 Mike is still here. Tim, take that mic off. Well, because you criticized my manager. The city school system, and they include seven, I believe, of the statewide Tennessee teachers of the year. So they know their stuff. And they've heard, maybe I'll sit down now and view and let you begin the discussion with them. And at any point, I mean, I will. Ladies and gentlemen, we're honored to have you here to say you're doing a good job in public education. That's quite a... I want you to know that I admire the governor very much in position that he's taken and even out in front of the commission's report. So why don't we just... We have a rule in the cabinet room back there when we have working lunches sometimes that we can talk with our mouth full. And I know that... I don't know just exactly how to start a subject other than that you must, at some time or other, maybe many times, or set years of it. I had a chance to ask Tim. Now is your chance to go again. I'm an uncle too. Mr. President, I did bring the question with me. I'm nervous. I loaded things. When I first heard the term master teacher, my thoughts turned back to the year 1917 when Smith used that, when vocational agriculture first came down. Since that time, teachers of vocational agriculture have been on a 12-month construction basis. My question on the master teacher program contains two parts. Mr. Governor, if you want to comment on this, I would appreciate it. With the possible enactment of the master teacher program, how would my 12-month program be effective? And if I became a man... Where you're from and it's always interesting to me to know how long you've fought On the vocational agriculture teacher, Noel Kassel of Knox County says you have about six years. Most teachers have 10-month contracts in one of the parts of our program that have been incentive to pay and one to $7,000 increases that other teachers would be... We've got several months and plenty of time to figure that out. Has that come up soon in your discussions with the evaluation committee? Not affect the existing contracts. I think it's an adverse where that gentleman once has become a master teacher despite the fact that he had a reading proposal. Well, that's right, Jay. That's a better answer than I gave. This is why he was the teacher of the year. Do you think it would be possible to provide clerical assistance to help relieve teachers of some details so that he or she can be active if there's a lot of paperwork that we can use to do that? Now, the whole thing of ratio and classes, of course, and we all know the importance of that. But I just wonder how uniform it is across the country because right now, and over the last several years, there are 200,000 more teachers in the country for 5 million fewer pupils. We have gone through the baby boom. Maybe this is not evenly distributed. There may be some individual places where they have that. I don't know enough about teaching that profession to envision all of the things. But tell me, do teachers still have to take turns at monitoring in the halls and so forth? Right. I want to tell you about the thing we did in California that actually was aimed at welfare reform. When I was governor, we had what was probably the most comprehensive reform of welfare. It's ever been attempted. And it was tremendously successful, and it didn't throw any hungry people out into the snow at all. As a matter of fact, when it was completed, we were able to increase the grants to the truly needed by 43 percent. The thing is, in welfare, no one in this country knows how many people are actually on welfare. They only know how many checks they're sending out. And you'd be surprised how many people when our reform started just disappeared. In other words, they were paper people. They were collecting it more than once. But one of the things we did, an experiment, and the federal government at the time wouldn't let us do it for the whole state. So they let us do it for 35 counties. But they wouldn't let us do it for a big county like Los Angeles. We notified the people in welfare who were able about it, and avoiding, of course, say, a mother with small children at home. But we had school boards. We had county governments. We had local governments. Every level of government submit to us things that, as we put it, we said what you would be doing if you had the manpower and the money, tell us what they are. And then we threw out anything. Those were boondogs. And what we said was, we have the manpower and the money. And in these 35 counties we were allowed to make able-bodied welfare recipients work at community tasks of these kind that we had approved in return for their welfare grant. And we only made them work 20 hours a week, not 40. And at the same time, we then assigned, what we call job agents, people from our state Labor Department, would give them a list of these as clients and say, now, you have an opportunity to see what they are doing, where they are working and to see how quickly you can get them into private enterprise jobs. And in the midst of the 1970-1974 recession, 76,000 people into private enterprise jobs and permanently no longer dependent on welfare. But many of those jobs were the same kind. Able-bodied people that certainly could go out at a recess and be there in the playground, that could monitor in the corridors, could do things of this kind, and all those kinds of jobs that you are talking about. Now, maybe there are some you are talking about that are too technical. In East Los Angeles where we have the great Latin Spanish speaking section of the city and we had a terrible problem of students being shoved into classes for the retarded, when their only problem is speaking Spanish at home. They would lose out on something in the classroom only because of the language difficulty. And I had talked to mothers in that area who were complaining about it. And I said to the mothers well, why don't you volunteer that you could be like a teacher's aide and in a classroom where there are a number of children of that kind and you could be the one speaking