TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Archives
• Young Voices
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Profile of Dr. Paige
• Article on Dr. Paige
• U.S. Department of Education official site

E-mail a friend

Video of Rod Paige.
 

Tavis: From segregated schools to the top education post in this country, I'm delighted to welcome on this program tonight the Secretary of the Education Department, Rod Paige. Mr. Secretary, nice to see you.

Rod Paige: It's great to see you.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.

Paige: I'm honored to be here.

Tavis: So tomorrow night, this is day one, obviously. Tomorrow night's your big night. You're, giving a speech tomorrow night. You, have you done your, uh, run-through at the podium yet?

Paige: Yesterday at 1:00, I practiced a little bit. It's, uh, it's going to be different.

Tavis: Yeah. How does it feel? How does it feel behind the podium? A little daunting?

Paige: It's a big place. There's a lot of people in there. But it's gonna be okay.

Tavis: Yeah. Um, no secret here, I suspect, at least, having not seen a copy of your speech, you're gonna talk, let me guess, about, hmm, Leave No Child Behind?

Paige: You got it! I don't know how you came up with that, but you got it. And, you know, it's important too because this, this offers us an opportunity to, to talk about that, and to help people understand it better.

Tavis: With all due respect, Leave No Child Behind clearly has been debated. There are many who argue that there is a mixed bag here. There are many who argue that the jury is still out on Leave No Child Behind. Others argue that it's unfair to criticize you or the president 'cause it hasn't had time to catch on yet. Still others say you all passed it, but you didn't fund it. Your Republican Congress hasn't funded it. What's the story on Leave No Child Behind?

Paige: Well, we've heard all of those stories. But let me tell you what the real situation is. First of all, No Child Left Behind was debated. But, you know, it came out of the Congress in a bipartisan way. So then, I've conducted myself like the Congress modeled it for me. It is not a Democratic issue; it is not a Republican issue; it is an American issue. And we have strong support across the spectrum. But now we're in election season. And so when you get in election season, we find things to argue about. But I think everybody understands that the No Child Left Behind Act is something that we need to do right now. We've been trying for years to fix the education system, and we've not done it quite as well as we should.

Tavis: But when voters hear, and obviously there are respected voices on both sides of this issue. No matter what you think of Ted Kennedy's politics, Ted Kennedy has been a strong voice, as you well know, on the education issue. When Ted Kennedy says, 'I supported Rod Paige and I supported George Bush. I sponsored Leave No Child Behind. But now I'm really disappointed,' as he said at the Democratic Convention, 'I'm disappointed that they, the Republicans in this Congress, did not fund what we said we were going to support.'

Paige: Well, you know, first of all, I respect Senator Kennedy. And he was, you know, a great player in the development of this policy. And that's why it's such a bipartisan policy. But now here again, we're in election season. And so would you expect them to go out and say, 'Look, those guys are the best thing since sliced bread. They did everything that they said they were going to do.' And so that's not how the system works. But I think good people can look behind that and understand what the rhetoric is, and what the reality is. And they'll see that No Child Left Behind is working. It's making great progress, all across America. Students are learning, the achievement gap is closing.

Tavis: I had two specific thoughts about education, preparing for our conversation. I'm curious to get your take on this. On the one hand, I, I am, I'm like Fannie Lou Hamer, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of hearing folk, mainly, presidential candidates every four years, talk about how they want to be the education president. Everybody says, and talks a good game, about education. That bothers me. On the other hand, I'm also bothered this year...I'm just bothered by everything...I'm bothered this year by the fact that because of the war in Iraq, we ain't heard a lot about education coming, quite frankly, out of either one of these candidates. As the top guy on education in the country, does it bother you that we've not heard the kind of rigorous debate, as I see it at least, that we ought to have on education?

Paige: Well, you know, yes. It, I'd, I'd like to have a more public, uh, discussion about education. In fact, uh, we have been very aggressive about communicating. But there are a lot of things going on in the world now that kind of blocks our message. We can't, we can't get the nation's attention as much as we would like to because so many other things are going on. Especially, uh, our own safety and security, the economy and other issues like that. But I think that, hey, if you listen Thursday night, you're going to hear the president talk a lot about education.

Tavis: Are we, are we hopelessly...I hate to even consider this...but are we hopelessly in an abyss on the education front, that no matter how hard we try, we just can't come out of? Is our educational system just that broken that it really can't be fixed?

Paige: I don't think so. You know, my whole life has been dedicated to the fact that education can be fixed. There are a lot of wonderful people in education. Our public schools are, are wonderful institutions. You know, there are some things we just got to do better. And we see now, first, we hear a lot, all right, we hear a lot of reports about how bad things are and how bad things are going with No Child Left Behind. But I get the actual reports from every state. I can tell you right now, the data that's coming in now shows a distinct departure from the status quo and business as usual, all across America. A lot of complaints, but people are working their backsides off trying to make this work. This is making a big difference.

Tavis: Yeah. I wanted to spend the balance of my time talking about education, and we've spent a great deal on that. But I'm also curious to talk about, more about Rod Paige the person. Tell me about your educational background.

Paige: I grew up in segregated Mississippi. I went to a very small wooden, school building, and graduated with some students who spread themselves out across the United States; went to a segregated college, Jackson State. When I finished Jackson State, I wanted to go to graduate school. They did not admit African Americans in the state institution. So I had to, to state higher education, I had to go away to Indiana University. In fact, the state paid me.

Tavis: You know, I went to IU now.

Paige: Yeah, okay.

Tavis: Yeah, so we got two Hoosiers here, two IU graduates.

