FOR RELEASE: At 12:30 p. m., Tuesday, December 10, 1963 (Text of address by Governor Carl E. Sanders at the Governor's Conference on Education at the Dinkler P;l.aza Hotel, Atlanta, at 12:30 p. rn., Tuesday, December 10, 1963.) MR. BARBER, MR. MELTON, DR. MILLER, DR~ MYER, MEMBERS OF THE CO.VJ.MISSION Ai"\J"D THE SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION, DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, MY FELLOW CITIZENS, AND FRIENDS: There is an ancient hymn which we often sing at this holiday season. It begins: "We've gathered together to ask the Lord's blessing." The hymn is wise in philosophy, and true in practice. Yet, at the same time, it is an accepted fact that Almighty God helps those who help themselves. We who have met here today are gathered to seek God's blessing on Georgia, by asking ourselves wr. : Georgians can do to properly help themselves. Our beloved State, in both song and vers2, has always been known as "the heart of Dixie." But in recent years, Georgia ha.s become more tran Dixie's heart: She has become her leader. We have led the way, lighted ~he path ... in economic progress ... in social advancement .. and in cultural achievement. This, my friends, has given to our State a new .dimension of greatness. Some oft~~ most notable strides we have made have been in education, and as a result, Georgians today are better educated than ever in their history. I am personally proud of that fact. But with leadership and with greatness, there is a corresponding responsibility ... and we are not gathered today to praise the progress of the past, even though we must certainly recognize it. Rather, we have met instead to ask ourselves about the present, and, more importantly, the future ... for it is a basic truth that there is little hope for meaningful acpievement beyond our training, our preparation,. and our desire for achievement. I pose these questions for all of us: Are our educational attainments adequate? Are we satisfied where we are? Consider these carefully, thoroughly, thoughtfully. As Governor, citizen, and parent, I do not accept the educational attainments as adequate, and I am not satisfied to stand where we are. If you, the leaders of opinion and the molders of minds, are not satisfied also, then I would ask that you consider two further question~ First, what will it take, in planning, in effort, in dollars, to attain an adequate system of education? And second, if we fail to make improvements, if we do not keep pace with the present, how serious will be the consequences? Because I have a deep personal feeling about the present and future. of Georgia . because I have personally served as Chairman of the Governor's Commission to Improve Education ... I want to share with you some of the things which were learned during the past six months of study, and tell you of their implications for the future of Georgia. Those of us, 34 in all, who have served on this Commission have, ourselves, received a liberal education during our Commission study period. It has not been very long since a large proportion of the successful men and women of this Nation, and of Georgia, were referred to as "self-made" men and women, often with relatively little formal education. -2- All of us grew up hearing stories of captains of industry and merchant princes who, reputedly, could barely read or write. Some of these are still with us, as respected citizens. More and more, however, they constitute the older and ever-diminishing segment of our people. The truth is, the world has been changing, and with it, the avenues to success have changed. In the times of the self-made man, one factor which gave every man an equal chance was the fact that there was free land to be settled in the West. Whether or not he went West, as Horace Greeley suggested, did not matter. What was important was that he could. But today there are no free lands left. Yet, another avenue remains equally as open, and, more in fact, is evenJ\Promising. Today's equivalent of free land for homesteaders is a free education. Education has become our gateway to opportunity. It is no mere ornament in prosperity. But the fact remains that a free education is just as demanding, perhaps even more SQ and just as costly as the crossing of uncharted desertlands and friendless mountain ranges was to our pioneer forefathers generations ago. How well has Georgia succeeded in providing this new opportunity, in removing the economic barriers to her people through an adequate education? The story, my friends, is not a prl:'.ti:.y one. Twenty per cent of Georgia's population, one out of every five of our 4-million 100-thousand citizens, is functionally illiterate. More than half of our children drop out of school before they are scheduled to graduate. Our record of droputs is the worst, not 10th or 20th or 30th, but 50th, in the Nation. The percentage of college-age Georgians who are actually attending college is only about half the percentage for the Nation as a whole. This is not simply the result of Georgia's being a Southern State; t~1ere is only one other State in the South that has a lower college attendance rate than Georgia. -3- Now, what is the practical meaning of this? Simply that we are cheating our children. They have been cheated, through too many years of indifference and inaction, of any real chance to compete in the world in which they live. They are being condemned to lives of near-poverty and ignorance, to chronic unemployment, dependence upon charity, and public welfare doles ... to unfulfilled dreams and material want. Other Georgians will have to pay the cost of this upkeep, and it will be an investment for which there will be no return. Worst of all, this cheating is not taking place in the Cuba of Fidel Castro, or the China of a Red dictator but right here in our own State, in our own sight, among our own people, and with our own knowledge that it exists. Georgia can no longer afford ignorance or poverty. We are compelled, in conscience, to right this wrong now. We must do it with the full knowledge that tomorrow's v. .. sdom is today's choice. We must achieve it with the realization and understanding that the Georgia of 1973 will be a mirror of the Georgia of 1963, and that our State 10 years hence will reflect with harsh or favorable truth today's progress, or poverty, of thought. We must do it with a new Partnership in Progress ... a new partnership between State and Local Governments ... a new partnership between citizens and public officials ... a new partnership between educators and parents ... a new partnership between thought and action. This Commission to Improve Education has drawn a number of recommendations, 97 in all, concerning ways in which this can be accomplished. These recommendations, properly implemented, can constitute &n event which will change our history, and it will be a