26 Facts About Albert Shanker

Albert Shanker was an American union organizer and labor activist.

Albert Shanker served as president of the United Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1985, and president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997.

The experience of watching his mother work 70-hour weeks convinced Albert Shanker from an early age that there was a need for societal changes.

Albert Shanker read several newspapers daily as a young boy, with an interest in philosophy.

Albert Shanker's idols were Franklin D Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, civil rights leader Bayard Rustin and American philosopher Sidney Hook.

In 1946, Albert Shanker graduated from Stuyvesant High School, where he was the head of the debate team.

Albert Shanker picketed segregated movie theaters and restaurants and was a member of the Young People's Socialist League and chairman of the Socialist Study Club.

Albert Shanker later taught mathematics in a full-time role at Junior High School 126 in the Astoria section of Queens from 1953 to 1959.

Albert Shanker began his tenure as a union organizer in 1959 to help organize the Teacher's Guild, a New York City affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers that was founded by John Dewey in 1917.

Albert Shanker left his teaching job to become a full-time union organizer.

Albert Shanker felt that a teachers' union would be more effective if it were united with a common set of goals.

In 1964, Albert Shanker succeeded Charles Cogen as the UFT president, a position he held until 1985.

For more than a decade, Albert Shanker wrote more than 1,300 columns in The New York Times and essays in other publications.

Albert Shanker was a key figure in building the United Federation of Teachers and was elected president of the American Federation of Teachers in 1974.

Albert Shanker was re-elected every two years until his death.

Albert Shanker's organizing efforts for educators cannot be separated from the legacy of his actions related to racial inequity and anti-Blackness.

In 1975, the UFT authorized a five-day strike, leading to allegedly saving New York City from bankruptcy after Albert Shanker asked the Teachers' Retirement System to invest $150 million in municipal bonds.

On September 21,1981, Shanker had dinner with Leon B Applewhaite, a personal friend and one of the three members of the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

In 1988, Albert Shanker was the first to propose charter schools in the US He was inspired by a visit to a public school in Cologne, Germany, in which teams of teachers had considerable control over how the school was run, and about what and how to teach.

In 1993, Albert Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization.

Albert Shanker came out in proud support of the Vietnam War.

Albert Shanker was a visiting professor at Hunter College and Harvard University during the 1980s.

Albert Shanker continued to work toward organizing teachers throughout his life and attempted to bridge the AFT with the National Education Association, which he never saw happen.

Albert Shanker died of bladder cancer and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 by US President Bill Clinton.

The quote, "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children," is sometimes erroneously attributed to Albert Shanker, as was done by Joel Klein in 2011 and Mitt Romney in 2012, among others in conservative political circles.

Albert Shanker is referenced in the Woody Allen movie Sleeper.