Former Sec. of Ed. Rod Paige to Speak Jan. 26

Rod Paige, Ed.D., former secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, will speak at Jacksonville State University at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, January 26, on the 11th Floor of the Houston Cole Library. The public and the university community are invited. Later that day he is also speaking at the annual Chamber of Commerce luncheon at McClellan's Buckner Center. During his tenure at the U.S. Department of Education from 2001 to 2005, Paige was a champion of education reform who led the way in setting new standards of achievement for all students in the nation's education system. Paige spearheaded the implementation of the historic No Child Left Behind Act, with its goal of reinvigorating America's education system. Paige has devoted his life to transforming the state of education by improving the way that children learn on all levels, a passion that has manifested itself most recently when he founded the bipartisan Chartwell Education Group, LLC, a consulting firm devoted to offering solutions to the 21st century challenges faced by the public and private sector enterprises that focus on pre-K, K-12 and post-secondary education, both in the United States and throughout the world. Paige also serves as a senior advisor for Westmark Systems, LLC, which specializes in high quality education programs for teachers and administrators. Prior to his time at Chartwell, and after he left the administration in 2005, Paige served as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His appointment by President George W. Bush as the seventh US Secretary of Education, and the first school superintendent to serve in this position, was a signal honor for Paige, the son of a principal and a librarian in the public school system. Born in 1933 in segregated Monticello, Miss., Paige's earned a bachelor's degree from Jackson State University in his home state. He then earned both a master's and a doctoral degree from Indiana University. Paige began his career as a teacher and coach. He served for a decade as dean of the College of Education at Texas Southern University (TSU). He also established the University's Center for Excellence in Urban Education, a research facility that concentrates on issues related to instruction and management in urban school systems. Paige was honored as an outstanding educator by the Council of the Great City Schools (2000) and the National Association of Black School Educators (2001). He was also named the National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators in 2001.

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