Too many and too large classes; a central field of battle in the ‘culture wars’; racial, gender and class discrimination in hiring and allocation of resources; low pay and long hours; inept union leaderships; the high cost of education and training; demands for ideological conformation; being made a scapegoat for the general crisis, these were the conditions in schools during the Great Depression, they are the conditions of teachers today. An excellent teachers’ eye-view of the state of public education in 1935.

‘Teaching—A Peon Profession’ by Martha Andrews from New Masses. Vol. 14 No. 13. March 26, 1935.

THE SCHOOLS are the backbone of the status quo, Secretary Roper pointed out in a recent speech. Eight hundred and forty thousand American teachers are continuously injecting political and social ideas into the heads of their twenty-six million pupils. To an increasing extent, these ideas are being handed to the teachers ready-made by chambers of commerce and business-controlled boards of trustees. The “social function of education”–as liberal theorists love to call it–is directed more and more consciously along the path toward open fascism which American capitalism is traversing.

The drastic cut in teachers’ standards of living, and the poverty into which they have been forced by scrip payment plans, payless pay days, etc., coupled with the threat of dismissal at the slightest protest, throws them into a status that can be described as professional peonage. Because of a lack of adequate organization–due to a deliberately fostered middle-class pride–they are easy prey. Even the Teachers’ Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, is not a union in the strict sense of the word. It has no power to conclude collective bargains, and in its established policies renounces the right to strike.

There is a constant outcry against the “overproduction” of teachers. The Office of Education of the U.S. Department of the Interior presents various proposals for restricting the training of teachers in order to meet a falling demand, and devotes a special circular to this subject. But the statistics of other government agencies present an entirely different picture. Thousands of schools and scores of colleges have closed; school terms have been cut; and nearly three million children of school age are receiving no schooling. In spite of this, the number of children in school increased by 675,000 between 1930 and 1934, and is increasing annually by 200,000. The number of teachers decreased by 40,000 during the same period. This speed-up not only makes the teacher’s work much harder, but decidedly impairs the efficiency of the educational system from the standpoint of the pupils. F.E.R.A. Director Harry Hopkins proposed to narrow the gap by authorizing state relief administrations to assign teachers to schools that have been closed down or drastically curtailed, especially the rural schools. These teachers are to work at relief wages, thus further hammering down the living standards of the employed teachers. The F.E.R.A. proposes further that two million persons whose requirements are not covered by state educational budgets be taught by 40,000 teachers, working on relief wages. Again, the White House Conference on Child Health admits a need for over 100,000 properly qualified special teachers to care for three million mentally and physically handicapped children.

These contradictory facts parallel the economic contradictions of the crisis. On the one hand, there are over 250,000 unemployed teachers in the United States. On the other, classes are being consolidated at such a furious pace that “an added load equal to that of 40,000 teachers is being carried by the teachers of the U.S. without extra salary and at three-quarters of their 1930 salaries.”

What does the government propose to do about it? The special circular of the Department of the Interior, referred to above, faithfully supports the policies of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and advises schools and colleges to follow the example of New Jersey, California and other states in achieving savings by (1) foregoing all anticipated salary increases; (2) replacing high-salaried instructors with low-salaried ones; (3) replacing other employes with workers starting at the bottom of the salary scale; (4) replacing full-time instructors by part-time instructors; (5) withholding appointment of teachers until they are urgently needed; (6) paying teachers partially out of student body or other funds; (7) reducing the per-hour pay of student help; (8) increasing the number of pupils per teacher and consequently the size of classes; (9) eliminating courses (in Pennsylvania State College over 100 courses were dropped); (10) raising registration fees and tuition. This last point is likewise stressed by Commissioner of Education, George E. Zook and President Henry N. MacCracken of Vassar College. Tuition fees have already invaded the free school system. Dr. A.F. Harmon, Alabama Superintendent of Education, maintains that, “The boasted free school is no more. It must be maintained as a private or subscription school.”

The increased burden of tuition upon teachers’ training schools means a discrimination according to pocketbooks rather than a selection of teachers according to ability. There are other and equally serious types of discrimination. In a large number of cities, married women will not be hired, and in the majority of cities they are discriminated against. Frequently the contracts for women teachers can be automatically voided in the case of marriage or pregnancy. In New York City, men are frequently chosen for appointment in preference to women even when the women have higher positions on the merit list. Racial discrimination is prevalent; and as far as age discrimination is concerned, the Educational Service Bureau of Teachers College considers that people over thirty-five cannot enter the teaching profession.

