According to Arthur F. Forey, executive secretary of the California Teachers Association, strikes by teachers are "inappropriate, illegal, outmoded and ineffective." Corey prefers a polite new substitute called the "sanction"—in effect a boycott of "unethical or arbitrary" school districts. At the Little Lake city school district in a booming (aircraft) area outside Los Angeles, the 123,000-member C.T.A. is testing this new weapon.
The test is rooted back in 1958, when Little Lake called in some U.C.L.A. experts to measure how its schools were faring. Spurred by the unflattering report, Little Lake hired a vigorous new superintendent with a taste for higher standards. Superintendent William G. Stanley launched homework for all grades, reading by phonics, a stiffer grading system, mandatory foreign-language study, special classes for the gifted and the retarded. Up went beginning teachers' salaries, topping any in the Los Angeles area. And up went student test scores, says Superintendent Stanley, "from well below national norms to equal or better those norms."
Little Lake's teachers supported this academic transformation-but C.T.A. charges that Stanley and the school board neglected "human relations" in the process. Sample beefs: Stanley requested administrators to pinpoint the "worst teacher" in the district, threatened to cut poor teachers' salaries if they did not resign. To combat such "intolerable personnel practices," C.T.A. unleashed the sanction.
The teachers' group published its complaints in a booklet sent all over California. It tried to defeat pro-Stanley candidates in a school board election. When this failed, C.T.A. urged all U.S. teachers to boycott the district. As a result, Little Lake's twelve schools (7,800 students) are far short of teachers for next term.
The school board appealed for a court injunction to halt further publicity. But last month the court ruled that since Little Lake failed to prove malice, it can not stop C.T.A. from criticizing its schools. Sooner or later, Little Lake will probably have to give in and adopt C.T.A. 's recipes for "sound professional practices." As angry Little Lakers see it, this would mean a drastic curtailment of Superintendent Stanley's drive for high teaching standards. Equally significant is C.T.A. 's heavy influence (by size alone) on its parent, the 812,000-member National Education Association. The "professional" N.E.A., which shuns teacher strikes, is being pressed toward militancy by teachers' unions. N.E.A. needs a competitive economic weapon, and C.T.A. has provided it. If this method works in Little Lake, the sanction may spread to other N.E.A. groups across the country.