Bush Flunkie Rod Paige Calls Teachers Union a terrorist organization

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=703&e=3&u=/ap/20040223/ap_on_go_pr_wh/governors_bush

Rod Paige Criticizes Teachers Union

WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" during a private White House meeting with governors on Monday.


Democratic and Republican governors confirmed Paige's remarks about the National Education Association.


"These were the words, 'The NEA is a terrorist organization,'" said Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin.


"He was making a joke, probably not a very good one," said Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Of course he immediately divorced the NEA from ordinary teachers, who he said he supports."

more

[hatrack]

1. Gosh, they're just sweating blood to get teachers' votes this fall

Looks like Paige attended James Watt Charm School.

[ixion]

2. not a very good one is an understatement

given the over-used nature of the 'T' word.

[symbolman]

3. This guy needs to step down immediately

He does a disservice to all the people slaughtered by actual terrorism.. might as well be spitting on graves.

cretins.

[bluedog]

4. every time some one disagrees with these

people they are called terrorists...what the hell have we let our government become...there is only one thing this did and that is to infurate the NEA

Bush's secretary of education just eliminated any hope of Bush getting a vote from any teacher. Calling the NEA a terrorist group, is ANYONE in Bush's administration a grown-up? They all speak like they never learned any manners and respect for others.

[alcuno]

5. Thanks. I just emailed this to my entire school staff.

Get these people OUT of our government!

[buycitgo]

8. me, too! going up on the bulletin board tomorrow

I/m an NEA member....don't agree with much of what they've done, particularly their IEA branch in Illinois, but this comment goes WAY WAY WAY beyond the pale

have you ever heard that guy speak, btw?

he's almost as much of an ignoramus as his boss

check this story.....I especially like the part about the PR hack; it so perfectly epitomizes what these lying hypocrites are all about

Days of Paige
Did Bush pick a master educator - or an overpaid front man?
BY TIM FLECK
[e-mail]

Paige: His dissertation was on football linemen's response times.


When President-elect George W. Bush nominated Rod Paige for secretary of education, the media raves on the local level spewed like Spindletop in its prime. The Houston Independent School District suddenly became the best urban district in the nation and the 67-year-old superintendent Paige the premier leader in public education.
Unmentioned was the fact that two of the reasons cited for such unstinting praise -- the district's rising TAAS test scores and privatizing everything from payroll processing to school food services -- are hardly accepted unanimously as successes.

Teaching to pass the TAAS is under attack from educators and parents as a diversion from real learning. And the privatization effort has generated as much criticism as praise from district employees and vendors.

Then there's the Paige team's cultist embrace of Model-Netics, a system of management phrases and symbols peddled by a corporate executive who advised HISD on reorganization.

Of course, there's plenty of good news to be had on the district in the form of a blizzard of press releases churned out by the staff of $110,000-a-year media-consultant-without-a-college-degree Terry Abbott, former press aide to a Republican governor of Alabama who was convicted of fraud. Abbott was a find of public education activist Rob Mosbacher, that former mayoral candidate and close adviser of Paige, whose kids attend St. John's.

The storm over how former football coach Paige was elevated to the superintendency in 1994 has long since passed beyond the local media's memory. But it is helpful to remember that he was an unpaid HISDboard member who joined a coalition of white trustees. At the time, Paige, whose college dissertation was on the response time of football linemen, was a dean of education at troubled Texas Southern University and the founder of a new business, the Houston Education Collegium. By accident or design, he then bootstrapped himself, with a little help from his colleagues, into what became a $260,000-a-year job as superintendent.

http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2001-01-11/insider.html

in case you're interested, here are a few more tidbits about the famous Texas miracle, har

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Paige+TAAS+fraud

[alcuno]

19. My superintendent up here in Illinois is another Texas guy.

I think he knows Paige and I hope that they both end up back in the Texas system. I'm a former union officer but I only know what we do at a local level. Obviously if Paige is calling the NEA a terrorist organization, they must be doing something right.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. "Rod Paige must be a nazi then"! It's so obvious....

if the NEA is a "terrorist organization" then he must be a
"nazi"!

(Satire,......or is it?)

:eyes:

[Brian Sweat]

7. I think it is time to turn the Paige.

[jburton]

9. just rated it a 5

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=703&e=3&u=/ap/20040223/ap_on_go_pr_wh/governors_bush

[PurityOfEssence]

10. this is the same Fraud Paige who fudged numbers by transferring kids

Houston had such a sterling record of graduation because he didn't just "leave kids behind", he threw them overboard and lied about it in the process for personal gain.

These people are filth; anyone who disagrees with them or offers any resistance is a murderous psycho who's deserving of being thrown right out of society.

Yet another new low.

[jburton]

11. "The Houston Miracle"

Yep, it's that Paige. Total scam artist - very fitting in the * administration.

[buycitgo]

13. you are correct. sir

check post 8 here for some info+links on that

CRM114

[Kolesar]

12. Paige was a Democrat, I recall

And he was immediately emasculated upon his arrival in the Bush administration.

[bobbieinok]

21. a democrat???? are you sure???? I thought this gang had a NO

DEMOCRATS WANTED sign on the treehouse door.

[Ksec]

14. These guys are traitorous

Imagine calling a teacher a terrorist? Equating a teacher with the guys who flew planes into buildings??? This is unamerican and it should be enough to charge this guy with something. Maybe someone with law smarts could give us something...

[buycitgo]

15. DIG IT!!!!!! Wolf just ran with that as number two story!!

As I type, he's saying that Rod Paige has called "the NEA, the nation's largest teachers' union, a terrorist union."

at least it's getting some play

sure hope they run with this all over the place

this is so fricking outRAGEous

[peaches2003]

16. Bush should apologize and fire him

Bush should immediately apologize and then fire him. This is outrageous in this day and age to call anyone a 'terrorist'. The arrogance of this whole bunch is disgusting. The story is on Drudge.

[bluedog]

17. kick

for the night people

[djg21]

25. Do you really want him fired!

I, for one, want him to continue serving, and apologizing, so we can point out this Administration's War on Education! Shrub doesn't get many points when his Cabinet attacks the union that represents schoolteachers!

[mobuto]

18. Not a flunkie, he's a henchman.

Get it straight.

[GOPGoindown]

20. He Doesn't Get It

"He (Paige) said he had made clear to the governors that he was referring to the Washington-based union organization, not the teachers it represents.

Our Ed Secrety can't even understand that teachers are the union. Sheesh! That's bad.

[Dookus]

22. buh bye

Mr. Paige


This is the kind of thing Secretaries lose their job over.

[spooky3]

23. It's an outrage.

[lancdem]

24. I just saw this story on the yahoo news page

My first reaction was stunned incredulity.

[Deja Q]

26. Paige and his cronies are a terrorist organization

Either I'm wrong or he is wrong. And you only need one guess... given the accepted definitions of terrorism, the NEA doesn't even come close to terrorism.

[Gingergal]

27. Paige calls the NEA terrorists because the union

terrifies him and his cronies. They want NO unions so they can walk all over the teachers.
Sign me
Proud member for 13 years of the NEA which terrifies bush and his flying monkeys.