The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. In the headlines this day, a deal has been struck for the release of Salvadoran President Duarte's daughter. President Reagan launched his three-day pre-summit visit to the United Nations. The Chrysler strike was settled, and new figures showed inflation still under control. We'll have the details in a moment. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: In our focus sections tonight, a documentary update on the Ethiopian famine a year later, a newsmaker interview with the foreign minister of Mexico, a report and debate on the no pass, no play controversy in Texas, and an essay on how Missouri glories in the sport of baseball. News Summary

MacNEIL: The daughter of Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte is to be exchanged for 22 imprisoned rebels and 96 wounded guerrillas. The announcement of the exchange was made by the President's chief advisor, bringing an end to more than six weeks of tense negotiations between the Salvadoran government and the rebels. The agreement worked out in Panama also calls for the release of some of the two dozen mayors and municipal officials kidnapped by the guerrillas since last spring. The exact details of the exchange were not made public, but the government spokesman said that Duarte's 35-year-old daughter, Inez Guadalupe Duarte Duran, would be reunited with her family by Thursday. Jim?

LEHRER: This was day one of President Reagan's trip to the United Nations. He'll be in New York three days talking to fellow leaders of the world in private as well as in public. Today's major public event was a luncheon to note the 40th anniversary of the U.N.

Pres. RONALD REAGAN: We have criticized it sometimes in the past, when we felt that it was not all it could be and should be, and we have, on occasion, been frustrated. But we have never stopped believing in its possibilities, and we've never stopped taking the United Nations seriously. That is why we're determined to see to it that the United Nations lives up to its noble potential to further the cause of freedom, defend individual rights, increase economic growth and well-being, and strengthen the rule of law.

LEHRER: Mr. Reagan met in the afternoon with British Prime Minister Thatcher and separately with Prime Minister Gandhi of India and President Zia of Pakistan. Regional conflicts and tensions like those between India and Pakistan are on other minds besides President Reagan's. Mexico today asked for a special session of the U.N. Security Council to consider ways to better resolve such conflicts. Robin?

MacNEIL: The Soviet Union today denied yesterday's U.S. charge that it has violated the SALT II treaty by deploying new mobile SS-25 intercontinental nuclear missiles. The Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko said that in making the charge, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was "trying to detract from our proposals for securing peace." He added, "No deployment has taken place that could be considered a breach of SALT II." Lomeiko was speaking in Sofia, Bulgaria, where Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and other Warsaw Pact leaders concluded a two-day conference in advance of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit. The seven-nation Communist alliance adopted a document on the elimination of the nuclear threat, calling on the West for joint arms reductions. The deputy foreign minister of Bulgaria, Atanas Ginev, told reporters, "The world has come closer to the line beyond which events may simply get out of control."

Summit preparations were on President Reagan's mind in New York. The President scheduled a talk with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and separate working sessions with Western allied leaders. In his speech to the U.N. tomorrow, his spokesman said, the President would offer an important initiative to the Soviet Union.

LEHRER: President Reagan also met in New York today with Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead. Whitehead briefed the President on his just-completed fence-mending trip to Italy, Egypt and Tunisia. The Egypt and Italy problems were over the Achille Lauro hijacking; those with Tunisia over Israel's bombing of the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters there. White House spokesmen said Mr. Reagan was pleased with the results of the Whitehead mission.

Also on the Middle East today, two important meetings were announced. Egyptian President Mubarak will meet tomorrow in Amman with King Hussein of Jordan, to discuss Israel's offer to open peace talks with Jordan, and next week PLO leader Yasir Arafat is due in Amman for a similar meeting with Hussein.

MacNEIL: There was economic news with direct meaning for Social Security recipients today. For the fifth straight month, consumer inflation rose only 0.2 in September, an annual rate of 3.2 . That means that in the automatic January cost-of-living adjustment, 37 million Social Security beneficiaries will get the smallest increase in 10 years, 3.1 . In the check of the average retired worker, who now gets $464 a month, the increase would be about $14 a month. The Commerce Department reported that factory orders rose a modest 0.7 in September, excluding defense orders.

Chrysler settled its week-long strike with a new contract that gives auto workers the parity they were seeking with workers at Ford and General Motors. The Chrysler workers are expected to ratify the pact and to return to work on Monday.

LEHRER: And finally in the news of this day, Amtrak survived again, for now. The Senate voted 71-25 to continue $616 million in federal funding for the national passenger rail service. President Reagan and some conservative Republican senators wanted all federal funding withdrawn.

MacNEIL: That ends our news summary. Coming up on the NewsHour, our Lurie cartoon of the day, a documentary report on the Ethiopian famine one year later, a newsmaker interview with the foreign minister of Mexico, a debate on the controversy in Texas high schools over a rule that says students must pass in order to play, and an essay about baseball and Missouri pride.

