Raise the Bar for Poor, Minority Kids, Paige Urges Educators

Education Secretary Rod Paige, who last week came under fire for a remark that appeared to support teaching Christian values in schools, urged hundreds of educators gathered for a conference in Anaheim on Saturday to raise their expectations of poor and minority children.

“Growing up in a little segregated town in Mississippi, I was one of those who could have been left behind,” Paige told a crowd of nearly 3,000 people at the 82nd annual National Assn. of Elementary School Principals convention.

Paige said all students will rise to the challenge if teachers and school principals expect more from them, underscoring the tenets of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education initiative.

But Paige, a former superintendent of schools in Houston who has become the most visible promoter of President Bush’s education agenda, did not comment on the controversy brewing over his interview published by the Baptist Press news service Monday.

In the article, Paige was quoted as saying, “All things equal, I would prefer to have a child in a school that has strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community.” Paige’s comment touched off a storm of criticism.

Like Bush, Paige has been an outspoken supporter of school vouchers and allowing them to be used for religious schools, something that is vehemently opposed by many public school leaders.

Some members of Congress and civil liberty groups demanded he recant his remarks or step down as secretary.

“If he were the head of an organization or association of Christian schools, the statement would have been powerful and personal,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “But when he speaks as the highest-ranking government official responsible for the education of all children in the country, he must acknowledge the vast diversity that we have.”

Paige has refused to recant but offered a clarification at a hastily prepared press conference Wednesday. The devout Southern Baptist said the comments expressed a personal preference and that the quote was in response to a question about the best college education.

The Baptist Press on Friday published a correction and the entire transcript of Paige’s interview. It also said the reporter who wrote the story had been fired.

Still, Lynn and others say they remain troubled by Paige’s comments in the interview, including that “in public schools there are so many different kids from different kinds of experiences that it’s very hard to get consensus around some core values.”

Martha Smith, principal of Prairieview Elementary School in Downers Grove, Ill., was watching Paige’s speech Saturday.

She said she had not heard about the controversy, but “it concerns me greatly,” she said, “because we have 25 to 28 different nationalities represented in our [school district] and all the different religions that go with that.”