Focus on Changed Climate
Shanker, Business: A Lost Partnership

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

A book party Nov. 27 took a nostalgic look back at former Teachers' union leader Albert Shanker's relationship with the business community, but some panelists warned that there was too rosy a glow over the collective yearning to raise the union president from the dead.

CAPITALIST SCHOOL: During his tenure heading the United Federation of Teachers and its national parent, the late Albert Shanker cultivated friendships with business leaders both to tap into their creativity and to bolster support for public education, one of his former advisers recalled last week.

'Why Meet With a Thug?'

The speakers at the book-signing of the new Shanker biography, "Tough Liberal," included business, labor and education leaders. All agreed on the former American Federation of Teacher president's ability to forge unconventional alliances, but they differed on the answer to "What Would Albert Shanker Do" about the struggles today.

Sol Hurwitz, the president emeritus of the business-led Committee for Economic Development, remembered a phone call from Mr. Shanker in 1980 asking for corporate leaders to address the AFT executive council on what science and math skills business needed from high school graduates. When Mr. Hurwitz called upon CED board member Fletcher Byrom for assistance, the president of the Koppers Company asked him, "Why in the hell should I meet with some damn union thug to talk about education?"

That was, oddly enough, the start of a beautiful friendship. Prior to the 1980s, corporations had little direct relationship with national education policy, Mr. Hurwitz said. "It was considered too politically charged for business," he remarked. "There was fear that business would try and mold and shape children's minds with the ideas of capitalism."

Bella Rosenberg, a former adviser to Mr. Shanker, had a slightly different perspective on the collaboration. She agreed that it was true that the labor leader had sought partnership with business in order to glean the best ideas from people he considered "enlightened." But she noted the pragmatism in his approach as well. "He understood that without business on his side," Ms. Rosenberg said, "trying to make a case for public education was difficult. Their up or down vote could make or break an issue like taxes for public education."

Union Power Waned

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang HURRY UP: Charles Kolb, the president of the business-led Committee for Economic Development, told an audience at a book-signing for a new Albert Shanker biography that corporations and unions needed to work together more closely to speed the pace of education reform. 'How can we pick up the pace and make more strange bedfellows?' he asked.

The 1980 meeting was either prescient, or part of labor's capitulation, depending on the perspective. The Reagan era ushered in a deeply-felt drive towards privatization and the rise of corporate influence on public policy as the power of unions and the liberal social movements that peaked in the 1970s declined.

For the book's author, Richard Kahlenberg, Mr. Shanker's move was a stroke of genius. "He is the single individual most responsible for defending public education in this country," he told the morning audience at the Marriott Hotel in mid-town.

Charles Kolb, the president of the Committee for Economic Development, which develops public policy initiatives on issues such as education, lamented the paucity of Shanker-type leaders in the present day. He argued that examples of such business-labor partnership were rare, citing Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern's overture to Wal-Mart C.E.O. Lee Scott on the issue of universal health care as one of the few. "What would Albert Shanker say to the current generation of union leaders, business leaders and parents?" Mr. Kolb asked.

Business End Unwilling

But current AFT Vice President and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten argued that the resistance came from the other side. She said in her 10 years as UFT president she had never witnessed the current "push to destroy the union - our union" as has existed in the city in the last few years. She noted that the UFT had opened two charter schools, but when it appealed to several foundations and businesses for the 10 percent of funding not supplied by the state, only the Broad Foundation responded. "A lot of labor leaders like myself are willing to follow in Al's footsteps," said the union president, who was a UFT bargaining counsel toward the end of Mr. Shanker's tenure there in the mid-1980s. "We'll do it, but we need the partners to do it with us."

One obstacle to a new era of cooperation between business and labor on education issues was hinted at by several panelists: the substance of the reforms supported by each side. While the business leaders present referred favorably to the No Child Left Behind legislation passed in 2001, labor has been opposed to many aspects of the law.

Diane Ravitch, who was Assistant Secretary of Education under former President George H.W. Bush, called Mr. Shanker her hero, but thought his legacy was being twisted. She responded to Mr. Kolb, who asked why reforms weren't moving more rapidly, that one of the problems was that today's slew of initiatives were moving things in the wrong direction. "I did research on Albert Shanker's ideas," the often-outspoken critic of the Bloomberg administration said. "He wouldn't recognize NCLB as the natural outgrowth of his ideas."

Money Not the Answer

And she criticized Mr. Kahlenberg for "indulging" in the game of "what would Al do," in ways that were sometimes inaccurate. For example, she did not believe Mr. Shanker would have approved of paying students cash for improved grades, a policy championed by Mr. Bloomberg and funded by the private sector. She argued that the power of money had replaced public debate and urged a return to public policy discussions among education experts, parents and educators "instead of heads of foundations throwing money around when they don't know what they're doing."

Mr. Kahlenberg took the criticism in stride, but argued that many of the most innovative reforms in circulation today were pioneered by Mr. Shanker, including peer review to weed out substandard teachers, school-wide bonuses for high performance - also referred to as school-based merit pay - Teacher-led charter schools and a commitment to raising standards.

But Ms. Rosenberg emphasized that many of the current reforms, which use some of the same language as Mr. Shanker's initiatives, "bear no relation" to what the former labor leader supported. While no one addressed the issue of whether his efforts to find a middle ground helped pry open the door to the more conservative, business-backed programs of high-stakes testing, quasi-privatized charter schools and individual merit pay, several of the union-aligned speakers sought to make the distinction.

'Accountability for Idiots'

Ms. Rosenberg said that Mr. Shanker had opposed the standard of 100-percent proficiency, mandated by NCLB, because he believed it would lead either to lowering standards or to failure that would enable privatization efforts. His focus on raising standards relied on "rich testing, not bubble testing" used today by most school districts. And the "consequences" for substandard performance imagined by Mr. Shanker were not the punitive ones being imposed, she asserted. "We now lead the world in counterproductive and idiotic accountability ideas," Ms. Rosenberg said.

And so by the end of the panel, it was not clear what material existed to rebuild a bridge between business and labor on the issue of education. Mr. Kahlenberg lamented that no public figure today had filled in Mr. Shanker's silhouette of a "tough liberal." Mr. Kolb asked if the country needed more "impatient liberals." And Ms. Weingarten referred favorably to "unreconstructed liberals." But the panelists agreed that the space for the debate had been shut down and that they wanted to step back onto the stage. "There's no point to public discourse if there's no one there to hear you," said Ms. Ravitch.

The discussion will be broadcast on C-SPAN's Book TV later this month.