Even The School Board Journal, mouth-piece of the reactionary school administrations, admits that the following point of view governs the hiring of teachers: “I don’t believe that we ought to go out of our city to find teachers…I don’t believe that married women should be hired…I don’t believe that we ought to fill the schools with men…The women will work cheaper….I am against hiring persons belonging to certain denominations…I know of districts in my state where the teacher who wants a place on the staff has to go to see the men with influence, the local aldermen, the near friends of board members, and others of the inner circle…It is frequently a pleasant advantage to be young and easy to look upon.”

What Happens to the Salary Checks?

According to Rex David’s pamphlet, Schools and the Crisis, teachers’ salaries were cut 9 percent between 1932 and 1933 in about 90 percent of all city school systems. In 1934, the cuts averaged 26 percent. The reductions are probably most severe in the South where teachers’ salaries were at an indescribably wretched level even during “prosperity.” An article in The Virginia Teacher of May, 1934, points out that teachers’ salaries have been slashed “all the way up to 49 percent. In one southern state alone, 27,000 teachers receive less than unskilled labor is paid under the N.R.A. blanket code.”

We get surprising information concerning the widespread practice of returning a month’s salary or more to the school board, forced contributions to relief funds, etc., from articles in the American School Board Journal. Daniel R. Hodgson, Esquire, writes: “All these contracts which have come to the attention of the writer have been illegal and unenforceable, usually because the attorney to whom the Board of Education went for advice made the fatal mistake of believing that a Board of Education had the same contractual powers as any other quasi-corporation or municipal corporation.” What a handicap!

In spite of their illegality, however, these forced contributions were levied, and payless furloughs were imposed as well. In Chicago, the teachers’ pay checks were more than a year in arrears, and for more than two years payment was made in scrip or tax warrants. In fifty-nine Illinois cities salary payments were overdue, while in twenty-four Illinois towns salaries were being paid in scrip subject to a discount of between 10 and 50 percent. According to the U.S. Office of Education, the teachers’ average earnings were $1,050 in 1933-34; but the rural teachers averaged only $750 as compared with the blanket code minimum for unskilled labor of $728, and 40,000 of them earned less than $500 a year. Negro rural teachers earned only $388 a year on the average in 1930. If we apply the percentage pay reductions reported in The Virginia Teacher, we have to ask ourselves whether Negro teachers are able to live at all.

The model “socialist” city of Milwaukee has been somewhat more adroit than Chicago in its attacks on the salaries and living standards of the teachers. A 10 percent voluntary contribution was levied to save the city’s finances, followed by a seven million dollar slash in the budget with a recommendation that salaries be reduced. Mayor Daniel Hoan then presented a plan to put all city workers on the thirty-hour week with a corresponding pay reduction. This share-the-work program created an all-round reduction in living standards. In 1933, the socialist administration was forced to choose between meeting its interest charges to the bankers or paying its workers. Accordingly, the employes went unpaid for three months and the bankers got their money. Mayor Hoan followed this up with a scrip payment proposal affecting city employes which was defeated by opposition party votes.

One of the most important problems facing the teacher is that of tenure. The drive toward fascism is being accompanied by a widespread undermining of the teacher’s job security. This makes it easier for boards of education to dispose of militant elements, and facilitates the removal of teachers who have attained their salary maximum in order to substitute beginners who must work for considerably less. The New York State Department of Education recently promulgated rulings providing that teachers must apply for new licenses at the end of five years and every ten years thereafter. License renewals would be granted provided the teacher’s rating was “satisfactory” for 60 percent of the period, provided the teacher “submitted satisfactory evidence of good moral character, good health and that he is otherwise fit for teaching,” and provided finally that the teacher take “alertness courses” throughout the period. This gives the political machine and business interests a much tighter control over teaching personnel. Under pressure, the effective date of these rulings was postponed until 1936, and a bill was introduced in Albany exempting New York City and Buffalo from the provisions of the rulings. This serves to place the burden on the shoulders of the underpaid and underprivileged rural and town teachers who are insufficiently organized to resist.

