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Despite Paige's advocacy of controversial conservative education policies--like the use of tax money for vouchers to send students to private schools--lawmakers in both parties are welcoming him. Senator Barbara Mikulski, a liberal Maryland Democrat, described herself as "really impressed" by Paige's legacy in Houston; Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, called Paige's leadership "visionary...
...Whitney Houston may not have a drug problem, but she definitely has some serious short-term-memory issues. Last November, Houston and Hawaiian prosecutors reached a plea agreement to set aside drug-possession charges stemming from an incident in which Houston was found with marijuana in her handbag by Keahole-Kona International Airport police. All Houston had to do was pay a $1,000 fine, donate $3,000 to an organization suspiciously named Big Island Wave Riders Against Drugs and submit to a substance-abuse assessment within three months. For some reason, Houston never did get that assessment. Now prosecutors...
When Rod Paige first took the helm of the struggling Houston public schools seven years ago, Gayle Fallon, president of the local teachers' union, blasted him as "the most antiteacher superintendent we've had in the past decade." By the end of Paige's tenure last month, however, Fallon was giving a far different testimonial. She gushed that Paige "will leave a better district than he came to" and that "he'll be a very effective Secretary of Education...
Paige, 67, is widely credited with turning around the Houston schools through an emphasis on accountability and efficiency and a receptiveness to new ideas. But he got off to a bumpy start. When the school board chose him as superintendent in 1994, during a closed-door session, the reaction of Hispanic activists and parents, whose children constitute a majority of the schools' students, was an angry sense of feeling excluded. They sued the board...
During Paige's tenure, the number of Houston students passing state achievement tests rose from 44% to 64%. Paige placed principals on performance contracts contingent on student achievement and saved the district money by contracting out lunchroom and maintenance services. With the help of Houston business executives, whose conservative politics had historically been at odds with the district leadership, Paige won voter approval for a $678 million bond issue in 1998--the largest of its kind in Texas--to repair 69 schools and build 10 new ones...