News Intelligence Analysis
Why the Education Secretary Should Be Fired
By Katherine Yurica
February 27, 2004
On February 23rd, 2004 Rod Paige, the Secretary of Education in the Bush Administration called the NEA, (the National Education Association), which is the nation’s largest teachers union, a “terrorist organization.” Paige’s destructive slur was made at a White House meeting with the nation’s governors and both Democratic and Republican governors confirmed that Paige made the statement.
Paige later apologized for what he called “a poor choice of words,” and insisted that what he should have said was the union uses “obstructionist scare tactics.”
The next day the NEA asked President Bush to fire Mr. Paige.
Reg Weaver, the president of the NEA, which represents 2.7 million teachers, told the press that his members deserved more than “unfair labels and mean-spirited apologies.”
The entire episode is reminiscent of James Watt, the Secretary of Interior in the Reagan administration and his odyssey in the Reagan cabinet. Watt, who was a Pentecostal political conservative, offended many people by calling those who were pro-choice in the matter of abortion ‘murderers,” a phrase now commonly used and accepted by the religious right, and he likened critics of his environmental policies to Nazis and Bolsheviks and attributed Indian reservation unemployment, social disease, and drug abuse to “socialism.” Watt’s final denouement occurred when he derisively referred to a member of his coal leasing commission with a paralyzed arm as a “cripple.”
It wasn’t a so-called liberal press or a so-called antichristian campaign that caused James Watt’s demise. As his close friend, the former Republican Senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson said, “I’m not clamoring for his resignation. It’s strictly between the president and Jim Watt, but there’s no defense for what he said. It’s painful for me.”
Similarly, what makes Rod Paige’s comments so offensive is that they echo the Dominionist’s far right reactionary attitude and the organized drive to destroy the teacher’s union that has been ongoing for over twenty years.
Keep in mind, George Bush said he wanted to be called the “Education President.” His “No Child Left Behind” initiative, however, has only been partially funded, and appears to be a cruel hoax on those parents who believed him.
Consider that Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and other groups targeted positions in Boards of Education in an all out effort to take over every school district in America. They have succeeded remarkably well. Gary North, a leading biblical economist and Dominionist recently wrote this:
“The goal of controlling the local public school board is not to make the public schools a good place for Christian students. Christian students should not be in tax-supported schools. The goal is to say ‘no’ to every request by every teachers union, to say ‘no’ to every liberal humanist textbook salesman, and to stop floating school bond proposals. The school board’s job is to cut back on spending in every area, but especially the salaries of school administrators. It is also important to expel every delinquent on campus, including faculty members.” (“Replacing Evil With Good” by Gary North, Institute for Christian Economics (ICE) )
In other words, the goal has been to slowly strangle public education in America by cutting off education funds. The target is to close down our public schools one by one until no schools are left but the religionist’s schools.
Initially in the 1980’s, the NEA became the target.
Pat Robertson kept a virtual litany of verbal attacks going against the teacher’s union. On September 4, 1985, he told his audience on the 700 Club:
“…When you get a powerful labor union, such as the NEA (National Education Association) holding incredible power over education and actually training students in initiatives to prevent them from communicating to their parents…to say that the pupil-teacher relationship is privileged, such as a lawyer-client relationship therefore parents can’t inquire into it…its time to break it up. It’s long over due.” (Transcribed by author.)
On September 10, 1985 he took up the attack again:
“…The educational establishment has got to be broken, the NEA, the National Education Association, which said blatantly, [in] one of their publications: ‘So what if Johnny can’t read. We’ve got him till he’s seventeen years old.’ They’re so much more concerned with teaching a new value system to these students, they don’t care if they can read or not. They just want to take them away from traditional Christian morality, and the values, if you will, of the private free enterprise system, and move toward a collectivist mentality. And they’re more concerned with the indoctrination of the students against their parents…The educational establishment and this union is blocking progress, blocking teacher testing, blocking competency tests, unbelievable!” (Transcribed by author.)
The accusations have never let up in the religious world since then! In fact, the demands have increased to the point of micromanagement of American school districts. The 2002 Texas Republican Party’s Platform gives us a real view of the Dominionists goals: It openly states:
“We call for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education and the prohibition of the transfer of any of its functions to any other federal agency.”
The party also called for the abolition of the state’s regulatory authority by eliminating the Texas Education Agency and demanded that all power should reside with the local board of education. The party demanded that bilingual education be terminated and called for the reinstitution of corporeal punishment of students as well as several pages of detailed instructions to the teaching establishment.
All of this brings us back to Mr. Paige and his tarring the NEA with the epithet, “terrorist organization.” Mr. Paige may have done America a great service. For he has called attention to what the Dominionists are really up to. That’s why Mr. Bush must fire Mr. Paige. For if he fails to fire Paige, Mr. Bush will look like he’s endorsing the hate behind the words. Who knows? Maybe the teachers and parents will wake up to the fact that Mr. Bush is trying to destroy public education in America.
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles College, U.S.C. and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
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