This blog will not often agree with the editorial page of the Los Angeles Times, but today we get to use our January quota. An earlier post discussed how teacher’s unions in San Diego are seeking to get that school system’s reformist superintendent fired. Today the Times surprisingly editorializes against the L.A. union’s attempt to do the same:

“The latest salvo in the campaign by the teachers union to wring a generous raise from the cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified School District is a petition drive declaring that teachers have “lost confidence” in the leadership of Supt. Roy Romer. The tactic, aimed at pressuring the superintendent and board members to capitulate, is an unseemly flexing of union muscle …

… under Romer’s hardheaded guidance, the district has achieved a rare measure of stability after years spent careening from crisis to crisis. Schools are being built, test scores have risen and a handful of innovative programs are flourishing. Those gains would not have been made without the hard work of classroom teachers, who deserve a salary increase. Their union leaders ought to recognize that the long-term health of the district depends, in part, on public perception that it is being run professionally and cooperatively.”

Romer is the most effective manager the abysmal LA system has had in recent memory. The union grandstanding in Los Angeles reinforces our earlier point: expect no more from a public sector union than you would from any other union, or any corporation: maximizing returns for its members (or shareholders). And that task has very little to do with improving education for the district’s children.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 31st, 2005 at 11:21 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times, Brilliant, but uncategorizable, Media, (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.