Schools: Be Reasonable

Los Angeles teachers, frustrated by years of low pay and low prestige, are holding out for a 14% pay raise. Los Angeles school officials, frustrated by the expenses of a soaring enrollment and miserly offerings from the governor, are sticking with their 7% offer.

Both sides make good cases but, for the benefit of the district’s 590,000 students, the Los Angeles School Board and the United Teachers of Los Angeles must compromise in quick order and without conflict that would disrupt classrooms.

The situation has already turned sour. Negotiators for the union and the district have scheduled talks, but not face to face. A state-appointed mediator is scheduled to shuttle from room to room today and one day next week.

On principle, our sympathies lie with the district’s 32,000 teachers. Beginning teachers earn only $20,600. Veterans with 14 or more years of experience earn $35,500. Long underpaid in Los Angeles and elsewhere, these college-trained professionals perform tough, crucial jobs. They serve their students, their city and their nation. They deserve substantially more pay and substantially more respect.

But the district simply cannot afford to raise its offer by much without shortchanging classroom expansion that is urgently needed to guarantee a desk for every youngster or limiting the instructional programs in place to guarantee a chance for those students to learn.

For one thing, although the teachers bargain only for themselves, a raise for them is a raise for 70,000 full-time and part-time district employees;14% for everyone would cost $200 million. The district would be committed to higher salaries even if revenue from Sacramento falls or lottery proceeds, the basis for part of the pay raise, dry up.

Both sides justifiably fear the Gann limits on public spending increases that are scheduled to take effect in July, which could shrink future raises and almost everything else. Both sides want what is best for the schoolchildren, but the common ground ends there.

The union insists that the district has plenty of money this year and that the raises are simply a matter of reordering priorities. The district insists that its financial picture is not so rosy and is getting gloomier with every report from Sacramento.

In the current climate of gloom and uncertainty, some board members and school officials may be tempted to dig in their heels; that would serve only to lengthen the impasse. In the current climate of anger and frustration, which was evident at the recent mass rally, some teachers may be tempted to join a one-day walkout; that would serve only to penalize students and to turn off supporters who favor the significant pay increase, despite the minuscule rate of inflation, to compensate for past injustices and to be in keeping with the national reforms in education.

In the best of worlds the state would provide enough money so that teachers would get the pay and respect that they deserve. Their students would get the education that they deserve at modern schools that were neither crowded nor distant. The best that can be expected today is quick and peaceful compromise from both sides.