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...