 of the United States and Governor Alexander of Tennessee. Mr. President, we have a fascinating topic and a distinguished audience with lots of people eager to say something and to hear something, and we want to begin immediately. First, we welcome you to Tennessee. We're proud that you're here. You've learned by now that you're in a first rate public school system and a first rate public school. And 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. We have before us distinguished educators from here and the most important people who I see on a regular basis, the members of the General Assembly are well represented here, especially Lieutenant Governor Wilder and Speaker McQuirter. This is a first rate school system for a lot of reasons. The school board was named the best school board in the state in its class. The community supports the school. I was up here about a month ago for a walk to help raise money for computers. We have a 10 point better schools program in Tennessee and two of the programs came right out of this school system, the basic skills program, as well as the alternative schools program for disruptive children. But the most important part of that program, indeed the heart of the better schools program, in my opinion, is the recommendation for master teacher, the idea of how do we reward outstanding performance by public school teachers. Let me see if I can show you the problem and the solution in this way. Here's the problem, Mr. President. In Tennessee, using an average salary, about $13,000 is what a new teacher makes today. 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. In fact, under our pay system, the worst could make more than the best. So that's today. That's the problem. Nothing to look forward to financially. Here's the proposed solution. We would begin with an across-the-board pay raise for all teachers over the next three years of about 20%. So new teachers would, on the average, make about $15,000. That's for a 10-month contract. Then we would have different steps more to look forward to. After three years, professional teachers would make, on the average, about 17.6%. 87% of the teachers would get $1,000 more, which would bring them up to that level. Then senior teachers, $20,000. Then there'd be various steps up to $27,000 average. The various steps would come because some teachers would have 11 and 12-month contracts so that we could keep the schools open for gifted children or children who are behind on their basics. Teachers would have to look forward to from $15,000 to $27,000, and in some school districts in Tennessee, it would be $35,000, $38,000 a year, once you add in all the degrees and the local supplements 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. A goal is to honor teachers, to reward them for outstanding performance. It may surprise, well, it won't surprise you, but it always surprises me a little to remind myself that not one state public school system pays one public school teacher one penny more 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 in this country, I think, in local school districts in the state and in the nation on a crusade for excellence, but we reward mediocrity with low pay, with lifetime contracts, with little real evaluation in many school systems and no performance pay. How do you get to a situation like that? It seems to me the major reason why we know so much about it now is because 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, 15 to 20% of the women worked outside their homes, most worked in domestic jobs, and teaching was the best job available. We got valuable teachers at bargain basement prices, which we can't do anymore and shouldn't. As an example, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville here at the College of Education, the dean says that a few years ago the best female students were entering the College of Education, and today of the 13 colleges at our principal university, the entering scores of the students in the College of Education are the lowest of the 13 colleges. The plans that were presented for merit pay before were inadequate, they were very expensive, they didn't involve enough teachers, they didn't have good evaluation procedures, and the teachers were wary of such a big change and their organizations were against it, we're very pleased that of this commission that's working on how to evaluate teachers which you'll hear from, eight of the 18 members, our members of the Tennessee Education Association, including their president and president-elect, and we appreciate that indication of cooperation. We're glad to see the American Federation of Teachers invite me out to talk about merit pay, that may be an indication of cooperation and perhaps change. We'll now move to the briefing, but if I may offer two words of caution generally, they're caution to me, and I hope to all of us, and the first is don't blame the teachers, teachers don't hire teachers, teachers don't set salaries, they don't even set the curricula in most places, blame the management is what I say, school boards, legislators, and governors, it's our fault if we perpetuate an inadequate pay system, and we've worked hard to try to make this bipartisan, the speakers who have endorsed the concept have helped greatly in that. The sponsors are bipartisan. The idea really came from the legislature's own task force and I've tried to carry it a little further, and we feel like the way to keep it from being a partisan political issue is for both