Faced with unrelenting union opposition, the Los Angeles Board of Education put on hold Tuesday a proposal that would have allowed charter operators and other outside groups to bid for control of 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.
The plan, led by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, would have made available, through a competitive process, new schools that are part of the nation's largest school construction project. The district could compete to run these campuses, along with independently run charter schools, the mayor's office and other institutions and nonprofit groups.
The biggest prize would be the collection of schools at the Wilshire Boulevard site of the Ambassador Hotel, one of the nation's most expensive school construction efforts. Charter operators see in the resolution a chance at new school facilities that are largely unavailable to them now. Some supporters also perceive the motion as a first step allowing the takeover of any school regarded as "failing."
"Choice is an important lever for change and innovation, both of which are needed," Flores Aguilar said. "This resolution is in response to the growing chorus for change and reform."
Part of that chorus was in attendance at Tuesday's board meeting. But board members were tuned in at least as closely to the critics.
"You've made a 'yes' vote to choice [into] a 'no' vote to labor and that is what is what we are opposed to," said Adriana Salazar, the business representative for Teamsters Local 572, which negotiates for about 3,500 district employees, including plant and cafeteria managers. But she said later that her union might see things differently if these campuses remained under contract with district unions. Most charter schools are nonunion.
In a letter to the board, seven unions, including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, called the proposal "an insult to these children and their families to outsource education to charters and other private entities."
Board member Richard Vladovic co-sponsored the resolution, but he's also a traditional ally of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which backed his bid for office. At Tuesday's meeting, he told Flores Aguilar that he supported the "concept" of the resolution, an apparent tactical retreat, and joined a general call for change.
