WHEREAS, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has put forth a plan in Los Angeles to convert half the city’s schools into charters, and has created a new organization — Great Public Schools Now — to advance that agenda; and

WHEREAS, the leaders of nine unions that represent teachers, administrators and other staffers in the Los Angeles school district have expressed their opposition to the Broad Foundation’s plan, and outgoing LA schools chief Ramon C. Cortines, the former NYC schools chancellor, has called the plan “ill-advised”; and

WHEREAS, for years now, the UFT and other pro-public school advocates in New York City have battled some so-called not-for-profit charter school organizations over their lack of financial transparency, their treatment of “difficult” students; their rigid discipline methods, and their treatment of teachers; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the UFT throws its full support behind the Los Angeles School District, the unions and like-minded advocates who are fighting this attack on the city’s public schools.