Day Higuchi

Carrying two briefcases--one soft-sided, one hard, both filled to bloat--Day Higuchi can be spotted frequently hurrying through the corridors at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters, late for an important appointment. If it's a typical day for Higuchi, he left his Silver Lake home before 7 a.m. for a power breakfast--with a politician, perhaps, or a national labor union leader--and he may not return until near midnight, when he will raid his refrigerator for leftovers.

The Times (editorial, Oct. 31) wrongly blames seniority for the discord surrounding bonus pay for LAUSD test scores, when the blame should clearly be placed on the program itself. The program is an affront to the dedication of California teachers. None of the award recipients studied, trained and spent countless hours away from their families because they had hopes of a big cash award. They did the work because it defines what they are all about--teaching. Do teachers at high-scoring schools deserve higher pay?

The Times (editorial, Oct. 31) wrongly blames seniority for the discord surrounding bonus pay for LAUSD test scores, when the blame should clearly be placed on the program itself. The program is an affront to the dedication of California teachers. None of the award recipients studied, trained and spent countless hours away from their families because they had hopes of a big cash award. They did the work because it defines what they are all about--teaching. Do teachers at high-scoring schools deserve higher pay?

Re "Don't Flunk This Test," editorial, Oct. 4: The Times recognizes the shortage of qualified teachers in L.A. schools but advocates "teaching" the school unions who's boss by tearing up our contracts, wholesale firings and keeping the survivors on short leashes. Bashing teachers is meant to drive away "bad" ones. In fact, it only makes it harder to recruit and retain the best and brightest. The United Teachers-Los Angeles won't let the Los Angeles Unified School District flunk. Earlier this year the UTLA negotiated a contract with Supt.

Re "Schools Get OK to Try to Trim More Class Sizes," July 22: I thought the kindergarten teachers who spoke before the LAUSD Board of Education's July 21 meeting made it clear. The plan to reduce class size in kindergarten by teaming teachers for up to an extra hour daily will only produce exhausted teachers and no benefits at all for the kids, who will still be packed into a crowded classroom. On top of that, the board is not planning to pay the teachers for the extra instructional time worked with students.

Re "Don't Flunk This Test," editorial, Oct. 4: The Times recognizes the shortage of qualified teachers in L.A. schools but advocates "teaching" the school unions who's boss by tearing up our contracts, wholesale firings and keeping the survivors on short leashes. Bashing teachers is meant to drive away "bad" ones. In fact, it only makes it harder to recruit and retain the best and brightest. The United Teachers-Los Angeles won't let the Los Angeles Unified School District flunk. Earlier this year the UTLA negotiated a contract with Supt.

Re "Wake-Up Call for LAUSD," June 8: Every morning, nearly 45,000 teachers take their places at the head of Los Angeles classrooms. We do not need wake-up calls or ice water in the face to know the system is facing an unprecedented crisis, and United Teachers-Los Angeles is hardly in a "delusional trance," concerned only with salaries and the right to pick classroom assignments. For nearly two years, UTLA members have done everything possible to end business as usual at LAUSD. Our biggest victory for students and taxpayers as well as teachers was a contract raising salaries from the bottom to the middle of the pack.

Change simply for its own sake is a step backward, and that's what The Times is promoting by not supporting school board incumbents Julie Korenstein and Valerie Fields ("3 for L.A. School Board," editorial, March 20). Korenstein and Fields pushed for higher standards and phonics-based instruction, and now test scores are up. Fields and Korenstein led the call for real merit pay--higher pay for teachers achieving the rigorous and prestigious National Board certification. They also led the charge for peer assistance and review, which makes the teachers union accountable for bringing the classroom performance of educators up to standard.

After six years as president of the Los Angeles teachers union, Helen Bernstein will pass the baton to her top lieutenant, Day Higuchi, a longtime educator and union activist known for his work on school reform. Higuchi will take over one of the largest and most influential teachers unions in the country July 1 after receiving nearly 70% of the vote in a mail-in election conducted over the past month.

The Times seems bent on magnifying a hairline crack between teachers and Gov. Gray Davis into something the size of the Grand Canyon. I'm referring to your recent coverage on Davis' proposed state tax exemption for teachers. True, we respectfully differ with the governor on some specifics of his plan to elevate the teaching profession in California to the status it has so long deserved. But we commend Davis for adding $1.84 billion to his state budget in a form clearly intended for teacher compensation.

