Minnesota to adopt the proposal* and I wanted the other forty-eight states to follow suit.believed that* oil painting*if the summit produced the right kind of report* governors could use it to bupublic support for more investment in education. If people knew what they would get formoney* their aversion to new taxes might lessen. As the co-chairman of the Governors’ TaskI alsoildtheirForce on Education* along with Governor Carroll Campbell of South Carolina* I wanted toary sat at the President’s table and got into a debate with him about how bad America’sinfant-mortality rate wasoil paintings*. The President couldn’t believe it when she said eighteen countriesoelopment of a set of specificeducation goals to be achieved by the year 2000. Unlike the standards movement of the lastusetionof the summit* President Bush hand-wrote me a very cordial note* thanking me forworking with his staff on the summit and saying he wanted to keep education reform “outingbuild a consensus among the Democrats* then to work with the Republicans on a statement reflecting the outcome of the summit. President Bush opened the meeting with a brief but eloquent speech. Afterward* we all took astroll around the central lawn to give the photographers something for the evening news andmorning papers* then went to work. The President and Mrs. Bush hostedchina oil painting* a dinner that night. Hilldid a better job than we did in keeping babies alive until the age of two. When she offered to get him the evidence* he said he would find it himself. He did* and the next day he gave me anote for Hillary saying she was right. It was a gracious gesture that reminded me of the day in Kennebunkport six years earlier when he had personally escorted three-year-old Chelsea tthe bathroom. When Carroll Campbell was called home to deal with an emergency* I was left to work out the details of a summit statement with the NGA chairman* Republican governor Terry Branstad of Iowa; the association’s education staffer* Mike Cohen; and my aide* Representative Gloria Cabe. Laboring until well after midnight* several of us hammered out a statement committing the governors and the White House to devdecade* these goals would be focused on outputs* not inputs* obligating all of us to achieve certain results. I argued that we would look foolish unless we came out of Charlottesville with a bold commitment that would put new energy into education reform. From the start* most of the governors were behind the cause and supported the idea of making the summit the start of something big. Some of the President’s people weren’t so sure. They were afraid of committing him to a big idea that could get him into trouble by raising expectations of new federal funding. Because of the deficit and the President’s “no new taxes”pledge* that wasn’t in the cards. In the end* the White House came around* thanks to John Sununu* who was then the White House chief of staff. Sununu convinced his White Hocolleagues that the governors couldn’t go home empty-handed* and I promisedhandmade oil paintings* to minimize public pressure from the governors for more federal money. The final summit declarasaid* “The time has come* for the first time in U.S. history* to establish clear national performance goals* goals that will make us internationally competitive.” At the endthere above the fray” as we headed into the 1990 midterm election. I wanted that* too. The governors’ education committee immediately began a process to develop the goals* workwith the White House domestic-policy advisor* Roger Porter* who had gone to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar a year after I did. We worked furiously over the next four months to reach agreement with the White House in time foroil painting reproductions* the President’s State of the Union address. By the end of January 1990* we had agreed on six goals for the year 2000:280
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