The Ross Perot you don't know

Washington Monthly, May, 1992 by Peter Elkind

It's in his charitable giving that Perot's attitude toward money is most apparent. Only months after he first acquired wealth, he established a charitable foundation, and he has since parted with more than $120 million. For many years he did not take a tax deduction for his charitable contributions on the grounds that he owed his wealth to his country. He was not shy, however, about accepting credit for his largesse. In 1969, as he financed the massive airlift of supplies to POWs in North Vietnam, he reveled in the media spotlight, appearing on the "Today" show and taking out ads in hundreds of newspapers.

The politics of Perot's philanthropy are characteristically complex. His first major gift, at a time when he was still regarded as a right-wing businessman, was $2.4 million donated to establish special learning programs at one of Dallas' inner-city black elementary schools. While Perot is no advocate of government handouts to the poor, he's personally handed them millions. In choosing which projects to devote his time to, he measures worthiness by one primary criterion: the potential for greatness. "World class" is Perot's mantra. And the most world-class of all his projects-until now-was the wholesale remaking of the Texas school system in the mid-eighties.

There was no denying at the time-although the teachers tried to-that the Texas schools needed serious fixing, and Perot, appointed by the governor as chairman of a state committee on public education, helped package the issue brilliantly for the public. He found state colleges of education that were turning out illiterate teachers, a junior high school that closed at noon on Tuesdays for football games, a student who had been excused for 35 class days to exhibit his prize chicken. As usual, Perot was convinced he could "do better than that." He would raise the passing grade from 60 to 70; establish a no-pass, no-play rule to correct Texas' overemphasis on athletics; provide smaller class sizes in the lower grades, a Head Start program for four-year-olds, teacher-competency testing, and merit pay raises; and redistribute state aid to narrow the funding gap between wealthy and poor school districts.

This project, unlike many of Perot's other schemes, required not just money, but real political finesse: The education establishment had political influence in every community in Texas. So Perot hired the best lobbyists in Austin and stroked the local and national press to turn one man's idea into a mandate. Once again, he made the sale. In an arduous special session, the Texas Legislature passed the Perot reforms with modest changes.

It was a stunning political accomplishment-one that has secured Perot a place in Texas civic history. But public approbation did not soften Ross Perot. Shortly after his triumph, supporters of Bishop College, a debt-ridden black school in Dallas, pleaded with Perot for a contribution that would keep its doors open. Unconvinced that the college had the leadership to become "world class," Perot let Bishop die.