Interview with John Ryor, President of the National Education Association

John Ryor. Jimmy Carter has had a varied career. He's been a farmer, an engineer, a scientist, a planner, a businessman, and more recently, the Governor of his home State, Georgia. Mr. Carter graduated from the US. Naval Academy in 1946. He did graduate work in nuclear physics and worked under Admiral Hyman Rickover on the development of the world's first nuclear submarine. Mr. Carter was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1962. He was elected Governor of Georgia in 1970 and served as the State's Chief Executive for 4 years. In 1974 the Democratic National Committee tapped Governor Carter to serve as the party's national campaign chairman for the 1974 national elections. We're very pleased to have you here for this interview, Governor, and if you're elected, I should say, if you're nominated by your party, why should the teachers of America support you for the Presidency?

Governor Carter. Well, you've left out a couple of very important aspects of my career there. My first entry in the government life was as a member of a county school board, and I was chairman of it during the years through integrating our schools and learned a great deal during that 7 year period about the practical applications of education. When I was elected to the Georgia Senate, I ran because I was concerned about the potential destruction of the public school system during the integration years in the South, and my only request, as a new senator, was that I be put on the Education Committee. I was the author of the minimum foundation program for education bill that was passed in Georgia in the middle sixties, and then when I became governor, we initiated and passed a comprehensive program for education in Georgia which was one of the prides of my whole administration. I've got three daughters-in-law, all of whom work in education, one in teacher certification in the Education Department, and the other two are first grade or pre-first grade school teachers. I think that my background and my record has been one of intense involvement in education. Even earlier than that, when I taught USAFE courses on the first battleship and that was my responsibility as a young naval officer. This approach to education that we've had to accommodate, particularly in the South first, with different kinds of children in the same classrooms, I think is a preview of what needs to be done on a nationwide basis, that is, to individualize instruction to treat each child as an individual with separate problems, unique talents, and I think we've been able to do this very well. We still have a very bad circumstance in our country with an inadequate attention given to education. I see a stronger and stronger role to be played by the federal government in the financing of education, and I would also insist on the local and state governments being responsible for their management of the school system. We need to increase the emphasis on career education on a lower and lower level in school and to breakup the sharp division between vocational instruction and academic instruction. These are some of the things that I've had to experience, I might say in an enjoyable way as a state legislator and also as a governor, and I'd be glad to answer specific questions about those items which I'm sure you have in store for me now.

Q. Thai leads us into the next question, Governor. As you know, there are great disparities in the per child expenditure of funds, state to state, locality to locality, which make it difficult to grant equal educational opportunity for all children. What measures would your administration take if you were elected President to insure equal educational opportunity?

Governor Carter. Well, I've been completely dedicated to this principle ever since the early sixties. I think one of the crucial elements of the minimum foundation program for education in Georgia was that property was taxed where it existed and then that money was put into the general fund receipts from sales tax, income tax, corporate tax, and so forth and then the money that was available was distributed where every child was located. This was done adequately to finance the basic minimum educational requirements. When I became governor, we saw that this was not adequate so we revised the law to increase the allocation of funds more to equalize instruction. I think this is a major place where the federal government ought to play a role in the future as it has, to some degree, in the past To identify those areas of our nation which are very poor, even as large as state boundaries, and certainly communities and cities and counties, and also individual kinds of children who come from families where opportunities have been scarce and to let the federal allocation of money as it increases, I hope very rapidly in the next few years, be designed to compensate as much as possible for that inequity in tax money per child which is so crucial to provide equality at opportunity. I'm heavily committed to that, and I think my record as governor and as a state legislator would testify to that fact.

Q. You indicated in your written response as well as in your conversation here today that the federal share simply was inadequate.

Governor Carter. Yes.

Q. What do you see as an appropriate level of expenditure for the federal government in paying for public education in the United States?