sides to support it and to pass it and to make it work. It's happening all around the country, Florida, Charlotte, Houston, all working on this, I'm convinced a dozen governors will recommend it in January across the country, I'm convinced every school system in the country will try it the next five years, and after 10 years, it will be very hard to have a superior school system unless you pay based on performance in some regard. To give you an idea specifically of what we're doing, and we're gonna do it in a very fast pace in brief fashion, so you'll have time for a few questions, two members of the legislature will begin by giving the details of the master teacher idea in Tennessee. First, Steve Cobb, a Democrat member of the legislature, chairman of the Higher Education Subcommittee in our House of Representatives, Steve. Governor, would you like me to go first or Senator Elkins? Well, why don't you go ahead and then I'll introduce Buzz and let you drive the ride. No, that's fine, Mr. President, Governor, Uncle Buck, ladies and gentlemen, I've been asked to give some of the details of a 32 page bill, Mr. President, and I've got three minutes to do it and I'm not gonna make them all, so we'll just hit a few of the highlights if we can. First of all, when this bill was given to us by the governor several weeks before the last day a bill could be introduced in the General Assembly, we began to work on it. As the governor said, a bipartisan group from all parts of the state and frankly from all ideological persuasions who felt this was a good idea. First thing we did was begin talking with our teachers, though we have not had formal negotiating sessions with the Tennessee Education Association or any other association. Each of us has spent a great deal of time talking to local teachers that we knew, members of our own local education associations, and members of the state association when that was possible. We have found that the ideas and suggestions that they have given us have made this a much better bill and let me hit two or three of the things that we've put in the bill. First of all, our teachers told us that the last thing they wanted was politics in a bill like this. They don't want partisan politics, Republican or Democrat and we all shared that view. We have done everything we could to take that out by first of all limiting the governor, any governor's ability to place too many people from one party or one region on the task force or on the commission. We have two types of commissions really, a temporary one and then two sorts of permanent ones. Temporary one you see in front of you. In order to limit the governor's choices, we've made most of those members ex officio. It's an outstanding group and I think we're all very pleased with it. As soon as the first few master teachers have been chosen after the bill goes into operation, this group will dissolve automatically and then the normal statewide certification commission and the three regional commissions, we have three grand divisions in Tennessee will come into existence named by the governor but Mr. President with the concurrence of both the house and the Senate. Now I know at the federal level that's not too unusual for us, it's very unusual and it's quite, I think a compromise by the governor. We've also tried to take out local politics as much as possible. Many of our teachers have told us that this face-to-face interaction over a period of time sometimes leads to problems which are understandable and we've had political machines built in past years on local employees and teachers. The decisions on certification as opposed to the decisions on hiring and firing will be done at the state and regional level. In short, no one will have an incentive or the possibility of building a machine on this kind of a program. Secondly, our teachers told us that a program which initially provided an incentive only after eight years that is at the level of the senior teacher, not those first two steps was not much of an incentive to get a young person to go into this field when he came out of college and we felt that perhaps there was some merit to that. Our teachers told us they would rather, for example, reduce the amount of the supplement for the master teacher at the very top end of this diagram somewhat and allow more teachers who are good teachers to participate thanks to the good offices of the commissioner of education, Bob McElrath and the governor, we were able to calculate that if we did make certain reductions and savings that we would be able to fund $1,000 across the board increase for that first step. Entirely consistent with the program but that first step would get $1,000 raised as well as the later steps getting either two, three, four, five, six or $7,000. Finally, we wanted to make sure the evaluation process was done as well as possible. We didn't wanna force present teachers to get into it. We have what we call a toe in the water proposal. If they wanna try it, great. If they don't like it, they can get back out and get their present certificate. Only new teachers will be required to be in it. We've written in due process, written in as many guarantees as we can that this will be done fairly and we're hoping that the commission before us will write details of what it takes up, for example, a French teacher to become a master French teacher, a carpentry teacher to become a master shop teacher. We think it's better to do it this way than to let the legislature do it. In sum, we've