Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/740763
T O G A I N I N S I G H T into UTLA's amazing transforma- tion, we sought answers from UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, a labor activist and former teacher at Crenshaw High School, whose strong leadership style helps fire up UTLA members to battle back against corporate interests and create a new vision for improving public schools. With the "Build the Future, Fund the Fight" cam- paign, UTLA leadership persuaded 82 percent of members to approve a dues increase to fight upcoming battles against charters and corporate interests and create positive changes in schools. How were you able to convince so many members to reinvest in their union? The first thing we did was help our members reimagine our union and reinvest in it psychologically. There had been a lot of hard years with layoffs, and there were difficult years in terms of UTLA not having a strategic direction. When new UTLA leadership arrived in July 2014, we knew the first thing needed was to take on Superintendent Deasy. We were able to get him out within a few months. Our contract had expired three years earlier, and we knew we had to frame our con- tract campaign as part of a broader struggle around educational justice and having the schools that Los Angeles students deserve. We needed to involve our members, parents and community in that struggle. Over the course of 2014-15, we were able to do that. Our effort culminated in a rally at City Hall with more than 15,000 people. How did leadership energize and organize UTLA members for that? It was quite a process, and we had a lot of help from people, including from CTA. Our five-point plan: 1. We did a series of school visits during 2014-15 and went to hundreds of schools — some more than once. We assessed members' willingness to move toward a strike. There was a series of escalating actions, which got people more vested. It was not just about salary; it was also about class size caps and putting student-counselor ratios in the contract for the first time. When we finally reached a tentative agreement in LAUSD; expose hypocritical billionaires who should not be setting the nation's public school agenda; and share UTLA's vision for fully funded schools. ese initiatives have been built on earlier work. In 2012, a grassroots effort was launched within UTLA to develop a city- wide vote on the "Schools LA Students Deserve." Membership overwhelmingly passed an internal resolution calling for UTLA to fight for a broad set of educational justice demands, using an organizing-based approach. This has guided the work of U TL A leadership over the last years, and led to partnerships with state affiliates and more locals state- and nationwide around a "Schools All Students Deserve" agenda. UTLA has notched victories that were difficult to imagine a few years ago. Among them, UTLA: • Helped oust former Superintendent John Deasy, a corporate reformer who focused on high-stakes testing and unfair teacher evaluations before being investigated b y t h e F BI f o r a n i Pa d scandal costing the dis- trict $1.3 billion. • Won a 10.4 percent salary increase along with first- time contract language for a cap on class size and a ratio of counselors to students, with reopeners in 2017 to further reduce class size and increase staffing. • Convinced 82 percent of UTLA members to vote for a dues increase to battle foes of public education. • Negotiated a new, fairer teacher evaluation system. • Got three of four UTLA-supported candidates elected to the school board. • Commissioned research that showed privately managed charter schools are siphoning millions of dollars in tax money from traditional schools in LAUSD. • Convinced administrators to allow elementary schools to cut back on unnecessary testing. As Caputo-Pearl made clear in his recent "State of the Union," there is much work ahead, work that will require all members' efforts "to fight for an education system led by stakeholders not billionaires, led by educators not edu-pre- neurs, and led by student need not profit motive." Step-by-step: Recipe for change UTLA at a glance • CTA's largest affiliate. • The nation's second-largest teachers union local. • Represents more than 35,000 teachers and health and human services professionals who work in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in charter schools. 24 cta.org FEATURE