More than 30,000 Los Angeles teachers demanding pay raises and smaller classes walked off the job in America’s second-largest school system on Monday, marching downtown in the rain after negotiations over a new contract broke down. Students arriving for classes at some 900 campuses across the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) were met by their teachers carrying picket signs in the city’s first teachers’ strike in three decades. “It’s an existential battle for the future of public education,” teacher Mike Finn told Reuters outside John Marshall High School in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Feliz.