tried to eliminate the problems, take teacher suggestions, and I think we've gone a long way. None of us feel this is a panacea for education. None of us feel we have the best possible draft at this time. It's a great improvement. It's taken a lot of education suggestions and we stand ready to make more. Thank you, Steve. Senator Fuzz Elkins, Mr. President, is from nearby Anderson County, he's a member of the Education Committee and chairman of our Vocational Education Advisory Committee. Fuzz. Thank you, Governor, Mr. President, the Slimers platform guests. My remarks will be a little more general in nature than Steve's, but I did want to give you some idea about where we came from and what we're about in Tennessee as a master teacher program. Two years ago, I had an opportunity to attend the Southern Regional Education Board meeting in Lexington, where the need for quality in the schools was addressed as a concern of the Southeast. That program identified the need for performance-based pay for teachers. A little later, to put it more in perspective for me, I was invited to the White House for a briefing by White House officials on several issues of the day, including the National Defense and how important it is to the leadership and freedom of our country that we have a renewed commitment to the National Defense. A little bit thereafter, I had an opportunity to attend the Education Commission of the States, and the topic there was the need for improvement in education. And there we heard from men of national prominence, such as Dr. Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Laureate, John Young, President of Hewlett-Packard, who put the need for educational improvements in a national perspective. The bottom line of their remarks that they presented to that body was simply this. The rearmament of our educational system in America is equally as important as the rearmament of our national depends. Our survival as a great and free nation depends on it. Immediately thereafter, our comprehensive task force study on education in Tennessee released their report that included the concept of master teachers and urged that a system of compensating teachers on a performance-based plan be developed. Governor Alexander and the legislative leadership working on this program has done just that. I think that Governor Alexander has correctly perceived the public mood as restless about public education. The taxpayers in our country simply will not, and I believe should not be asked to dig deeper into their pockets to pay more of their hard-earned tax dollars for more of the same. Let me hasten to add that this is not an indictment of all teachers because as a matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of teachers across our country are doing an outstanding job in the classroom every day teaching our young students. But the sad truth of the matter is that they're doing it in spite of the system and not because of the system. The lack of incentive to do a better job, the frustrating levels of low pay, and the long hours that accompany it has turned many of our best and brightest away from the classrooms and the teaching profession. To illustrate this point in Tennessee, 42% of our teachers leave the classroom before they have taught seven years. My legislative colleagues, Representative Cobb and Representative Henry recently addressed a convention of boy state where 900 of the best and brightest of our young men in the state who are selected by their colleagues meet every year in Nashville. The question was asked of those 900 how many are considering entering teaching as a career? Out of those 900 of our best and brightest, only three young men indicated that they were considering teaching as a career. Unfortunately, the same is increasingly true of the nation's young women who are finding that the same number of years spent in preparation lead to far greater rewards in other careers that are now open to women. Governor Alexander and the legislative sponsors of this better schools program want to do something about this trend. To return the field of teaching to the revered status it should be. And I believe, Mr. President, that the state known for its can-do spirit is working hard to address those problems. And we're grateful for the interest and concern that you have shown for the foundations that we are trying to lay here in Tennessee. Many years ago, Disraeli said that we must become managers of change or we will be victims of that change. I doubt that any society or any government has ever satisfied itself, that it's met all the needs of all of its people. And government is not only the servant of people, it is the basic reflection of the nature of people. And the way we use the resources that we have to meet the needs of the people, however limited those resources might be, will speak down through history far louder, I believe, than words ever could of the kind of people that we were. I'm convinced that the maintenance of our education program as a national priority will say that we were people who cared about our fellow man. I know that this is a new and novel experience across the country and especially here in Tennessee. But a 14-year-old girl told me recently when we were discussing these changes that it was very simple. She says if the mind can conceive it and the heart can believe it, then we can achieve it. That's good enough for me, Mr. President, and I think we can. