The Teacher Wars (46 page)

1
Mary McDowell:
See “Brief for Mary S. McDowell, Respondent” (In the matter of the charges of conduct unbecoming a teacher preferred against Mary S. McDowell before the Board of Education of the City of New York, 1918); “Teachers Who Are Not Loyal,”
The New York Times
, November 18, 1917; and “Quaker Teacher's Case Is Argued,”
The New York Times
, May 16, 1918.

2
17 percent of Americans completed high school:
David Tyack and Larry Cuban,
Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 47–48.

3
“a joke”:
“Principals Dislike Teachers' Ratings,”
The New York Times
, October 19, 1919.

4
“C or D more accurately reflects”:
“Quaker Teacher's Case Is Argued.”

5
“We, the teachers of the public schools”:
“Loyal Teachers Urge Internment of Disloyal,”
New York Tribune
, December 17, 1917.

6
all but thirty relented:
“Teachers Yield on Pledge,”
The New York Times
, May 10, 1917.

7
McDowell went on “trial”:
See “Brief for Mary S. McDowell, Respondent” and “Quaker Teacher's Case Is Argued.”

8
A jingoistic climate had invaded the public schools:
One of McDowell's colleagues at Manual High School, a German teacher accused of fascist sympathies, was also purged. Across the city from the teens through 1960, language teachers seem to have borne a disproportionate brunt of witch hunts; they were not seen as essential to the social efficiency or vocational curricula.

9
Alexander Fichlander:
“Won't Promote Pacifist,”
The New York Times
, March 29, 1917; “Principals Dislike Teachers' Ratings”; and Alexander Fichlander, “Teachers' Ratings,”
Journal of Education
91, no. 2 (1920): 36–37.

10
“a sphere for wider influence”:
“Won't Promote Pacifist.”

11
“The Board of Education should root out”:
“Teachers Who Are Not Loyal.”

12
The Legion was influential:
Marcus Duffield,
King Legion
(New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1931).

13
“reds and pinks”:
Ibid., 286.

14
the Legion partnered with the National Education Association:
Ibid., 269–71, 280–87.

15
William Randolph Hearst:
Murphy,
Blackboard Unions
, 96–98, 137–38.

16
“an orgy of investigation”:
Quoted in Celia Lewis Zitron,
The New York City Teachers' Union, 1916–1964
(New York: Humanities Press, 1968), 173.

17
Diane Ravitch remembers:
Dana Goldstein, “Diane Ravitch, the Anti-Rhee,”
Washington City Paper
, June 24, 2011.

18
Nelda Davis:
Cheryl J. Craig, “Nelda Davis, the McCarthy Era, and
School Reform in Houston,”
American Educational History Journal
29 (2002): 138–43.

19
The male share of the teaching force increased:
Thomas D. Snyder, ed.,
120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait
(National Center for Education Statistics report, U.S. Department of Education, January 1993), 34.

20
In New York City … an oversupply:
For the process of becoming a certified New York teacher, see Ruth Jacknow Markowitz,
My Daughter, the Teacher: Jewish Teachers in the New York City Schools
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), 75–92.

21
many were disturbingly ignorant:
Howard K. Beale,
A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941), 247–48.

22
Three female New York City teachers participated:
Clarence Taylor,
Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 58.

23
“the exceptional teacher”:
Beale,
A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools
, xii.

24
“social movement unionism”:
see Taylor,
Reds at the Blackboard
.

25
Irving Adler always said that his wife, Ruth:
The biographical information is from author interviews with Juliet Relis Bernstein (February 11, 2013), Bruce Bernstein (February 7, 2013), and Ellen Bernstein Murray (February 12, 2013), as well as from Irving Adler's self-published 2007 memoir,
Kicked Upstairs: A Political Biography of a “Blacklisted” Teacher
. Tamiment.

26
New York City Teachers Union:
see Zitron,
The New York City Teachers' Union
.

27
dismal physical conditions:
Mark Naison,
Communists in Harlem During the Depression
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 214.

28
“cautious and conservative”:
Zitron,
The New York City Teachers' Union
, 21.

29
vote for candidates affiliated with the American Labor Party:
See 1945 issues of the
New York Teacher News
. Tamiment.

30
“The Union's Stand”:
See
New York Teacher News
, vol. 1, no. 1, November 1935. Tamiment.

31
Though Dewey's “new education”:
The best review of the evolution (often the nonevolution) of public school pedagogy is Larry Cuban's
How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1880–1990
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1993).

32
Yorkville High School:
Abraham Lederman, Teachers Union president, to Superintendent William L. Jansen, June 11, 1954. Tamiment.

33
Irving Adler believed:
Irving Adler, “Secondary Education,”
New York Teacher
2, no. 3 (April 1937): 11–12. Tamiment.

34
In both Bed-Stuy and Harlem, union activists urged:
See “Police, Parents in Joint Program vs. Delinquency,”
New York Teacher News
, March 11, 1944. Tamiment.

