A Winning Education Battle in Los Angeles

It could be said there are 2 types of education gangs in Los Angeles:  teacher union officials who defeat every reform that pops up, and those who fight teacher union officials using their own tactics.  A decorated Gulf War veteran is taking on the teacher unions in Los Angeles and is winning the battle for student and teacher freedom to establish and attend union-free charter schools,  Allysia Finley has the story in the Wall Street Journal.

But Alfonso Flores is leading a grass-roots insurgency against the union-controlled regime at Palm Lane. The former teacher and father of four kids who attend public schools in Hesperia has used the state’s “parent trigger” law, passed in 2010, to force changes at a half-dozen schools in California. The law stipulates that if a majority of parents at a struggling school sign a petition, they can compel changes in school management or personnel. Sometimes, the parents contract with a charter-school operator.

The 45-year-old decorated Gulf War veteran has plenty of stories to tell about doing battle with teachers unions that bring heavy artillery to every fight.