Shortly after Wilson Riles' first election, he managed to convince then-Governor Ronald Reagan that California public schools should have a legislative office in Washington, D.C. "to watch over the $350 million we get from the Feds annually". The California Office in Washington was the first one established by a State Department of Education. Eventually, 16 other states followed Wilson's lead.
We had our work cut out for us, because there existed proposals to cut federal education funds, - in some cases to eliminate programs entirely. Joining with other states and national education organizations, we were able to fight successfully to retain sorely-needed education dollars, and to increase California's allocations quite substantially.
One thing I always enjoyed about working for Wilson was his laid-back management style. When I first set up the office, I began sending him a weekly report explaining what had happened in that week, and the problems I could foresee ahead. Inevitably, this took time away from our major responsibilities, but I thought it was needed. After perhaps a couple of months, Wilson called one day and suggested that I stop doing the reports. "Don, if you've done a good job, at the end of the year I'll know that, and if you haven't, I'll know that, too". For the rest of the Riles' years there were no reports, but there were substantial benefits for the California schools. By the end of Wilson's second term, the State was receiving more than a billion dollars a year in federal education funds.
Our work was not by any means confined to appropriation matters. As federal programs were proposed and rewritten, there were a great many cases in which we urged and obtained amendments which made the federal programs fit in as well as might be possible with California's programs and needs. At one point, when the extension of Chapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was under consideration, we succeeded in inserting some 32 amendments.
Wilson was a strong partner in this effort, coming to Washington at critical times to meet with members of California's Congressional delegation. Over the years he had built strong personal relationships with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, and they were invariably glad to see him and to work with him on education matters.
It was a fact of life that many of the Republican Congresspersons found it difficult to vote with us on education appropriations, and on various education proposals, but Wilson's "non-adversarial approach" was very helpful in leading them to think in terms of children rather than politics.
Within the limits of the federal programs, California representatives share a deep interest in getting the best provisions they can for the state's schools. One of our functions, therefore, was to keep them informed of the effects of pending legislation on the schools. Copies of bills were rushed to California by airline same-day service, and specialists in the State Department of Education and local school districts gave us immediate analyses and suggestions, which we summarized in a matter of hours for the California members and their staffs.
I should add that California local school administrators and top staff members also were most influential in meeting and talking with the members of Congress.
When big bucks are involved, friends sometimes end up on opposite sides of an issue. This happened during Wilson's third term when a group of influential Southern states, and some of the smaller states, proposed a Senate amendment to the giant Chapter 1 program, which would have drastically changed its annual allocation formula to take away many millions of dollars from California and give the money to other states. Wilson led the effort in which, working with other affected states, we were able to defeat this proposal.
In administering the federal programs, state departments of education have intricate and involved relationships with appropriate units in the U. S. Department of Education. While we did not presume to insert our Washington office in between those parties, we did work with Department's staff in solving problems where we could. On important issues, Wilson came to Washington in order to meet with the Secretary of Education and his colleagues.
Wilson had a certain advantage in some of those quarters because he had taken early personal leadership in the successful 1978-79 effort to create the Cabinet-level Department of Education.
At one point during an education conference, I happened to be on the periphery of a discussion between Wilson and some other leading African-American educators. I well remember his final remark: "If it's going to be good for the children, you can count on my support; but if it's just a lot of wheel-spinning and publicity, count me out". This was a theme which I observed throughout the 12 years of our relationship. Wilson was deeply and sincerely interested in improving the education of the children of California, and he worked very hard towards that objective.
It was a pleasure and a privilege for me to work with that sincere, honest, and dedicated man for a dozen years.
DON WHITE was once characterized by "NEWSWEEK" Magazine as "The Archetype of Education Lobbyists". A graduate of Georgia State College in his home town of Atlanta, Don White served from 1936 to 1941 as head of the Audiovisual Service of the University System of Georgia. During World War II, he was an Air Force Photographic Officer, serving two years overseas in India and China.
For 25 years, he then served as Executive Vice President of the National Audio-Visual Association. As one of his responsibilities in that position, he was a registered Washington lobbyist, working on the initial passage and subsequent funding of all major education programs. He was one of the original organizers of the education coalition, the Committee for Full Funding of Education Programs. In 1971, he resigned from NAVA and was appointed a Senior Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study of Technology in Education in San Diego. Early in 1972, he was selected by Wilson Riles to head the new Washington Office of the California Department of Education.
In 1984, he resigned from the Department and became President of the Instructional Resources Corporation of Annapolis, Maryland, a company of which he had been a co-founder ten years earlier. This company produces videodiscs for instructional use in colleges and schools.