The retrenchment drive involves the replacement of regular teachers by substitutes at a salary saving of approximately 60 percent. In New York City, recently, 1,768 substitutes were appointed to positions requiring regular teachers at substantially higher salaries and with full tenure rights. The Commissioner of Education was forced by the pressure organized by the Unemployed Teachers’ Association, to rule that these 1,700 positions be listed as regular appointments and paid accordingly.

Closely similar to this is the teachers-in-training situation. In order to obtain practical experience, the teachers-in-training are supposed to instruct a few courses under the strict supervision of more experienced teachers. With the economic crisis, they have been given teaching schedules of five courses a day for which they are paid (in New York) $4.50, or one-third of the regular teachers’ salaries. The Unemployed Teachers’ Association has fought this practice with the result that New York State educational authorities admitted the charge that teachers-in-training are being used as scabs, and drew up regulations limiting the practice.

Another aspect of the economy drive against the teacher is the multiple job system. This means that regular teachers are permitted to do extra work at a time when 250,000 teachers are unemployed.

The teachers have little voice in deciding what the school should teach. No textbook can tell the truth about the Civil War or the World War, and the discussion of religion and economics is restricted to the conventional lies which capitalism finds it convenient to inculcate.

The Teachers’ Council of N.Y.–a reactionary paper organization–compiled a book entitled “War Work in the Public Schools,” “in appreciation of the leadership of Dr. William J. O’Shea,” former superintendent of the New York City schools, and a lackey of the Tammany big-business line-up. This book is a documentary account of the dismissal of anti-war teachers, the campaigns for “Americanization,” etc. It contains such self-revealing subtitles as “Schools Combat Kultur.”

The leadership which the Teachers Council appreciates so well can best be characterized by the report of the last superintendent: “No teacher who ardently holds an extreme view can avoid injecting it into his teaching. A sneer, an intonation of voice, an imperceptible gesture, a one-sided presentation, will carry their meaning to the impressionable children in the class.” George J. Ryan, president of the New York City board adds to this: “…may I urge upon you…that the board of examiners make certain as to the loyalty [of prospective teachers] to their country before admitting them to the school system…let us close the door now against any who may seek a teaching position for the purpose of teaching American citizens un-American or subversive doctrines. Let us have no one whose professed zeal for ‘academic freedom’ is merely a high sounding excuse to make an attack on American ideals.”

It will be recalled that Dr. Ryan has just returned from Italy and is enthusiastic about the “patriotism and discipline” of the Italian schools.

While teachers have not yet been removed for “imperceptible gestures,” they have been discharged on the counts of “utterance of any treasonable word or words or the doing of any treasonable or seditious act or acts” and “conduct unbecoming [a teacher’s] position.” The latitude of these charges is indicated by the Board of Superintendents’ decision that: “The Board of Education may not be subject to attack by one of its employes,” which is interpreted to mean that a teacher who failed to protest when the board was attacked at a public meeting is equally culpable.

The case of school principal James Shields, of Winston-Salem, is well known. Mr. Shields in his book Plain Larnin’ exposed the tactics of the Reynolds Tobacco-controlled board of trustees in suppressing teachers who insisted on talking about such “disagreeable subjects” as economic conditions. On publication of the book, Mr. Shields was summarily dismissed.

With the heightened class struggle on the agricultural strike front, California amended her criminal syndicalism law to include one of the most sweeping provisions against militant teachers ever drawn up. The amended law provides that any teacher accused of criminal syndicalism in a written complaint is forthwith dropped for a period of thirty days. Unless the teacher files an appeal within the thirty-day period and successfully refutes the charge, he is permanently discharged. The California bill is a taste of what teachers can expect under fascism unless they organize to prevent it.

The American liberal was horror-stricken by the auto-da-fé of scientific books in Germany, but he does not have to go far to find similar cases in his own country. Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago ordered the history books thrown out and new texts substituted. He “purged” the library of forbidden books and made a bonfire of them in the streets, thus anticipating Hitler by more than a year, and did all this without causing too much consternation among the liberal champions of “truth.”

The campaign against what is commonly known as the teacher’s “academic freedom,” a freedom which has never existed and can never exist in a class society, is most violent wherever workers resist capitalist attack. Thus a bill is pending in the Arkansas legislature which, if passed, will make the continued existence of Commonwealth College impossible. The bill is a direct response to the activity of the students and faculty in defending the share-croppers’ organization against terrorist attacks, organizing for an anti-lynching conference in Chattanooga, and cooperating with militant elements in the United Mine Workers.

