For UTLA president: Becki Robinson

"I was in the classroom for 24 years and for 24 years every school had their own curriculum. Half the time every teacher had their own curriculum, and the students were not achieving the way they are achieving now." -- Becki Robinson

Challenger Becki Robinson fields questions and makes her case being elected president of one of the nation's most powerful teachers unions in this interview with Times staff writer Howard Blume. The union will begin counting mailed-in votes Thursday night.

Challenger: BECKI ROBINSON
Age: 60
Current job: program specialist for extended learning for Beyond the Bell programs. Union role: chapter chair for union members in the Beaudry building, former vice president. Lost in a runoff for president to John Perez in 2002.

Q: Incumbent UTLA president A.J. Duffy says you are responsible for teachers having to use the Open Court phonics-based reading program, dating to the time that you were a union vice president. And he doesn’t mean it as a compliment. How do you respond?

Robinson: “The only thing that I had to do with the school district implementing Open Court was to give the school district a copy of an American Federation of Teachers publication about seven promising language arts programs that work.”

[Note: Under then-Superintendent Ruben Zacarias, who left the job at the end of 1999, the district gave schools the option of one of three research-based reading programs, each of which were on the list. Schools with high test scores were exempted. One of the three was Open Court. Under interim Supt. Ramon Cortines, schools required to use a reading program had to use Open Court. Under Supt. Roy Romer, all elementary schools, regardless of test scores, had to use Open Court.]

“When we first started with the three programs, schools meeting their goals could choose what they wanted to do. They were only forced to chose a specific reading program if their scores weren’t progressing. That was lost after I left office.

"If a school is doing well with what they’re doing--if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

"UTLA did not approve the curriculum. UTLA has no right under the contract to do that. I never came out in support of Open Court.” At the same time, “for the first time that I can remember in 38 years of being in the district we have students at grade level above the 50th percentile. I had never seen that before. Whether it’s because of Open Court specifically or because the district adopted an entire reading program along with massive training in how to use it I don’t know. Elementary students are achieving much than before even though there needs to be accommodations for English learners and special education students.

"In a district like ours, with a tremendous amount of transiency, there needs to be consistency, so children can pick up where they left off and don’t have to lose months and months of instruction because it’s a whole new system.

"I was in the classroom for 24 years and for 24 years every school had their own curriculum. Half the time every teacher had their own curriculum, and the students were not achieving the way they are achieving now.

"I’ve got friends who are wonderful teachers and they love Open Court because they have learned how to use Open Court and adapt it to their children, learned how to accommodate English learners and know which stories are viable and which are not. And they are seeing tremendous improvement in their students and, to them, that’s the most important thing.”

Q: What is the role of the union in reforms?
Robinson: “I was involved from the beginning with [former teachers union president] Helen Bernstein with school-based management, from the beginning with Helen Bernstein in LEARN.”

[NOTE: LEARN was an attempt in the early and mid-1990s to let schools run themselves through a committee that included teachers and parents. In concept at least, it bears similarity to what UTLA’s current leaders are advocating.]

“I truly believe the union should be the entity that schools can come to find out and learn about school reform. The current officers of UTLA were the ones who spoke adamantly against LEARN. They were the ones who blocked LEARN from being put into the UTLA contract…If they had allowed LEARN to be in the contract I don’t believe we’d be having the same discussion right now.”

Q: How would compare UTLA’s role in reform efforts with that of unions elsewhere, such as the teachers union in New York City, which is headed by Randi Weingarten?
Robinson: “Randi Weingarten in New York is looking at the reality of what is necessary, and making changes in their contract. We need to look at both the needs of the teachers and the needs of our students, and we have to come up with what’s necessary to serve both.

"I will never, never do anything that is good for teachers but that is bad for students. Never.”

Robinson noted that while she was a vice-president and Day Higuchi was president, the union agreed to changes in how elementary teachers received their classroom assignments. They agreed to weaken the seniority system by which teachers chose classes because too many of the most experienced teachers were grabbing the lower grades to take advantage of the much smaller classes at that level.

“That was done for children…This may not have been 100% palatable to all teachers, but it was definitely better for all children and I’d do it again.”

Q: The candidates for UTLA president have talked about whose fault it is for “losing” Locke High to a charter school company. Why not work with Green Dot (the company that is going to be running Locke) or have the union develop its own charters schools?
Robinson: “I do not believe charter schools are the answer for public education. I believe the future of this country is a public school system with a level playing field for all students. I think charter schools leave some children out. All public schools should be a school everybody would choose to be in.

"The district could choose to allow school to follow charter rules. We had a mechanism for doing that under LEARN.

"If the union wants to organize charter schools, then it needs to be a separate bargaining unit. If teachers wish to go to charters, they get a leave of absence. And a place is not saved for them to get lifetime health benefits when it’s time to retire.”

Comments

[ellen]

Guess what Becki? I am not a robot. I use my own curriculum! The kids come to me in high school having had Open Court. And they can write a bit better, but their comprehension is no better. Open Court has not provided them with the comprehension or the depth of knowledge that they need! They are not reading novels the way I did when I was in middle school! In middle school, I read the Red Badge of Courage and To Kill a Mockingbird, texts that cause critical thinking. Open Court does not help critical thinking. It is rote. And I can tell you about friends of mine who are elementary school teachers who cry - literally cry because they have to use Open Court- it destroys the kids' love of reading. My stepbrother is a 5th grade teacher in an elementary school in LAUSD who left 3rd grade to teach 5th grade math because of Open Court.

And my students cannot divide an even number into an even number without a calculator when they correct their quizzes! What is missing is project based learning, authentic learning and advanced technology. You don't need canned curriculum to teach students!