On February 22, 1997, the nation lost its best-known teacher union leader when Al Shanker's long battle with cancer ended with his death in a New York hospital. Whatever one may think of him or his policies, his impact exceeds that of any other teacher unionist the nation has ever known.

This was partly due to his organizational longevity made possible by the rules of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Originally a 6th grade and junior high teacher in New York City in the 1950s, he quit his job in 1959 and became a fulltime organizer for the New York Teachers Guild, one of the groups that shortly thereafter became the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the AFT's New York City local.

In 1964 he became the UFT president, a position he held until 1986, including 12 years of double duty while he was also the AFT's national president, a post he won in 1974 and held until his death. Twenty-two years as local president in New York City, the media capitol of the nation, matched by nearly 23 years as national AFT president, gave him a visibility no other teacher leader could match. For most of these years, presidents of the National Education Association (NEA) and its affiliates served only one year terms followed, for the most part, by obscurity.

He initiated his New York Times "Where We Stand" column in December of 1970, which continued for the rest of his life further enhancing his image. (By 1996 the column reportedly cost $750,000 a year.) In addition, his personal qualities, such as intelligence and verbal ability, contributed to his success.

A number of news accounts referred to him as a longtime or leading advocate of school reform.

If only that were true.

There is no doubt that he talked the talk of education reform over the years, but his rhetoric was not joined by his active support to have such reforms enacted.

I've spent fourteen years as a top officer or staff member of affiliates of the NEA and the AFT. In 1983 1 was the Executive Director of an AFT affiliate

when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in the Mueller decision, that a Minnesota program granting an income deduction for some educational expenses at public or private schools was constitutional.

Shortly thereafter, Shanker came to Harrisburg and I met him at the airport. As he generally did, he was travelling alone, without an entourage. As we drove into the city I asked for his reaction to the court's decision. He recognized its implications and said public education would have to change significantly to meet this challenge, or it might ultimately be replaced. Yet, as far as I know, he never publicly recognized the likelihood that this decision meant the Court would probably uphold other general student financial aid programs, that they might have merit, and they might lead to the real change he only talked about.

A few years later school choice became an active issue after being largely dormant in this nation although it was first advocated by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, in 1776. In 1988, Shanker suggested giving the lowest achieving 5 % of public school students free scholarships to attend private schools to see how well these schools would do with them. That's a voucher program, pure and simple.

Yet each time his idea was accepted, most recently by the New York City parochial schools and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, he opposed his own suggestion.

In 1990 Shanker said "I would be willing to give parents a right to choose schools in exchange for granting autonomy to professionals." The same year he said if teachers want to have more say about how schools function, they must give parents and students the right to choose the school of their choice.

He stressed it again in his April 21, 1991, "Where We Stand" column, when he wrote, "if we no longer believe in forcing people to fight for their country, it's hard to justify forcing a kid to go to one public school rather than another." But he did nothing about it.

Like many others, he rhetorically supported parental and community involvement in the schools yet the most tragic action of his career came in the 1960s

when there was an attempt to decentralize and have community control in the New York City school district. This led to a battle over events in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of the district in 1968.

While there is blame to be shared, with violence practiced on both sides, Shanker led the UFT in three bitter strikes, the third of which affected the district's one million students for almost two months and cost the City an economic loss of more than $7.8 billion according to Samuel G. Freedman in Small Victories, (Harper & Row, 1990). This is largely forgotten today but it should not be because the effects of those events still exist in the district.

According to John O'Neill, a UFT vice-president from 1956-1968, following the union's "victory," such as it was, Shanker used his enhanced status within the UFT to "emasculate the once potent delegate assembly," arguing that "it had to be controlled or the UFT would be destroyed by 'outside agitators.'" O'Neill said Shanker "finds dissent difficult, even impossible, to live with .... and, like any leadership which cannot bear candid criticism, his often finds itself without competent help as a consequence." (p. 183, "The Rise and Fall of the UFT," pp 174-191, Annette R. Rubinstein, Ed. Schools Against Children, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1980) For many, Shanker was the AFT; so much so that what happens next may be interesting.

Here again I had some personal knowledge of his style. I was present during a 1970 Los Angeles teachers strike. Shanker sent UFT staff from New York, some of whom I met. After their return to New York, when they attempted to organize a UFT staff union, Shanker fired them.

In the late 1960s, perhaps as a distraction, or as a public relations effort, Shanker and the UFT joined with the New York School district in introducing the More Effective Schools (MES) program, which has been mentioned in this space before. The usual "reforms" of more money, smaller classes, etc. were instituted in a number of schools. In the mid-1970s they were phased out because they did not work. What he learned then may have affected some of his later remarks but it did not have any appreciable influence on his specific actions.

In 1991 he said the methods used in schools violate "everything we know about how students learn," and that they perhaps come naturally to about 15% of the students. He added that we would never organize an adult workplace that way. Yet what did he change?

He was supposedly an early advocate of what have come to be called "charter schools", the most rapidly expanding school reform program in the nation, going from none in 1990 to 500 or more this year. But he and the AFT, like the NEA, have been most resistant to them, and largely still are although their opposition has become more sophisticated. It has been reported that the AFT, for example, has indicated that the Rhode Island law is a model to follow. To date there are no charter schools in Rhode Island.

Less well known are some of his observations about power. Of his union's internal operations, he once said, "Of course this is power politics. What other kind of politics is there?" He also said, "Power is never given to anyone. Power is taken, and it is taken from someone." Those who think teacher unions have undue power might remember Shanker's words.

He realized, and repeatedly said, that educational change is needed and coming.

"It is time to admit that public education ... more resembles a communist economy than our own market economy." 1990

"There is absolutely no question that American education as it exists today will not be tolerated by the American people, by the business community, by our policy leaders for more than another few years." 1991

"The schools will have to change. Otherwise public education will continue on its present course to destruction." "Where We Stand," Oct. 15, 1995

"It's very clear to us that we're about to lose public education." TEACHER Magazine, February 1996

"Time is running out on public education.. .The dissatisfaction that people feel is very basic. " Investor's Business Daily, Sept. 17, 1996

Unfortunately, as he knew, time was running out for him. Already ill at last summer's AFT convention, where he was re-elected to his 11th consecutive twoyear term as president, he did at last try to obtain support for proposals to raise teacher quality. They were shelved by the AFT executive committee.

Al Shanker is gone too soon. How, or if, history will remember him is unclear but few others have so dominated a union, or knew so well what needed to, and could, be done. Sadly, his legacy is one of missed opportunities, and unrealized potential, for which we all, including his members, are poorer.