Albert Shanker

Death Shanker died of bladder cancer and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

In popular culture Shanker is referenced in the Woody Allen movie Sleeper (1973). The protagonist is transported to the future, where he is told that the old world was destroyed when "a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear warhead." Film critic James Monaco wrote, "This is not funny at all, unless you know the cranky, whining head of the New York United Federation of Teachers".

Erroneous quote The quote, "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children", is sometimes erroneously attributed to Shanker, as was done by Joel Klein in 2011 and Mitt Romney in 2012, among others in conservative political circles. The Albert Shanker Institute attempted to find the source of this quote, and concluded that "we cannot demonstrate conclusively that Albert Shanker never made this particular statement ... but, we believe the quote is fiction." The first appearance, which those at the Institute could find, was in the Meridian Star newspaper, in an editorial piece dated August 13, 1985, but no source is included in the article. Similarly, Washington Post fact-checkers concluded that "it's virtually impossible to prove a negative, but the evidence suggests that the quote didn't come from Shanker and that someone with an agenda probably twisted his words."

Shanker's biographer, Richard Kahlenberg, found no record of Shanker's ever saying this and does not believe he ever did.