Spanish to be able to find out from the child what the difficulty is. Is it language or is it lack of intelligence? And the mothers at that time told me that under the regulations in California they wouldn't be allowed. They couldn't be in the classroom unless they were certified teachers. I never did, never was able to get anything done about that. But I think that there are ways that this should be done. And yes, this should be a part of the award of a teacher that if their work is being cluttered up with something that will be done in the classroom, I hope. I'd like to see that done too. I really answer every question. Our language classes are so small that we can't afford them. You see it can work the other way around where if you only have to come in and say, oh everyone is absent, let's do nothing today that kind of thing so that you want to have a sizable class, it doesn't hurt but I of course I'm not talking about 30 and 35 so that generally speaking our classes tend to be small these days. But if I may Governor Alexander say something else, I am just show how important education is and I hope that you will make your Governor as well a prophet in his own land because what he is undertaking is monumental to America. We just can't have uneducated Americans when so much of the world's burdens are on our shoulders. We need someone who knows how to handle this and I hope that I was not out of line in saying what I said. I'm just very moved by you being here today and the President and the Governor. May I say that maybe part of my being here is because I've lived with a sense of guilt for so many years maybe I didn't do as well as I should in school. He teaches 10 languages I asked him a little while ago my great curiosity is does he think in those languages to speak or automatically translate how many of us would. Now he thinks in those languages to hard for me to not bring him. But lean. I'm excited about the Master Teacher being for as a teacher. I know my first thought is by your peers that you great students ought to be able to grade each other but maybe you'd like to answer that more specifically. That's a good question and I'm hoping that as teachers we don't suddenly lose the perspective of our job every day because we make probably five or six thousand decisions every day that affect the lives of youngsters probably for the rest of their lives and for generations to come. That's the role that we've been in and even with youngsters and I'm sure that if I went right through this school and I'd ask the youngsters name me the best teachers in the school I'd be willing to bet my whole paycheck for a year they would be able to pick out the best teacher in the school. They could also pick out the second best teacher and they could also pick out the worst teacher and I'm judging that your judgment is far better than theirs. We know that I used basketball in schools quite a bit. I'm sure that most of the country knows how good Dr. J is and they know that he's better than Crosby if you want to make a comparison. I think that by and large we would have to look at a system in which your peers are involved not totally. I think the principal has been a teacher the supervisor has been a teacher who would be involved in it. So it would be a committee of people who are also knowledgeable. They're knowledgeable in terms of subject content, they're knowledgeable in terms of behavior and professional attitude and this may be a little bit off. I'm not adverse to even having students involved in the process but I think people judge people and that's the reason why we're considered one of the highest species is because we have the brain and we're capable of altering our own environment but we're also capable of training each other. In the higher economics... Well but not if if I could interrupt that one and then not if you were the comment about this teacher and why they were ready to storm the grammar if he left. All the terms were so wonderful and exciting and even when you saw these kids you said how could anyone look at really this teacher because I'm a little sensitive about retirement. I just thought even in terms of tests and I think this is something we have to look at and this may be the greatest fear that many teachers have. We still will have to look at where we pick the youngsters up and where we turn them aloof. When we look even part of the commission we looked at schools and if you don't mind if I use a couple of names we looked at Harvard which is one of the top... consider one of the top schools in the country but they accept only the top kids in the country and we looked at another which was Boston which accepted youngsters of much lower level but Boston did far more for the students that it took in so that you could see the growth pattern and then Harvard and I think that is something we have to look at in this process if you get a James who came in reading at fourth level fourth grade level and in eight or nine years you got a mastering ten languages for the teacher of the year you probably got much more for James than you got a person reading at the 13th grade and he only made one month progress with you so somehow or another bring this into focus we can't throw it out but we must look at where you started with the youngster and where you turned the balloons because if you start with them at the top and you made no progress with them I'd be one of the first one to say you're an ineffective and an incompetent teacher it would take us several years to go through the evaluations to get there and so it would be a while before anyone met the qualifications and they wouldn't get the time but there might not be a job for them the other answer to that is the entire school system maybe you don't need you don't need everybody to do this it just seems to me that teaching is one of the few things in the United States that it is a profession where someone would have it laid out that you could look at and see that that's the scale and that's all there is for you and your entire putting up to get the right kind of people