35
1950 union study of city textbooks:
Teachers Union of the City of New York,
Bias and Prejudice in Textbooks
(New York: Teachers Union, 1950). Tamiment.

36
A 1943 TU pamphlet:
Teachers Union of the City of New York,
Safeguard Their Future
(New York: Teachers Union, 1943). Tamiment.

37
Earl Browder led the American communist movement:
James G. Ryan,
Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997).

38
six thousand members by 1940:
Taylor,
Reds at the Blackboard
, 60.

39
“function of a Communist teacher”:
C. P. Trussell, “Bella Dodd Asserts Reds Got Presidential Advisory Posts,”
The New York Times
, March 11, 1953.

40
378 New York City public school teachers:
Ralph Blumenthal, “When Suspension of Teachers Ran Unchecked,”
The New York Times
, June 15, 2009.

41
Alice Citron was especially celebrated:
In Morris U. Schappes, “Free Education on Trial,”
Jewish Life
, December 1950; and Naison,
Communists in Harlem During the Depression
, 216.

42
no “proof of any specific classroom act”:
Taylor,
Reds at the Blackboard
, 148.

43
“a teacher who consciously subscribes”:
“Report of the Trial Examiner” (In the matter of the trial of the charges preferred by Dr. William Jansen, Superintendent of Schools, against David L. Friedman, a teacher in Public School 64, Manhattan, December 11, 1950), 25–26.

44
Bella Dodd testified:
Taylor,
Reds at the Blackboard
, 223; Adler,
Kicked Upstairs
, 63; and Trussell, “Bella Dodd Asserts Reds Got Presidential Advisory Posts.”

45
“I love Joe McCarthy”:
Adler,
Kicked Upstairs
, 63.

46
Many purged teachers led illustrious second careers:
“Children of the Black List: Robert Meeropol,” Dreamers and Fighters Web site,
http://​dreamer​sand​fighters.​com/​cob/​doc-​meeropol.​aspx
.

47
Lucille Spence:
Senate testimony and FBI file provided by the FBI to author via FOIA request, March 13, 2013.

48
“High school teachers are assembly line workers”:
Quoted in Daniel H. Perlstein,
Justice, Justice: School Politics and the Eclipse of Liberalism
(New York: Peter Lang, 2004), 19.

49
State law said the five thousand strikers could lose:
Richard D. Kahlenberg,
Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 47–48.

50
by 1967, 97 percent:
Ibid., 60.

51
David Licorish:
Quoted in Naison,
Communists in Harlem During the Depression
, 216.

1
“I have seen the impossible happen”:
David Levering Lewis,
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919–1963
(New York : Henry Holt, 2000), 557.

2
Ralph Ellison:
Quoted in James T. Patterson,
Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), xiv.

3
“martyrs to integration”:
Oliver C. Cox, “Negro Teachers: Martyrs to Integration?”
The Nation
, April 25, 1953.

4
attacking veteran black educators:
Michael Fultz, “The Displacement of Black Educators Post-Brown,”
History of Education Quarterly
44, no. 1 (2004): 11–45.

5
“I'm against it”:
Johnson,
Uplifting the Women and the Race
, 89.

6
“The whole matter revolves around”:
Zora Neale Hurston, “Court Order Can't Make the Races Mix,”
Orlando Sentinel
, August 11, 1955.

7
A decade after the ruling:
Weinberg,
A Chance to Learn
, 93.

8
Except in a few high-profile cases:
Ibid., 90.

9
Previous efforts to expand Washington's influence:
See Gareth Davies,
See Government Grow: Education Politics from Johnson to Reagan
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007).

10
The most lasting Great Society change:
For a good review of ESEA, see Irwin Unger,
The Best of Intentions: The Triumphs and Failures of the Great Society Under Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon
(New York: Doubleday, 1996), 119–25.

11
“By passing this bill”:
Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks Upon Signing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act” (Johnson City, Texas, April 11, 1965).

12
nine months working as a teacher:
Recounted in Robert Caro,
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
(New York: Knopf, 1982), 164—73; Doris Kearns Goodwin,
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
(New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 65–66; and Robert Dallek,
Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 77–82.

13
“the little baby in the cradle”:
Caro,
The Path to Power
, 168.

14
“a magic cure”:
Unger,
The Best of Intentions
, 335.

15
“wishing there was more I could do”:
Lyndon B. Johnson, “Special Message to Congress: The American Promise” (March 15, 1965).

16
A 1971 report:
Approaches to Learning Motivation: An Evaluation of the Summer, 1971 ESEA Title I Program of Community School District No. 16, Brooklyn, NY
(New York: The Human Affairs Research Center, September 1971).

