Los Angeles Schools Can’t Do Math

F-cking teachers, always screaming at you and slapping your knuckles with that long yard stick...just because you can't sit still.

Plus they spend all summer, lathering themselves with sun lotion at the local public pool. Because they don't work then...no fair!

Los Angeles Schools Can’t Do Math

Teachers get a rich new union contract despite awful student results.

By The Editorial Board, WSJ

April 13, 2026 5:30 pm ET

When government rewards failure, the result is usually more failure. That’s been the story in Los Angeles, where the teachers unions on Sunday secured a rich new contract, notwithstanding lousy student performance and declining enrollment.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s new collective-bargaining agreement with the United Teachers Los Angeles increases salary scales by 11.65% over two years—double the rate of inflation—plus four weeks of paid parental leave and expanded student support services that will invariably require more hiring. Pay for new teachers will jump nearly 12% to $77,000.

The agreement comes after the district warned in February that a looming $877 million deficit could require thousands of layoffs. “At some point, we reached a breaking point,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. Increasing costs for retirement benefits, a post-pandemic hiring binge and declining student enrollment are squeezing the district’s finances.

While state per-pupil spending has soared in recent years to $27,418, Los Angeles hasn’t benefited as much as some other districts because its enrollment has shrunk by nearly a quarter since 2019. Families moved away during the pandemic when schools were closed. The flight has continued owing to L.A.’s low-performing schools, high cost of living, taxes and crime.

Federal pandemic largesse helped paper over the district’s budget problems for a time and supercharged hiring. “We will still have a workforce that is larger than when the district had 40% more students than we have today,” Mr. Carvalho recently said.

Meantime, the district and state are required to make payments equal to 30% of teacher salaries for their pensions. Teachers can retire at age 63 with a pension worth 85% of their final pay, plus free health benefits for life.

The district and union may be betting they’ll get more money in this year’s state budget. But the state is also facing a $21 billion deficit, so more money for schools will invariably require higher taxes in some form. Giving L.A.’s failing schools more money will also reduce the incentive to improve learning to staunch the exodus of families.

Only 18% of Los Angeles eighth-graders scored proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, compared to 27% nationwide. Then again, the district’s catawampus finances suggest its leaders are no better at math.