Sec. Rod Paige- I Haven't Changed My Mind
Tuesday, March 2, 2004 

December 31, 2000

By Donna Garner

I guess because I have been active in education reform in Texas, a person from California asked me for my opinion on Dr. Rod Paige (Superintendent of Houston ISD), Gov. George W. Bush's choice for U. S. Secretary of Education. For what it is worth, here is my reply:

I have had no personal dealings with Dr. Rod Paige except at the Public Education Reform Conference at the Driskill Hotel in Austin a couple of weeks ago. At that time, I did have the privilege of asking him the first question after he gave his luncheon address: "Dr. Paige, would you please tell us about the reading initiative in Houston." He is the first superintendent whom I have ever heard who actually indicated his clear understanding of the National Institutes of Health reading research (Dr. Reid Lyon). Dr. Paige gave a lucid, articulate explanation and in a follow-up question indicated that he understood that the "balanced approach" to reading is indeed another name for "whole language." I was impressed that he did not stutter, rephrase his answer, or beat around the bush. I believe I understood him to say that when he found out some of the teacher training in HISD had wandered into the "balanced approach," he had them regroup and get back to the NIH scientific, reading research.

I have followed Houston ISD from a distance for a long time. I have been particularly impressed with Dr. Paige's decision to have HISD students tested on the Stanford 9 and then to have those scores released to the public. In a state where most superintendents are only too glad to hide behind the "comforting" TAAS scores which "miraculously" have risen higher and higher through the years because of various and sundry ways of massaging the data, Dr. Paige instead chose to have his students take a nationally normed test along with the state-controlled TAAS test -- a very daring move on his part.

I hope he is "the real thing." He certainly appears to be a person who understands the classroom and who believes in the teaching of explicit, academic, knowledge-based skills. He has not tried to make excuses for poor student performance but has sought to come up with solid solutions. The idea of decentralizing the power of the central office seems quite bold, and I don't know of any other big city superintendents in Texas who have demonstrated the same type of courage.

I was impressed that Dr. Paige knew the importance of the teaching of reading and set up the district's reading coordinator position so that she reported directly to him. If I am not mistaken, HISD adopted the Open Court reading series last year when the K-3 reading adoptions came up in Texas; and that showed that Dr. Paige had people around him who knew what to look for in a reading series.

I don't know how much Dr. Paige actually supported Thaddeus Lott at Wesley Elementary in the beginning; but at least under Dr. Paige's watch, he allowed Lott the freedom to develop his Direct Instruction model.

So far as I know, Dr. Paige never testified before the Texas State Board of Education in favor of the miserable Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS); and that says something about his good judgment since many other superintendents sought to ingratiate themselves with the Texas Education Agency by supporting the TEA's inferior product.

I wish Dr. Paige well in his new venture. I trust that he will be more than just a figurehead as Secretary of Education. It would be so wonderful to have a person in that position who actually leads our schools toward true education reform rather than a person whose first inclination is to play political games.