Teacher Power v. Black Power

The nation's largest public school system last week fell victim to a collision between two significant contemporary movements: the justifiable, and not necessarily incompatible, yearnings for teacher power and for black power. All but a handful of New York City's 900 schools were twice shut down by strikes as the tightly disciplined United Federation of Teachers confronted a predominantly Negro community in an angry struggle over teacher assignments.

The main issue in the dispute was whether or not a community-run school committee in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn had the right to transfer teachers out of its district. In an unusual show of solidarity, the teachers' union, School Superintendent Bernard Donovan and the central board of education all insisted that it did not. Although not opposed in theory to community control of schools, the union insisted that teachers be protected from arbitrary dismissals. The conflict degenerated into an ugly battle that had racist overtones.

Only In Brownsville. For the second year in a row, the school year in New York City opened last week with the teachers on strike. A strike vote had been called by Albert Shanker, the tough, shrewd president of the teachers' union, when the locally elected Brooklyn committee refused to reinstate ten teachers it had ordered out of the district last year and tried to replace 200 teachers who had walked out in sympathy. The city's 4,000 school supervisors, including principals and district superintendents, aided the strike by ordering schools closed for the children's "safety." Fully 53,000 of New York's 57,000 teachers stayed away from classes. Ironically, the only schools operating normally were those of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, where Rhody McCoy, the district's cool Negro administrator, had recruited an eager group of new young teachers. Most were white.

After two days of round-the-clock negotiations, the school board announced a settlement under which the ousted teachers would "not be prevented" from returning and any teachers dismissed by local boards in the future could appeal to arbitration panels. The union called off its strike--but the agreement blew up when the affected teachers tried to return to their classrooms.

Jeering Crowd. Told by McCoy to assemble in the auditorium of Ocean Hill-Brownsville's Intermediate School 55, the teachers faced a group of angry parents and Negro militants who repeatedly disrupted the meeting with screams and howls. Auditorium lights were flicked on and off, and spectators taunted the teachers. "They hooted at us, cursed us, called us fagots and honkies," reported one teacher. "They said we'd be going out in pine boxes."

When 15 challenged teachers tried to enter one junior high school, the way was blocked by a jeering crowd. Police who fought to clear a path met cries of "racist cops!" "You nigger!" a black demonstrator shouted at Assistant Chief Inspector Lloyd Sealy, one of the city's top Negro cops. "You plotted this with those racist white pigs, you traitor!" After three protesters were arrested, the teachers got into the building, but none were given assignments.

Shanker immediately declared that the agreement had been broken and that the strike was back on. At the risk of being jailed for leading a strike that was illegal under state law, he also raised the stakes by insisting that his teachers would not work unless McCoy and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville com mittee are fired. "Mob rule must go," he said. Leaders of the local committee conceded that they no longer could control neighborhood opposition to the return of the teachers and did not intend to try. At week's end the schools were again shut down, and New York's Mayor John Lindsay had asked James Allen, the state's education commissioner, to try to resolve the dispute.

Power Grab. The tragedy of the strike was that it was so easily avoidable. Privately, Shanker and McCoy had arranged a deal with Lindsay under which the ousted teachers would return to their schools for a few days. The community would temporarily tolerate them; eventually, the teachers--who could not have worked effectively in the hostile atmosphere--would be quietly transferred. McCoy, however, was unable to restrain the more militant blacks in the community. And Shanker used the breakdown of the agreement as an excuse to try to make his union the dominant power in the city's increasingly chaotic school system.

Despite their confrontation, both Shanker and McCoy have proved their willingness to deal with the real problem of New York City's schools: the fact that instruction somehow fails to benefit enough students, particularly those from ghetto areas. A 19-year veteran of the city school system, McCoy has experimented with ungraded classes, team teaching, tutorials and other progressive techniques. He complains that an "elite society of professional educators is not truly interested in the education of children but just in security." He also argues that only parentally controlled schools, rather than a central board of education, can achieve progress.

Measure of Merit. Shanker concedes that there are bad teachers in the system and insists that his union is as interested in improving standards as anyone else. "You walk into a classroom," he says, "and you see the same teacher and the same blackboard you saw 20 years ago." But this, he says, happens because teachers "have been castrated," and the way to improve them is to give them more power. "Teachers are no longer willing to be supervised by people who have less professional competence than they do."

There was a measure of merit in both men's arguments. Yet, while the quarrel went on, the ones who suffered most were those whom both Shanker and McCoy insist they want to help: the children in the classroom.

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