This past
school year was a tough one for Los Angeles Unified School District employees,
and next year promises to be even rougher. LAUSD plans to shut down 200 classes
for disabled students, adversely affecting the most vulnerable of the
district’s students. One campus that specializes in serving the disabled will
be closed.
The aim of the
district-wide budget cuts is to close a $628 million deficit LAUSD currently
has on the backs of working-class students and their families. The cuts will
increase class sizes, eliminate many art and music programs, close libraries
and lay off over 1,000 district employees.
The district
is saving money by limiting services to the children it is supposed to educate.
Despite the fact the federal government has enough resources to spend trillions
on imperialist war and bank bailouts, the federal government only pays 17
percent of the cost of providing disabled students with an education. For many
years, LAUSD neglected special education students, but the district was forced
through a high-profile lawsuit in 1993 to accept an independent monitor. Since
then, some gains have been made. There are more qualified special education
teachers than there used to be, staff is better trained in meeting the needs of
disabled students, and more special equipment has been purchased. The rights
that have been gained on behalf of the disabled are due to decades of struggle
by educators and activists.
Next year,
budget cuts will force thousands of children into larger classes, where they
will get less attention for their individual needs. Teachers will now be
unfairly put in the position of having to provide for the needs of significantly
larger groups of children with a wide range of ages and disabilities. Special
education teachers will be told to do a much tougher job with fewer resources.
Teachers in special education are already in high demand due to the high
turnover rate and tough nature of the work.
Many students
will also have to take much longer commutes to school, since LAUSD is cutting
busing for disabled students by $7.4
million. Parents
can supposedly challenge district decisions through “due process” procedures,
but many of the parents who send their children to district schools are either
poor or undocumented, and unable to participate in this process. Working-class
parents will suffer the most because of the cuts. In recent public hearings,
hundreds of parents of special education students have spoken out against the
district’s plans.
We need a
united movement of parents and teachers to defend special education and public
education as a whole. To defeat those who aim to divide the unions from the
general public, we must build a people’s movement that demands that money be
spent on education and public needs, not war and bailing out capitalists.
