LA mayor blasts teachers union in speech

[The Northerner]

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has told state leaders that education in Los Angeles stands at "a critical crossroads" and he blasted the city's teachers union for resisting change.

Speaking in Sacramento earlier this week, Villaraigosa said union leaders have stood as "one unwavering roadblock to reform" and called for change in volatile areas such as tenure, teacher evaluations and seniority.

In an interview Thursday with the Los Angeles Times, two days after the address at the Public Policy Institute of California, Villaraigosa said he knew his words would "cause a firestorm."

Furious teachers representatives accused the mayor of union-bashing.

UTLA's vice president Joshua Pechthalt says Villaraigosa's agenda threatens to "turn back the clock on historic gains made in public education."

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2010%2F12%2F09%2Fstate%2Fn215855S93.DTL

[Xicano]

1. We in the ILWU have a saying:

Villaraigosa will not be getting my vote.

[mitchtv]

5. proud CWA member

I support seniority, tenure, and due process. I vote against union bashers

[Xicano]

6. +10

Here, here brother!

:fistbump:

[Hannah Bell]

2. villaraigosa got his start as a union organizer. guess which union.

my my, things change when you hang out with the big boys, tony?

[dkf]

3. It's okay to unionize, but it should also be to promote good practices.

If unions promoted excellence and self screened they would ensure that everyone would want to work with them. The problem is when too much focus is on protecting the unfit.

[mitchtv]

7. federal law requires unions

to defend all members with equal intensity , It's not just ok to unionize, it is our right , No ifs, ands, or buts.

[dkf]

10. I'm not disputing the right to unionize.

But if a few bad apples affect the whole system and pull all their colleagues down, isn't it in the union's best interest to get them outta there?

[Xicano]

4. Back when he was campaigning I remember him coming to our union hall

And our Bloody Thursday barbecue talking about how much of a union man he is. You're correct Hannah Bell "how things change when you hang out with the big boys," eh tony?

Because of this there's a lot of people I know who will vote no on him in his next election.

[Starry Messenger]

8. What a POS.

Not too surprising though, he's buddies with Eli Broad.

Which is what Broad had on his mind for dinner conversation that night. Education. But it was a dinner for which Broad was having to learn, for him, the acquired taste of waiting – waiting until his office got word that it would be at Patina, the five-star restaurant at the Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown, which had come into prominence as a political power eatery during the 2000 Democratic National Convention which Broad had hosted.

It would be the perfect location. Broad’s dinner guest that night was Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in what would finally be a formal rapprochement after their public spat -- over Villaraigosa’s legislative compromise watering down a full mayoral takeover of the city’s public schools -- that had lingered in the public eye for weeks and months.


Coincidentally, their dinner was taking place the same night that Villaraigosa unveiled his ambitious proposal to raise student test scores, reduce the dropout rate and improve the quality of education in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In a polished speech to some 100 elected officials, parents, educators and students gathered for a town hall-style meeting, the mayor evoked the image of an old-fashioned schoolhouse in outlining his appropriately named plan, “The Schoolhouse: A Framework to Give Every Child in LAUSD an Excellent Education.” Afterward, Villaraigosa hopped into his GMC Yukon for the three-fourths-mile, police-chauffeured drive from the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo to Disney Hall to join Broad at Patina.


"We had a three-hour dinner" Broad would later say of their breaking bread to bury the hatchet. "We talked about a lot of things. We may not agree on everything. We agree on about 95 percent of things."

But Broad wanted to make one point perfectly clear to the mayor:

"I said, 'Antonio, I’m not your lapdog that’s going to agree with everything you say.'"

The fact that Broad found it necessary to remind Villaraigosa about his independence and of not wanting to be taken for granted may have been an innate need to impress upon the mayor that he has some control in their decade-old relationship. Broad himself described it “a very cordial relationship” – but a relationship that effectively amounts to an investment, a political investment, to be sure, but still an investment not unlike the fortune he has put into his Warhols and other contemporary artwork.

http://tonycastro.com/Broad.htm


I'm sure there is no mistaking who is the lapdog in that relationship...

[LWolf]

9. I hope there are enough teachers and labor supporters in L.A. to take him down. nt

[Reader Rabbit]

11. It would be nice, wouldn't it?

Maybe the poor and powerless among us will start joining and backing unions once they realize that no one in the government gives a damn about anyone but the billionaires.

[LWolf]

12. That would certainly be a step in the right direction. nt

[Tatiana]

13. Obama and Arne Duncan opened the damn door to this type of rhetoric.

There are not going to be many teachers unions or associations supporting the Obama ticket come 2012 unfortunately unless the President and his administration walks back their attacks on education and teachers.