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt said it best many years ago when he said that far and away the greatest prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. And it's our job to see that the teaching of our nation's young children continues to be work worth doing. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, thank you. Mr. President, if finding a way to pay teachers more for outstanding performance is the heart of what we need to do in educational reform in America, then finding a fair way to do it, both fair to the taxpayers and the teachers is the heart of solving the problem. 18 persons are working on that today. Many of them are right in front of you. The chairman and two members are up here and I'd like for them to take a few minutes. We'll begin with Bill Willis, a Nashville attorney, a prominent Democratic leader in this state who is chairman of the commission. Bill? Thank you very much, Governor. Mr. President, Governor Alexander and platform guest, it is very difficult, Mr. President, for a lawyer to say anything in four minutes and it is almost impossible for a Southern lawyer to say anything. On behalf of the commission, Mr. President, that I have the honor to chair, we thank you very much for coming and giving us additional motivation to demonstrate to the nation that intelligent, caring governor, parents, teachers and lawmakers can and will devise a fair, effective and objective criteria by which teachers and administrators in the state of Tennessee can be rewarded economically and receive the professional recognition that a company is doing an excellent job. The interim commission was appointed by the governor and funded by the legislature firmly believes that we can establish such criteria and selection procedures that will achieve this result. The governor alluded to the commission. It's composed of 12 educators, the state president, the PTA who cannot be here today but will be with you later on today in Albuquerque and other distinguished citizens of the state of Tennessee. We have divided ourselves into working committees and we have been working diligently since April and as a matter of fact, while you were en route from Washington, we were meeting upstairs in one of the classrooms this afternoon. When we have completed the criteria, we will submit these criteria to the parents and teachers of the state of Tennessee for critique and constructive suggestions. After they have been finalized, we will then select 45 teachers and 15 principals to demonstrate to legislators, teachers and parents that the process can be administered fairly and that the legislature should enact permanent legislation. The selection and criteria and the administration of that criteria are obviously the heart of the master teacher master principal program. This has triggered the most debate on this subject as it should. However, certain basic general concepts soon became apparent to the commission as it started its work. Some of the examples of some of the concepts that were readily apparent were have teachers demonstrated by training and certification that they are competent to teach and assign course. Have teachers shown that they are organized for the plan that is designed to teach effectively? Have teachers demonstrated that they're in control of the classroom? And what results have the teachers achieved in the past? Mr. President, we're working hard, we're confident we can do it, and together we can, together we will. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you, Bill. Mr. President, next I'd like to call on Jim Booth. Jim is an excellent principal in Tennessee. He's also president of the Tennessee Education Association, was a member of the legislature's task force on education, which reported in January, Jim. Thank you, Governor Alexander. Mr. President, we too welcome you, the teachers of the state, the administrators of the state, welcome you to Tennessee. We appreciate the fact that you've taken time from your busy schedule to come and be with us and talk about issues that are dear to our hearts because they truly are. I would like for you to understand, first of all, that we are not having disagreements over personalities, we're having disagreements over issues in this state. I think that education has been brought to the forefront by Governor Alexander, and we appreciate the fact that he has taken this initiative to say that education needs something to be done. Obviously, I've been asked to present the loyal opposition, I feel a little like the lone ranger over here, but I'll try to do my best in representing some of the concerns that teachers have regarding the issues with which we're confronted, because perhaps this is the most drastic change we've seen in education in many years, especially in this state, and it's something that we hope will be seriously considered before we move forward with something that could cause us more problems than it could cause us good. Let me say very candidly that we are very much concerned about education. We recognize the fact that, yes, there are problems. There are things that need to be done to improve education, that we as teachers and school principals and superintendents and board members need to be more accountable for what we're doing. We need to be more responsive to the needs of our society. We need to be more forthright in doing the kind of job that's expected of us, and we need to do our best in accomplishing those objectives. We would welcome the opportunity to participate in the development of any program which is