LA teachers' strike: Charter school teachers walk out, too

LA teachers have walked out, striking in torrential rains, protesting the billionaire-backed privatization movement that wants to hand public school funding to charter schools.

So it would be noteworthy that teachers at three charter schools have walked out in solidarity with their colleagues in the largest public school district in the nation in any event -- but doubly so because it's the first time in California history that charter school teachers have gone out on strike.

Although it’s rare, teachers at charter schools may organize and seek representation from a union, just as the teachers at the Accelerated Schools did. This is said to be only the second time nationally that instructors at a charter school organization went on strike.

Union representatives for teachers at the Accelerated Schools said more than a year and a half of negotiations with school management failed to yield a contract. At a morning news conference, teachers and their supporters chanted and waved signs outside Accelerated’s campus on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Founded by two former Los Angeles Unified teachers, the three Accelerated schools serve 1,700 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Teachers strike at L.A. charter schools too, a first for California [Dakota Smith/LA Times]

(via Super Punch)