Published Monday, April 26, 2004
Appian Exclusive: Interview with Rod Paige
By Michael Lisman
APPIAN STAFF WRITER

The following is the transcribed text of The Appian’s interview with Secretary of Education Rod Paige, conducted Thursday, April 22, 2004.

ML: If you were to be told, in the 1940’s in Monticello, Mississippi that one day there would be a Secretary of Education - that it would be a cabinet level position - and that you would be he, what would you have said?

RP: There is no earthly way I could have imagined such a circumstance. My parents constantly told us (not to be) deterred by societal expectations, to get an education, (that it) it is the key to freedom – all those kinds of things – and we heard that a lot, but it didn’t really give us the idea that the horizons were available to us, as has actually occurred. But in 1940s, I never could have envisioned this – not only me, but any African-American man.

ML: Moving up a few years, although a little before my time, you may remember a Vietnam era bumper sticker that read: “it will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” I don’t know if you remember that…

RP: I do remember that.

ML: Did this, or does this resonate with you?

RP: It does, and it’s also a very catchy idea. (laughter). It’s very difficult to talk about funding as if funding is adequate – it’s a tough thing to do. The funding we talk about, though, would be federal funding which is specific to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements – which is sufficiently funded. We know schools have other challenges that are not related directly to the NCLB act, which are challenged as far as funding is concerned. For example, gasoline (prices) going up – if I was still Superintendent in Houston that would be a problem for me because I had 1300 buses – 1300 buses! – moving every day, moving 56,000 children, so if you talk about gas going up, you create a big problem for me. The interest going up for employees, when you talk about health benefits for employees, so all those costs… I empathize with schools because I know they need more support there. But specific to the NCLB act, the president has been an absolute warrior as far as providing resources. Now let me make this other point: the link between funding and performance is not solidly established, either. For example, one of the school districts that have one of the highest per pupil expenditures in the nation is Washington, DC. It is the lowest performing school district of all the United States, and there is a school district like that also in New Jersey. There are many school districts that are very much less funded, and are doing well. We really don’t know what the exact costs are – we just want to have good, efficient management. When I left Houston, we had about 12% of our students who were Special Ed. students. About $3,000,000 of this – I hope I’m right on this – were (for) students whose special ed. challenges were outside of our ability to handle so we contracted them out to Texas Medical Center, School for the Blind, and other places so that we could meet these students challenges – and the cost was in the neighborhood of 3 to 6 million dollars a year. The Washington DC Public schools, in that same year, spent about $98,000,000 outsourcing special education students to other entities. So it’s a function of efficient management; we want the dollars to go directly to instructional programs, and to help students. A lot of systems have dollars being burnt in other places where it’s not really making a difference. So it’s hard to make that link – I wish we knew more about that.

ML: I know that you’ve already fielded plenty of questions about NCLB tonight….

RP: It’s ok, feel free.

ML: Well, ok... (laughter). Some educators in particularly high minority / low socio-economic status districts have argued that the NCLB Act is unduly tough on them – those whose schools claim they simply cannot meet the standards being set without more support, both financially and in terms of raising teacher quality. When you talk face to face with educators with those concerns, what do you tell them?

RP: First of all, we make sure that they understand, and in most cases, they might have all the information, that schools that are in poverty circumstances get the most money. We now send money out to states, and some of the states have been net losers in the amount of money they are going to get from Title I, and that’s because they lost poor children – and we do this by the census. The more poor children you’ve got, the more disadvantaged students you’ve got, the more money you get. So in many cases, they are missing this – and I found that in Houston, many of the urban and poor school districts were really better funded than some of the other schools that were not eligible for the kind of federal subsidies that were coming to them. So it’s kind of a murky idea that I think is not fully understood. And the NCLB Act is specifically targeted for that community, and for those students – that’s its whole purpose. It started back when Lyndon Johnson (was going to) lift students out of poverty. That’s how it started in 1965 when it was first enacted, so it is targeted directly at them - they are benefiting from it, not hurt by it.

ML: According to Professor Gary Orfield – whom you may know from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Civil Rights Project –

RP: I know him very well.

ML: …legislatures in 23 states have now passed or are considering passing legislation against NCLB as it is currently administered. Now, you have reiterated that “the law itself is a federal law, but it is nothing more than a framework…”

RP: That’s right.

ML: (You’ve said that) “…it’s an outgrowth of the restructuring of earlier versions of the Primary and Secondary Education Act, which became law in 1965.” Given this, why the backlash? Why the….

RP: Because it is very complex and requires enormous change from the way we are doing business. Dr. Orfield should also indicate that no matter about all the discussion, none of them have taken action that would move them away from NCLB – they’ve all embraced it. There has been a lot of debate and talk, but when it comes down to it, there’s been no significant action that changes it much. Every state stood on board. And besides, it wouldn’t be something new – the state of Virginia was pretty slow in taking Goals 2000 Money – maybe they didn’t take Goals 2000 money. (to staff:) Look that up for me….. The state of New Mexico didn’t take IDEA money until the mid-‘80s. The NCLB Act is funded through the constitution’s funding clause, which says that the Federal Government has the right to attach conditions to the use of federal funds. If there is any state that decides that they don’t want to, we still would want to help as much as we could – but no state has made that decision. Although there has been a lot of debate in a lot of quarters, it has not resulted in any state taking any significant action that would move them away from NCLB Act…. I think that the discussion going on in the state legislature has been actually minimal. When you think about 50 state legislatures in session, what do legislatures do? They pass laws and talk.

ML: What’s your view of the role of graduate schools of education, like Harvard’s, in regard to contributing to the debate on these issues?

RP: I think the biggest one would be research – and making sure that we can add to teaching efficiency. Teach us how students learn math. Teach us how students can be more productive in teaching Limited English Proficiency students. Good, solid, quality research, so that the actions we take would be informed by science – that’s one of the biggest ones. The other one would be in teacher training –just helping teachers know what works, and what does not work.

ML: To close, what advice would you give to students of Education Policy - particularly those (at HGSE) that are graduating in less than 2 months – that are interested in going out and making a real impact?

RP: I think first thing I would do is congratulate them for their missionary zeal, for their interest in making America better. I would suggest to them they be sure to get a thick skin, and be prepared for some enormous challenges. But keep their eye on the prize, and understand that they work they are doing is worthy work – it may be thankless at first, but at some point they are going to be very proud of themselves for the quality of work that they do.

Michael Lisman, a part-time Ed.M candidate in IEP, works at LASPAU: Academic & Professional Programs for the Americas. Luis Maes assisted in the reporting of this story.