Rod Paige, nation's first African American secretary of education, dies at 92

Rod Paige, an educator, coach and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. education secretary, died Tuesday

Rod Paige, an educator, coach and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. education secretary, died Tuesday.

Former President George W. Bush, who tapped Paige for the nation’s top federal education post, announced the death in a statement but did not provide further details. Paige was 92.

Under Paige’s leadership, the Department of Education implemented No Child Left Behind policy that in 2002 became Bush’s signature education law and was modeled on Paige’s previous work as a schools superintendent in Houston. The law established universal testing standards and sanctioned schools that failed to meet certain benchmarks.

“Rod was a leader and a friend,” Bush said in his statement. “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.”

Former President George W. Bush and Secretary of Education Rod Paige at an elementary school outside of Detroit in 2002.Tim Sloan / AFP via Getty Images fileRoderick R. Paige was born to two teachers in the small Mississippi town of Monticello of roughly 1,400 inhabitants. The oldest of five siblings, Paige served a two-year stint the U.S. Navy before becoming a football coach at the high school, and then junior college levels. Within years, Paige rose to head coach of Jackson State University, his alma mater and a historically black college in the Mississippi capital city.