|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
Hey, I'm a Terrorist |
Current rating: 0 |
by NYTimes Masthead Editorial via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
25 Feb 2004
|
According to a comment this week from Bush's Secretary of Education, the National Education Association is a "terrorist organization." Since I'm a member of the AAP, I am also a member of the NEA. So I just wanted to shout out to my fellow terrorists.
Where does Bush _get_ these people? |
February 25, 2004
Another Mistake by Rod Paige
Rod Paige, the education secretary, made a staggeringly stupid comment this week, comparing the nation's largest teachers' union to a "terrorist organization" because it opposes many elements of the two-year-old No Child Left Behind Act. This is the latest in a series of missteps by Mr. Paige.
President Bush came to Washington saying that education would be a centerpiece of his domestic agenda. Yet he chose as his education secretary someone who seems incapable of representing that policy or putting it in place. If the president wishes to succeed, he will need a far more composed and capable secretary of education. Mr. Paige has been repeatedly criticized by Congress for failing to administer the education act properly.
Mr. Paige made his "terrorist" remark at a gathering of governors at the White House, just before the president stepped up his re-election campaign. The statement, for which Mr. Paige later apologized, has given the union, the National Education Association, reams of free publicity and energized its effort to topple No Child Left Behind, which holds public schools accountable for closing the achievement gap between rich and poor children.
The list of Mr. Paige's errors is long. Last year he said he preferred to have a child in Christian schools and suggested that Christians were morally superior to others. He was called onto the carpet this week by members of the Senate who are threatening to revisit No Child Left Behind unless the department fully enforces the law as written. Instead of dealing with central issues, the department has wasted time and money on things like making sure the districts permit the right amount of "constitutionally protected prayer."
Mr. Paige's "terrorist" remark has finally exhausted his credibility and disqualified him as a spokesman for national education policy.
(c) 2004, The New York Times
@%< |
Related stories on this site:
Bush's Education Secretary Calls Teachers Union 'Terrorist Organization'
|
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
|
Union Urges Bush to Replace Education Chief Over Remark |
by Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
25 Feb 2004
|
A day after Education Secretary Rod Paige compared the nation's largest teachers union to a "terrorist organization" because of its criticism of President Bush's centerpiece education law, the union brushed aside his apologies and called for his dismissal.
"Our members are the N.E.A., and on behalf of them, I ask President Bush to express his regret to the nation's educators and demand that Secretary Paige step down," said the union's president, Reg Weaver.
And in the House, Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, called on Dr. Paige to resign. She characterized his remarks as "neo-McCarthyism at its worst."
The reactions made public an often bitter struggle between the Bush administration and the National Education Association, which has 2.7 million members and frequently supports the Democrats at election time. The administration and the union have been at odds practically since January 2002, when the president signed the law, known as No Child Left Behind. It expands the use of tests to raise student achievement.
The union sees the law as a barely concealed effort to weaken public education and build support for vouchers.
In July, Mr. Weaver told delegates at the N.E.A.'s annual meeting that the union intended to sue the Education Department for failing to finance the law fully. Dr. Paige responded that supporters of the law were assembled in a "coalition of the winning" but that "the N.E.A. wants to assemble a coalition of the whining."
That was one of many rhetorical attacks that Dr. Paige has directed not only at the union but also at the law's critics, like school superintendents and state legislators. In recent months he has called such critics "nihilists" and compared them to French diplomats at the United Nations who opposed resolutions on Iraq as well as to racists who opposed desegregation.
In a White House meeting with governors on Monday, Dr. Paige "said he considered the N.E.A. to be a terrorist organization," his spokeswoman, Susan Aspey, said. He quickly apologized, but those remarks as well as mounting irritation with the law among many educators appeared to have created alliances between groups that are often at odds.
The American Federation of Teachers, a union that has 1.3 million members and is a rival, closed ranks with the N.E.A. yesterday.
"Secretary Paige's statement is indicative of the way this administration and this secretary paint with a broad brush and attack anybody that disagrees with them," said Alex Wohl, a federation spokesman. "There has to be room for disagreement, but this administration tends to simply attack the messenger instead of discussing the message."
Dr. Paige met yesterday with Democratic lawmakers, who spent 15 minutes criticizing his remarks. The secretary apologized profusely, people at the meeting said.
"If I had a rewind button, I'd use it," one participant quoted Dr. Paige as telling them.
Dr. Paige said his comment was "insensitive, thoughtless and unfortunate," another participant said.
In a statement issued through a spokesman today, Dr. Paige noted that black and Hispanic students were doing poorly in many schools. "That is the status quo," he said. "That is why I am so passionate about making these historic reforms and drawing attention to the issue."
On a day when criticism rained from many sides, Dr. Paige received support from the union leader who perhaps knows him best: Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. They worked together when Dr. Paige was the superintendent of Houston schools in the 1990's. Ms. Fallon said his remarks had been misinterpreted.
"Rod has a real sarcastic sense of humor," she said. "I'd walk into the room, and he'd say, `Well here's my favorite labor terrorist.' But he was joking. He said far worse to me at other times. So I think he popped off with a sarcastic remark that has been blown out of proportion."
As secretary, Dr. Paige has frequently directed what his critics call intemperate rhetoric at those who oppose even parts of the law, which requires that state and local testing systems be adjusted to meet federal regulations. In October 2002, Dr. Paige called state education officials who were setting standards that he considered insufficiently demanding "enemies of equal justice and equal opportunity."
In early January, in discussing the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case, Dr. Paige compared critics of the new education law to "those who fought Brown," suggesting the critics were racists.
And on Jan. 28, he compared those who oppose educational choice, the movement that includes everything from vouchers to charter schools, to "the French at the United Nations, promising to veto any resolution on Iraq, regardless of what it says."
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
|
Actually, bfd,... |
by b*tch
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 5
26 Feb 2004
|
...it shows the Republicans to be true hypocrites. Hmmmm....
Maybe we can hear some more drivel like:
a. adulterous politicians denouncing the lack of family values
b. drug-addicted talk-show hosts advocating for harsh sentences for drug offenders
c. chickenhawk politicians, elected or appointed, decrying the cowardice of anti-war statements
d. "state's rights" conservatives advocated a federal solution to a hot-button gay marriage controversy
e. John Birch society members urging war in order to enforce UN resolutions
and on and on and on and on and on and on |
|
And Rod Paige is still a liar |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Feb 2004
|
Bush appointed Rod Paige as Secretary of Education after supposedly raising test scores in Houston. Paige supposedly did it by privatizing schools for students who were taken out of regular education classrooms, similar a plan in place in Champaign, although the Champaign schools are run by the school district. That was the "Texas Miracle."
Houston's alternative weekly, the Houston Press, evaluated the hoopla in 2000, before Paige was nominated. The article goes into detail about the claims and counter claims, and the evidence they found supports a different Texas Miracle:
"Last September [a Houston school district research specialist] did his own evaluation, based not on [the findings of the privatize company running Houston's alternative schools, CEP], but on recognized testing standards for all the kids in the district. Kellow looked at CEP students' scores on the TAAS and the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT-9). He found that both reading and math scores on the Texas Learning Index (which shows growth) and the percentage of students who passed the TAAS were actually lower after they attended CEP. The same for the SAT-9."
The researcher was immediately reprimanded and he resigned shortly after making his results public.
Thank goodness we finally have a president and administration with integrity. |
See also:
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2000-04-06/news.html
http://www.skirsch.com/politics/rodpaige/rod_paige_page.htm
|
