Los Angeles Teachers’ Strike Settlement

I have often wondered why Quesada has not been more vocal during her term of office. After reading her article, I have come to appreciate her silence.

She claims that all of us can learn something with “lasting consequences” from the teachers’ strike. While I do not doubt that certain lessons have been learned, particularly by the teachers, I certainly do not accept her simplistic and pedantic interpretation of those lessons.

According to Quesada, as a result of the strike, students have learned “that they truly prefer to go to class and do their homework rather than play hooky and hang out at the mall.” This nonsensical drivel is not what students learned. They have learned that the heart and soul of the educational process is the teacher. They have learned that without teachers this process comes to a dead halt.

She claims that teachers have “learned to stand up for their dignity” and that this “new-found energy will undoubtedly make them better teachers. . . .” This hypocritical prattle is not what teachers have learned as a result of this strike. Teachers have learned that the district was determined to break their union. Teachers have learned that to “stand up for their dignity” can get you arrested and brutalized, particularly if the standing is done at district headquarters.

What is really astounding is that she claims that district Supt. Leonard Britton “has learned what it takes to run the Los Angeles Unified School District.” If anything, Ms. Quesada, 22,000 teachers on strike for 11 days and hundreds of thousands of students out of school was an indictment of his inability to administrate the second largest school district in the country and not a demonstration of his ability to “unify” it.

As far as the board was concerned, Ms. Quesada observed that she was not certain if she and her colleagues had learned anything from the strike. Let me remove all doubt. They did not. They were the ones that were elected to govern the district and not Britton and his Administrator’s Assn. The people did not elect them so that they would hire a high-power law firm to put it to the teachers during negotiations. All that was necessary to settle the strike was for four of them on the board to say yes to quality education by saying yes to professional salaries for our teachers.

Quesada claims that the community did not learn any lessons because it was asleep during the strike. I have news for her. The people of Los Angeles were not the ones who were asleep but, rather, only irresponsible public officials.

RAUL RUIZ

Professor of Chicano Studies

Cal State Northridge