LEHRER: Next, our newest attraction, the editorial cartoon of the day as seen and created by internationally syndicated cartoonist Ranon Lurie. His subject tonight, the approaching of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit.

LURIE EDITORIAL CARTOON

[Reagan and Gorbachev suited up for a day at the beach, head for summit, find it a sand butte surrounded by a moat filled with sharks] Ethiopian Famine Update

LEHRER: Today was another day in Ethiopia and another 2,000 people died of starvation. That was the stark word from World Vision, a Christian relief service which coordinates famine relief to that African nation. Spokesmen said 2,000 Ethiopians still die every day from hunger and related diseases, despite United States aid that has saved millions of lives in the year since the famine caught the attention of the U.S. and the rest of the world. It was that attention-catching by tragic, moving television news film that had its one-year anniversary today. We observe it with this update report from Brian Stewart of the CBC.

BRIAN STEWART, CBC [voice-over]: Across much of Ethiopia now, at last, the first signs of recovery. The massive international food aid effort continues to feed millions. Famine deaths are falling sharply. Much hunger remains, but in many areas there is hope the worst may be over. Returning here again, one is startled by the change. Last October, the north was a nightmare of dead bodies in the streets and panic in the towns as famine refugees fled the drought-ravaged countryside. It's thought more than 400,000 died. In swamped relief centers like Korem, then called the worst place on earth, adults and children huddled together without hope.

Since then, nearly a million tons of food aid has had a remarkable impact. In hard-hit Tigre and Wollo Provinces one sees improvement immediately in the faces and the spirit. These children were those same listless and despairing skeletons who so shocked the world last fall. The resilience is striking. Three-year-olds like Ndohafi have put on two kilograms in just two months. Adults, too, are back on their feet, strong enough to carry food away from aid centers, taking life back to the land.

VALERIE THOMAS, Save the Children: And we're much more optimistic because the children that we are receiving are in a better condition. We do get some children that are still pretty unhealthy and pretty starved, but on the whole general conditions have improved considerably.

STEWART [voice-over]: The relief effort is incomparably better organized. Much changed too, the land itself. Relief flights over northern Ethiopia look down now on a green landscape dotted with small crops where last year there seemed only dust and gray rock. In some areas at least, recent rains were good. It's just possible the long, deadly cycle of drought may be ending. In parts of Wollo, farmers are planting for the first time in three years, though December's harvest will be spotty at best. There just weren't enough seeds healthy farmers.

In northern Ethiopia, farmers are using what limited strength they've got left to try to dig themselves out of famine. Here, small irrigation ditches are formed before a new dry spell sets in. Like most Ethiopian reconstruction, the effort is exhausting and desperate. "We could be doing more," says this farmer, "but many of us are still too weak from hunger, and some of us died. We have a few tools, but not much strength." No one here can delay. The recent return of decent northern rains in some areas and the success of the world relief effort is turning attention from mere survival to renewal. Seeds have been too few, conditions too chaotic to produce many decent crops yet, but already the appearance of the north is reviving, even in areas where famine raged at its very worst.

[on camera] Some images of that famine will always haunt. A year ago, to cross this field one had to step over the bodies of the dead and the dying while thousands swarmed before the small aid center there in the background. Today no one is dying right here, aid is organized and now, for the first time in years, a crop is actually growing. Not a large one, not a very healthy one, but in itself a kind of victory.

[voice-over] But many kinds and countless numbers of such small victories will be needed. There's even an acute shortage of the most basic hand tools. Draft animals, like people, died in vast numbers here; building back the needed herds will take years. Above all, renewal must start with people. Among medical teams like the Canadians at Bettay, there's a sense the worst of the famine has been beaten, but all know recent gains could be lost unless better health care is extended throughout the north.

JANICE McNAUGHTON, Canadian nurse: It's kind of frustrating to know that if we just left it would just disappear. That's why the public outreach is so important.

STEWART [voice-over]: The famine helped expose chronic health problems. There is an urgent need to improve hygiene among a population that often has no water to wash with. A single-drip pipe like this can dramatically improve local health. In fact, field workers now believe that in reconstruction many small efforts will have greater impact than any giant megaproject.

SPEAKER: That goes for almost all development projects that are needed in this country. Small is beautiful, if you like. It means that mistakes that are made are smaller as well.

STEWART [voice-over]: Some Western countries eagerly back long-term development. In just one key area, Canadian farm and climate experts like Stu Edie are advising Ethiopia on the upgrading of its early-warning weather system. New stations will better able Ethiopia to predict dangerous droughts. Some, like the United States, however, offer food aid but no help with reconstruction, fearing it would benefit the Marxist government of Ethiopia. It's an attitude most aid officials and Ethiopians regret.

DAWIT GEORGIS, Ethiopian Relief Commissioner: Unless the donor community assists Ethiopia in this long-term development program, then we'll have problems in Ethiopia for years and years.

