The Los Angeles Unified School District has been undereducating kids for years now. Year after year, students are graduating LAUSD unable to read, write or do math at age appropriate levels thanks to the shoddy work of tenure-protected “educators.”
I’ve been pointing this out for years, but an article of mine yesterday really hit a nerve with some LAUSD teachers.
One particularly whiny teacher from one LAUSD school denounced me as “an embarrassment to humanity” for sticking up for students and condemning LAUSD’s unions for threatening the education and well-being of students their members are supposed to serve.
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I looked up the school this particular teacher works at and pulled up the performance metrics.
In the 2021-22 school year, just 36.79% of students met the state’s standards in English Language Arts. Just 8% met the state’s standards in mathematics. Just 6% met the state’s standards in science. And just 8% of 11th graders were assessed as prepared for college-level English.
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With results like that, why should the public support forking over more money for the sake of forking over more money?
A more thoughtful teacher elsewhere asked me bluntly what evidence was there that charter schools had better test scores than non-charters. Luckily, this is public record. You don’t have to just take my word for things.
In 2021-22, non-charter schools in LAUSD:
39.19% of students met or exceeded state English standards.
26.04% of students met or exceeded state math standards.
Same year, here are the results for charter schools in LAUSD:
48.55% of students met or exceeded state English standards.
31.76% of students met or exceeded state math standards.
The pattern held before COVID.
In 2018-19, non-charter schools in LAUSD:
41.85% of students met or exceeded state English standards.
31.2% met or exceeded state math standards.
Same year, here are the results for charter schools in LAUSD:
53.02% of students met or exceeded state English standards.
40.63% of students met or exceeded state math standards.
Of course, there are nuances and complexities to education policy and outcomes.
But it’s just a fact that LAUSD is a mess and that UTLA is solely interested in bilking money without delivering results.
LAUSD (and K-12 education in California as a whole) needs reform.
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I personally don’t see why public school teachers should have tenure protections. But if they’re going to have them, it should be much harder to get tenure.
People should be fired for poor results and people should be rewarded for better results. Simple.
LAUSD parents must seriously question whether they should continue to keep their kids in the district.
After all, LAUSD teachers decided to re-elect Cecily Myart-Cruz, who is best known for denying that kids endured learning loss during COVID: “Our kids didn’t lose anything,” she said. “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.”
Yes, that is the representative of LAUSD teachers.
Defund UTLA.
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com