As if test scores cannot get any more abysmal in the state of California, reports are circulating that Los Angeles teachers could be announcing a strike sometime today.

According to this, timing is set to coincide with a massive rally in downtown LA involving three major unions. United Teachers Los Angeles, representing about 30,000 “educators” and staffers, Local 99, representing 30,000 support staff, and Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, marking a first for principals and middle managers to potentially join the picket lines.

The union’s contract expired last June, with demands of an average pay boost of 17% over the course of two years. LA Unified has countered with an 8% raise over two years. Why only 8%, you ask? Sure glad you did!

District reserves are shrinking. Financial pressure is mounting due to the end of pandemic aid, declining enrollment, and costly misconduct settlements.”-Daniel Farr, The California Post

Let’s examine the above for a second. Reserves shrinking and the end of pandemic aid. Why are “reserves shrinking?” Largely because of pressures from teachers’ unions. This was an issue pre-COVID when unions went on strike and got what they wanted.

During COVID, schools were shuttered. Teachers, whose unions demanded more pay, made the same salaries to teach remotely. Some weathered this storm and others, marched around with crowds of people in makeshift coffins, protesting a return to work. Others went on vacation. Others worked on their “ProDev” by attending book studies on White Fragility.

And, let’s not talk about the gross mismanagement of COVID funds during, and well after, the pandemic on DEI and SEL initiatives and not the usual nuts and bolts of education. Let’s talk about kids who were already behind in reading and math becoming increasingly so after being on lockdown for approximately 700 days. They did not think that this was going to have an impact on reading and math scores?!

Those who were tired of the BS, unenrolled their students and looked for other avenues to educate their children, hence the decline in enrollment. Since schools get funding based on enrollment and butts in seats, it would appear that these teachers and their unions who are their mouthpiece also, like their poor students, cannot math. This wasn’t the first time that LAUSD teachers threatened walkouts. From last March of 2025:

The L.A. teachers union is defying President Trump by championing DEI policies while demanding pay increases of more than 26 times higher than the current annual pay raise for some teachers.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) has called for support of ‘new educators, with targeted investment in the recruitment and retention of BIPOC, multilingual and immigrant educators and service providers’ and ‘strengthened policies to support LGBTQIA+ students, educators and staff.'”–Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire

26 times higher. And, to boot, they get their summers off!

43% of LAUSD students met grade-level standards in English, up 1.8 percentage points. Statewide, 47% of students are proficient in English.
In math, 32.8% of Los Angeles students met standards, up 2.3 percentage points from 2023 scores. Statewide, 35.5% of student are proficient.
LAUSD proficiency rates in science reached 24%, up 1.8 percentage from 2023. Statewide it’s 30.7%.”-LATimes

To note, California has some of the highest-paid K-12 teachers in the nation. Tell me, do those horrific scores rate a 17% bump in pay (with summers off) over two years? Really, what if they were replaced and never came back?

Education spending continues to rise and student outcomes continue to fall. It’s a national trend. Why isn’t anyone asking questions?

— MAGAPatriotNY (@TrumpPatriotNY) March 18, 2026

It’s not just in Los Angeles. Other districts, including San Diego and Sacramento-area schools recently authorized strikes as unions push for “improved wages and working conditions”.

At least they’re learning from each other. Because the kids certainly are not learning from them.

I really wish I could have more sympathy for the plight of the teachers than I do. I realize there are genuine educators out there who really care. But the extortion of these mob-like unions, and the sheer entitlement of some of the loudest of their colleagues, sadly, clumps them in with the rest. Being a parent of a (then) junior-high kid during COVID left me jaded. I watched as my son (an only child) was deprived of social interaction and participating in wrestling for about a year and a half. As mentioned before, he weathered this storm well, thank God. But others? Not so much. Teachers? Want to complain about classroom behaviors and management? THIS is what happens when kids are not socialized. Your unions encouraged this. Now, before testing season and before the end of the year, teachers’ unions are encouraging walk-outs on the kids under the guise of “higher pay and better working conditions”? It’s shameful.