The L.A. Times is at it again.
The Times has a well-known history of opposing unions, and not just for their own reporters. You might have thought things were getting better. Not necessarily.
On the first page of the California section in today's print edition you will find this headline: "Powerful L.A. teachers union to elect leaders." Predictably, the online headline is "What an off-the-radar teachers union election means for the education of L.A. children." That way, the union can be scary in two ways: both domineering and sneaky.
Under both headlines, however, is a first sentence that is not accurate and seems to be a lede manufactured for effect:
"When L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho wanted to extend the academic year, the teachers union stopped him."
In an otherwise generally even-handed article, a couple of things stand out. First, that lede. "[S]topped him"? This is from Mr. Blume in December: "Thousands of L.A. students show up for school on first day of winter break."
How can both be true? I don't speak for the union, but my understanding is that UTLA forced the district to adhere to the law and bargain. One of the union's objections was always that the acceleration days were an inefficient use of resources, and this article from January seems to confirm--"At $611 a day per student, some question if L.A. schools’ extra learning days are worth it."
The union was right. But instead of clumsy staffing efforts and poor planning, the six-hundred-dollar-a-day article goes on to blame teachers for not promoting the boondoggle they warned against from the beginning. Phooey.
Second, the money quote from Carvalho fanboy and ubiquitous media source Pedro Noguera, dean of the USC Rossier School of Education:
“The real question for the union, regardless of who’s running it is: Is what’s good for the union, in terms of what they’re advocating, also good for the students?”
A really good question, if you were in thrall to the multitudinous school choice anti-union advocacy groups that have popped up like poison mushrooms in the last twenty years. Groups like the California Policy Center, which is used as a source in the article, with a link. Noguera's quote comes distressingly close to the standard anti-union pro-school-choice talking point: unions are good for teachers, bad for students.
- Note: From my silo I had no inkling as to the hostility of the terrain out there. For this post I just googled "teachers unions" and the first hundred bazillion results were bs hit pieces from advocacy groups (don't call them think tanks) like Cato and Heritage. The California Policy Center even showed up in the "People also ask" rich snippet (just learned that one) answering questions like "why are unions bad for students" with predictably venomous responses. In addition to wondering how this particular ideological viewpoint manages to dominate the search results, I also have a massively heightened respect for teachers and scholars who write in the school choice space and who are subjected to an astonishing level of hostility and personal attacks. And the invective is boring. Guys, get some new talking points, will ya? Time for a new song.
Third, as always, there's the issue of who gets interviewed and how their comments get reported. An example is a pair of back-to-back paragraphs with "care to comment" quotes from parents, one from a supporter of the union's platform because, as Blume paraphrases, "it was developed in collaboration with parents and community members," the other critical, saying "'The biggest thing the union is not doing is taking the parents' into account.'"
One would think that whether or not UTLA is collaborating effectively with parents is an important piece of where this conflict is going, but there is no context and no follow-up questioning that might provide some. Why do these parents have such divergent perceptions of their experience with the union? This kind of reporting leaves the impression that public opinion is split on the union's actions, but without doing the work of finding out if that's true.
Even more important, the first parent says, "It has everything our children need: small class sizes, nurses, counselors, green spaces and so much more" while the other parent makes no comment on the actual issues involved. Does the second parent disagree with the union on the issues? Does that parent even know the issues? If not, why not? Are they biased? Has UTLA done a crappy job of outreach?
We don't know because the questions were never asked (or the answers were not included). Instead we get drivel from anti-union, pro-competition reformster Mike Antonucci who is, according to Blume, "a professional tracker of unions and a critic." I'll say. Antonucci is a long-time anti-union campaigner and writes regularly for The 74, "a nonprofit news website that focuses on and supports school-choice issues in the United States," where he periodically dances on the graves of teachers unions.
Antonucci is also the director of something called the Education Intelligence Agency "which specializes in education labor issues" according to the reformster website Education Next, where he is also listed as an author. He writes a blog called "Intercepts" where he gets to write about "The Largest Teachers Union Embezzlements of All Time" and take his snark out for a walk occasionally.
The progressive nonprofit watchdog Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch describes Education Next as "a propaganda outlet for corporate education reform policies." You know who else is very popular at Education Next? Alberto Carvalho.
No wonder Antonucci gets to weigh in on the upcoming UTLA elections. It pays to have powerful friends. In any event, quoting Antonucci and identifying him as a "professional tracker of unions" and "critic" doesn't begin to tell the whole story, as Blume surely knows.
Almost done, but I have to say something about how strangely the article ends. After over forty paragraphs we get to the very last one which seems unconnected not only to the previous paragraph, but to any of the previous paragraphs. It just drops out of nowhere and consists of exactly one sentence--on how much the union president job pays!
The job of union president pays just over $121,000 a year, according to the most recent federal tax disclosures, which are for 2020.
What?? Not mentioned is the fact that the union's counterpart, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, comes in at $440,000 a year for four years, plus $50,000 a year to his retirement, plus he got fifty grand to move from Miami-Dade. We know Howard Blume knows this, because he reported it. The Super also gets a car and driver (is this you?), his own security, and the usual health insurance and benefits including vacation and sick pay.
Nice work if you can get it.
To review:
- Watch the headline and lede. Lots of people don't read beyond them and think they honestly represent the substance of the articles.
- Watch the language used for framing the story. Look for talking points and slogans presented by the reporter as neutral or objective.
- Watch who gets interviewed, and how their comments are presented. Sometimes you have to look them up, because sometimes the reporter won't tell you.
To my eyes, Blume has gotten better at this, but the long reach of Harrison Gray Otis remains potent.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on the Times over the next few months as the conflict with UTLA evolves to see if they put a thumb on the scales of negotiations.
