Back-to-School Days

The Los Angeles teachers’ strike is over. The settlement approved Thursday by the United Teachers-Los Angeles union means that the district’s teachers will be among the best paid in the country. In the long run, the most important part of the settlement, however, may be the establishment of the school councils that give teachers and parents more say about children’s education. Teachers will benefit professionally from sharing in decisions, but the children could be the biggest beneficiaries if their parents are encouraged to become more involved in their schooling.

The strike showed Los Angeles how much it values and how much it needs its schools. School leaders would be smart to tap this reservoir of public support before it fades as the strike becomes a memory. Many students learned something from the strike as well: that they enjoy learning. They discovered that they would rather be in their regular classes than watching cartoons, playing video games or roaming shopping malls. And today they will be back in those classes.

They should discuss with their teachers the lessons of the strike: the history and role of unions, the economics of the settlement, the psychology and value of compromise. Indeed, compromise should have come earlier in the negotiation process, which was finally helped along by the timely intervention of two Los Angeles legislators, state Senate Majority Leader David Roberti and Assemblywoman Maxine Waters.

Beginning teachers will get a retroactive raise from the current $23,440 to $25,316 a year. By the end of the three-year contract, teachers just starting out will earn $29,529. Experienced teachers with bachelor’s degrees and more educational course work will get a top salary of $53,938 by the end of the three-year contract. The amounts still aren’t what rock stars or baseball players receive, but they do represent an important reaffirmation of teachers’ important roles.

It remains to be seen exactly how the school management councils will be set up, but their significance is already clear. The school board and the union are only too aware that the district’s size presents huge governance problems. Decentralizing some of the decision-making can be a true reform of the school system, one that should enhance the commitment of teachers and the involvement of parents.

There will understandably be some residual bitterness. But the strike is history. The task now is not to return the schools to business-as-usual, but to use the settlement to revitalize education for the youngsters of Los Angeles.