Word: shanker
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...York teachers' union was launched in 1960 and led in the early years by the smartest and toughest union man I've ever met, Albert Shanker. The teachers are among the most powerful interest groups in New York State (and nationally, in the Democratic Party). The UFT's slogan is "A Union of Professionals," but it is quite the opposite: an old-fashioned industrial union that has won for its members a set of work rules more appropriate to factory hands. There are strict seniority rules about pay, school assignment, length of the school day and year. In New York...
...Toward the end of his life, Shanker began to realize the union was headed down the wrong path. In a 1993 speech, he talked about the need for more accountability: "I wouldn't be saying these things ... if I didn't have the sense that we are at the same point that the auto industry was at a few years ago. They could see they were losing market share every year and still not believe that it really had anything to do with the quality of the product ... I think that we will get - and deserve - the end of public...
...There are national implications to this fight. As Shanker pointed out, American schools have been slipping for decades - our students are now 32nd internationally in math scores, 10th in science, 12th in reading. It will be impossible to rebuild our economy - to create the sophisticated, high-paying jobs we need - as long as we have an archaic, industrial-age school system. It's also hard to keep a strong democracy with a citizenry that is increasingly uneducated and ill informed. No, teachers' unions are not the only problem here. Troglodytic local school boards and apathetic parents are just...