining is, because there is too much incentive for union leadership to end a strike early. In strike after strike, teachers are being betrayed by union leadership.
Jennifer Bestor 5 years ago5 years ago
Last week’s excellent Sacramento Bee infographic, “See Where California Teachers Have the Hardest Time Paying Rent/Mortgage,” may add perspective to this issue. In many counties, the cost of buying or renting is within the usual 33%-of-income range. In a quarter of our state, it is not. "In 15 California counties, … mortgage payments on a typical home would consume more than 45 percent of the average salary for a teacher in the … Read More
Last week’s excellent Sacramento Bee infographic, “See Where California Teachers Have the Hardest Time Paying Rent/Mortgage,” may add perspective to this issue. In many counties, the cost of buying or renting is within the usual 33%-of-income range. In a quarter of our state, it is not.
“In 15 California counties, … mortgage payments on a typical home would consume more than 45 percent of the average salary for a teacher in the county … In four California counties, all of them in the Bay Area, [a] two-bedroom rental would take more than 45 percent of the average salary for a teacher in the county.”
Sadly, however, the LCFF-funded districts in five of these counties could have — but did not — receive almost $650 million of education-allocated property tax — because a regional cost supplement was omitted from the final 2013 LCFF funding scheme. Instead, this extraordinary windfall, fed by rising property prices and property taxes, was reallocated last year to county, city and other local governments as “excess ERAF” (Educational Revenue Augmentation Funding).
How will we be able to raise any “new taxes for our schools” with a straight face, when we fail to claim ones already earmarked for education?