“There is no such thing as learning loss.” That is the defense of Cecily Myart-Cruz, head of perhaps the most powerful teacher’s union in the United States, for her detrimental decisions. Despite concerns of parents and evidence showing massive learning declines both cognitive and social, Myart-Cruz lives up to her contentious reputation as head of Los Angeles’ most powerful union, the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA).
When asked about why she kept L.A. schools almost entirely closed for the past year and a half and how it may have impacted the nearly 600,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students, Myart-Cruz shot back, “Our kids didn’t lose anything.”
Myart-Cruz’s unintelligible comments came in a rare interview granted to LA Magazine. She continued, stating, “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.”
LA Magazine writes, “she even went so far as to suggest darkly that ‘learning loss’ is a fake crisis marketed by shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.” UTLA is supposed to represent the interests of the L.A. school system’s 33,000 teachers, “But under Myart-Cruz’s stewardship, which began when she assumed office in the summer of 2020, that purview has been expanded to include a breathtaking range of far-flung progressive issues: racial justice, Medicare for all, the millionaire tax, financial support for undocumented families, rental and eviction relief—over the last 15 months, UTLA has championed them all.”
“In what universe, after all, does UTLA’s recent boycott of Israel over the conflict with Hamas benefit the teachers—or students—of Los Angeles?” the article continues. “Other controversial non-COVID initiatives pushed by Cruz and the union involve calling for the elimination of the LAUSD school police and revamping curriculum in ways deemed more ‘culturally relevant,’ which include getting a bigger commitment from the district to fund ethnic studies.”
“But by far the most controversial element of Myart-Cruz’s leadership” states LA Magazine, “has been her epic battle with Governor Gavin Newsom and others over when and how to reopen L.A.’s schools as the pandemic alternately rages and recedes.”
When Governor Gavin Newsom dangled $2 billion of incentives for schools to reopen by a date of April 1, Myart-Cruz accused his proposal of pandering to the wealthy neighborhoods, calling it “a recipe for propagating structural racism.”
Continue Reading: EXCLUSIVE: Cecily Myart-Cruz’s Hostile Takeover of L.A’s Public Schools