that you won't want as teachers that's the reason why industry can raid the schools and take the teachers out of them one of the things incidentally that we're trying and it's out of the commission's reporting you'd be surprised how successful it is already just having heard of it are having groups or businesses to stop schools and be able not only to help financially they're doing this it's sweeping the country but to bring the outside to the school that you can call on people who can come in and tell young people what a certain industry is like or what the job market out here what the opportunities are and I think this is going to be an important part that can meet some of these these problems I know I should stick with the facts earlier we were talking about we were talking about I called a young man in Chicago he was on television I'm sure you all saw him that was a basketball star great man first he couldn't read or write and I know his story and he's a fine young man just talking to him I understood that with a real ambition and he wanted an education but he was 6 feet 5 and junior high so you know what happened he was a basketball player well they got him out of junior high without his ever learning to read or write they put him through 4 years of high school I mean 2 years of the teaching throughout his 4 years for basketball taking these set up courses and so forth with this knowledge and I thought what a terrible demonstration of a profession an institution of education from down there at that great a hundred that any young man or woman could be exploited in this way and it's the same as the mother who said to me one day when I was kind of touring something I know already neighbor was in California without the knowledge of the press because I wanted to find out facts and this woman said she said don't talk to me about some of these things she said keep our children in the class they're in until they know what they're supposed to know in that class before you move them on don't move them just because they come to the end of the year and she said I have a son who's a high school graduate and can't read his diploma and this is one of the reasons for the commission I have the unpleasant very unpleasant don't do it just yet because I just want to tell a short story I was saving this for our guests down here at the end when I was going to high school languages weren't compulsory I'd take two years of foreign language so I wound up with two years of French but the tragedy was that in west in the early days you never dreamed you were ever going to use it so it was just a compulsory thing you had to learn and I've often thought since if only one could have ever told me it would be in a foreign country to be able to meet them at least part way on their terms well my first trip to France was in connection with making a movie and there were three of us an executive of the studio and his wife and myself coming to a little town where we were to have lunch by this time I'd found out that this English couple had never crossed the channel before didn't know one word of French so I'm trying to remember back the words and as I begin to remember some of them I pad my car a little bit I get kind of intrigued with the whole idea so we pull up by the gendarme in this little town I want to tell him I'm very hungry and where is the best café so by this time I was able to say as I rolled down the window pardon me, j'ai grand fan I'm very hungry, where is the best café any told me my friend who was driving says what did he say I said I haven't the slightest it couldn't be, who's the answer but I just I haven't 70 days but anyway I wish this could go on for a lot longer but I know we have to do another pad here so hard this is what I think you're in this profession because of that because what you make sure that you turn them out wants to help you just up on the front burner yesterday after the hot sun deep in these days, my little boy said would you give the president the Simon Cheever thank you while he's doing that, let me say to you Mr. President, thank you for taking the time I know each person here would like to spend two hours with you and have a lot to say to you and we know that can't happen but to have a chance to spend a few minutes is a very special part of their lives and I know I know it's a good part of your life to thank you very much alright thank you thank you what are you doing over 15 minutes here thank you what did you do what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing what are you doingrar yes why don't you down to back to Thank you for your question, John. Can we like the idea that the President of the United States would come to Tennessee and say that you folks are doing something right and we want to learn more about it for the rest of the country. The school board was named the best school board in the state in its class. The community supports the school. I was at the alternative schools program for disruptive children. But the most important part of that... Here's what the best teacher makes after 20 years. About $18,000. Here's what they have to look forward to on the average. Here's what the worst teacher makes after 20 years. The same thing. $10,000. That's for a 10-month contract. Then we would have different steps. More than what we're looking forward to after three years, professional teachers and the other opportunities that teachers would have. So there's the problem. 13 to 18. There's the solution. 