The Ideological and Organizational Origins of the United Federation of Teachers' Opposition to the Community Control Movement in the New York City Public Schools, 1960-1968

• Published in: Labour (Halifax) 2014-03, Vol.73 (73), p.179-193
• Main Author: Brier, Stephen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Analysis; Antisemitism; Community; Control; CONTROVERSY / POLÉMIQUE; Demographic aspects; Demonstrations and protests; Economic aspects; Educational provision; Experiments; Historical analysis; History; Ideology; Jewish life & ethics; Jewish people; Labor unions; Neighborhoods; New York; Parents & parenting; Public schools; School boards; Schools; Strikes; Students; Teachers; Teachers' unions; Trade unions; U.S.A; United Federation of Teachers; Working class
• ISSN: 0700-3862; 1911-4842

7. The text of the second leaflet is in Berubé a nd Gittell, eds., Confrontation, 167. [Richard Kahlenberg] is quoted in R ichard Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal: [Albert Shanker] and the Battles over Schools, Union, Race , and Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 107. Podair's characterization is in St rike That Changed New York, 124. The content of the second leaflet had been called in by phone to "a uft representative," according to Berubé and Gittell, Confrontation, 167. W hile the organization listed on the lea flet did not ex ist, its "chairman," [Ralph Poynter], did: he was a Manhattan black activist. [David Selden], who had mentored Shanker in the early uft years and was president of the American Federation of Teachers, the uft's parent organization during the 1968 strike, blames Shan ker and the uft, in no uncertain terms, for put ting the two flyers together in a leaflet, printing it up in massive quantities "in the uft's print shop," then having "uft staffers and volunteers" distribute the flyers "at subway entrances and shopping centers." Selden concludes, w ithout comment, that "Shanker denied any prior knowledge of the flyer operation." Selden and Shan ker had a bitter falling out when Shanker ran against (and defeated) Selden for the aft presidency in 1974. See David Selden, The Teacher Rebellion (Washing ton D.C.: Howard Universit y Press, 1985), 153. In his other wise evenhanded analysis of the 1968 strike, historia n [Daniel Perlstein] fails to indicate that it was Shanker a nd the uft that reproduced and circulated the infamous leaflet across the cit y. Daniel Perlstein, Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 20 0 4), 33 -34. 24. Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal, 62. [Peter Drucker] describes [Max Shachtman] as "an intel lectual gray eminence behind afl-cio leaders George Meany and Albert Shanker." See Drucker, Max Shachtman and His Left, 1. Kahlenberg concludes that "Ma x's influence on A l was quite significant ... amplifying Shanker's intellectual understanding of Communism." See Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal, 150-151, quoting Eric Chenoweth, former aft and afl-cio staffer. Shachtman was an informal foreign policy adv isor to the afl-cio leadership, helping keep organized labour in line behind first Johnson's and then Nixon's disastrous Vietnam policies. Shanker and the uft dutif ully followed Shachtman's line and lead on Vietnam and, later on, his attacks on the New Left and