Shanker was a dedicated socialist, and his concerns about education were that children should get a good quality socialist education. The problem with that was how much of “good quality” *means* “socialist”, instead of objective quality.
That is, in his mind, socialism was equated with quality. Doctrinaire, at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, he was early on a member of the Young People’s Socialist League and chair of the Socialist Study Club. This was in the late 1940s, when there was no mistaking what being called a “socialist” meant.
He also wrote a column for the NYT justifying involvement of his union in political subjects not related to schools, education or teachers. Invariably supportive of the radical wing of the Democrat party.
He also illegally lobbied the head of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, to not uphold Ronald Reagan’s decertification of the PATCO (air traffic controllers) union, after they decided to try and muscle Reagan to show him who was boss, and lost.
Two of his quotes:
“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
“There is no more reason to pay for private education than there is to pay for a private swimming pool for those who do not use public facilities.”
Shanker was the product of a different era. His socialism stemmed less from Marx than from John Dewey. Dewey believed that head and hand could not operate separately, that doing was the equal of thinking. That was different from the present view which reduces everything to feeling. Neither man could see when you let each man choose what is good, many , many will as often choose what was keep him from attaining that good. Pragmatism leads to moral anarchy.