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SHANKER, ALBERT 1928-

UNION OFFICIAL

Militancy Gone Straight

Albert Shanker was president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1974 through the 1980s. During the 1980s the dues-paying membership of the AFT hovered at slightly more than six hundred thousand, only one-third that of the National Education Association (NEA). However, the organization represented a powerful force of mostly urban, mostly northeastern teachers. Shanker earned a reputation in the late 1960s and 1970s as something of a loose cannon, a radical whose involvement in a dramatic black-white confrontation in the Brownsville-Ocean Hill section of New York City helped to stamp him as a major force for militant teacher unionism. By 1987, though, he decided not to run for reelection to the presidency of the AFT's pugnacious New York affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers. In the late 1980s Shanker, his rhetoric toned down, became much more statesmanlike.

Education is Politics

Although Shanker was actively anticommunist and prodefense, he was staunchly committed to federal intervention in matters of social and economic justice. Although he was a lifelong Democrat, he enjoyed cordial relations with the Reagan administration. One of his AFT aides, Linda Chavez, became a senior White House staffer, and he warmly supported the choice of William Bennett as secretary of education. Later, however, he wavered in his support of Bennett, telling United Press International in 1985 that "He has made a lot of headlines, and almost all have been blunders." From the first ripples of reform in the early 1980s, Shanker broke dramatically with the traditional, slow-paced approach to change of the education establishment and the teachers' unions. Recognizing that the role, responsibilities, and performance of teachers would inevitably be the centerpiece of a move toward excellence, Shanker aligned himself with measures that would "professionalize" the status of teachers. He launched a national campaign for a professional examination to credential teachers, insisting that teachers, like lawyers and doctors, should control their profession. Shanker's espousal of the national examination implied that the AFT was a statesmanlike body capable of rising above the narrow, entrenched interests of teachers; conversely, many citizens viewed the rival NEA as a union whose sole interest was that of teachers.

"Where We Stand."

Shanker's all-out effort to "enrich, enhance, and empower the role and status of teachers" grew stronger during the 1980s thanks to his weekly op-ed column (published as a paid advertisement) in The New York Times. With its clear, concise style completely purged of educationese, his column, titled "Where We Stand," consistently anticipated major reform movements in education and in society: national exams to credential teachers, general strengthening of standards for teachers, and a modified voucher system for students. Shanker emerged during the 1980s as a voice for teachers, yet he spoke louder than some other union leaders because he was also a realistic political operator who knew how to compromise.