Bill White grew up in San Antonio. His parents were schoolteachers, and his dad was a disabled WWII veteran. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they taught Bill the value of a dollar, hard work and a good education. Bill’s civic involvement began when went door to door to register voters in San Antonio after the Voting Rights Act.
Bill White earned an American Legion scholarship for college and graduated from the University of Texas law school. Bill helped build a law firm, managed a successful business, and served as Deputy Secretary of Energy of the United States before being elected Houston’s mayor in 2003.
During Bill White’s time as mayor, the Houston area was a national leader in job growth, with more jobs added than 37 states combined. At the same time, Bill cut property tax rates five straight years and helped senior and disabled citizens with tax relief. White also started a special initiative that gives returning veterans the welcome they deserve with coordinated social services, reductions in red tape, and employment opportunities.
After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Ike, Bill White mobilized effective disaster response including first responders, businesses and churches. For his compassionate, hands-on leadership after Katrina, White received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2007.
Bill White and his wife Andrea are parents of three children and attend St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston, where Bill taught Sunday school for many years.
There are many, many ways that Bill White and Rick Perry are different, but perhaps the most critical contrast is their approach to public education. Rick Perry steadfastly refuses to accept even the most obvious facts about the dropout crisis to our public schools. Bill White has made finding solutions to the state’s dropout crisis a central pledge of his campaign, because like business leaders, educators and parents across the state he understands our state’s future depends on the kids we’re educating today.
The Texas Association of Business, in a recent report, stated that “Our state faces a true Texas-sized crisis… that will destroy our good business climate, prosperity and growth if it goes ignored.” As the report points out, there are only seven states in the country that have done a worse job than Texas in developing a well-educated young workforce. Only 30.7% of adults in Texas have an associate degree or higher.
A critical reason for Texas falling behind in education is the state’s dropout crisis, a crisis Rick Perry has offered little to no solutions for in his ten years as Governor. In fact, Perry can’t even get the numbers right. Rick Perry and his campaign team have continued to state that Texas’ drop-out rate is only ten percent. (Source: Houston Chronicle). Perry also ignores a report that the National Governors Association put out, stating that, as reported by the Dallas Morning News, “206 Texas high schools were dropout factories – where at least 40 percent of ninth-graders failed to reach the 12th grade.” (Source: Dallas Morning News). Rick Perry’s negligence on the dropout crisis is one major example of how is not looking out for the future of our state.
While Rick Perry tries to hide from the dropout crisis, Bill White has a record of results. As Mayor of Houston, White launched the Expectation Graduation program to help cut the dropout rate. Mayor White and his wife, Andrea, led volunteers to go directly to the homes of high school students who didn’t return. (Source: City of Houston). Their efforts led to approximately 8,800 students returning to school as a result, according to material posted on Bill White’s website.
The importance of keeping a child in school is important not only for that student’s future, but for the economic stability of the state. A person who does not finish high school could make hundreds of thousands of dollars less over a lifetime than someone with a college education. To return to the Texas Association of Business report:
The state’s Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness (Jan. 2009) described our situation in especially stark terms: “The state faces a downward spiral in quality of life and economic competitiveness if it fails to educate more of its growing population (both adolescents and adults) to higher levels of attainment, knowledge and skills. The rate at which educational capital is currently being developed is woefully inadequate.”
Texas deserves a governor who will stand up and fight for the future of Texas and address the state’s dropout crisis head on. Rick Perry has failed to meaningfully address the dropout crisis in the ten years he’s been in office, and cannot even recognize the simple facts about how many dropouts there are in Texas. Bill White will tackle the dropout crisis directly, and help secure our state’s educational and economic future.
Being elected means being a public servant. Public servants must maintain an open mind to the thoughts, concerns and experiences of their customer, the constituent. If we value humility in service and listen to what our fellow Texans tell us, we as a state will move quickly along in the effort to make real progress.
Humble servant-leadership is not just listening to what people have to say, but using the information obtained to set priorities and reorder them when need be. It is this humility that allows the elected official to be true to the spirit of the democratic progress. It is this humility that allows the CEO to be true to their team and customers.
Always remember this: be a servant-leader, listen and be willing to use the information obtained to reorder priorities.
As mayor of Houston, I ran government efficiently by hiring the best leaders and managing with them, assessing programs and directing improvements. We started with issues high on the lists of community concerns – increasing mobility, increasing green space, and cutting tax rates while raising exemptions for senior and disabled citizens.
When it came time to revitalize neglected neighborhoods, we had to get out of the office. We set aside our own Saturday morning personal pursuits and hopped on our bicycles to ride through our neighborhoods, talking with neighbors and looking for answers. Humility and listening are very meaningful in a team effort to create good public policy. Residents saw our commitment to finding solutions to the problems in their communities.
We need that kind of neighborhood commitment to public service if we’re going to move Texas forward. We must to bring the passion of a PTA meeting to our conversations about improving public schools. Texans deserve a governor who puts trust in citizens at town halls, instead of lobbyists roaming the halls of the capitol. For too long, Rick Perry has served his own political career instead of serving Texans – his true employer.
While Texas has long been a state of opportunity and promise, Perry has let Texas fall behind on education, health and other investments important to our long-term economic future. The state’s now facing the largest shortfall in history – $18 billion. He cut children’s health insurance and ignored priorities of Texas families.
Success comes by being humble enough to respect tax-paying citizens (our customers), truly listen, understand their situation and develop a realistic plan to solve problems. This takes leadership with humility and a servant’s heart
Bill White grew up in San Antonio. His parents were schoolteachers, and his dad was a disabled WWII veteran. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they taught Bill the value of a dollar, hard work and a good education. Bill’s civic involvement began when went door to door to register voters in San Antonio after the Voting Rights Act.