Governor Carter. It would be hard for me to put a particular or special figure on it at this point without studying the whole budgetary process and assessing relative priorities. I know what the NEA goal is which I think would cost an additional $18 to $20 billion above and beyond the present allocation of funds. I think that's a good goal, but I can't say just in what number of years it might be achieved. There are some interim things that can be done, however, to let money be made available to education without delay. One would he to remove the prohibition against the use of revenue sharing money for education. This would release to the communities which have that urge a substantial amount of money to be used specifically for the education of our children which can't be done now. And, I think we ought to also elevate the department in the federal government responsible for education to a much higher status which would focus the attention of the nation, our people, and our government, on the need for increased emphasis on education. I can't give you a specific figure or percentage at this point, but I'll be committed along with you to a rapid increase in the proportion of education costs that will be financed by the federal government.

Q. Another corollary question, Governor, considering the difficulty of many, many middle-income parents to afford to send their children on to postsecondary education, what role or what responsibility do you think the federal government has in providing financial assistance either to students or to postsecondary institutions in order that they might relieve the load as it ' falls on the middle-income taxpayer?

Governor Carter. I think again this has been an interest of mine for a long time. First, two Mils that I have introduced as a chairman of the University Committee where I served in the senate, as a freshman senator, were bills to establish scholarship and loan programs for students at the post-high school level. This was done in 1964, and John Gardner and others at the federal level in 1965 passed a Higher Education Bill which was correlated very closely with what we already had established in Georgia. I think we ought to reduce the number of different kinds of scholarship and loan programs to a minimum number—I don't know if it would be three or four at the most—to make their allocations clear-cut, to increase the amount of money appropriated for that purpose, and to let the money be permitted to go to students on the basis of financial need as a major factor provided, of course, the students can meet the academic requirements cf the college or the vocational school involved. So, to minimize the number of different kinds of scholarship and loan programs, to correlate them accurately with the state funds that are available and also private funds, to let the money be used for the accommodation of financial need primarily if academic requirements are made, and to increase the amount of money available—those would be the factors that I would consider as President.

Q. If we could go back just a minute to aid to education on the federal level. What form do you see aid to education from the federal government taking, Governor—categorical aid, general aid, or what options do you have?

Governor Carter. I would like to reduce drastically the number of categorical aid programs. I think when Eisenhower went out of office we had about 150 in the whole federal government; now we have almost 2,000, and a substantial amount of the administrative work that's performed by state departments of education, for instance, is oriented toward the preparation of education grant requests and the monitoring of the separate and independent and narrowly defined grant programs. I would like to make these much more general in nature. The only category that I would like to maintain is to insure that the federal monies are spent for the kinds of children who need help most: those who come from deprived families or who have some special learning disability, those who come from poor areas of our nation where the tax base is not adequate for a good education. But I would drastically reduce the number of categorical grant programs, let the money be issued in larger block sums but make sure that the money is spent from the federal level for the children that need it most.

Q. Very good. In recent years, Governor, there has been a great deal of conversation both in the public media and in our cities and states about the right of public employees to negotiate, to bargain with their employers.

Governor Carter. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you support a federal statute to grant teachers and public employees in general the right to collective bargaining?

Governor Carter. Well, let me answer you this way. I think that when there is a law that permits public employees to negotiate, I prefer binding arbitration to the right to strike for teachers, and for firemen and policemen. I think it's better for those employees to have it that way. Once the dispute is submitted to an arbitration board, if the employer will not accept the ruling of the board, then I favor the right of the employees to strike. I would prefer to have that arrangement if it was left to me. I have some concern about the federal government requiring that all employees be organized. I would prefer to let the states handle this question themselves, and I do favor states having legislation of this kind. Whether I would favor the federal government making it a mandatory thing throughout the country is something that I have yet to decide. I've told the leaders of the NEA that I would certainly not veto such legislation as President, that I would work for the right of teachers and others to strike if an arbitration board decision is refused by the employer, but as far as having a mandatory thing nationwide, that's something I still want to reserve judgment on.

Q. Well, let me restate the question, Governor, if I might for just a second. The problem, as we see it, is the disparity in the way public employees are treated. We have Pennsylvania, New Jersey, cities right across the river from one another, we have teachers who bargain in both places. When the frustration gets so high that the teachers find it necessary to strike, in New Jersey they go to jail, in Pennsylvania there are other options for resolving the conflict. They do not go to jail.

Governor Carter. Yes.

