September 2013

A Second Opinion
Rank-and-File voice of UTLA Newsletter of PEAC: Progressive Educators for Action

The Time is NOW to Fight for Real Learning, Class Size Reduction, and a Raise LAUSD doesnt even know which tests it willAgainst hang us zero transition is likely to end poorly and obviously is and Overtesting
with exactly, but they are moving forward to evaluate students, schools and educators based on themwhatever they are. Hypertesting is infecting education by using tests not as reflective or formative devices, but rather as a tool for destabilization of schools through reconstitution and a weapon with which to beat up teachers and students through new evaluation processes and more and more tests. Our union has very little to say and even less for us as members to do. While we are confronted with new evaluation platforms and our students with insecurity, our union president has not even sent out a single fax or phone blast about what we can and should be doing to support real learning. We need to fight for real learning, not more testing. A recent LA Times editorial written by a Teach Plus fellow sings the praises of Common Core but even corporate backed folks like him suggest the testing part of this topdown reform is moving too fast. A new set of standards implemented with zero training, zero collaboration, and going to start that way. The vision of teaching and learning practice that is collaborative and that is community-driven does existits just not Broad supported or Gates funded. It is in East LA where students are studying their own learning and making public presentations about it at the Politics and Pedagogy conference last June; at Roosevelt High where students have researched social justice issues such as public school funding, brownfields (toxic sites), and used GIS technology to create maps of these issues in their communities, and presented their findings at the Politics and Pedagogy conference in June; it was at Crenshaw with the Extended Learning Cultural Model, and at UCLA Community School where students take their learning to the street in internships. Across the city working class students of color are working with their teachers and community to build a different experience from high stakes testing. These efforts are remarkable, especially given how much resistance there is to this work, but they are vulnerable. As we saw at Crenshaw High, when reform can be isolated at a single site and then subjected to review by standardized test, the district can easily target it with traumatic and destabilizing results. Real learning is happening and we have to shine a light on it, defend it, build it, spread it and create policies to promote it, as well as policies that push back against overtesting and its consequences. That should be the job of educators and our union right now. What is our union president doing? At the UTLA Leadership Conference, he made a promise to fight for a pay raise and to get the 2010 RIF rehires back by
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Jesse Hagopian (leader of the Seattle Testing Boycott), Monty Neil (FairTest), leaders of the Schools LA Students Deserve Campaign, PEAC, Politics and Pedagogy, and Peoples Education Movement

R EAL L EARNING , NOT O VERTESTING ! I DEAS AND S TRATEGIES

Thursday, October 3rd 6-8 PM

call Rebecca 213-713-1402 for info

What is PEAC?
Progressive Educators for Action (PEAC) is an organization of UTLA activists. Join us promote activism, organize around social justice and issues impacting public education, and build alliances with parents, and others. www.progressiveeducatorsforaction.com

UTLA Building 3303 Wilshire Blvd

The Time is Now

cont. from pg 1

September 30th. This date marks when these RIFed colleagues are kicked off the LAUSD call-back rolls. As of this writing, this talk has proven hollow no call, no fax, no call to arms. Times may still be tough but across the state, many districts have negotiated raises since the passage or Prop 30. Deasys brokenrecord cries of poverty ring hollow, especially now as Deasy is clearly gearing up to propose and champion his preferred type of raise: merit pay. Our president told us to expect a raise at last months leadership conference and to expect to see our RIFed co-workers back in the classroom. Now, not a peep, and whats more, Fletcher has put no information out into the public about any of these issues not shaping opinion about Prop 30 and the possibility of a raise, nor about all of the research on merit pay that makes it clear that it undermines core values of education, like collaboration, mutual support, serving our most vulnerable students and more. And certainly nothing about continued high stakes testing, much less promoting positive alternatives. Fletcher has mobilized no one and stood for nothing. We need an engaged membership and a public relations campaign now! We cannot wait for another initiative with no follow through. We must begin to organize and change our schools. 1. We need a forum to discuss the issue of real learning and over-testing with students and educators and their school communities 2. We need to build a movement that fights for the schools our students deserve, not the tests they dont. Join PEAC to push this forward along side other forces inside and outside UTLA. On October 3, PEAC will be holding a Real Learning, Not Overtesting panel. It will be held at the UTLA auditorium from 6-8PM with folks from around the country to dig into the issues and hopefully lead the way for our union. Out of this event, in coordination with other union local caucuses, PEAC and its allies will be planning an event to protest over testing and highlight amazing bottomup reform efforts building real learning and teaching.

Big Talk about RIFs and Raises Goes Nowhere

UTLA President Warren Fletcher made a big point of telling the members at the Leadership Conference that he was going to fight for raises. He also said that he was going to fight for our RIFed co-workers to be returned to work. While there were a lot of issues that were untouched, including overtesting (see next column), these two got big play. Unfortunately, they got no action. No specific demands have been put out, despite the fact that the Schools LA Students Deserve initiative demanded it. No public relations campaign has been started to explain to a weary and economically struggling public why they should care about this issue. Even the issue of class size that has a specific demand connected to it has not been mentioned in months. Prop 30 monies that allowed other districts to get raises have already been essentially spent by Deasy. President Fletcher has apparently not learned the lesson learned over the years in LAUSD that if we do not put our demands out, the district will not listen. If UTLA and its allies do not mobilize educators and communities around commonly held issues, then our schools and students will lose. Activists in UTLA have been pushing for an alternative budget, a contract campaign, a public relations campaign, and a series of escalating actions for the last year, most recently in the Schools LA Students Deserve Initiative supported by the vast majority of the membership and created by PEAC, UTLA Area Chairs, and other allies. And we have been thwarted at every turn. Our union president claims that he is following the initiative, but somehow ends up continuing with the same failed one-issue-at-a-time negotiation approach. This type of business-as-usual business unionism is passive in the face of continued attacks on our students. We need a new type of active unionism that mobilizes the members and engages in public campaigns to create deeper relationships with parents and communities. Get involved and work with PEAC to build this.