Parent advocate? Culture warrior? In a nearly hour-long interview with CalMatters, Lance Christensen, the challenger for California schools superintendent, vows to put students first and give parents a bigger voice.
On top of that, teachers and school employee unions have independently spent $2.3 million for Thurmond. “When the teachers unions can drop in millions of dollars at the drop of a hat, then yeah, that’s a hard thing to get,” he said.
. “So they basically have owned the last several superintendents of public instruction. I’m not that person.”Christensen said that for too long, the needs of teachers’ unions have superseded those of students. The power of unions, he said, was clearest during the extended school closures during the first years of the pandemic. “We put teachers in front of the line to get vaccinations, meaning that we hope that schools ought to open right away,” he said. “They didn’t, and California was the last of all the states to open up their schools.” He blames unions for the academic and mental health struggles of many students kept out of the classroom. But Christensen also distinguishes “good” teachers from the teachers unions. “We have an incredible amount of teachers here that are doing it for the right reasons,” he said. “We have a teacher’s union, which has made education overtly political and has put their needs first as opposed to kids.” Christensen also wants to make it easier to fire bad teachers. “I think the teacher’s union has to be held accountable for the teachers that it protects,” he said. But he also wants to make it easier to credential good teachers. He said schools could hire retired engineers, scientists and doctors to teach without making them spend a year getting their credential. He citedas an example of how working professionals can serve public school students. “They find people who are world-renowned experts, actors and Hollywood directors and sound people, come into these magnet schools and treat these kids to an incredible education in Hollywood and the digital arts and acting and producing,” he said. “Why aren’t we replicating that in other places?”
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