Q. Now, it seems to me that the question is not, are we going to mandate, but would you support a process which allowed teachers and public employees of their own volition to negotiate, and would you support legislation that would make it possible to resolve the conflict that causes strikes? That's the central concern I believe.

Governor Carter. Well, as I say, I don't have any objection to that, and I would strongly support legislation in a circumstance that you described, for instance in New Jersey, that if the arbitration is completed and the teachers, for instance, still have no redress except to strike, that they be granted that right without the fear of punishment.

Q. We talked for just a few minutes, Governor, about HEW and about the size of the bureaucracy. Its often been said that the E is caught between the H and the W and forgotten and that much of that budget is fixed and consequently the part that isn't, education's share, is always hacked away at, but we're very concerned about the role of education in the federal government and the federal government's commitment to it. As part of that, would you restate your position in regard to Department of Education at the Cabinet level?

Governor Carter. All right. Let me say first of all that following the convention, if I'm a nominee, I intend to work very closely with the NEA officials and other educators throughout the country, with local and state leaders, school board members, state superintendents and others, in evolving a 4 year program for educational progress in this country so that we can spell out year by year, throughout the first administration following the election this year, what ought to be done, with approximate costs, the priorities of improvements to be made so that there can be a nationwide commitment to it pursued by me as a nominee and hopefully Democratic candidates for Congress, for Governor, for U.S. Senate as we approach the November elections. I think that this would be a very attractive thing for us candidates to present to the American public. I think the public is ready for a clear expression from the national viewpoint about what we should do for education in this country. It's something that's been relegated to a secondary position in the past. The only new department that I know of that ought to be created is a separate Department of Education. I will pursue this goal in the context of an overall reorganization of government. My goal expressed many times during the campaign was to reduce the 1,900 different agencies and departments down to no more than 200. I believe that's an achievable goal. The one new department that I would favor creating would be a separate Department of Education.

Q- One of our other concerns, Governor, is the involvement of teachers in educational policy development at every level, particularly at the national level. What steps would you take to ensure that appointees you made to HEW or NIE or to the Office of Education had the perception of the elementary and secondary classroom teacher?

Governor Carter. Well, I think I would be making a very serious mistake if I tried to evolve policies for our nation to pursue relating, for instance, to elementary education or preschool education or high school education or vocational education, if I didn't call upon the professionals who had devoted their lives to that pursuit to help me with it. So, I would have a heavy concentration of appointments to those administrative positions from among the teaching ranks.

Q. NEA also has a long history of commitment to civil and human rights in this country and in light of that we have very deep concerns about some pf the attempts to reduce the effect of, or in some cases eliminate entirely, parts of Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, and what we'd be concerned with is your views and what your administration would do to maintain the guarantees gained in those struggles.

Governor Carter. Those acts would never be weakened while I'm in the White House. If anything, they would both be strengthened and their provisions would be rigidly enforced. I think the best thing that ever happened to the South in my lifetime was the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the granting to black people of a chance to vote, to hold a job, to buy a house, to go to school, and to participate in public affairs on an equal basis with whites. It not only liberated our black citizens, it also liberated the white citizens from the constant millstone that had been around our neck for generations of preoccupation with the race issue. And I could not be sitting here as a possible nominee for the Democratic Party, having won a substantial majority of all the primary contests in the country, had it not been for this change and the granting to minority groups of an equal opportunity. We've still got a long way to go in employment and in redressing some of the deprivations that have been a part of the lives of minority groups in this country, and I hope that, if I'm elected President and, when I go out of office, our minority groups and those who are interested in civil rights and human rights will say that my administration measured up to the highest possible standards of commitment to the redressing of those grievances.

Q. In the last 10 years, Governor, there has been a great deal of effort on the part of the government, and certainly with the support of our organization, to overcome some of the historic errors and sins brought about by segregated society and segregated schools. As you know, there are many politicians who've used that issue and played on the emotions of people and have generated a good deal of hate and hysteria. What would your administration do, particularly around the question of busing to achieve integration, to relieve that hysteria?

