Former Democratic Texas Gov. Mark White dead at 77
Former Texas Gov. Mark White, a Democrat who championed public education reforms that included the landmark “no-pass, no-play” policy for high school athletes, has died. He was 77.
The former governor, who fought kidney cancer for years, died Saturday in Houston shortly after waking up and feeling uncomfortable, according to his wife, Linda Gale White, and his son Andrew White. Governor from 1983 until 1987, White was Texas’ attorney general when he defeated Gov. Bill Clements, Texas’ first Republican governor since Reconstruction who spent a then-record $13 million on his re-election campaign. Clements beat White four years later.
White’s education reforms included pay raises and competency tests for teachers, class size limits for elementary schools and the creation of the state’s high school basic skills graduation test. White also pushed through a $4 billion tax hike for schools and highways.
In a 2011 interview with The Associated Press, White said he tried to model his education platform on what his mother, a former first-grade teacher, talked about that she experienced in the classroom.
“It was probably the broadest-based education program in modern U.S. history,” White said. “I was very proud of what we accomplished.”
White appointed Dallas billionaire Ross Perot to lead a special panel on education that developed some of the key changes.
The no-pass, no-play initiative, which barred students from playing school sports if they were failing a class, was a politically tricky and unpopular move in a state crazy about its high school football. It had to survive a challenge in the state Supreme Court.