Did Someone Mention the Value of Learning? : L.A. schools: While board and union maneuver, who is teaching what to the children?

These are instructive times to be a public schoolteacher. I for one am grateful to the Los Angeles Unified School District for its recent imposition of a 12% pay cut, if for no other reason than it has afforded me a chance to see how the hands are dealt by the school board.

The current impasse over the teachers’ contract has taken all kinds of twists and turns, leaving many of us waiting for the next round of rhetorical mudslinging between Helen “I’m mad” Bernstein and Leticia “I care” Quezada. But recent events leave me wondering whether the follies of the teachers’ union do not exceed those of the school board.

United Teachers-Los Angeles’ “35,000 Unhappy Teachers” campaign has sentimentality at its core and offends my sense of dignity. The whining has simply got to stop. Teachers should refuse to engage in activities that only add to our increasing loss of moral credibility. No real teacher would shaft the kids by refusing to write college recommendations. But even if one did, how could anyone believe this would aid our cause?

Such tactics only play into the hands of those who wish to discredit public education.

Now is the time for teachers to demonstrate their true value to this community. We must not allow the school board president to play the Florence Nightingale of education, when in fact she has done nothing in her career but distance herself from the burdens of classroom teaching.

At the announcement of the proposed strike date, many teachers claimed to have concerns beyond pay cuts. But do such teachers actually believe that the restoration of our salaries will help to improve the quality of education in this district? Who among us is prepared to make the case that children necessarily do better when their teachers are well paid? Let’s face it: Teacher salaries reflect the values of the community, yet no school will ever pay what its best teachers deserve.

UTLA’s desperate search for an appeals court to halt district actions turns tragedy into melodrama. These endless appeals only leave teachers bleeding from two wounds. We pay our dues--more than $400 per year--so the union can sue the district, which in turn cuts our salaries to pay its lawyers.

The lawyers may have their usefulness as snipers, but now is the time to bring out the big guns. We need to take our case directly to the public. UTLA should declare a month-long Celebration of Learning by inviting the community in to see the conditions of the asylum. Alumni, city officials, celebrities and distinguished professionals could be invited to join parents at a kind of prolonged open house. Far from withholding our services, we should be seen flourishing among the ruins.

In the meantime, strike preparations should continue. A unilateral demonstration of good faith on the part of teachers would not adequately speak to the outrage of bad faith expressed daily by the administration. We decided to strike in 1989 to close the enormous gap between the salaries of those who work with children and those who keep the accounts. When the school board voted to award the fat cats their own 24% raise, they started on their slide toward insolvency.

But just because the school board decided to stab the teachers in the back is no reason for us to shoot ourselves in the foot. Yes, let’s hold out for a better deal, but let us not sell out. It is not so much that money is no object, I’m just saying it does not make the world go around. Or if it does, let’s not tell the children. They think education is what it’s all about.