Book summary

This biography of the legendary labor leader Albert Shanker recalls his boyhood in New York City, where he attended the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, and his early years as organizer of teachers in the city's school system. It tells how, over time, and not without some scrappy, street-borne, bare-knuckles effort, Shanker's union, the United Federation of Teachers, became a force in local politics, and, it is said, was instrumental in bailing out the city during the financial crisis of 1975. Shanker left the UFT to become president of the American Federation of Teachers, a national organization, but he was unsuccessful in his vision of merging the AFT under one umbrella with the National Education Association. Without glossing over Shanker's many battles, Richard Kathlebert conveys the unique qualities that brought Shanker fame and, in many people's eyes, improved the status of teachers both as workers and as professionals.

Media reviews

"The reader comes away admiring a man who navigated troubled times deftly and left behind a record of great accomplishment."