Educators Job Insecurity Bars Pro-Labor Teaching
STARR, MARK
Educators Job Insecurity Bars Pro-Labor Teaching By MARK STARR (Vice-President, American Federation of Teachers, A. F. of L.) TflE organized workers of the United States were among1 the earnest...
...The schools have no* yet caught up with the Supreme Court in the matter of understanding and appreciating, the necessity of collective bargaining with all its civilized procedures for the settlement of industrial disputes...
...demanding answer and solution...
...New industries and new inventions and industrial processes face us on every hand...
...She estimated the number at work as 35,600,000, about 1,000,-000 more than in the same period last year...
...as quoted by Merle Curti in his "Social Ideas of American Educators...
...in relation to education...
...Workers education not only has to fill in the dangerous gaps left by our ordinary schooling but, in many cases, has to be an antidote to dangerous ideas and misinformation distributed through the schools...
...Just now the chambers of commerce in certain areas are successfully excluding books by Harold Rugg...
...international cooperation among the peoples of the world—these stand before us as Sphinx-like question...
...Too often the radio and the newspaper neglect and pervert stories about union activity and it is this caricature which goes into the home...
...George S. Counts, in his special study published in 1927...
...Texas, and about what the unions have done to wages and hours, and the industrial statesmanship exercised by the great majority of labor leaders...
...The school does not prepare our children to participate in a society where "rugged individualism" is outmoded and where collective bargaining is now the law of the land...
...School and Society" (January 20, 1937) found out that over 75 per cent of the members of boards of education in 104 cities studied were either business or professional men with the ranks of labor supplying only four per cent...
...MOREOVER, the schools are, in part, responsible for another danger now present...
...Working on WPA jobs at present are 1,700,000 persons at a monthly cost of $110,000,000...
...The schools, and particularly the vocational schools and colleges, prepare the youngsters for jobs which in many cases are non-existent...
...I ABOR has cause to be critical mi what is said and of what is not said in the history texts, many of which are antiquated and out of date in thea- attitude to the trade union movement...
...every student should be given information about the labor-capital set-up in the industry he proposes to enter...
...Old markets have disappeared and the industrial structure of the United States will be radically altered...
...Rugg tried to make the civies class into a forum to discuss some of the things which are wrong with the United States and which need* alteration...
...The campaign itself would thus be and educational effort of prime importance to the schools and communities of the United States...
...Every study has shown that only a tiny fraction of the members of boards of education are in any way associated with the labor movement of the United States...
...IN the first place, the American Federation of Labor can wisely make an investment in an extensive and attractive organizing campaign to increase the membership of the American Federation of Teachers...
...Educators Job Insecurity Bars Pro-Labor Teaching By MARK STARR (Vice-President, American Federation of Teachers, A. F. of L.) TflE organized workers of the United States were among1 the earnest and most active sup...
...found that Labor only had three per cent of the school board posts...
...Projects Center on Defense Needs Special to The New Leader WASHINGTON, D. C. — A stray White House press conference question has centered national interest-jdiverted by defense publicity—once more on the Works Project Administration, which is dropping its creation of golf courses and playgrounds for assignment to construction of airports, army housing projects, armories, military roads, naval yards and other work of military significance...
...2,000,000 by November, 2,200,000 by December and a peak of 2,-300,000 in January...
...The United States in common with the rest of the world faces revolutionary changes...
...The number of workers employed in arsenals and navy yards increased about 7.000...
...Even Roger Babson...
...Signs indicate that the fund will be spend in less than the shorter period...
...And hundreds of thousands of teachers in the U. S. receive miserable low wages and submit to petty tyrannies which are a disgrace to our country...
...dren, youths and adults are directly influenced by the schools each year...
...Many teachers do not tell their students the facts of social life or describe the beneficial role of the trade unions in our national life because these teachers themselves are the victims of ignorance...
...In the main, all that progressive education stands for, in pro-Jut ing selfreliant individuals wh* will think" things through ancones accept dictates and dogmas "without critical examination, fc1**'**' ily endorsed by Amerita»'11*?»*»' unionists...
...OECONDLY, the composition of *^ the boards of education should be drastically altered...
...One important factor previously neglected has been the failure of the textbooks to do justice to Labor...
...page 203) declares that "however successful organized labor has been in many ways, it has never succeeded in directing the education of children...
...Beginning in September these costs will rise gradually to $140,000,-000 a month, when a peak of 2,300,000 jobs will be reached...
...However, around 77,000 new-jobs were said to have been added in industries aided directly or indirectly by the defense program...
...When trained young men and women try to find a place in industry, the employers often say they would like to employ them but that the union will not permit their entering industry...