15 to 28 on the average. A big jump. That is 1986-87. Our goal for doing a good job teaching. They can make a little more money for going into administration, for going back to school, but not for doing a good job at what they were hired to do. And we're embarked on this con cause of the change in the status of women. My mother is here. She taught for many years when she and the other excellent teachers who I remember taught. I was telling us how this was presented on stage. And I thought it was most interesting. He said it's symbolic of the prophecy that he's going to make. Okay? So you have this child crowned with a tree in his hand or a lode, and take no care who chafes, who frets, or where conspires are. Macbeth, Macduff, and of course this again is hired murderers, and these hired murderers get to Lady Macduff and her son. No, at the very beginning. Okay? Do you, do you vision? Do you think she wants to just be queen then? Okay. I inform her as soon as he had met the witches. He was very careful to inform her about what the witches had told him. Okay. Well, you won't find a stopping place with me. How are you, Governor? Hello. Nice to see you. I'm Shirley Minot, and this is a class of seniors at Farragut High School, and we'd like to welcome you to our class. Some of these are seniors of the class of 83, and some of them are most of them, in fact, are seniors from the class of 84. So they're trying to get ahead with their curriculum. We're reading Macbeth, which I'm sure you're familiar with, and we've been talking about the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and talking about how that relationship has deteriorated over time, and we've been talking about the death of Lady Macbeth and how she finally lost her mind. The students, by Friday of this week, have some memory work that they can say to me for extra credit, and I used to require this, but it don't require it anymore because it's too strenuous for them, but most of them choose to get extra credit points for this. You will. Will you not get some extra credit points? Okay. So they have some lines that they can say to me, and we would be very pleased if we could get you to read some of these lines to us. I can find a place for my favorite passage. I don't know about theirs, but I wonder if I could get you to do that. Well, I was tipped off as to that you were going to ask me that and what your favorite passage was. You even know my favorite passage. And so I just have it on a piece of paper here in my pocket. Well, that's very good because I just happen to have it marked in my book with a note card too, so I could be sure to find the place. We really would be pleased if you would. I don't know whether I'm trying out for a parter or not. You're not dead. Well, yes, Macbeth, and I studied Shakespeare in high school. It was required, but it was well worthwhile. And as a matter of fact, I once played Shakespeare, but that was in college. We did Taming of the Shrew, but did it in modern costume. And it was very successful. But this is Macbeth's lines when the word has been brought to him of the death of Lady Macbeth. And as you know, how the forces of evil had seized him because of his ambition and then to the point that he was almost without feeling. And he said, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I hope that none of you ever get that pessimistic or that cynical about life. I think that humankind is very important and their lives are not as futile as he would have us believe, but he'd done it unto himself. I'm not going to go on talking here because I know we've only got a few minutes on the schedule that they have for us, but I was also told that you might have some questions. And I always feel that you must have some time or other said to yourselves, if I could only ask him, I will go ahead and let's spend our time doing that if we can. Do you have some? Yes. Mr. President, I'd like to know what type of advice do you have to offer for anyone who is having trouble getting through school? Advice, trouble in getting through school? Did you say get it? Trouble? What advice would you have to offer for anyone who is having trouble getting through school? Well, yes, I would because it is so important and sometimes those troubles can come and go and if you mean just troubles scholastically then I'd seek help. I'd go to teachers and let them know how much you really want to make it and that it isn't a case of being careless or not trying but that you want to make it and I think you'd be surprised how much help you get. Mr. President, our age was the presidency a goal or did it just come about later in your life? That's a very funny thing. It wasn't a goal in any way. As a matter of fact, it's funny what life does to you. Not too many years ago I would have been willing to bet the house and farm and everything that there was no way that I would ever aspire to public office. I was very happy in the career that I had in Hollywood and thought that I've always believed that you pay your way so taking advantage of the fact that I was a performer and thus recognized and so forth I would campaign for people, candidates that I believed in help fundraisers and so forth for causes that I believed in and thought there I was paying my way I was doing what I should to return a little something for how good life had been to me and it really came about almost by accident. I made a speech that was carried on nationwide television on behalf of the Goldwater candidacy in 1964 and it attracted quite a bit of attention and two years later the election for governor in California the party had been torn to pieces by that 64 campaign it was in a shambles and they kept after me to run and I at first just literally threw them out of the house and said go away don't bother me and they kept on to the point that I one night Nancy and I we found we couldn't sleep we were saying well because they kept putting it on the basis that I was offered the only chance to win and to bring the party back together finally we were saying to each other well could we live with ourselves if they're right and we're wrong and finally gave in and you know I think the truth is that I gave in really thinking that it wouldn't go any farther than the election and then I'd be free again I was halfway through the election when I said wait a minute if I win I've got a four-year contract How do you compare the education of today with the education when you went to school Well now I've just been through a couple of panels a meeting with teachers from all over Tennessee and I've been in a panel that was just held here in your building and on the governor's program here for merit