Pres. Clinton Salutes Former Gov. Riley on ETV’s “The Big Picture on the Radio”

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Pres. Clinton Salutes Former Gov. Riley on ETV's "The Big Picture on the Radio" Calls His Education Secy. The Most Effective America's Had Also Says Voters Had No Idea Bush Would Destroy Student Loan Programs And Decimate After-school Initiatives

Predicts His Wife's Popularity Will Rise As We Get to Know Her More And Says That "Hillary Wears Well"

For Immediate Release
September 6, 2007

Columbia SC...During a taped interview on Thursday, former President Bill Clinton told Andrew Gobeil, host of ETV's "The Big Picture on the Radio, that former Governor Dick Riley, who served in Clinton's cabinet as secretary of education, "was a great governor and a great secretary of education."

Later in the interview, which airs on ETV Radio Friday, Sept. 7 at 9 a.m., Clinton said that Riley "cared about results and not show."

"He knew that you could make a lot of headlines in education, but the only thing that really mattered was whether the children were making headway. So he succeeded in getting almost every state in the country, all but one, to adopt comprehensive standards to upgrade their schools. He supported his fellow governor, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt's, proposal to try to put a... trained and certified master teacher in every school in America."
"He did big things, for which he often got too little credit because he is a modest man who's not a self-promoter and because I think that, for reasons I don't entirely understand, there was very little press interest in the progress we were making in education when I was president. Maybe because it wasn't controversial enough and people were more interested in things that were. But I'm very proud of his legacy, and he should be proud of it. It's something that will have enduring value to the children and the young people of this country."
"He worked very, very hard to overhaul the student loan program and supervise the largest increase in aid to people to go to college since the GI Bill after World War II. We increased the numbers of people getting higher education by 10 million. We reduced the student-loan default rate. And he completely overhauled that."

Still later, Clinton lambasted special interest groups for the impact he feels they have had on students' financial ability to go to college.

"And sadly, since we left, many of our reforms were undone by special interest groups who wanted to make more money instead of send more kids to college. Dick Riley sent more kids to college. He oversaw a substantial upgrade in the schools while I was president. The racial gap between African American and white students in on-time high school graduation virtually disappeared. An enormous number of good things happened because he plugged away at the programs that worked. He succeeded in getting a program passed to add 100,000 teachers to our classrooms to make up for all those that were retiring and all the new kids that were coming into the early grades. We were supporting no children in after-school programs when I (became) President. When I left, we were supporting over a 1.3 million. Those are just some of the things that he did."
"He (Riley) had a huge impact on the lives and the fabric of education in America and I think will go down in history as probably, at least today, the most effective education secretary we've had."

Then, in response to a question as to whether Clinton found it frustrating to observe the changes in the federal education system, as a result of the perceived influence special interest groups have had during the current administration, Clinton took the Bush administration head-on:

"Yeah, but that's what you have elections for. In politics you have to be content with the progress you're making and realize that nothing lasts forever. Even if you do something that's perfectly good, someday circumstance will require it to be changed."
"And, I don't think, for example, when people voted to elect President Bush in 2000, they had any idea they were voting to destroy the... direct student loan program, which had saved the students of America $9 billion and the taxpayers $4 billion. I don't think they thought they were voting to cut back on after-school programs--which do more than virtually anything else to reduce youth violence, keep kids in school and increase their learning. I don't think they thought they were voting for that. I don't think they thought they were voting for a lot of things. But you can't get discouraged. You do the best you can in the time you serve, and then you fight every election and try to get back where you can do something very good."
"...It takes a long time to change a culture and to overcome the impact of extreme poverty. I think...extreme poverty makes its way through not just economic issues but the education system and race relations. I don't think there's any question that South Carolina, Arkansas, most of the rest of the South, is much better off today than it was, 20, 30 years ago. When I was born in Arkansas, our per capita income was only 56 percent of the national average, and so 25 percent of our people were below the federal poverty level. We're not there now. So, we made a lot of progress, but I think this is something that just requires relentless effort."
"Secondly, I think that we've had long periods of time that our economic and social progress was impeded by either national policy or international developments. You know the politics of division in subtle racial politics have too often worked in (America's) national elections and state elections. And when they do, it gets us distracted and we fall behind again. That's also happened some in the last 20 years. But I think on balance, we're trending in the right direction and that's... what democracies do. We're not dictatorships, we can't order everybody to change overnight and we can't stop other people from trying to make progress, so we're not moving against a still target, we're moving against a moving target."

Lastly, when asked how the campaign is going for Sen. Hillary Clinton, in her bid to win the Democratic nod to run for president, especially in regards to the African-American population in South Carolina, Clinton said:

"Well, I hope she's doing well. I think she is. I am very gratified by her leaders in South Carolina and her grassroots' supporters and the way she has been received. I am very grateful for the support of so many of our old friends in South Carolina, including Gov. Riley. But I think the main thing is the people that are sticking up for her there--who know her--and the reception she's gotten when she's come there and been in debates and campaigning in communities, has been very heartening to me. I trust the people in elections. I know that Hillary wears well--I met her 36 years ago. She wears well. The longer this goes on, the better she'll do because the more people see her the more they'll like her and the more they will have confidence in her and see that she is the person most ready, best prepared--most ready mentally and emotionally--to be president, to make these decisions and to get this country moving again. So, I'm really grateful and I hope...she asks me to come to South Carolina some more to campaign for her, because you know I love to come down there. It gives me an excuse to see my friends, and stay warm. So, I'll be trying to come down and help her, too."

The Big Picture on the Radio can be heard Fridays at 9 a.m. on ETV Radio's four news formats: 88.1-WRJA Sumter, 89.1-WLJK Aiken, 89.9- WJWJ Beaufort, and 90.1-WHMC Conway. The program can also be streamed from www.myetv.org.

Contact: Catherine Christman (803) 737-3259 or christman@scetv.org.