The Passage of Paige

President Bush calls it holding schools accountable. Critics call it Every Child Left Behind. And the nation's largest teachers' union just filed suit over it.

It's the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and one of its main backers was former HISD superintendent Rod Paige. Paige, W's erstwhile secretary of education, has the dubious honor of being the man who showed the country education, Houston-style.

And, apparently, we fudge stuff. Like test scores. And dropout numbers. That came to light when a Houston principal went all whistle-blower on HISD's ass.

But that didn't change Paige's mind about No Child. His agency paid a commentator $240,000 to promote the law on his TV and radio shows. He wrote a letter to The New York Times saying schools should operate like Ford assembly lines. He called the National Education Association a terrorist organization. Clearly the man's been itching for his own sitcom. We hope he gets one; we need something to watch after we drop out of school.