7/31/2019 Reagan's Attacks Hurt Teaching Profession, Meet the Press, Al Shanker

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The Associated Press

May 29, 1983, Sunday, AM cycle

Reagan's Attacks Hurt Teaching Profession, Union Head Says

BYLINE: By CHRISTOPHER CONNELL, Associated Press Writer

SECTION: Washington Dateline

LENGTH: 603 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

The head of a national teachers' union charged Sunday that President Reagan's criticisms of the profession and public

schools are discouraging "tens of thousands of bright young people" from considering a career in the classroom.

Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said he agreed with most of the criticisms leveled at

U.S. schools by the National Commission on Excellence in Education.

But Shanker, interviewed on NBC's "Meet The Press," called Reagan's reactions to the calls for reform in American

schools have been a "disaster."

Shanker's barb was the latest in a series of heated exchanges between teachers' unions and the White House triggered by

Reagan's declaration in a May 14 commencement address that "we just haven't been getting our money's worth" from

the schools.

Meanwhile, Willard H. McGuire, president of the National Education Association, said on Cable News Network's

"Newsmaker Sunday," that "We're certainly willing to take any share of criticism that is justly ours."

But McGuire emphasized that school boards set the standards that have slipped. "The blame does not entirely lie withthe teachers or the teacher organizations, but with our society at large...(which) determines what our public schools are,"

he said.

The White House said Saturday that the president has agreed to meet with McGuire to discuss the NEA's opposition tomerit pay. Reagan has charged that stand makes the NEA "a major obstacle to paying our outstanding teachers what

they deserve."

Shanker said he was urging all teachers to keep "an open mind" about merit pay. He praised elements of the plan pro-

posed by Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander that was blocked by strenuous lobbying by the NEA's state affiliate.

Shanker said Alexander's plan would provide "very large rewards" to a large number of Tennessee teachers, who would

have a voice in determining who got the bonus pay. He said the plan had some shortcomings, but "meets many of the

objections which teachers traditionally have raised."

Shanker's appearance on "Meet The Press" was aired on the NBC radio network only. The television show was

pre-empted by a nationally broadcast Democratic telethon.

Shanker said that with low salaries discouraging people from becoming teachers, Reagan should be using "the moral

suasion of his office...and (saying) what a noble calling this is to at least try to attract bright and good people in."

Instead, Reagan has "dumped on the public schools, said that we're not getting our money's worth, that it's a failure,

created the impression that teachers are only interested in money...." Shanker charged. "What the president has done in

the last few weeks is to discourage tens of thousands of bright young people who might have been thinking of teaching

as a career from going on."

7/31/2019 Reagan's Attacks Hurt Teaching Profession, Meet the Press, Al Shanker

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Reagan's Attacks Hurt Teaching Profession, Union Head Says The Associated Press May 29, 1983, Sunday, AM cycle

Education Secretary T.H. Bell, interviewed Saturday on Cable News Network's "Evans & Novak" show, said the federal

goverment is "not responsible for financing the schools....We can't solve this problem by federalizing it."

NEA chief McGuire said it will cost $15 billion to implement reforms such as longer school days and better pay and

"we believe the federal government must help bear that burden."

Bell predicted the legislatures in Tennessee and Utah would pass merit pay plans next year, and he said there was alsointerest in North Carolina.

Shanker, asked if his union would defend incompetent teachers against firing, said, "We'd defend them, but we defend

murderers in our society, too, and rapists and everybody else. The fact is that you're innocent until proven guilty."

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

Copyright 1983 Associated Press

All Rights Reserved