UTLA Secondary VP Gregg Solkovits
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While the United Teachers Los Angeles intially opposed a plan to allow charter groups and other outside operators to take over up to 250 Los Angeles Unified School District schools, the union is now calling it an opportunity to manage some of these schools.

The plan allows the LAUSD superindendent to recommend options for running the worst-performing schools as well as the newest campuses. The board of education passed the motion Aug. 25 amid growing frustration over school performance, such as the 15,000 high school students -- about one in three -- dropping out a year.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who supported the plan, said massive overhaul is needed. Charters receive public money, but are independently operated and not required to be unionized.

In an interview with Neon Tommy, UTLA Secondary Vice President Gregg Solkovits acknowledged the union's new stance on the plan but dismissed any idea it is now aligned with the mayor on the issue.

Solkovits said UTLA is the mayor's scapegoat and argued that the union has been the only consistent agent of change in education for the past 20 years. He also blamed poor school performance on a lack of state funding and a lack of safety for students.

Neon Tommy: It looks like there has been a change in UTLA's tone recently, from originally speaking against opening schools to outside management to now saying it is an opportunity. Can you explain why, and what is the opportunity?

Gregg Solkovits: The reality is that the board of education voted in a matter that we thought was pretty odd because they have always told us for months after months that they had full confidence in their superintendent and that they had full confidence in the upper echelons of leadership.

So, we thought it very strange that they then want to show no confidence in the same leadership by passing this motion. Nonetheless, the motion did get passed, so we are encouraging our schools to write reform plans, such as pilot schools and such as school-based management schools so that we could compete to run the schools.

We have always suspected that we would do a better job running the schools anyways. I've personally always liked the European headmaster concept, where there is no principal and the teachers run the school. So that is what would account for that as an opportunity to take control of our schools in a meaningful way.

What would you say to people who think unionized schools are bad because administrators can't fire bad teachers?

It is interesting that people blame the union because it was the union that proposed the pilot school model. If you take a look at some of the highest performing schools in the district, it has been schools with school-based management.

It is easy to turn around and blame the union, because what the union does is protects academic freedoms, they protect the student and teachers learning conditions. The union is about making small class size and making sure teachers are paid enough so that they stay in teaching.

If you don't have union management, the school will do whatever they want to you, which means they will load up on out-of-classroom people; they will load up on top-down dictates far from the classroom; they won't put the proper resources into the classroom; and the kids suffer. Obviously so do the teachers.

There is a very concerted attempt ... across the country ... to vilify teachers, when the fact of the matter is that this society does not adequately fund schools.

Where do you go from here?

We are in the process of taking a multiple-level approach. We are going to keep our members informed on the options for them: the pilot schools, the school-based management schools.

I've been in the process of lobbying California aggressively for the money they took away in the budget deal. Our second phase is taking our message to the public: that we have been the true agents of change in the city for 20 years, while politicians come and go, and show them what we've done.

Will the plan to open schools to outside management fix anything?

... I think charter schools realized they weren't going to get any schools built for them, because the bond that would have allowed that cannot be sold right now because the decline in property values ... Do I think it will make a difference? I don't know.