The self-appointed leader of the “crusade against learning” is William Randolph Hearst. Of course, the militant and honest elements in the school system, both teachers and student youth, stand in the way of this ardent “patriot.” As early as last April, Hearst demanded that the student leaders of the nation-wide anti-war demonstrations in the colleges “be stood up against the wall.” The following month The New York American denounced the 700 teachers who signed a petition for the repeal of the Ives’ oath as “enemies from without” and recommended that “such people must be rooted out like germs of pollution and disease.” This winter Hearst sent stool-pigeon reporters to interview allegedly Communist professors in Syracuse and Teachers’ Colleges. The reporters played their confidence game so clumsily that the matter was exposed and raised a nation-wide stench.

The New York City Board of Education examiners report with “sadness” that the certified intending teachers are bitter against the school authorities. Their attitude toward education, toward society, toward life itself is unquestionably antagonistic–says the report. “They have become indifferent to what the public is used to expect of teachers in the way of decent and restrained behavior in public.”

Mr. William McAndrew, writing in School and Society for September, 1934, urges the Board of Education to view these naughty children with understanding. “You have only to imagine yourself in their situation to understand the difficulty of keeping to good manners.” His solace to trained teachers who want to teach and can’t is Walter Pitkin’s advice: “to accept the hard fact that America as a whole must accept a lower standard of living than it is accustomed to.”

Turn the Other Cheek?

But what if the American teacher is unwilling to accept this lower standard of living which is being forced upon him by the ascetic Hearsts, Roosevelts and Morgans? Evidence shows that the teachers are beginning to revolt against this prospect and are turning to militant organizations and groups which lead the fight for better economic conditions.

There is a Joint Committee of teachers’ organizations in New York, composed of seventy-seven organizations, many of which are either defunct or exist only on paper, or represent supervisors rather than teachers. The Joint Committee has no responsibility toward the groups it represents. It acts on all important questions concerning teachers’ welfare, without the formality of consulting its membership.

The Teachers’ Union, which is local 5 of the American Federation of Teachers, is the only body affiliated with the general labor movement. It advocates in principle at least, economic organization of teachers.

The original program of the Teachers’ Union called for academic freedom, economic justice for teachers, security of tenure and sound pension laws. At times, for example in 1917-18, it conducted militant fights, and the increasingly militant rank and file membership at present resents the participation of the union in an organization as reactionary and undemocratic as the Joint Committee. It therefore requests the withdrawal of the Teachers’ Union, and further proposes that the union organize a democratic assembly of teachers, the delegates to be elected from the classrooms on a proportional basis.

The reformist leadership of the Teachers’ Union, however, is unwilling to cooperate on a democratic organization basis. Membership meetings are rarely called, and have been stripped by the leadership of all their power. As the rank and file sentiment grows, Linville and Lefkowitz, the present leaders of the union, are usurping all powers for the smaller executive board which they control.

In spite of the frantic attempts of the Linville-Lefkowitz machine to make a harmless debating society out of the union, successful fights have been carried on under rank and file pressure against the Moffat Charter Revision Bill which would have deprived teachers of their elementary civic rights; against the Brownell Bill, which would have placed the teacher under local control; and against the Board of Aldermen’s Residence Ordinance, requiring residence within city limits on the part of all municipal employes. It fought for full state aid for education, calling for a special session of the legislature, etc. The leadership was successful in preventing endorsement of HR 2827, but the Delegate Assembly of the Union has accepted many rank and file proposals.

In Philadelphia, the local of the American Teachers’ Federation has a straightforward union program, based on struggle for the economic needs of the teachers. The Unemployed Teachers’ Association in New York City is organizing fights against retrenchment, against pay cuts, the use of teachers-in-training as scabs, and against multiple jobs. In many instances it has achieved significant victories.

The Classroom Teachers’ Groups organize both union and non-union teachers on a school basis and stress the need for organized activity.

The union of all teachers, both organized and unorganized, on the basis of the immediate issues confronting them and in the face of a growing fascist attack, is the objective of the rank and file in the Teachers’ Union and the other militant groups.

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v14n13-mar-26-1935-NM.pdf