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Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race and Democracy
Columbia University Press
September 2007
On Sale: September 3, 2007
552 pages
ISBN: 0231134967
EAN: 9780231134965
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction Biography
In Woody Allen's 1973 film, Sleeper, a character
wakes up in the future to learn that civilization was
destroyed when "a man by the name of Albert Shanker got hold
of a nuclear warhead." Shanker was condemned by many when he
shut down the New York City school system in the bitter
strikes of 1967 and 1968, and he was denounced for stirring
up animosity between black parents and Jewish teachers.
Later, however, he built alliances with blacks, and at the
time of his death in 1997, such figures as Bill Clinton
celebrated Shanker for being an educational reformer, a
champion of equality, and a promoter of democracy abroad.
Shanker lived the lives of several men bound into
one. In his early years, he was the "George Washington of
the teaching profession," helping to found modern teacher
unionism. During the 1980s, as head of the American
Federation of Teachers, he became the nation's leading
education reformer. Shanker supported initiatives for high
education standards and accountability, teacher-led charter
schools, and a system of "peer review" to weed out
inadequate teachers. Throughout his life, Shanker also
fought for "tough liberalism," an ideology favoring public
education and trade unions but also colorblind policies and
a robust anticommunism-all of which, Shanker believed, were
vital to a commitment to democracy. Although he had a
coherent worldview, Shanker was a complex individual. He
began his career as a pacifist but evolved into a leading
defense and foreign policy hawk. He was an intellectual and
a populist; a gifted speaker who failed at small talk; a
liberal whose biggest enemies were often on the left; a
talented writer who had to pay to have hisideas published;
and a gruff unionist who enjoyed shopping and detested
sports. Richard D. Kahlenberg's biography is the first to
offer a complete narrative of one of the most important
voices in public education and American politics in the last
half century. At a time when liberals are accused of not
knowing what they stand for, Tough Liberal
illuminates an engaging figure who suggested an alternative
liberal path.
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