3 stories: ALEX CAPUTO-PEARL ELECTED UTLA PRESIDENT

Alex Caputo-Pearl won elected president of the United Teachers Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Warren Fletcher in a runoff vote. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times / March 4, 2014)

Alex Caputo-Pearl wins runoff election to head L.A. teachers union Howard Blume , LA Times | http://lat.ms/1u4Q3jS  April 29, 2014, 1:59 p.m.   ::  A veteran social studies teacher has defeated incumbent Warren Fletcher in an election to head the union that represents teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school system. Alex Caputo-Pearl received 80% of the votes cast and Fletcher 20%, United Teachers Los Angeles announced Tuesday. In the vote-by-mail election, 7,235 members cast ballots, fewer than one in four of those eligible to vote. The union has more than 31,000 voting members, including guidance counselors, school psychologists and nurses. Caputo-Pearl, 45, vowed to make the union a force for advancing education reforms favored by teachers.  "The union needs to be a real leader in taking control of school improvement and in really working with members and the community around how to improve schools," he said in an interview Tuesday.  Caputo-Pearl’s positions on issues do not differ substantially from Fletcher’s. Both, for example, oppose using test scores to evaluate teachers. But Caputo-Pearl said his history of activism and community organizing have prepared him for this role. The result was no surprise because Caputo-Pearl had strongly outpolled Fletcher, 48% to 21%, in the first round of voting in March, when 10 candidates were on the ballot. As the top two finishers, Caputo-Pearl and Fletcher faced off in the runoff. But Fletcher quickly said he was suspending active campaigning — accepting his challenger’s win as nearly inevitable. Fletcher received slightly fewer total votes in the second round. Fletcher, 55, said he was advised that he could have won only with a negative campaign, which he said he was unwilling to do. "Only a fool fights in a burning house," Fletcher said at the time, describing it as important to avoid unnecessary discord “because of the attacks UTLA is under and that our profession is under." In recent weeks, Fletcher began including Caputo-Pearl in senior-level deliberations in anticipation of a leadership transition.  Three years ago, Fletcher rode a wave of discontent to defeat a candidate viewed as the favorite of the union establishment. This time, Caputo-Pearl and his "Union Power" slate won districtwide union positions. His team included three incumbents who deserted Fletcher: vice presidents Betty Forrester and Juan Ramirez and treasurer Arlene Inouye. Two other incumbents, vice president M.J. Roberts and secretary David Lyell, were not on Caputo-Pearl's slate; they lost. Caputo-Pearl captured the endorsement of 250 campus union representatives. The three-year position pays $101,000 annually. To some degree, Fletcher was a victim of bad timing. The recession hurt Fletcher and his members, leaving him little alternative but a strategy of trying to limit job losses and salary cuts. Meanwhile, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy pushed aggressively for his brand of school reform — which included using test scores as part of a teacher’s evaluation and limiting traditional job protections to improve the overall quality of the workforce. Many teachers have complained of ever-increasing demands while their pay declined, class sizes increased and school support services, from counseling to classroom cleaning, diminished. Fletcher capitalized on this discontent by rallying members to a vote of no confidence in Deasy -- more than 50% of union members took part, with 91% of those opposing the superintendent. But little concrete came of the effort, except that Fletcher and Deasy stopped speaking. Within the union, Fletcher’s critics accused him of being too isolated within UTLA’s headquarters

New United Teachers Los Angeles president elected By Thomas Himes, San Bernardino Sun from the LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/1mZusHK 4/29/14, 8:51 PM PDT   ::  Promising double-digit pay raises and an end to ‘teacher jail,’ Alex Caputo-Pearl was elected president of the nation’s second largest union of educators, United Teachers Los Angeles on Tuesday. Caputo-Pearl, who’s part of a union faction called “Union Power,” beat out incumbent Warren Fletcher by a 4-1 margin. Other members of Union Power also won positions in union leadership. “With the Union Power team sweeping this election, UTLA members have given its leadership a mandate for our union to lead in the fight for the schools L.A. students deserve and the respect LA educators deserve,” Caputo-Pearl said. Although Caputo-Pearl overwhelmingly won, the election runoff only netted 7, 235 ballots from the 35,000-member union. The lack of ballots, Caputo-Pearl said, is a signal that the union needs to do a better job of engaging its members. Caputo-Pearl, a teacher of 22 years who currently works at Frida Kahlo High School, will begin a three-year term July 1, 2014, when results are certified by the UTLA’s board. As president, Caputo-Pearl said he plans on getting pay raises of at least 10 percent. Caputo-Pearl also said he’ll reduce the population of ‘teacher jail.’ Taking teachers out of classrooms and assigning them to a cubicle inside the district’s headquarters for months or years, he said, is out of control. Some teachers, he said, don’t even know what they’ve done wrong. “While there is a need for a place to put the very, very, few people who may be suspected of abusing young people, teacher jail has become a place where they just throw people the administration doesn’t like,” Caputo-Pearl said. Zimmer: Congratulations for Caputo-Pearl, Thanks for Fletcher by LA School Report | http://bit.ly/PRaUXw Board Vice President Steve Zimmer April 29, 2014 4:02 pm  ::  The LA Unified School Distirct issued a statement from board vice president, Steve Zimmer, on the election of Alex Caputo-Pearl as president of UTLA, the teachers union: “I want to congratulate Alex Caputo-Pearl, and his team of candidates upon their electionto the leadership of the nation’s second-largest teacher union, local United Teachers Los Angeles. “Throughout his career, Mr. Caputo-Pearl has been committed to uplifting the rights of children, their families, their teachers and their school communities. I look forward to working with Alex, and his entire team, to celebrate and elevate the teaching profession in this District and beyond. Working together, I know we can positively change the public education trajectories for students throughout our District. “I also want to recognize and thank outgoing President Warren Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher led the union through the worst budget crisis ever to face L.A. Unified. I appreciate his role in helping to preserve public education in Los Angeles. “There has never been a more important time for the District, our teachers, our families and our school communities to work collaboratively to ensure the promise of public education is fulfilled for all students. In Mr. Caputo-Pearl and his team, I know we have partners in our effort to make equality in our education outcomes becomes social justice reality in our time.”