Education: Biggest Teachers' Strike

In the biggest strike by public servants in U.S. history, more than half of New York City's 40,000 public-school teachers last week crippled the nation's biggest urban school system.

The strike lasted only one day. But at least 25 of the city's 840 public schools were shut down, classes were disrupted in most of the rest, and the wildest of New York's 1,004,257 pupils had a field day. With nonstriking teachers unable to keep control, the kids tossed erasers and toilet paper out the windows, threw eggs and rocks at the pickets, used their fists on everything from parked cars to one another. Board of Education President Max Rubin called the strike ''reckless, irresponsible, immoral and illegal." But the striking teachers stood their ground. 'The only way we can get dignity and respect is to show the city and the state we mean business," said one picket. ''They thought we were weak."

Too Strict to Enforce. The strike was called by the 15,000-member United Federation ofTeachers, A.F.L.-C.I.O., which by a two-thirds majority last December won election as the teachers' sole bargaining agent. Demanding a $53million raise, the union aimed to boost New-York's current pay scale of $4,800-$8,600 (plus bonuses) to $5,400-$9,500. When the board of educationinsisted that only $28 million was available from city and state funds, the teachers went out.

Teachers in New York State are bound by the Condon-Wadlin Act, which outlaws strikes by public employees on pain of dismissal and sets a three-year ban on pay raises for rehired strikers. But New York, which already has a teacher shortage, could hardly fire 22,000 teachers. Instead, the board of education stopped the strike with a restraining order. It was up against a militancy that it never quite expected. "People expect teachers to act like angels. But when the board of education acts like a factory owner, we have to respond accordingly," said one picket.

Dying System. New York was once a teachers' mecca. the high-paying home of nationally renowned academic high schools. Compared with other big cities, it still pays well: the New York median salary is $7,425 (v. the national $5,716). Yet New York has a lower starting salary than any of 104 surrounding school districts, and pay seems so skimpy for men teachers in particular that an estimated 50% of them work an average three hours a day at moonlighting jobs.

Worse, the city's schools have been left stagnant by a middle-class migration to private schools as well as the suburbs. One recent study showed that some city schools are still using 1933 history books and 1935 science books. New York City employs more teachers than any of 43 states; yet many suburbs have twice as many teachers per 1,000 students. And an influx of less "academically talented" Negroes and Puerto Ricans has made much city teaching more custodial than academic. While suburban teachers tinker with exciting experiments, city teachers grapple with remedial reading and "toilet patrol."