pay for teachers so it's you'll have to realize that I am talking about education somewhere else than here but there has been a decline in the quality of education but I hasten to say I understand and one of the reasons I'm here is I know that here in this particular school in much of Tennessee you have stayed ahead of the rest of the country you have not suffered that decline that has been so apparent particularly in some of our large city schools but the difference that I have seen is that I think frankly and it's all our fault by ours I mean parents the rest of us that went along before you I think we've tried to make it too easy for you when I was going to school for example English was required for four years and mathematics was required for three years in high school science was required for at least two years you had required courses language was required I took Latin and then two years of French is required and I think that we've dropped a lot of the required courses and very frankly I think that you need someone requiring because left to your choice now you haven't had the experience to know that you might find an interest in a different direction like me finding out this job that I just answered about instead of the one that I had and I think that this commission that we've had on excellence in education that has recommended a return to more required courses and so forth is going to be a big help Mr. President I was just wondering with all the problems our country has with unemployment when I graduate from college how hard is it going to be for me to find a job when you graduate from college well I think all the signs of recovery are very much with us and I think we'll have recovery long before then but this is what's also important in your education now I think we're in a period we've been in these periods before but in a period of change where some of the things that were legitimate jobs in the past are no longer going to exist there's going to be a whole new era in high technology and so forth and you should be prepared and ready for those jobs but I am quite sure that recovery is going to come long before then and there will be employment opportunities as a matter of fact you'd be surprised if you take a metropolitan big city newspaper the Sunday edition where they run all the classified ads even today with 10 million unemployed so we're 10% unemployed even today you will find that those Sunday editions the Washington paper, the New York papers Pittsburgh, Los Angeles you will find those papers will carry as many as 50 and 60 pages of help wanted ads but when you read them you realize that these are employers advertising for people and the people that are presently unemployed do not have the skills and the training for those jobs this is why what we're doing at the federal level one of our programs is aimed at retraining for people who are unemployed in these new lines of work so there will be jobs for you oh dear like over the past 20 years the Supreme Court has made several decisions concerning separation of charging state and I wonder how you feel about the direction that we appear to be heading in this matter well I happen to differ with the decision that took prayer out of schools I don't think the Constitution says anything about it says right quite to the contrary that Congress shall make no laws pertaining to religion either establishing it or preventing the practice thereof and we are still a nation under God it says so on our coins God we trust it's over the very hall of the Supreme Court and I have been very interested and have been trying to promote and am still trying to promote its constitutional change a constitutional amendment that will restore the right of prayer now that would be non-sectarian prayer so that no one church is favored over another and to those who don't believe they would it would be voluntary to participate but I don't think that the Constitution ever meant to it's meant to separate church and state so that we couldn't have an enforced state religion I don't think it was ever meant to separate our government or our people and from religion could I take just with three more hands up there I know our fellows think is desperate but it's four hands really you okay Mr. President do you think that a woman could handle being president as far as her relations with the foreign diplomats considering most of them are male I think that a woman could handle being president I have just come from a summit conference in which one of the star performers was Margaret Thatcher the prime minister of England and of course you could you know Margaret Thatcher as you've heard that name great comedian and philosopher years ago and not only appeared in the stage but had a column in most of the newspapers in which he gave his little philosophical thoughts he once said many years ago that women were going to keep on trying to be more and more like men until pretty soon they wouldn't know any more than the men do no certainly I think that I think you will all live to see the day when a woman will be president of the United States why not a whole teacher says I have to quote great pleasure and I wish that I could have made the answers shorter so that I could have taken all the rest of the questions there but stay with it and what you're doing here may sometimes seem as if it isn't very important but and you wonder why but there's a reason for all that you look back and I just told in there in the panel a little experience of my own I once sat in the principal's office at about your stage of life and the principal for very good reasons said to me I don't care what you think of me now he said I am more concerned with what you think of me 15 years from now and 15 years later I had the satisfaction and the real rewarding experience of facing him again and telling him I understood now 15 years later what it was he was trying to do and thanking him for what he was trying to do so stay with it don't give up on behalf of the 23 hundred students I'll be right there thank you very much thank you all thank you