gonna benefit public education. We would very much like to be considered in terms of any problems which may develop, which we may see, and what we've seen in the past for this type of a program, whether it be merit pay or incentive pay or master teacher, whatever you call it. We have seen problems, we've taken a historical look at these kinds of plans, and I have a few concerns that I'd like to share with you today. First of all, no program I believe that's developed need to strip away the rights and privileges teachers have earned over the years. It's taken a long time for teachers to move the status that they have presently. Those need not be stripped away as we develop new programs, and we would hope that they would not. As I indicated, merit pay is not new, differentiated staffing is not new, master teacher concepts are not new. They've been tried elsewhere in this nation. Where they've been attempted, administrators are saying that they've been dismantled for a variety of reasons. Not just teachers, but administrators also. Some of the reasons that they have been dismantled are the fact that the administration of such programs is cumbersome, ineffective, inequitable, and subjective. And that's some of the concerns we as a commission are trying to address as we work through the problems of evaluation. Many times a wedge is driven between staff and administrators and supervisors at all levels. At times there develops interference with the effective employee evaluation making it difficult to maintain trusting working relationships. If there's something that we need within the school buildings of our nation, it's a close working relationship between and among teachers and between teachers and their administrators. The atmosphere of mistrust that develops sometimes restricts the ability of teachers to share materials and supplies, instructional techniques, and these kinds of things which enhance what we do in the classrooms. The system has had a direct impact many times on instruction. And those are just a few of the points that I wanted to make, but I think that they're important. I've only got two minutes, so I've got to be very brief. One concern I have that's very important, I think, is this. The idea of paying teachers $27,000 is outstanding as far as I'm concerned. I would love to see that happen. But in the plan we've got, we have an arbitrary quota which has been set in so that only 15% of the teachers can receive the incentive that would pay them that much money. The percentage of teachers who may be master teachers in this state, I believe, far exceeds, greatly exceeds 15% of the teachers across this state. And I think that's a very important consideration. If we are to set a standard for which teachers must shoot to become master teachers, any teacher who achieves that status ought fairly to receive the salary afforded that type of attainment. Those are some of the concerns. I'd be happy to share more with you later if you have the opportunity. I know President Maguire of the NEA would like to talk with you at some point about some concerns that you and he share relative to public education. We're willing to work with anyone. We appreciate the fact that our governor has taken initiative that has become nationwide. We'll work with him. We'll work with our legislature. We'll work with other educators. We'll work with parents, community leaders, anyone. To move education forward, to do the job that's expected of us. We ask a fair chance at that. I thank you for coming, sir. Thank you, Jim. Mr. President, before we give you a chance to ask a question, we have one more person, Dean Robert Saunders of the Memphis State University College of Education is another member of the commission and I would like to call on him for a moment and then we'll turn to you if we may. Dean Saunders. Mr. President, Governor. I'd like to say that in a quarter of a century of work in trying to prepare good teachers at two different institutions in two states and struggling with the problems that we have experienced, that this program that is being proposed in Tennessee has more potential for really bringing about fundamental improvements in education at all levels than anything that I think has come on the scene in recent history, if not forever, since the invention of the American system of education. One of the many advantages it would have would be the provision for upward mobility within teachers, within the teaching rank. In some systems, there really is a very narrow gap of $2,000 over a 20 year period. In many instances and increasing career. Our briefing, a special welcome is due to Jay Summer, who's here from New York, the 1981-82 national teacher of the year into Emerald Crosby term. I'm more used to having people ask me questions. And I don't know with all of the facets of this subject and that have been brought to the fore by the commission and I must say here in the presence of two members of the commission, I am wholeheartedly in support of that commission's report. It was a bipartisan commission and intended to be such and the two here will attest that they didn't have any telephone calls or messages from the president urging them to find out this or that. I stayed completely hands off and was, and as I say, I think that they've come in with a masterful report. I was struck by a number of things in their report. One of them centered on this very thing, the governor here of course was ahead of the commission's report, hadn't waited for that with his