“Who is Going to Run the Schools?” Teacher Strikes and the Urban Crises of 1972–73

Abstract

This chapter chronicles a wave of contentious teacher strikes in 1972-73 and shows that teacher unions’ collective bargaining efforts clashed with the limited budgets of many of the nation’s largest cities. This conflict led many residents of these metropolitan areas to argue that teachers were guilty of both facilitating fiscal crisis and setting poor examples for the young people they taught since dire conditions led many teachers to believe that striking was necessary even though they broke the law in the process. The chapter documents a strike that shut down Philadelphia for three months in 1972-73; turns to Chicago and St. Louis, where teachers were on strike simultaneously; and concludes by examining the lengthy teacher strike in Detroit in the fall of 1973.