STEWART [voice-over]: Even if famine is now ending, full reconstruction could take a decade. In such an impoverished country, much work like irrigation will have to be done by hand, stone by stone, season by season. Even with improvements the next year is critical. Six million Ethiopians will need a million more tons of food aid to carry them through to the harvest of 1986, upon which all recovery depends.

KURT JANSSON, U.N. Relief Commissioner: Next year is just a beginning, and I believe that next year will be much more important for the recovery and development stage as a beginning of it than relief. Relief can be taken care of.

STEWART [voice-over]: Ethiopian recovery will be hampered by northern wars in Tigre and Eritrea, by appalling roads, a shortage of trucks and of virtually everything else. It seems now to have won a few months' breathing space. Back at Korem, refugees are being reduced, and even the dreadful starvation wards slowly emptied as aid begins to match the need.

MacNEIL: Still ahead on the NewsHour, a newsmaker interview with Mexico's foreign minister, a debate over the no pass, no play rule in Texas high schools, and an essay about Missouri's pride in its baseball history. Mexico's Problems

MacNEIL: We reported a moment ago that Mexico today called on the United Nations Security Council to hold a special session to defuse regional conflicts that threaten world security. In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, the Mexican foreign minister, Bernardo Sepulveda, cited Central America, the Middle East, Cyprus and Southeast Asia as areas where he said valuable lives are lost, the legal order is undermined, force dominates and sovereignty is eroded. Foreign Minister Sepulveda is with us this evening.

Thank you for joining us this evening. Your call for special action by the United Nations, with reference to Central America, which of course is an American preoccupation, does that mean Mexico has given up on the process of trying to achieve a settlement there through the Contadora group of nations?

BERNARDO SEPULVEDA: Not at all. It means only that we require also the political contribution from the Security Council, the General Assembly, the secretary-general of the U.N., and also that one has to realize that the U.N. also has a special responsibility for dealing with these issues. In the past we have managed to get a very substantial contribution on the part of the international community. It only means that Contadora will go on trying very hard to reach a political settlement of the Central American conflict, but what we need also is the support, the political contribution of the U.N.

MacNEIL: That suggests that Mexico thinks that the Central American situation has perhaps some added urgency and that a failure to settle it is dangerous. Do you agree?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Very much so, yes. You are very right.

MacNEIL: You say that such situations, these regional conflicts, threaten world stability. Do you think that the situation between Nicaragua and the United States is such a threat?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Well, if it's not resolved it may become a threat. What I want to say is that regional conflicts, including, as you said before, the Middle East, Central America, Southeast Asia, and many others, mean that there is a latent, a potent danger for all of us if those regional conflicts are not properly resolved.

MacNEIL: Last week Nicaragua renewed a state of emergency and suspended a whole range of civil liberties, saying that aggression by the contras, or rebels backed by the United States, made that necessary. What did Mexico think about that?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Well, we prefer, as mediators in the Central American conflict, not to pass judgment on any of internal actions undertaken by any of the five Central American governments. But yet one has to realize that in Central America or in certain areas of Central America there is a state of war and that what we have to do is to prevent that situation into becoming something beyond our control.

MacNEIL: The United States State Department said what Nicaragua did just proved that what President Reagan's been saying all along, that Nicaragua is becoming a totalitarian, Marxist state. Does Mexico believe that's true?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: What we think is that perhaps very many actions have to be undertaken in order to solve the question of Central America as a whole, including, by the way, the issue of Nicaragua. By that I mean that the tensions there are so great that if we do not invest a lot of political resources, things may get out of hand.

MacNEIL: How out of hand could they get, does Mexico think?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: The possibility of having a regional war, which would mean a tremendous harm to the Central American countries, but also to the neighboring states, and that's what we fear. We have to look after our own national interests and our impression is that the impact of a regional war would be really tremendous for the national interests of very many countries, including those of Mexico and the U.S.

MacNEIL: In his speech to the United Nations the other day, Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, accused the United States of state terrorism against his country -- which is a charge they've also made at the World Court in The Hague -- by backing the rebels or contras. Does Mexico believe he's right?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: What we believe is that there are the means for achieving a reasonable, honorable settlement of the differences between the U.S. and Nicaragua. For that purpose we undertook the political efforts. You may remember the Manzanilla conversations between representatives of the U.S. and Nicaragua. We think that through those means we may be able to reach a decent understanding between the two countries.

MacNEIL: You don't want to say whether you think Nicaragua is right or the United States is right in this situation, is that basically it?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: I was just saying that we prefer not to pass judgment on the very specific questions that concern the two countries.

MacNEIL: Does your speech today mean -- your appeal today mean that without some added intervention, international political effort through the United Nations, that the situation in Central America is going to deteriorate to the dangerous state that you've talked about?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Very much so.

