Education: Minneapolis on Strike

One day last week the second biggest teachers’ strike in U.S. history†” broke out in Minneapolis — 92 schools shut down and 64,000 schoolkids on the loose. The next day Minneapolis School Superintendent Willard Goslin boarded a plane for Atlantic City. There he was inducted as pres ident of the Association of School Administrators, the No. 1 honor open to any U.S. school superintendent.

At first glance, the two events didn’t seem to go together. But no one blamed Goslin for the strike. The union teachers (1,100 out of 2,200) were striking against a law he didn’t like either, but could not change by himself: a tax ceiling that had left Minneapolis schools $2 million shy of 1948 needs.

Under the circumstances, confessed Mayor Hubert Humphrey: “Minneapolis is powerless to meet the financial requirements of providing decent education for its children.” On March 24, Minneapolis would vote on a new charter—providing $4 million more school revenues a year. But the Teachers’ Federations refused to wait.

The strike frayed Minneapolis’ nerves: movie attendance jumped 50%, “every day was like Saturday” at the public library, and there were just too many kids underfoot.

Lanky, folksy Superintendent Goslin, who grew up on a Missouri farm and thinks that too much of education goes on in a classroom, didn’t feel quite as desperate as most Minneapolis parents. Just before -he boarded the plane for Atlantic City last week, Goslin told his 15-year-old daughter to buy a sewing machine. The schools might be idle, but his “gosling” wouldn’t be.

† Bigger: Buffalo’s a year ago.