Governor Carter. Well, there's only one person in this country who can speak with a clear voice or set a standard of ethics and morality or excellence or greatness or detect and expose and root out injustice or inequality or prejudice or hatred or propose and carry out bold programs, and that person is the President. In the absence of that leadership in the White House, there is no leadership and the country drifts. I remember how drastically our nation changed in 1968 when the Johnson and Kennedy Administrations ended, and the Nixon-Ford Administrations began. The Congress didn't change, it was still heavily Democratic, but our country changed, and the people who lost most were those who were poor, or black, or unemployed, or elderly, or sick, and what they lost was hope because they felt that no one spoke for their views, so the elimination of discrimination and the granting of equality of opportunity would be a deep commitment of my administration.

Q. Along the lines of human rights, NEA has worked very hard to eliminate sex discrimination and, as you know, 60 percent of our membership are women. What initiatives would your administration take, specifically, to eradicate inequality in the world of work and leadership in our institutions, particularly government and education?

Governor Carter. Right. One of the earliest things that I can do is to express, or continue to express, my complete commitment to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. I have no fear of this. We've still got four states to go. I know the Democratic Party is committed to it and, if we can ever get an awareness among the working women of our country about the need for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, that would help a great deal. Secondly, the President is the unique individual who can express to the American people a dissatisfaction with the last remaining vestige of legal or mandatory discrimination. Many of our laws encompass inadequate rights for women in the ownership of property and benefits to be derived from Social Security and treatment of the tax laws. Our women get about 60 percent of the pay for doing the same jobs as men do, their promotional opportunities are inadequate. Another thing that's important to us is to have the presently existing equal employment laws enforced. We now have seven different federal agencies responsible ostensibly for enforcement of equal opportunity provisions of the law, but we have a backlog now of about 30,000 cases which means about a 30 month delay and, before a complaint can be resolved that's filed by a woman who has felt the burden of discrimination, quite often the witnesses to the incident are gone, the testimony is old, their interest in it is lost, the women might have found a different job and no longer have a pursuit of her case as a top priority. So I think selection of key test cases that might be generic in nature would be a very good thing for me to do and also to have a nationwide commitment expressed by me as President to the enforcement of the laws that we already have on the books concerning equal employment.

Q. You indicated in your written answers support for the portability of teacher retirement funds.

Governor Carter. Yes.

Q. Governor, what kinds of problems do you foresee in trying to achieve that goal?

Governor Carter. Well, it would be hard for me to outline all the problems. I do see some need for federal legislation that would express some requirements for standardization of retirement benefits. Also, that would permit the transfer of benefits across state lines, that would recognize the high mobility of teachers in a modem day world, but exactly what legal obstacles are there, I haven't studied that question enough to enumerate all of them. I'm sure there are some, but I believe that with the purpose expressed by the teaching profession and by representatives of teachers and others around the country that whatever obstacles are there can be substantially eliminated. I have confidence we can do it, but I can't list for you all the obstacles.

Q- Governor, we're about out of time, and we've talked about educational issues and issues of concern to the teachers of NE A. One last question. What are your major aims aside from your commitment to education and major objectives as President, if elected?

Carter- I and my supporters have been very instrumental in helping to devise a Democratic Party platform, and I intend to carry out that platform. I think for the first time you'll see a campaign conducted in the fall election based on the platform commitments that have been derived from the early primary elections. We've had 30 primaries in which you could acquire committed delegates, and I've been in all 30 of them, so government reorganization, the structure of government to make it efficient, economical, purposeful, and manageable for a change; basic welfare reform to give us a simple, fair, and compassionate system; basic tax reform that would provide some equity and some fairness in the income tax structure of our country; comprehensive nationwide health program which we sadly lack; and long-range commitments to programs in education, working with educators and parents and others; and similar programs or commitments in the field of transportation or energy. These kinds of bold approaches to government are ones that I think our nation seeks, and I believe that people are ready to accept them. I think that my success in the primaries have been an indication that what I've just outlined to you is similar to what the American people want.

Q. Thank you. On behalf of the National Education Association Board of Directors and our NEA Political Action Committee and my colleagues on the Steering Committee, we thank you very much for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to submit to this interview.

Governor Carter. It's been a great pleasure for me. I look forward to working closely with you the rest of this year and hopefully the next 4 years.