MacNEIL: You think it's urgent, in other words?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Very urgent indeed. Obviously, the main responsibility for the settlement of the disputes belongs to the Central American countries themselves. They are the ones who have to solve the issues before them. But then there is a possibility of a very substantial contribution on the part of other countries, the Latin American countries indeed, but also of the U.S. and Cuba.

MacNEIL: And Cuba. Do you think, changing to El Salvador for a moment, the news we just gave this evening, that there's been an agreement between the Duarte government and the rebels to free Duarte's daughter in exchange for freeing a lot of rebel prisoners. What does that say to you about the possibility of some new negotiations on a settlement in El Salvador?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: We look forward to that. We think that the internal conflict in El Salvador can be settled through a political dialogue among the parties concerned.

MacNEIL: Let's turn to the Mexican economic situation. Are you close to an agreement, a deal, to refinance Mexico's large outstanding loans with the International Monetary Fund?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Well, that has been a constant, the rescheduling of the Mexican debt, since '82, and we believe that this will go on in the forthcoming months. What we need is additional resources, additional financial resources, in order to cope with a number of questions, many of them arising after the earthquake in Mexico City.

MacNEIL: Some people in this country ask, are countries like Mexico -- you now owe something like $96 billion. Are these loans ever going to be repaid?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Well, we assume they are going to be repaid, yes.

MacNEIL: Do you think that because such a large proportion of Mexico's outstanding debts are held by big American banks and that, if you reneged on your loans, those banks would, some of them, at least, would collapsed -- like the Bank of America is often mentioned -- could collapse if Mexico stopped, just refused to pay, that in effect you have, as somebody put it, a gun to their head, that they have to lend you more money?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: What we have said is that we shall fulfill our international financial commitments and that we are fully prepared to do that, but that there is also a responsibility on the part of all parties involved, since they are part of the problem, to provide solutions that may help all parties concerned.

MacNEIL: Because a failure to do so could cause something like a major collapse in the world banking -- the Western banking system if it didn't? Do you agree with that? I don't want to put words in your mouth. Do you agree with that?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: I think a solution of that sort would be to the benefit of all parties involved in it.

MacNEIL: The president of Peru said recently that he was not going to accept -- his country was not going to accept any more austerity measures in his domestic economy dictated by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for getting more money from them. Is Mexico going to say the same thing, no more austerity measures?

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: What we are saying, and we think that's part of the solution, is that we have to have economic growth in order to cope with the internal needs of Mexico in terms of development and also in order to fulfill our international obligations. What we want to do is to find the means by which economic growth may be there so as to provide all the necessary resources to cope with these both aspects.

MacNEIL: Well, Mr. Sepulveda, Foreign Minister Sepulveda, thank you very much for joining us.

Foreign Min. SEPULVEDA: Thank you. No Pass, No Play

LEHRER: We have a Texas story next, what some would call a pure-D Texas story. It's the latest in the great uproar over the no pass, no play rule passed in 1984 by the Texas legislature to improve education. The rule says no high school student who fails a course, any course, can play a sport or participate in an extracurricular activity for six weeks. Well, just the other day, the results from the most recent grading period came in, and in the land where high school football is king, mother and apple pie, things have been hitting the fan ever since. There is Texas rage in places where big hunks of football teams, pep squads and marching bands have been benched, but, interestingly enough, there is also Texas pride from others who say it's all wonderful because statewide only 15 of the football players were judged ineligible. But let's go back to the beginning, when there were television commercials like this on the air pushing and explaining no pass, no play.

"MEAN" JOE GREEN: Tired, kid?

STUDENT FOOTBALL PLAYER: Yeah, but I can handle it. Mean Joe?

Mr. GREEN: You know there is a new rule. You got to work as hard up here as you do out there. You have to pass to play. It's that simple.

PLAYER: I've been studying hard, Joe.

Mr. GREEN: You're going to make it, kid.

Gov. MARK WHITE, (D) Texas: Even if you're good enough to make a career out of sports, it won't last forever.

Mr. GREEN: The best thing to fall back on is a good education.

LEHRER: At about that same time, Kwame Holman did a story for us on what it was all about and what was at stake. Here, with only a little bit of editing, it is again.

KWAME HOLMAN [voice-over]: At Stratford High School in Houston, Texas, parents and students were so angered by the no pass, no play rule they sued the local school district and won. If not for that court victory, 74 of the 317 players in this spring scrimmage would have been barred from the field. Five members of the drill team would have been sidelined. Sixteen band musicians wouldn't play a note, and two of 24 cheerleaders would have sat out. The lawsuit that allowed the students to perform despite having failed a class was brought by Nicky Stamos, player number nine in white, and 11 other high school students. Nicky's father, Chris Stamis.