Re "Wake-Up Call for LAUSD," June 8: Every morning, nearly 45,000 teachers take their places at the head of Los Angeles classrooms. We do not need wake-up calls or ice water in the face to know the system is facing an unprecedented crisis, and United Teachers-Los Angeles is hardly in a "delusional trance," concerned only with salaries and the right to pick classroom assignments. For nearly two years, UTLA members have done everything possible to end business as usual at LAUSD. Our biggest victory for students and taxpayers as well as teachers was a contract raising salaries from the bottom to the middle of the pack.

Change simply for its own sake is a step backward, and that's what The Times is promoting by not supporting school board incumbents Julie Korenstein and Valerie Fields ("3 for L.A. School Board," editorial, March 20). Korenstein and Fields pushed for higher standards and phonics-based instruction, and now test scores are up. Fields and Korenstein led the call for real merit pay--higher pay for teachers achieving the rigorous and prestigious National Board certification. They also led the charge for peer assistance and review, which makes the teachers union accountable for bringing the classroom performance of educators up to standard.

The Times seems bent on magnifying a hairline crack between teachers and Gov. Gray Davis into something the size of the Grand Canyon. I'm referring to your recent coverage on Davis' proposed state tax exemption for teachers. True, we respectfully differ with the governor on some specifics of his plan to elevate the teaching profession in California to the status it has so long deserved. But we commend Davis for adding $1.84 billion to his state budget in a form clearly intended for teacher compensation.

Re "Schools Get OK to Try to Trim More Class Sizes," July 22: I thought the kindergarten teachers who spoke before the LAUSD Board of Education's July 21 meeting made it clear. The plan to reduce class size in kindergarten by teaming teachers for up to an extra hour daily will only produce exhausted teachers and no benefits at all for the kids, who will still be packed into a crowded classroom. On top of that, the board is not planning to pay the teachers for the extra instructional time worked with students.

Re "Study Calls Poor Teacher Training a 'National Shame,' " Sept. 13: The fact that qualified teachers are in short supply in California and the odds of a student having a mathematics or science teacher who is licensed in that field are less than 50-50 is unfortunately attributable, at least in part, to hiring quotas based on ethnicity. I was motivated to become a math teacher because similar articles in the past led me to believe I could make a valuable contribution. However, despite my being a fully credentialed math teacher with good references, degrees from both UCLA and Pepperdine, and a year's teaching experience in Ventura County, I have been unable to obtain a position in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Emerging from the shadow of his effervescent predecessor, the new president of the Los Angeles Unified School District's teachers union pledged Saturday to help cure what ails public education during his first major speech to field lieutenants at their annual desert confab. Day Higuchi addressed a gathering of 700 campus leaders from the nation's second-largest educators' local, just weeks after a sharp attack by Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole.

Re "Study Calls Poor Teacher Training a 'National Shame,' " Sept. 13: The fact that qualified teachers are in short supply in California and the odds of a student having a mathematics or science teacher who is licensed in that field are less than 50-50 is unfortunately attributable, at least in part, to hiring quotas based on ethnicity. I was motivated to become a math teacher because similar articles in the past led me to believe I could make a valuable contribution. However, despite my being a fully credentialed math teacher with good references, degrees from both UCLA and Pepperdine, and a year's teaching experience in Ventura County, I have been unable to obtain a position in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The Times' article (May 25) and editorial (May 27) on the Los Angeles Unified School District's failure to receive a $15-million grant from the National Science Foundation are an insult to teachers. To present a fact that two classroom teachers were the point persons for the grant development process as the "explanation" for the problem is based on the patronizing assumption that teachers, however outstanding they might be, would not be competent to write a big-league grant. While it was inept of the district not to have given adequate support to those teachers, it was a positive move by the district to have involved teachers.

Struggling under the burden of declining real estate values, the redevelopment agency that has financed much of the resurgence of downtown Long Beach is running out of money and wants to borrow $25 million to help meet its payroll. The Long Beach Redevelopment Agency said that without the loan, in the form of tax anticipation bonds, layoffs would begin Oct. 1. The plan to raise the money was distributed to the mayor and City Council this weekend.

Thank you for your interview with Day Higuchi (Opinion, June 23). This man should not be president of United Teachers-Los Angeles. He should be governor of California. Higuchi understands the commitment that must be made to education in this state. Taxpayers cannot afford to use "bureaucratic inefficiency" as an excuse to underfund the state's school systems. That course is selfish and shortsighted. If people think that merely ensuring educational quality for their own children (or grandchildren)