idea of better and fairer compensation for teachers and certainly I think the chart up there illustrates the importance of that and I'm glad that we're all of us here on that side in that subject. There is one thing about education. I think there have been elements in our country over recent years that have thought of education and that it should become more and more national, a nationalized school system if you will. I am unalterably opposed. I think that in the great diversity of this country, we created the greatest public school system the world has ever seen and we created it at a local level where there could be the intimate and close contact with education on the part of the parents of the children getting that education. I think we should continue when that basically is where it lies. I think with the advent of the federal government in some funding for education, and most people are totally unaware of how little the federal government participates in that, about 8% at all levels of education is the government's share. I think, however, that in recent years the federal government has sought to have far more control than 8% of the money would justify. And there's been a kind of image created of education in a vertical line, local, state, and up here the federal government. Where they really these branches of government belong, in my view, is horizontal. And that is local, state, and the federal government and divided as to what are the proper, the legitimate functions with regard to education of each level of government. And then assess where the cost should be to each level based on what its particular interest is and what is necessary to guarantee that interest. I'm making a speech instead of asking a question. I'm filibustering here because I wanted to get down in the questioning to something that hasn't been mentioned here. Now that we're all agreed in this one element, I've been disturbed and I would like to have, and I won't pick any one of you here, I'm not well acquainted enough to do that, but anyone to respond to this, I think there's something in what has happened in education in recent years that we're all at fault. By that I mean parents in the school system, in our whole social structure. Maybe it came out of the Great Depression and the Great War that followed. That maybe generations like my own had a feeling that we should do better by our children, but what we meant by doing better was that they shouldn't have it as hard as we had it. And maybe we made it too easy. I question the abandonment of compulsory courses I challenge in my mind that the average person entering high school, for example, is not qualified to determine what courses they would choose to take. They're not going to get the exposure they should get to all the other choices that are out there. I can recall a science class and he didn't appeal to me at all, but I was forced to take it. And at the end of the year, it hadn't appealed to me at all. But I guess I learned a little something in exercising my mind, having to do it because I had to do it. If I wanted to play on the football team and if I wanted to get a diploma someday. But I also saw others that didn't have any more knowledge other than I did suddenly find themselves in what you could see with where they wanted to be. And this was true in other subjects. And this is part of what I think education should do. And I just wonder if someone would like to speak to this subject of, I know that just since the commission report came out, a number of governors here in the country, a number of school districts, a number of cities, communities, amazing number, have suddenly jumped at the commission's report and are going forward implementing and the main thing they're implementing is a return to the idea of three or even four years of compulsory English, X number of years of compulsory math and science. These things that once used to be taken for granted in school. And would someone like to comment on this? Maybe Jay Summer would. Jay would. I think it's long overdue that we should go back to a curriculum. I as an immigrant to America was very surprised that I had to do very little to get a high school diploma. It was as easy as apple pie. And I think that the results are showing now unfortunately and Mr. President, you are absolutely right. We have to go back and believe that our students cannot make a choice in terms of what they are studying. And indeed we ought to tell them what we think is important because we have the experience and we shouldn't underestimate their ability. They can do a lot better than they have been doing in the recent years. Jay, I can't resist commenting. As governor, every year I used to invite the exchange students from the other countries in California to come to the Capitol and meet with them. And I just have to tell you that every year I would ask one question of those foreign students. How does our schooling here compare with the schooling in your own land? Is it harder? Is it easier? And every year the answer was exactly the same. They'd look out of the corners of their eyes at each other and then they'd begin to smile and then they'd begin to giggle and pretty soon they were all laughing out loud. And the answer was we're just too soft and easy compared to what they had to do in their own lands. Emerald. Emerald. Responding to that, and this may take a little bit longer for the answer because I like to relate something in terms of your last comment. And that is in regards to the