So you've known the guy who's leading this teacher strike for a long time.

I've known him for a long time. I've been talking to him for a long time.

This is Dana Goldstein. She covers education for the New York Times.

He's a character in my book.

Her book is called The Teacher Wars. And Dana says it's not hard to understand how LA's teachers

got so frustrated. Just walk into the schools. You'll get it. She spent a lot of time at a high

school called Crenshaw in South Los Angeles. It is in a working class, largely African-American

neighborhood, and it had a really storied history and a great baseball program.

And it had, you know, a lot of engaged families that were proud of this school.

Crenshaw is a bit legendary in L.A. When Dana says they had a great baseball program, she really means great.

Daryl Strawberry played on the team back in the 70s. But by the time Dana showed up here, the place had really changed.

With the birth of the charter sector, they saw a lot of the most engaged families choosing to go to charters.

And then what happened is their population was more likely to be students who may be homeless or in faster care or have really high needs.

Crenshaw High School nearly lost its accreditation in 2005.

The district kept putting in more and more principals to see if they could crack the code

of keeping kids in the building and competing more with the charter sector.

And the teachers were so frustrated that they kind of staged a mutiny.

And the guy leading the uprising, his name was Alex Caputo Pearl.

I met him when he was leading a movement to bring together teachers and parents with a vision of how that school could turn itself around in this era of competition with charter schools.

And he was a longtime social studies teacher at that school. and he said, you know, it's up to us.

The teachers.

He got the parents together.

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