Paige: How ‘bout that? The state, the state paid me to, to go out of the state to go to graduate school. And I was happy to do that. I came back, worked at Jackson State, the University of Cincinnati, as assistant football coach, head football coach at Jackson State, came to Texas Southern, uh, as athletic director, and a professor, in the Department of Education, became Dean of the Department of Education, and ran for the School Board, and that's how all this started.

Tavis: Yeah. There are, there are those who look at you and respect you and admire you greatly, um, as we should. But they're trying to juxtapose that story that you just told with how it is that you ended up as a Republican. I mean, there is, much of the, many of, of the gains that were made that allowed you, and certainly me, to do what we have done came, uh, through a period of time where Republicans oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes, were on the wrong side of our struggle. How does Rod Paige end up as a Republican?

Paige: Well, first of all, um, my father was a great Democrat. He was the most Democratic Democrats you could ever imagine! You know, so he'd ask that same question of me. But, I read African American history. I'm a student of African American history. I started off, uh, understanding, you know, this situation of slavery. I followed the people who supported us and who fought for our freedom. And I followed that tradition and I followed that, uh, history, and I followed those ideas. And it led me to where I am now. I've never been active in the Democratic Party. I have, I have great respect for the Democrats. I'm not anti-Democrats. You know, there are some Republicans that I have difficulty with. And there are many Democrats I have difficulty with. But my niche has been in smaller government, in education primarily. Let's measure, let's deal with results; let's talk about what we're actually doing, not what all the rhetoric is about. And so the Republican philosophy, I think, fits right in the middle of the African American agenda. And that's where I am.

Tavis: Tell me how likely it is you think that African Americans, as time go-goes on, will come to see it as you see it, that, that it doesn't make sense for all of any particular group of people to be supportive of a singular party.

Paige: Well, I respect those who are on the Democratic side now. But we just need a broader representative group. You know, we need to be present everywhere. And I'm going across the country now talking about No Child Left Behind. And I'm, I got to tell you, I'm bumping into a new crowd of bright, young, aggressive, upward mobile African Americans who are Republicans. Right here, we've got the lieutenant governor, uh, is gonna be speaking, Lieutenant Governor Steele. You know him very well. And, and also, the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio is an African American lady. I see lots of young African Americans now running for state houses, and state senates, local and municipal government. I think it's a new day dawning. Right here at this convention, there's a broader representation of African Americans than it was when I went to the convention in 1980 in Detroit.

Tavis: Let me ask you, to the point of more African Americans and more people of color finding their way into the Republican Party. On the issue of school choice for example, I read a survey just the other day that African Americans are now over 50% in support, of the notion at least, of school choice.

Paige: Yes.

Tavis: Now of course, you ask the right question, you get the right answer, depending on how you ask the question. How you define school choice. But African Americans are becoming more open to the notion of school choice. Here's the question. Are they becoming more open to that notion because they're starting to understand and accept a Republican way of looking at this issue? Or, are they coming to that conclusion because they're just sick and tired of crumbling schools, and they're willing to try anything?

Paige: Well, well, you know, I think that, uh, that we, we should move the politics out of this. You know. Let's get back to the history. Even in slavery, when they had laws against us learning to read and write, I mean you should see the struggles, uh, that African Americans slaves and freedmen went to in order to gain education. African Americans have always been aggressive about education. And so now, I think what they're saying is, this isn't working. Let me move forward on something that is working.

Tavis: The Hispanic population, the fastest growing in the country. African Americans are no longer the biggest minority in this country. How does the, how does this convention play to the Hispanic Americans, specifically on the issue of education?

Paige: Well, I was just reading some information this morning about the representation here in this convention. And there's a growing Hispanic representation as well. The minority representation here is up by large numbers.

Tavis: You have dealt with education not just at the federal level now, but to your earlier point, you were the superintendent of schools in Houston. So you got a top-down view and a bottom-up view. For those persons who are in the trenches every single day, what are the two or three greatest concerns that you have about the challenges that they have to do their job well everyday?

Paige: Well, the support of the general community. And the understanding how difficult this is. We have put a big load on the schools, and on the teachers and on the principals. This is hard work. I'd like to see them paid more. You know, I'd like to see them get better respect. I'd like to see them listened to more. From those two points of views, I think the ones that fits me best is from the practitioner point of view. You see, I've walked down the halls of the schools and looked into the eyes of the students. So I know what is...I know what it's like there. And they need our support in a big way.

Tavis: Are you interested in staying for a second term if President Bush gets re-elected?

Paige: Well, I'm interested in serving as long as President Bush sees that I am making a positive contribution towards his agenda.

Tavis: And you feel good about the contribution you have made in this program?

Paige: I feel very good about this contribution. I think that I have some things to learn, and to get into a new system. I had some struggles with getting the fact that I'm not a superintendent anymore out of my head, and that I'm a federal official. But, you know, I think I got it down pretty good now. It's working.

Tavis: I'm glad to see you here.

Paige: Okay.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.

Paige: Thank you.

Tavis: Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, speaking tomorrow night at this convention. And again, I'm sure you'll be tuned in for that, to hear what he has to say about education. Coming up next on this program, two former influential voices still in the Republican Party--former members of Congress, I should say--J.C. Watts of Oklahoma and Bob Barr of Georgia. They're up in just a moment. Stay with us. We're live from Madison Square Garden.

MUSIC

Tavis: We are in New York City at Madison Square Garden for Day One of the Republican National Convention where, I suspect, something tells me George Bush is going to be re-nominated in a few days. And something tells me that he will probably accept the re-nomination of his Party.