L.A. Unified haunted by an old deal

Sandy Banks:

Today's lesson, boys and girls, is to be careful what deals you make when your back is against the wall.

Let's open our history book to 1992, when California was mired in a recession and the Los Angeles Unified School District was forced to cut its budget by $400 million.

Teachers had walked off the job three years earlier and were threatening to strike again if the district followed through on its plan to cut their pay by 12%. So political kingpin Willie Brown brokered a deal that reduced the pay cut to 10% and expanded teachers' campus rights.

Most of the perks seemed pretty mundane:

Teachers would be allowed to park in the principal's parking space and use the principal's private bathroom. They would no longer have to perform "yard duty" when their students were on the playground.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at March 22, 2012 2:51 AM
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