Former President George W. Bush Announces Death Of Former Education Secretary Rod Paige At 92
Rod Paige, the pioneering educator who became the first Black U.S. secretary of education and helped steer one of the most consequential federal school reforms in modern history, has died at 92. Former President George W. Bush, who appointed him to lead the Department of Education in 2001, announced his death in a statement without providing additional details.
Paige’s tenure in Washington was defined by the rollout of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 law modeled on his earlier work as superintendent of the Houston Independent School District. The law established nationwide testing requirements and allowed federal sanctions for schools that repeatedly failed to meet performance benchmarks.
Supporters credited the law with standardizing expectations regardless of race or income, while critics spent years warning it pushed districts toward redundant assessments and “teaching to the test.”
Bush praised Paige in his statement, saying, “Rod was a leader and a friend. Unsatisfied with the status quo, he challenged what we called ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations.’ Rod worked hard to make sure that where a child was born didn’t determine whether they could succeed in school and beyond.”
Paige was born in Monticello, Mississippi, to two teachers and grew up the eldest of five siblings in a community of about 1,400 people. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he launched a coaching career in high school and junior college football before returning to Jackson State University, his alma mater and a historically Black institution, as head coach. His 1967 team became the first to integrate Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium.
He later moved to Houston to coach at Texas Southern University but shifted full-time into education, becoming a teacher, administrator, and eventually dean of TSU’s College of Education from 1984 to 1994. His approach to school reform in Houston drew statewide attention and became a centerpiece of Bush’s presidential pitch, often referred to as the “Texas Miracle.”
After leaving the Bush administration in 2005, Paige returned to Jackson State University in 2016 to serve as interim president more than half a century after enrolling there as a student. Well into his 90s, he continued speaking publicly about the future of American education. In a 2024 Houston Chronicle op-ed, he urged readers to “look to Houston not just for inspiration, but for hard-won lessons about what works, what doesn’t and what it takes to shake up a stagnant system.”
