The Oh, Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Two guests today addressing

one topic, the great victory by the Teachers Union in Los Angeles. A victory not just

for them, but for public schools and the very

idea of a public sector. First we'll hear from Alex Kaputo Pearl, President of

that Union, United Teachers Los Angeles, and later we'll hear from a frequent guest in this show, the writer and

organizer Jane McAlibi, to draw some lessons from this strike. Public education is

under attack across the US and not just by right-wing Republicans.

Over the last couple of decades, Democrats have also embraced the full agenda of education

reform, like charter schools and lots of standardized testing, a pseudo-scientific way of

evaluating both students and teachers.

Along with these initiatives have come deep austerity at all levels of government.

Last spring we saw rebellion against these strategies in conservative states like West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

And now that movement is spreading to the Democratic stronghold of California.

Despite the Dem's dominance of California politics, Ed Reform has been in the March in that state

for some time. A center of the fight has been in the March in that state for some time.

A center of the fight has been in Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the country,

where per pupil spending is disastrously low.

That low spending has partly been dictated by the property tax caps imposed by Proposition 13 past 40 years ago.

In the face of those funding restrictions, L.A.'s plutocrats have pushed the Ed Reform Agenda hard.

L.A. Elite spent $10 million on behalf of charter school advocates in the 2017 school board elections.

The pro-charter school board appointed Austin Butner, who made a fortune in private equity and then retired to philanthropy, politics, and education reform, as superintendent of the city's schools.

As you'll hear, he and the board released a report in 2017 called Hard Choices.

...