A new biography of former AFT president Albert Shanker by Richard Kahlenberg, Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy (Columbia University Press), was published in September.

The book describes Shanker's eventful life and his rise to the union presidency. A leading voice for the professionalization of teaching, Shanker was instrumental in the establishment of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

"Richard D. Kahlenberg has captured the political essence of Albert Shanker as a democracy advocate, unionist and teacher," says AFT president Edward J. McElroy.

The biography is featured in the Fall 2007 issue of American Educator, which is available at www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator.

Here are excerpts from several reviews of the book.

Al was certainly no class revolutionary, but he believed that working people could get their fair share if they had strong independent unions, good schools and sound democratic institutions. Identity politics, in Al’s view, weakened all three key institutions.

—William Scheuerman, AFT vice president
AFT On Campus, November-December 2007

Kahlenberg shines a light on Shanker as a brilliant innovator and advocate of bold education reforms. Indeed, because many of today’s so-called education reformers have contorted his commonsense ideas and made them unrecognizable, the book reinforced for me the urgency of keeping Shanker’s legacy alive.

—Randi Weingarten, AFT vice president
"What Matters Most," New York Times
August 2007

Before reading this biography, I was somewhat inclined to think the worse of Shanker’s efforts. It is a testament to Kahlenberg’s research and writing that I now see how Al Shanker played a positive role in his lifelong crusade to defend and improve public education. I am in many ways the beneficiary of that commitment. My own career as a public school teacher has been shaped in ways I had not known were influenced by Shanker.

—Kenneth J. Bernstein, Education Review
Sept. 5, 2007

I like Rick Kahlenberg’s title, Tough Liberal. It’s exactly right. William James once drew a contrast between tough-minded and tender-minded people. Tender-minded liberals are fond of pious slogans while tough liberals are pragmatists who are indifferent to slogans, and insist on getting the job done for the sake of social justice and the good of the community as a whole, no matter what bad names one might be called in doing so.

—E.D. Hirsch, Education Sector
Sept. 20, 2007

Among Shanker’s passions were lofty standards, teacher accountability and charter schools. Kahlenberg applauds all this, along with Shanker’s fervent anti-communism and his many efforts—regardless of the black-Jewish antagonism the school strikes engendered—to reach out to people of color.