CHRIS STAMIS, father of ousted player: I'm very stern in my house. I don't need the state of Texas telling me how to punish my child. I believe in strong education, but I don't believe that we're giving these kids much of a leeway when they make one F to live with that. It's almost impossible for a child to understand, let alone a parent. The punishment phase of this thing is way too severe. That student is out for six weeks of all extracurricular activities.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Chris Stamis' complaints were echoed in a barrage of lawsuits across Texas. Decisions were rendered both for and against the rule. The conflict caused widespread confusion, even forcing the suspension of a high school baseball championship. No pass, no play became law because Texas legislators were concerned that all extracurricular activities, not just football, were taking too much of students' time away from their studies. State Board of Education member Volly Bastine is a strong supporter of the rule.

VOLLY BASTINE, Jr.,Texas Board of Education: Extracurricular activities is just that; it's extra, and if you want to participate in something extra, you have to make sure that your academics are in order. That's all I can say to that.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: The controversial rule was passed last year, but it wasn't until this spring, with the start of band competitions and sports like spring football and baseball, that people really took notice. What they noticed was a number of inequities. For example, the rule only punished the students who participated in extracurricular activities. The band director at Stratford, Gary Hebert, says the rule also hurts students who do pass all their courses.

GARY HEBERT, band director: With declining enrollment and everything considered, we have a pretty small program as it is, and when key people fail, then that affects the whole group. And so, for instance, this past year the second band was not able to go to the contest because key people failed, and it was not how many failed, it's where they were. For instance, like three of the top players.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Opponents of no pass, no play call the rule unfair because a student with six D's is still eligible for extracurricular activities. A student with five A's but one F is not.

Mr. BASTINE: Certainly that kid has cause for concern when he sees somebody else has got six D's and they're still out there swinging. So the rule is not perfect, you know, and for that I'm sorry. But I don't know of anything that's perfect. We're doing the best we can. I just can't see how education, which is the fundamental basis of our society -- by emphasizing that, I can't see it being a bad thing.

OSCAR CRIPPS, Stratford High football coach: You might have a little tougher time going to your right than you do to your left, so you work 'em. We don't pull you out of a ballgame, you never go back in because you can't go to your right. We work on it, we work on it, we work on it.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: For the majority of students, emphasizing education is certainly not a bad thing, but many teachers worry about the effect of the rule on the minority, the weak students for whom the lessons learned in the rehearsal hall or locker room may be just as valuable as those learned in the classroom.

NANCY McKNIGHT, teacher: We have one particular student that I'm thinking of who came from another country, who at first had a lot of trouble fitting into our high school way of doing things until he discovered football. And this young man, his association with the coaches, with the other football players, has given him an identity, a place to fit in where he was not fitting in before. He is, admittedly, a very weak student, and without that I do not think that this young man would have stayed in high school. I think he would have been out on the street.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: Other critics of no pass, no play say that students will shy away from hard courses for fear of failing and being ineligible for extracurricular activities. Fern Giddens, guidance counselor at Stratford High, says that concern may be well-founded.

FERN GIDDENS, guidance counselor, Stratford High School: The students are right now turning in their course selections for next year, and I have seen a marked difference in the classes that they are selecting now. There have been a number of changes. Students are dropping some of the more demanding classes and adding some of the classes that perhaps will be less time-consuming and just a little bit less demanding.

HOLMAN [voice-over]: In spite of all the criticism, school board member Volly Bastine remains a staunch defender of no pass, no play.

Mr. BASTINE: I think it would be virtually unfair to the students of the state of Texas to do anything for another two years, until such time as we have adequate statistics to look at that rule and see whether or not it's a good rule. Right now I feel it's a good rule. Give it a chance to work.

LEHRER: And now, since news of this fall's grading period hit last week, Texas news organizations have been covering the story like a blanket. Here's an example of the coverage from WFAA-TV in Dallas.

CHRIS CONNOR, WFAA [voice-over]: At its weekly pep rally, the Brian Adams junior varsity football squad was without its starting quarterback. Sophomore Chris Williams sat in the back of the auditorium with some of the 14 other JV players who won't suit up for the next six weeks. But they say they won't be on the sidelines for long.

SIDELINED PLAYER: I've sort of got mixed feelings about it because it's kind of hard. I'm going to miss it a lot, so it's going to make me try extra hard.

2nd SIDELINED PLAYER: By taking books home and just study, do what I can to pass.

CONNOR [voice-over]: Most of these students do have something to cheer about. All but three of their varsity players will be eligible for the homecoming game in the Cotton Bowl Friday night. Coaches and teachers here say it was a team effort that kept their losses low. Constant monitoring of players' grades got most of them the extra help they needed to pass. Many Texas coaches expected freshmen to fare the worst under the new rule, and Brian Adams was no exception. The freshman team was almost wiped out when 23 players got their failing grades earlier this week.