change for the better. They can generate hurricane winds of progress for Georgia, for education is the food of progress. -4- I recommend them to you in their entirety ... And say that now is the time to start putting them into action and effe~t. \ major concern of mine, and of this Commission's, is the efficiency with which our educational system is operated. Last week the Commission for Efficiency and Improvement in Government released its report concerning the organization and administration of the State Department of Education. That important report contained many recommendations, many of which can be implemented by departmental directive, for increasing the administrative efficiency of the Department cf Education. The Chairman of the State Board of Education, and the State Superintendent of Schools, have indicated their agreement with most of the recommendations contained in that report. I look forward to and urge their early implementation. The Commission for Efficiency and Improvement in Government, and the Commission to Improve Education, were given basically different assignments, and the two studies complerr.ent and parallel each other. In general, they did not deal with the same questions, but I thi~k it is worth noting that in almost every case in which they did touch upon common problems, the recommendations of the two commissions were in close agreement. The single exception to this concerns the manner of selecting the State Superintendent of Schools and the State Board of Education. (The recommendation of this Commission will be reported to you this afternoon.) My personal judgment on this matter is that while the method of selection of the Superintendent and Board is vitally important, we should do first things first, and that includes the other many problems which are more pressing, and more capable of early solution. Therefore, I believe that, for the present, we should concentrate on those matters which are critical, and upon which we can call all educational and non-educational forces to support, and thereafter turn to the question of the method of selection of officials when the deck has been first cleared of matters more directly affecting our children. -5- The higher priority must be given to the eaucational needs of our students. And the time to do so is now, and in the 1963 session of the General Assembly of Georgia. Let us not defer until tomorrow those things which must be done today, or our wisdom will reflect slogans rather than deeds One of the things that this Commission observed during its comprehensive study for this Master Plan for Education, and one which I commend to your special attention, is that efficiency should exist in at least two categories. One is administrative efficiency. The other is educational efficiency the effectiveness of the teaching and the learning that goes on in the classroom and the school. This, regrettably, is another area in which many Georgia children are being cheated. In this case, it is not because they have dropped out of school, but rather because the:, are being short-changed while they remain in school;short-changed through overcrowded classrooms, inadequately prepared teachers, and schools that are too small and too poor to offer a full variety of 3ducational programs. Georgia must build enough cl&ssrooms to house her children ... she must recruit and hold enough teachers to staff her schools ... she must provide incentives for teachers to continuously upgrade their qualifications ... and she must reorganize her small 8chool districts, into units which are large enough to do the job ru!d de it right. Each year, indeed, each month, that we delay doing this denies forever to some of the children of Georgia today, the w~ge-earners of Georgia tomorrow, the opportunity for adequate preparation for the future. Our State's education program needs a system of built-in selfimprovement such as the research, planning and development operations which are found in nearly every progressive business and industry. We need to reduce the time-lag that presently exists between the discovery of new and better v:ays to teach, and their general adoption throughout our school system. -6- This would appreciably increase the effectiveness of our educational venture and the efficiency of its operations. These things are desirable in any State, but because Georgia's needs are great and her resources moderate, we have more reason than most for taking the lead in educational research, planning, and innovation. we must honestly and with candid self-appraisal face the question of financial support of our education system at the local level. The time has arrived for this new Partnership in Progress to be wedded between State and local districts, a partnership in which both shoulder a fair and equitable share of the total cost. The task is so great that neither can bear the heavy burden alone. Even with both contributing fully, we would be hard~pressed to do all that we should or would like to do. (The Commission has made a number of recommendations relating to this subject which will be presented to you this afternoon. They warrant your most careful consideration.) A new financial partnership between the State and local districts can be expected to raise the level of local support for education. It is apparent, however, that . +l - cantio~ increase the level of support sufficier.tly to bring about the kind of educational re-awakening in Georgia which has been called-for by this Commission. If Georgia is to witness a major breakthrough in education, it will further require a substantial increase in State support. Within the last three years, nearly all of our neighboring States -- Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina -- havE made substantial increases in the level of their State support for ecucation. This has placed Georgia at a competitive disadvantage. As an example, we used to recruit teachers from Alabama ... but this year Alabama has increased its State appropriation for education by $40-million dollars ... and has made that State competitive with Georgia for the first time. As a result, we no longer recruit from Alabama. Rather, Alabama already has begun to recruit from us. 7. I do not need to dwell upon the financial needs of education. That is one of the major topics upon which this Commission is reporting today. They are great ... because our educational needs are great. The only points which I would like to emphasize today about finance are these. The Commission's recommendations concern the next decade, and, as the Commission itself points out, they cannot all be implemented in a single session of the General Assembly. The important matter is that"we make a beqinninq in January ... not that we try to do everything at once. The Commission also points out that the growth of our economy is proceeding rapidly, and that this will ta]