...We must see that this shall not happen here...
...In other cases, they know the truth but dare not tell it...
...John Dewey and other noted educators have acknowledged the debt which education owes to organized labor in the United States...
...If the blind lead the blind, says the Bible, both will fall into the ditch...
...Organized labor must examine closely the quality of the educational facilities to remedy some of the defects and to meet some of the dangers outlined above...
...In other countries, youth, robbed of a chance of a job and unable to get the hoped-for white collar job, has donned the black or the brown shirt and become a willing dupe to destroy the trade unions and the cooperative organizations...
...Teachers are too often timid folk with "safety first" written deeply across their social attitudes...
...These books cf Rugg have merely suggested that social problems do exist in the United States...
...It is calculated that there are over a million educators and teachers in the United States...
...There can be little doubt that newspaper reports of inter-union strikes, strike violence, and of the relatively rare cases of rack-i eteering by a few labor leaders find such wide and ready acceptance in the minds of the general public because the whole picture is not given...
...We need many more labor pictorial magazines and movies and (at least) a weekly nationwide radio hookup to combat adverse publicity and . give the public a chance to know the truth, for example, about the recent Foi-d thuggery in Dallas...
...Labor cannot be content to merely ask for quantitative increases in the educational facilities provided for the people of the United States...
...The problem of unemployment, the problems of securing a greater social security and a greater share of the fruits of increased productivity for the mass of the workers, the problem of building up...
...Teachers and textbooks cannot in the long run be any further advanced than the boards^cf education...
...Much abused by tax conscious industrialists in past years the WPA has suddenly developed national respect, even in those stock-ticker circles, by aiding in defense work...
...porters of free public education...
...This is only slightly under the average 1939 WPA employment of 2,400,000...
...Despite sOsstf ft—l" ising beginnings, the labor 'movement does all too little to bails' up junior unions and to* help the boys and girls and the wives and sweethearts of trade unionists to know- the real character of the trade unions to which their men folk belong...
...Indeed, workers' education carried on independently by the unions is necessary because the school system, viewed from the urgent needs oi the trade unions, has failed to do the job which its early proponents expected...
...The total for ail Federal, state and local governments increased by 95,000...
...It cannot agree with the fuzzy-minded educators who think that an extension of current university facilities will meet the workers' needs...
...WPA Expands...
...When the teacher in the school is degraded to TistsssM an...
...Capital still prepares the school books and practically controls the school systems of the world...
...Continued stimulation of industry by war work and additional gains in construction helped give jobs to 130,000 more workers in non-agricultural industries between June 15 and July 15, Secretary of Labor Perkins reported...
...state federations, and through its big international unions to secure-its rightful share in thecontrol of the schools...
...TfHE training of trade union * members and of trade unior officers still needs further development...
...On Labor Day it is appropriate that Labor review its whole position...
...Simultaneously with these Ha* provements in the schools, Laws* might well resolve on this Labor Day of 1946 to devote more interest and support to workers', education itself...
...F. C. Harrington, WPA administrator, calls for an increase to 1,800,000 workers in October...
...Youth, disappointed and drifting, very often thus develops an antagonistic attitude to the trade union movement...
...so far as the membership of the American Federation of Teachers staads at only 30,000...
...In many cases, they themselves are the product of mis-education concerning the trade union movement...
...Labor has enough influence in many areas through its central labor unions, through it...
...A tentative schedule by Col...
...This is a negligible percentage and an organizing campaign addressed to parents and citizens as w-ell as teachers, carried on by the right people and with modern methods could, within the next two or three years, doubje and treble that membersship...
...old-time drill sergeant, bawling command* rather than developing initiative and gMw h**-dividual care to his students;'then the ideals of Labor are bound to suffer...
...The reactionary nature of many public school authorities destroys any hope of an early and easy improvement...
...For WPA support Congress has provided $975,000,-000 to be used in eight months instead of twelve...
...Labor can rightly ask that some social science as well as mechanical science find a place in the curriculum of the technical college and school...
...However, Labor so far has received only indirect and limited benefits from the public school system of the...
...More than 100 years ago they worked hard to shut the factory gate and open the school door to the children of the people...
...A-labor movement should «efe that ., the textbooks are rescued from propaganda for the status quo and for anti-union forest...
...All that the tts*la 5**T ions ask is that the facts about the economic life of the United States (including- the record of the unions) be stated without fear or favor...
...Our children are not told about the important role of the unions and their many contributions to the community welfare...
...The teachers are the largest single professional group numerically and its influence can be judged by the fact that the "John Dewyy Dewey Yearbook (1937)" estimated that thirty million chif...
Vol. 23 • August 1940 • No. 35
