Who Lost Steve Lopez?
Steve Lopez is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times who is largely sympathetic to the claims of underfunding and overwork by the California public education establishment (check out his March 8 column, for example).
Here are a few excerpts from today’s column:
But what union President A.J. Duffy won’t admit, as he raises a stink, is that when good teachers are on the chopping block and burned-out teachers are protected, it’s because of his union’s contract.
and
At my daughter’s school, I’d much rather have the very capable principal decide on staffing rather than have decisions forced on her by Duffy and a bloated union contract.
At 347 pages of boilerplate and trivial specificity, the UTLA document manages to dehumanize teachers and crush innovation, treating them like components of an outdated machine rather than like intelligent, independent, adaptable professionals.
Every school has teachers who stand above the rest. Some of them veterans, some of them not. Why can’t they be rewarded?
and
Among the protesters Tuesday was Robert Rubisa, a third-grade teacher at Los Angeles Elementary.
With 11 years on the job, he didn’t get a layoff notice. But his wife, a fourth-grade teacher with less experience, got a pink slip.
Rubisa said he went to his union rep and suggested that teachers give back some of their sick days to help balance the budget and avoid some layoffs.
“The union rep said we should not balance the budget on teachers’ backs,” Rubisa said.
For other entries in the “Who Lost” series, click here.
March 26th, 2009 at 12:50
Lopez was lost a long time ago. He chastised the union for protecting its “tired old dogs” several years ago. I think he lost his values after he left Philly.