Public Schools: Pursuit of Power

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In New York and Detroit last week, teacher strikes all but paralyzed the cities' public school systems. In Baltimore and parts of Florida, classes opened only after teachers had won gains in salary or working conditions in hotly contested contract disputes. Feeding the new mood of teacher militancy is the rivalry between the 1,000,000-member National Educational Association and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s American Federation of Teachers (membership: 142,000), which have long vied for the allegiance of the nation's teachers. Last week the two organizations seemed to be in a muscular contest to show who could be tougher in talking—or not talking—with school boards. A.F.T. locals were responsible for the power plays in New York, East St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit; elsewhere in Michigan, where 14 school districts were closed, N.E.A. affiliates took the lead, as they did in Florida.

Despite their rivalry, both organizations seemed to interpret the mood of U.S. teachers in similar terms. "We have a new type of more aggressive, more alert teacher all over this nation who wants to help determine the policies that affect him," declared N.E.A. President Braulio Alonso. "This is the beginning of a real revolution in the teaching profession." Teachers, echoed Albert Shanker, president of New York's United Federation of Teachers, a local of the A.F.T., "have to have power—this is a revolutionary change."

The Right to Fire. Salaries were the dominant issue in all the disputes; yet teachers also insisted—perhaps a little too often—that they were equally concerned about the conditions that keep them from doing their jobs more effectively. Some of the requests seemed reasonable enough. In addition to a $500 salary hike, Baltimore teachers, for example, won the right to refuse such time-consuming chores as toilet patrols and supervising afterhours playgrounds. But there were other contract demands that school boards clearly could not consider. Striking teachers in Oak Park, Mich., demanded the right to fire their principals and to turn off school intercoms when announcements interfere with their teaching.

Union determination was most visible and disruptive in New York City, where 45,000 out of 55,000 teachers in the city's public schools ignored a court order to report for work after rejecting a two-year, $125 million salary increase. Supervisors and volunteers—ranging from rabbis to S.N.C.C. Leader H. Rap Brown to an assortment of eager but inexperienced parents—tried to keep classes going, but they served as little more than baby sitters. At P.S. 146, Assistant Principal Royce Phillips even picked up a guitar, led pupils in a sing-along session.

As student absenteeism climbed to 60%, city attorneys sought a criminal-contempt citation against U.F.T. leaders for violating the earlier court order; Shanker and his aides could go to jail, while the union could be fined up to $10,000 a day. Negotiations, meanwhile, reached a standstill. Alfred Giardino, president of the board of education, charged that "to the U.F.T., negotiation is a one-way street—the board must accept its lists of many demands or else."