Mapping the 2019 Teacher Strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District: A Case of Interest Convergence

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 2019 Teacher Strikes: Lessons on Worker Consciousness, Community Advocacy, and Coalition-Building

Abstract

Context and Purpose
Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest district in the nation, serving over 600,000 students, and with 63,576 educators, it is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County. The district covers the largest geographic area encompassing six sub-districts that stretch from the California coastline to the mountains of the Angeles National Forest.

The 2019 teacher strikes marked the first time LA Unified educators went on strike in 30 years. Since the last strike, the district experienced a sharp increase in student enrollment and defunding of its public schools, resulting in overcrowded schools, year-round tracking, and racist discipline policies. The rise of charter schools in Los Angeles over the past 30 years is a unique case of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) highlighting tensions between both the elite neoliberal agenda, as well as the disenrollment and divestment from highly disserved marginalized communities of color (Mazama & Lundy, 2015; Fields-Smith, 2015). Mobilizing teachers from across the many regions of LAUSD, often operating in completely different communities, was the result of strategizing and planning. Missing from the larger discourse, however, are the stories of the alliances between grassroots community organizations, families, students, and unionized teachers already in motion. While some communities and schools worked together in solidarity, others tentatively agreed to work together despite histories of distrust.

This paper will ground the socio-political, historical, and geographical context of the 2019 LA Unified teacher strikes. It will explore the multiple community-school partnerships and, through the inclusion of school-based educators, work towards defining a path towards healing and reparations for more democratic, community-centered public schools.

Theoretical Framing
De Certeau (1984) argues that “the powers in our developed societies have at their disposal rather subtle and closely-knit procedures for the control of all social networks: these are … the police, the schools … But they are slowly losing all credibility. They have more power and less authority.” In short, the true obverse of power is authority. The case of LA Unified is one seeking to restore authority to schools, moving the power of society from that of the state to that of communities and families to authorize their local schools. This paper will use a historical case study approach (Yin, 2015) to understanding the context of the LAUSD teacher strikes that builds on 30 years of education policy, as well as community organizing and activism.

Scholarly Significance
Current policy shifts in the California local funding formula point to the need for local communities to work together towards state and national policy shifts. For example, LAUSD is still recovering from the effects of Proposition 13 and nothing short of two thirds of the state’s voters will cause the system to reconsider. However, this type of smart, systemic change results from a rigorous, informed educational discussion between school-based educators and the families, students, and communities they hope to serve. The terms of the discussion must stand upon an understanding the complex history that has brought us to this moment.

Author

• Lorena Guillén, University of California - Los Angeles