JACKIE EDWARDS, football coach: They're just not used to the routine, they're not used to the teachers. A lot of them are not used to having quite as many privileges sometimes as they have in high school compared to what it was in junior high, or the responsibility. And of course when you have 140 youngsters in a program it's hard to monitor every single one of them with a limited coaching staff. So there's a lot of youngsters that just didn't realize the gravity of the situation.

CONNOR [voice-over]: The sidelined players can get back on the team if they pass all their courses during the next grading period, but by then the season will be over for most high school football teams.

LEHRER: And that brings us to a spirited exchange of views about no pass, no play from the governor of Texas, Mark White, and the vice president of the Texas Coaches Association, Eddie Joseph. Both are with us from the studios of public station KLRU in Austin. Governor, you say it's successful, is that right, sir?

Gov. MARK WHITE: I think that this no pass, no play rule has proven itself in this very first outing. I know that when you have 85 of the varsity football players passing every single course they've taken. What we need to do now is to bring that same level of training to our freshman and sophomore classes and the other students as well.

LEHRER: What are the statistics below senior and junior grades?

Gov. WHITE: Well, I think it points out that we didn't do enough for the second team and the third team, and it's human nature. The coaches spent more time working with the first team. And it proved to be an overwhelming success. We need to go back and pick up that 15 , work harder with the second and third teams. I think we need to expand the program now to every student, to give that same level of support to every student that might be doing poorly. Then we'll have all winners.

LEHRER: Mr. Joseph, is it a winner up to this point?

EDDIE JOSEPH: Well, I think some of the statistics may not be just exactly what we feel like they are. We had a significant amount of failures in the lower grades, the ninth grade, eighth grade and seventh grade. And I think a little bit of this, certainly a lot of it's maturity, but a little bit of it is not being in a discipline type program for a period of time. We feel like if we have an opportunity to keep them in the extracurricular activity program that we can monitor, we can pat on the back, we can help, we can nudge, we can force them to go to tutorials and certainly this is going to bring the amount of deficiencies down.

LEHRER: But you think barring them from participating is not the way to get them to improve, is that what you're saying?

Mr. JOSEPH: I am saying that.

LEHRER: Now, why not? Why doesn't that get their attention?

Mr. JOSEPH: Well, I think for the simple fact that at this particular stage they're not failures. They're not failing. They're deficient at a grading period. And we have removed all of the motivation, all the incentive from participation because, no matter how well they do in the next two or three or four or five weeks, they're not going to be able to participate. I think if we want to use extracurricular activities as a motivational tool, and they are, but certainly they have educational value, we shouldn't remove a youngster from the program.

LEHRER: Governor?

Gov. WHITE: I think to the contrary this has been a great motivational factor. We've seen coaches working to provide leadership for those students, we're seeing counselors, teachers and parents all working together, and they have provided an enormous success story when 85 of all the participants in varsity athletics across the state of Texas have passed every single class. What we now need to do is to move from that succcess to the additional effort of seeing that those second- and third-team players are going to be given the same type of support. We've just won the game, and too many times we see people say that, well, let's fall back. Let's retreat. We never should run from victory. The victory is at hand. We have it now. We know the secret. The secret is the support for those students. Those students are winners. They're going to play.

LEHRER: All right, Mr. Joseph, what is your evidence, anecdotal, statistical or whatever, that it hasn't worked to your satisfaction?

Mr. JOSEPH: Well, I think when you look at the significant amount of numbers of the youngsters who are not able to participate in extracurricular activity, I think that in itself shows that it's not working exactly like we wanted it to. I don't think you can come up with any statistical study at all that shows there's a correlation between poor academic grades and participation in extracurricular activities. Just exactly the opposite is true. I think last week the Educational Testing Service and the College Board released the results of a study that they had just completed -- this was just released last week -- when it said the primary predictor for success in college was not only academics but participation in extracurricular activities, and the prime indicator for success in later life as a contributing member to society was participation in extracurricular activities.

LEHRER: So you don't see, as we heard in the tape piece a minute ago, extracurricular activities as being extra? You think they're crucial, is that right?

Mr. JOSEPH: I think they're part of the total educational process. I think they have educational values. I don't think they're all fun and games. I think there's educational value in being on a student council, being in extracurricular activities and participating in athletics. I think there is educational value there.

LEHRER: Governor?

Gov. WHITE: I think that's very important as well, but I think we have to remember we send these children to school to learn. We'll get that job done first, and there'll be plenty of time for extracurricular activities. And I think we've proven we can do them both if we will set our standards high. I was appalled to learn of a coach who came up and said, "Why can't we just let these young people fail one course?" And I said, "Coach, why can't you let your team lose one game?" You set your standards high. You don't go out there with the idea you're going to lose or you're going to fail, because if you do, you will. We're going to produce winners in Texas, and we're going to set high standards. You go to school to learn, first; there'll be plenty of time to play.