curriculum and having a basic core curriculum. And I know even when we as the commission of members were looking at it, we also felt that one year of math at the ninth grade was not enough math to get a youngster through for the rest of his life. And one year of science, and I was amazed to find that there were many districts in this country that did not even require one year of science even though we talked about three. And when we start talking about our environment, when we start talking about the sciences as needed, our youngsters are just not prepared to move on. I looked at something else. We do have a lot of youngsters who are coming in the country, about them from Southeast Asia. And I was surprised just this spring to find out how many of these youngsters came into this country speaking no English at all, but they were so glad to have the opportunity to go to school that within four years they are now Val Victorians of their classes. And I think New York was one example of the seven top prizes in science. Six of them were won by students who had only been in this country about four years. We've just taken it so easy as American and yet we have it there that we're not even preparing ourselves to move into the 21st century. A couple more questions, friends. The kind of thing I think we ought to do along the line of what you said earlier. I daresay you probably ask that question each year in English and they were laughing because it was so easy here. I would say that if we took an average group of students from United States, took them to Germany and had Helmut Kohl ask them that question in German, they'd be laughing too, but it'd be out of embarrassment because they couldn't understand the question. I think that sort of thing we have to do. If we're gonna live in a world in which most people do not speak English or speak it only for their own purposes, we need to learn their language and no one is going to volunteer, very few, should I say, are going to voluntarily study language that first year, it's too hard, but you get beyond that. You, this is absolutely true and once before I've mentioned this and didn't mention it this time. It struck me every time that every student, exchange student knew our language and I had to say I wonder if their American counterparts are talking through an interpreter in the countries where they're located and I, incidentally, I have called on the phone and congratulated some of those Asian students that have made the press by virtue of their becoming valedictorians of their class and you had a very warm feeling after talking to them on the phone and their determination and incidentally, their appreciation for this country of ours and what it has meant to them. Mr. President, let me, we're about out of time. I have the unpleasant job of regulating that time. I wanted to ask Lieutenant Governor Wilder, who played a major role in the appointment of our legislature's comprehensive task force on education which reported in January in which we're very proud to anticipate a number of the concerns of the National Commission if he had anything to do. It's half of all that we do in state government. It's been our focal point of attention for years and yet that attention has been sharpened recently by Governor Alexander and by the comprehensive task force on education and it was encouraging to us when your commission on excellence came forward with the same kind of recommendations that we have. I have a personal commitment to coming out of the business world, I certainly am committed to merit, merit and production. I think that merit should be in the field of education and I think we ought to have evaluation and review on a continuing basis. The legislature now has a commission that is looking at these issues and we are trying to determine for sure that we will get implementation and continuity in implementation. I believe with certification should be qualification and we in the legislature have the responsibility to fund in a new program and we must fund it when we put it on and so those are the philosophical concepts that I stand for. Thank you Governor Wilder. I want to hear from Mr. Speaker McQuarter where Jay Summer had his hand up and it's hard not to recognize the teacher of the year in the whole country when he has it. Is that Mr. Speaker, is that on? Well after the war was over, I didn't want to return to my homeland, Czechoslovakia because it was a graveyard and indeed it was and I was thinking to what country shall I go to find a new home and someone said America would be a good place because in America you find gold on the streets and I figured that's marvelous. I definitely want to go to America but it's harder to come to America than one believes and I did by some great fortune arrive to America and I was looking on the streets for the gold and I found it in public school 149 in Brooklyn and in Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn college at Brooklyn. That's where the proverbial gold was and you ladies and gentlemen who are so instrumental to provide American children with this great gift of education please be very generous, help the governor to bring about a better educational system because America has to be better educated than it is. The burdens of the world are on our shoulders. We have to make peace in the Middle East. We have to make peace in Europe. We have to make sure that tyranny doesn't rise to the Hitler proportions. So please most importantly, whatever details you are going