LA school district ‘caves’ to teachers’ union to avoid strike, follows ‘unsustainable’ financial trajectory

While most Americans were paying their taxes April 15, the Los Angeles Unified School District was breathing a sigh of relief after reaching an agreement with the United Teachers Los Angeles union to avoid a threatened strike. But the relief might not last long.

The district “caved” and granted teachers “a whopping pay raise,” according to media reports, with some saying the deal’s nearly $1.2 billion annual price tag will push the nation’s second-largest school system closer to financial collapse.

The union had demanded a 17% raise over two years, no layoffs, smaller class sizes and protections from AI technology. The district offered an 8% raise plus a one-time 3% bonus, saying it couldn’t afford more and that the raise was already higher than in other districts. But the union, along with two partner unions representing administrators and service workers, voted to strike.

At the 11th hour, the district met most of the demands, setting the already beleaguered school system up for more fiscal challenges.

Teachers received a nearly 14% raise, and service workers’ pay will rise 24% over three years, the Los Angeles Times reported. Average teacher pay was already over $100,000, but the union cited the high cost of living.

The district will hire 450 new counselors, social workers and psychologists, the Times reported. It also rescinded more than 200 layoffs that were designed to cut costs and could reinstate more employees.

LAUSD is “drowning in an $11.4 billion unrestricted net deficit,” said Lance Christensen of the California Policy Center, who accused the unions of forcing a deal by “extortion” and “ganging up on an insolvent district.”

“These deals will only further exacerbate LAUSD’s financial problems and do nothing to improve the delivery of education for their declining student base.”

The nearly 400,000-student system has lost more than 200,000 students over the past 15 years but hasn’t “downsized the number of employees or schools,” said Pedro Noguera, dean of the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. “It’s unsustainable.”

Sonja Shaw, a Republican running for California state superintendent, said, “We cannot continue throwing hundreds of millions more into a broken system without real accountability, especially when more than half of students can’t even read or write at grade level, as is the case here.”

Although a strike was averted, it appears to be part of a larger, coordinated effort by the California Teachers Association to gain political power. Across the state, more than two dozen districts are striking or threatening to strike because of expired contracts.

CTA President David Goldberg denied it was a coordinated effort but acknowledged the association is working on a ballot initiative to increase public school funding.

The Los Angeles union last went on strike in 2019 and joined the service workers union for a walkout in 2023. Both actions resulted in concessions and raises.

The union was also criticized for citing the district’s reserves as justification for the raises. As spending increases, the reserves will be drawn down without new revenue, which typically means higher taxes or more state aid funded by taxpayers.

“It looks like LAUSD is intentionally creating a fiscal crisis that it can exploit to demand higher taxes,” Susan Shelley, vice president of communications at the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, told The Center Square.