Word: levittown
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...community thrown into turmoil over its schools sprouted in 1947 in a former potato field. Well suited and priced for ex-G.I.s, Levittown soon became synonymous with instant and inexpensive suburban living: a home of one's own, a plot of land, no big city problems, no industry. Levittown also became a symbol of cookie-cutter suburban sameness (immortalized by Pete Seeger in a song about "little boxes made of ticky-tacky...
Like other suburbs, Levittown financed its education system mainly through property taxes. In the 1970s, as school costs soared, the tax bill for many of those neat little houses all in a row started hitting $200 and more a month. Original owners, now on fixed incomes and their children grown, found themselves hard pressed. To make matters worse, some people felt they were not getting their money's worth, claiming the schools were failing to teach the basics. The result was a hard line on taxes. "I'm a fighter for my kids," says Joan Anderson, the mother...
...disregarding a court order to go back to work. The union must pay $170,000 in fines, which will eventually go to the school district, and each teacher has been fined two days' pay for every day on strike. The average loss: over $5,000. In effect, Levittown teachers will be working until the end of January without pay. Some have had to sell their houses, borrow to the limit, and bite into savings...
...will be a long, long time before things are normal again in the Levittown schools. The strike's bitterness reverberates harshly. "The teachers' union was for the teachers," says Dawn Fishbein, a slim and intense MacArthur senior. "But the board of education was supposed to be for us. Instead, it was a board of taxation." Says Rae Anne Caponi, Sabato's sister: 'Tm so glad to be back. But I'm worried about college credit courses and advanced placement tests." In Rae Anne's first psychology class, the teacher asked if anyone wanted...
...wearing a defiant lapel button picturing two crossed boards. (One of the school board members allegedly threatened to hit the teachers' union with a two-by-four, then hit it again with a four-by-six when it was down.) Other teachers wear buttons reading I GAVE TO LEVITTOWN. So far, more than 20 teachers have resigned. A dozen highly paid veterans have chosen to retire on terms offered by the board: a $5,000 payment and, in effect, the cancellation of the fines...