LEHRER: Mr. Joseph, what do you say to that?

Mr. JOSEPH: Well, I agree to some degree, but it's not all play. I think there is educational value. And I don't think you deprive a youngster of part of his education because he's deficient -- and he's not a failure at a six-week period, and we've branded him a public failure, we have held him up to ridicule. I don't think he's a failure; I think he's deficient at a marking period, and I think for him as soon as he's passing that subject, as soon as he brings his grade up, he ought to be able to participate.

LEHRER: What's wrong with that, Governor? Why do it at six weeks?

Gov. WHITE: Well, the minute you lowerthose standards and you drop back to one week, as some have suggested, then maybe you don't have a game next week, this kid says, well, I don't have to work this week because I don't have to play next week. We keep these standards where we are. We keep high standards. You heard those voices from those students earlier that didn't make the grade. They're not dropping out. They're going to work harder, they're going to do better. They're going to pass and they're going to play.

LEHRER: And you wouldn't be agreeable to any modification, any changes at all in the rule, based on what's happened thus far, is that right, Governor?

Gov. WHITE: I don't see that you should modify a winner. We have winners produced because of the hard work that has gone on over these past six weeks. Now let's make 15 more winners. Let's add them to it. Let's don't retreat.

LEHRER: You keep saying it's a winner. Give me some feeling for what happened -- in the question I asked earlier -- to the freshmen and to the sophomores. The results were not quite as good. Now, what were they?

Gov. WHITE: Well, let's just look at human nature. That coach is getting a competency test every single week whether his team wins or loses. That coach is primarily responsible for the success of this program. Eighty-five percent passed every course. He worked harder and spent more time working with the first team. If he'd have spent the same amount of time working with the second and third team, you'd have had the same results. I guarantee it.

LEHRER: Is that right, Mr. Joseph?

Mr. JOSEPH: I have serious doubts about that. I do not believe it to be correct. The youngsters on the freshman teams and the junior varsity and the sub-varsity teams have their own coaches. Those coaches are certainly just as concerned about theirs as the varsity coaches are about their children. I think they work just as hard, and I think it's not fair. I think it's unjust to blame coaches for not working hard because they did work hard. They were very conscientious. They had tutorials. They came to school, had tutorials before school and after school. They cut their practices to have tutorials. They did this on the varsities and all the sub-varsity levels and the freshman teams.

Gov. WHITE: Well, I've certainly given credit to coaches for the success of the program, but I suspect that they spent more time working with the first team than they did with the second team, and that's what they do on the playing field when they are practicing for a game. And I think you're seeing the same playbook that we use to win football games. That playbook can be used to produce academic excellence, and I support it. If you're not passing, you keep trying, you work hard, you repeat the process, and you make winners out of these people. You first have to learn before you're going to be able to earn.

LEHRER: Mr. Joseph, assuming the governor wins this one and it means there is no change made in this rule, what do you see down the road as a consequence of this, based on the findings of this major fall result?

Mr. JOSEPH: Well, you hope that he wins. You know, I'm not opposed to him winning. I think everyone wants him to win. I think you have to be realistic and face the fact that we may have some dropouts. I think when you look at the retention rate and the dropout rate of the youngsters in the United States of America, and this came from former Secretary of Education Bell when he said that a full 94 of the high school dropouts in the nation were those who were non-participants in extracurricular activities. I think that's a factor. If this rule causes any youngster to drop out of school who would otherwise stay, it's not a good rule.

Gov. WHITE: Well, it is. I have to disagree with that. We're not running a day care center. It's very important we not accent dropouts, but we can go and use programs that we know are effective to eliminate the dropout factor. That dropout factor is part of winning in the classroom. If we make winners out of these young people in the classroom, they're not going to be dropping out. And I think you will find that spirit among the people of our state to give support to young people who are willing to try harder and do better. It's going to make certain we'll not have dropouts. But we have to have high standards. And for us to lower standards turns this whole process into mediocrity. You wouldn't lower the -- the track coach doesn't lower the bar on the high jump just so everybody can jump it. He asks every student to jump as high as he can and try harder than he's ever tried before, and you know what happens? That's the way you set the records. And we're going to do it in education.

LEHRER: Mr. Joseph, there has been a big storm, as I reported a while ago, in Texas in the last several days as a result of the fall results. How do you read the public opinion on this as of now, as we speak tonight?

Mr. JOSEPH: Well, I think public opinion is probably divided, and I think there's not anyone in the public -- and I certainly think our legislators and our governor, we're all after the same thing. I think what we're opposed to is the methodology used to get the results that we're looking for.

LEHRER: You just think it's unfair, right?

Mr. JOSEPH: I do.

LEHRER: Governor?

