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Oral History Interview with William Dallas Herring, May 16, 1987. Interview C-0035. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    William Dallas Herring, longtime chair of the North Carolina State Board of Education, discusses some of the issues he encountered during his tenure. He speaks in detail about education issues at the time of the interview, and offers his opinions on the state of democracy in the United States. Herring believes strongly in representative democracy, and worries that institutions across the country and in the state are falling prey to complacency, entrenched incumbency, and flawed processes. On a more granular level, Herring shares his opinion on proposed changes to the election of superintendent of education, evaluation of teacher performance, and curricula.
    Excerpts
  • Unfair focus on the South's race problem
  • Decisions about public education must be made on a local level
  • Risk of drifting toward totalitarianism
  • Advocating grassroots democracy in school board politics
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  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • North Carolina--Race relations
  • Educators--North Carolina
  • Herring, Dallas
  • North Carolina--Biography
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.