to have to work out I'm sure you'll find a way but be sure that you are very generous with American children. Mr. Speaker McQuarter. Thank you Governor and Mr. President. I think it'd be appropriate for me to say that we Tennesseans are very proud of our public school system and my seatmate making the references I had to recall having the opportunity last year to spend a month in the Soviet Union visiting many republics far down in Asia. And I want to say to those here as well as the president and the governor and my colleagues that we should not only be proud of our system, we should be thankful and emphasize the public education system after reviewing the Soviet system that I had an opportunity to see being practiced. We have many problems. I think I can speak for the members of the House and hopefully the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor. We members of the General Assembly are dedicated to improving education in Tennessee. I personally am committed to a merit pay concept because that's the American system. We're glad you're here, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Speaker, Mr. President. Well, here in the auditorium of Farragut High School, Washington may seem like a far distant bureaucracy but let me reassure you that Washington is not too far away for some of us to hear the voices of the people of Tennessee. Hear the talents and the problems of every child are very real to you and that is obvious. And you're not waiting for handouts or bailouts or directives from Washington. You've made it obvious and that's why I'm here that you're taking action to educate every child so that he or she can compete with anyone anywhere else in the world. Your governor, many of your state legislators, the parents, the teachers are calling national attention to the sorry state of America's educational system, a system that was once the finest in all the world. So I've come here to listen and to learn. Farragut High School and the Knox County School system are shining examples of public education at its best. And it's here that the idea for the basic skills, first section of Governor Alexander's Better Schools program started. Last year your school board was named the Tennessee School Board of the Year. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Governor Wilder and Speaker McWhorter, the legislature has established an education task force whose report anticipated many of the findings of the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Your state slogan is America at its best and that certainly holds true for Tennessee's schoolrooms. What better place for a president to take a few lessons for the country on quality education? Tomorrow I will be addressing the National Convention of the Parent Teachers Association and I will go better armed than when I came here. I'm particularly intrigued by the merit pay for teachers ID that you've been discussing here and Governor Alexander's proposal for a master teacher program. If we want to achieve excellence, we must reward it and it is the American way. It's a simple American philosophy that dominates nearly every other profession so why not this one? There are plenty of outstanding teachers in Tennessee and in every other state. What we must do is find them, promote them, hold them up as role models, not just for other teachers but for our children. I've learned a lot listening to your discussions here today and I know there are disagreements but it's important for me to hear those as well. I'll use what I've heard today as we frame our national agenda for excellence in education. There are many important jobs in American life but I can't think of any that's more important than teaching our children. William Ellery Channing, an early American clergyman once said that it's a greater work to educate a child than to rule a state. What he said was right then as America said our first priorities and it is still true today as we return to them. With the help and guidance of the people of Tennessee, all those millions of other Americans who agree with you, we will restore America's ability to educate all her children to the highest standards that we know. And I thank you for a very informative session and for the teachers who were present. I know sometimes it must get very hard and the cartoons and the jokes every June portray you as leaping and running across the school yard yelling you're free. But on the other hand, I think you all have something of what one teacher in my life had. There came a moment between us in which he said to me it isn't very important to me what you think of me now. He said it is important what you may think of me 15 years from now. And I had the experience 15 years later, the rewarding experience of being able to face him and tell him what I thought of him 15 years later. And it was far different than it would have been in that angry moment 15 years earlier. Thank you all very much for letting me be here. Quick things, we would like to ask everyone who is in the front row, the legislators, the interim commission members and the people here to wait, I've been asked to ask why the president leaves. Mr. Crosby and Mr. Summer will be able to stay for a few minutes. And I know you'll want to hear them during that time. Secondly, Mr. President, thank you on behalf of all of us, we like having attention called to things we're doing right. And we hope we're smart enough to figure things out and even maybe to be first in the country. Thank you very much.