Gov. WHITE: I think it'd be unfair for us to let any child graduate from school in this state not being able to read and write and to do math and meet the test of a complex society. That's the ultimate unfairness. Life is tough. We've got to prepare these young people for the toughness of life and the reality of life. I think athletics and sports are a great preparer of young people, but it's not the only way we do it and we cannot ignore the academic side of this. We cannot fall back. We have to emphasize the excellence, and when we do we make winners on the playing field and the classroom.

LEHRER: Well, Mr. Joseph and Governor White, thank you both for being with us tonight from Austin. "Show-Me" Baseball

MacNEIL: Finally tonight, an essay. With the World Series this year an all-Missouri affair, we thought the perfect person to cover it was our essayist from Missouri, Jim Fisher. Besides writing a column for the Kansas City Times, it turns out that Fisher is also a long-time student of baseball, Missouri style.

JIM FISHER [voice-over over fans]: This fourth week in October is special out here. The American midlands, especially Missouri, has come slightly unhinged. You could see it the other night at Royal Stadium in Kansas City: the jammed parking lots, people in clothes they wouldn't wear in church, banners, pennants, caps. In the stands, the red of Cardinal fans and blue for those cheering the Royals. And, down on the astroturf, millionaire players, hundred-thousand-dollar managers, high-powered celebrities, the media, probably a million words being written or said.

The World Series in Missouri, Kansas City and St. Louis -- St. Louis and Kansas City. The I-70 series.

SPORTSCASTER: And there goes Wilson, gets a good jump and Grant hits it down the line in right field and into the corner. Wilson has hesitated but --

FISHER [voice-over]: For a week this for some seems the center of the universe.

[on camera] But maybe there's something else beyond these arc lights that illuminate men playing a boy's game, a deeper tradition, a tradition we call town ball.

[voice-over] Go east out of Kansas City, along I-70. Little towns. Emma and Bates City, Blackwater and Pilot Grove. Towns where ages ago town baseball teams, the local nine, played one another on now-deserted diamonds. Pride against pride, passion against passion, always scuffed baseballs, chicken-wire backstops, cornfields beyond the outfield. You can find old men in these towns today who remember major league ballplayers as only ghostly images from their youth, yet men who in an instant can pinpoint exact memories of town ball -- who got a hit, what strategy was used, the final score, and an intensity of playing that would rival any of the games played this week. I.G. Dyer remembers.

I.G. DYER: They had considerable pride in the teams, the baseball teams, that is, the town teams. Every locality, every village had a team, and don't think they didn't back them up. They played for blood.

FISHER: But they always considered what they were playing down here as almost as good as what they played us in Kansas City or maybe over in St. Louis, didn't they?

Mr. DYER: Well, we had some players here that were good enough to have been somewhere, but they didn't want to be. They were farmers. They were carpenters. Some of them ran on the railroad. Baseball to them was a sport, a relaxation.

FISHER [voice-over]: Not a business.

Mr. DYER: Not a business at all, not like today.

Mr. DYER: Why, they would have shot a man that drew a million dollars a year.

FISHER [voice-over]: But it wasn't just the game. You can look at those hills and valleys now, bursting with fall color, and you can almost see the fans coming to watch their local team play some despised rival nine from another town. Women with young'uns slung on their hips, farmers in their overalls, kids shooting off firecrackers, hounds baying. No Firebirds or Mercedes to take them to the game. Then it was just spring wagons and an occasional Model T, each with a market basket full of cold fried chicken and 'tater salad and smoked ham and piccalilly and jugs of spring-cold buttermilk and sweet cider, and everybody grinning real neighborly -- unless you did some hard sliding into their favorites, in which case you might just get run lickety-split out of town. That was town ball. It was never written down, never reported. But then why should it have been? Everybody came. No need to write it up.

[on camera] Now diamonds like these are for children, for Little and Pony Leagues, not for town ball, not for a game where there is a record of a south Missouri umpire carrying two large horse pistols on his person to protect himself when the fans got riotous, when things turned ugly. And town ball wasn't just a Missouri institution. Town ball, with its less-than-tailored uniforms and toy mitts, was played in every state, probably in every province of Canada, every country north of the Panama Canal. But Missouri is as good a place as any to remember town ball this week, something that brought people together, something that lightened their lives, a common thread.

[voice-over] Especially this week, and because at St. Louis and Kansas City they are playing just that, the ultimate games of town ball.

MacNEIL: And, once again, the day's top stories. A deal has been struck for the release of the kidnapped daughter of El Salvador's President Jose Napoleon Duarte. President Reagan began a three-day pre-summit visit to the United Nations, marking that body's 40th anniversary. The eight-day Chrysler strike is over. The company's 70,000 workers are expected to be back on the job next week after winning parity with their UAW counterparts at Ford and GM. And, for the fifth straight month, consumer prices remained in check. Now, once again another look at the Lurie cartoon of the day. [cartoon repeat] Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.