17
“upset our stomach”:
Davis, “Elliott Denies Any ‘Deals,' ”
Tuscaloosa News
, September 12, 1966.

18
He announced he would use police power:
“Wallace Gives Warning on Negro Teachers,”
Miami News
, September 10, 1966.

19
“We got bonded”:
Eunice Pharr, interview #K-0471, April 12, 2001, SOHP/UNC, 4.

20
“I learned them just like I did”:
Cleopatra Goree, interview #U-0030, November 13, 2004, SOHP/UNC, 24.

21
First Ward Elementary School:
Frye Gaillard,
The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina
(Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 144.

22
National Teacher Examination:
Fultz, “The Displacement of Black Educators Post-Brown,” 27–28.

23
federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare estimated:
Ibid., 37.

24
Willie Mae Crews:
Willie Mae Lee Crews, interview #U-0020, June 16, 2005, SOHP/UNC.

25
Heath recalled that the white principal at Glenn was racist:
Helen Heath, interview #U-0031, November 13, 2004, SOHP/UNC, 8.

26
“stripped of their excellent teachers”:
Ibid., 18.

27
“senile” white teachers:
Clifton M. Claye, “Problems of Cross-Over Teachers,”
Integrated Education
8, no. 5 (1970).

28
Several surveys of southern teachers:
see Thomas H. Buxton et al., “Black and White Teachers and School Desegregation,”
Integrated Education
12, nos. 1–2 (1974); and Mary Victoria Braxton and Charles S. Bullock III, “Teacher Partiality in Desegregation,”
Integrated Education
10, no. 4 (1972).

29
“different values”:
Buxton, “Black and White Teachers and School Desegregation,” 21.

30
“It's not as though we were monkeys”:
Gloria Register Jeter, interview #K-0549, December 23, 2000, SOHP/UNC, 1.

31
“The Negro Family”:
Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
The Negro Family: The Case for National Action
(Office of Policy Planning and Research, U.S. Department of Labor, 1965).

32
“Equality of Educational Opportunity”:
James S. Coleman et al.,
Equality of Educational Opportunity
(U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1966).

33
“Just as a loaf of bread”:
Ibid., 8.

34
“We must not deceive ourselves”:
Quoted in Fultz, “The Displacement of Black Educators Post-Brown,” 45.

35
President Johnson, in a speech:
Carol F. Karpinski,
“A Visible Company of Professionals”: African Americans and the National Education Association During the Civil Rights Movement
(New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 151.

36
“uniquely important place”:
Jack Greenberg, “For Integration of Negro Teachers,”
The New York Times
, August 21, 1965.

37
one black teacher would suffice:
Paul Davis, “Elliott Denies Any ‘Deals.' ”

38
the number of teachers of color nationwide:
See Ulrich Bosser,
Teacher Diversity Matters
(Center for American progress report, November
2011); Sun Times Media Wire, “CPS Teachers Who Lost Jobs File Discrimination Suit,” December 26, 2012; and Sarah Carr,
Hope Against Hope: Three Schools, One City, and the Struggle to Educate America's Children
(New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013), 39. For a review of evidence associating teachers of color with higher student achievement for students of color, see Betty Achinstein et al., “Retaining Teachers of Color,”
Review of Educational Research
80, no. 1 (2010): 70–107.

39
a program founded two years earlier:
Author interview with Joan Wofford, May 10, 2013.

40
National surveys showed:
Robert E. Herriott and Nancy Hoyt St. John,
Social Class and the Urban School: The Impact of Pupil Background on Teachers and Principals
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966), 86, 95–97.

41
James Bryant Conant:
Conant,
The Education of American Teachers
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963).

42
women's section profiled:
Carolyn Bell Hughes, “Peace Corps Teachers Start Here,”
Washington Post
, October 13, 1963.

43
Roberta Kaplan:
Author interview with Roberta Kaplan, April 19, 2013.

44
As the historian Bethany Rogers has noted:
Bethany Rogers, “ ‘Better' People, Better Teaching: The Vision of the National Teacher Corps, 1965–1968,”
History of Education Quarterly
49, no. 3 (2009): 347–72.

45
Jane David:
Author interview with Jane David, April 18, 2013.

46
Beverly Glenn:
Author interview with Beverly Glenn, April 25, 2013.

47
during the Corps' first three cycles:
Rogers, “ ‘Better' People, Better Teaching,” 363.

48
“Far from being a threat”:
“Teacher Corps,”
The New York Times
, July 4, 1967.

49
Ronald Corwin published the definitive evaluation:
Ronald G. Corwin,
Reform and Organizational Survival: The Teacher Corps as an Instrument of Educational Change
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973), 96–97.

50
“status threat”:
Ibid., 389.

51
“the greater the difference between interns and teachers”:
Quoted in Fraser,
Preparing America's Teachers: A History
, 219.