Milton Goldberg, an educator and union leader who advocated improved teaching methods for impoverished students and better wages for teachers, died of cancer yesterday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Mount Washington resident was 87.
A former president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, Mr. Goldberg had been principal of Fairmount Hill Junior-Senior High School before his retirement nearly 30 years ago.
Born in Baltimore and raised on North Caroline Street, he was a 1932 graduate of City College. He earned a certificate in elementary education from what is now Towson University in 1935 and a bachelor's degree in geography from the John Hopkins University in 1943. He earned a master's degree in education from Hopkins in 1961.
"He was a man of high character and first-class temperament. We were a large family and he was the best, probably," said a brother, Alfred Goldberg, a historian in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who lives in Falls Church, Va. "He was an unusually steady, reliable, helpful and supportive person. And he was conscientious. He worked and prepared for his classes long and hard. He gave it all he had. He didn't walk on water, but he was a good swimmer."
"He was a very decent guy, a sweet, good person," said Rabbi Floyd Herman of the Har Sinai Congregation, where Mr. Goldberg was a member. "I can imagine that kids related to him well. That was his personality."
"He was one of the most serious and devoted persons I've ever known," said Milton "Manny" Velder, a fellow teacher and friend. "He always had the students at heart."
Mr. Goldberg began teaching in 1935 at the old Lafayette School No. 79 at Park Avenue and Hoffman Street. He was named social studies department head at Garrison Junior High in 1956, and a special assistant at Calverton Junior High School before becoming assistant principal and later principal at Fairmount Hill in East Baltimore. He retired in 1974.
Elected to the first of several terms as president of the BTU in 1960, he was an advocate not only of higher wages for teachers but more authority for them in the classroom. In 1964, as part of changes proposed by the union for educating the poor, he urged that elementary schools be open 12 hours a day to become community centers offering educational, medical, recreational and social services.
"He had a tremendous civic conscience. He had charisma," said Herman "Chuck" Bainder, a teaching colleague and friend. "In the era when many principals ran a small dictatorship, Milton felt teachers should speak their minds and not simply let the administration be monarchs of all they surveyed."
In 1967, Mr. Goldberg served a term as president of an educators' fraternal organization, the Morris I. Feld Lodge of B'nai B'rith.
"He kept the lodge on the right track," said David P. Berenson, a fellow lodge member and officer. "He was a letter writer. He wasn't afraid to get involved in things he felt were important for his friends and his community."
From his retirement until 1986, he worked alongside his brother, Harry Goldberg of Owings Mills, in their rare coin shop, the old R.H. Martin Co. on Redwood Street in downtown Baltimore.
Mr. Goldberg was a world traveler - he visited all seven continents and took numerous photographs of synagogues on most of his trips. A member of the Maryland Mountain Club, he took daily hikes, often at Cylburn Arboretum or along the Northern Central Trail.
A member of numerous professional associations, he had been the national chairman of the American Federation of Teachers' committee on academic freedom and the Baltimore Council of AFL-CIO unions, where he had been recording secretary and chairman of the education committee.
In 1959, Mr. Goldberg married Ann Garfink Eff, who died in 1992.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Sol Levinson & Bros., 8900 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville.
In addition to his two brothers, survivors include two daughters, Jo-ann Stadtmauer of Charlotte, N.C., and Elaine Eff of Baltimore; two sisters, Norma Fox and Sarah Sody, both of Pikesville; and two grandchildren.