Rod Paige Warns of a 'Death Grip' by Unions

President Bush's first-term education secretary, Rod Paige, is sitting in his office on the 75th floor of the Empire State Building, the leather of his black cowboy boots creaking beneath the cuffs of his pinstriped suit, and talking about the "death grip," the "stranglehold," that teachers' unions have on public education in America.

His new book is titled "The War Against Hope: How Teachers' Unions Hurt Children, Hinder Teachers, and Endanger Public Education." The unions, he writes, are "arrogant" and "destructive." They defend incompetent teachers and oppose merit pay for teachers who excel. "No special interest is more destructive than the teachers' unions, as they oppose nearly every meaningful reform," he writes.

Lest New York City teachers get all riled up at him, there's a catch: The book actually praises the president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. It says she is among those union leaders who "have exhibited the unique ability to achieve, or at least to strive to achieve, the proper balance between the interests of the public education system and the well-being of the union's members."

"Sure, she gives Joel Klein, New York City's commissioner of education, headaches. But I'll bet that even Klein has no doubt that she understands the need for, and is committed to, school improvement for kids," Mr. Paige writes.

It's a bet that Mr. Paige may have lost: He tells me that when he last saw Mr. Klein, "He said, ‘I think you gave her too much credit.'"

Mr. Paige splits his time between Houston, where he was superintendent of schools before joining the Bush administration, and Washington, D.C. He was in New York for a meeting of the board of News Corp., the press and entertainment company led by Rupert Murdoch that owns, among other things, the New York Post and the Fox television networks. Mr. Paige is a director of News Corp., but his main work is as chairman of Chartwell Education Group, a less-than-two-year-old company with about two dozen employees that consults on education reform. It is in Chartwell's office in New York — decorated with photos of Mr. Paige with Mr. Bush and the first lady — that my interview with Mr. Paige takes place.

What does he think of Mr. Klein, I ask. "I think he has made a great difference and he's on the right track," says Mr. Paige, who acknowledges that New York City's size makes it a "very complicated system to operate." He says that Mr. Klein has the advantage of a supportive mayor in Michael Bloomberg and a governance system in which the mayor has a lot of control over the schools.

Mr. Paige cites "student performance gains" in New York, as well as the system's being named repeatedly as a finalist for the $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education. As a member of the board of governors of the Broad Foundation, Mr. Paige says he is familiar with the "pretty excruciating" selection process for that award.

I ask him if he thinks his outspoken criticism of teachers' unions will hurt Chartwell's consulting business. He pauses. "Well, there's been a lot of discussion on that," he says. "You can't improve the system by not addressing the real issues."

"The system is not performing," he says. The people who suffer most, he says, are minorities and disadvantaged students. "The union is sitting on both sides of the negotiating table," he says, referring to the power of the unions in electing the politicians they are negotiating with in collective bargaining. The result, he says, are "systems whose main purpose is the employment well-being of the adults in the system."

"This book is about raising the issue for public discussion, because I believe the American public is a wise public," he says. "As Americans, we know better than this."

"It's the truth," he says. "All you've got to do is look at a union contract…It speaks for itself."

Are vouchers allowing public school students to escape to private schools part of the solution? As education secretary, Mr. Paige spearheaded a successful effort by the Bush administration to win congressional approval for a school voucher program in the District of Columbia, whose well-funded public schools have a dismal record when it comes to student performance on standardized tests. "I'm very proud of that program," Mr. Paige says. "We've got parents lining up."

What of the latest scandal to hit the New York City schools, the high school teacher on the Upper West Side who led a group of students on a trip to Cuba in apparent violation of the federal sanctions on the Communist government led by Fidel Castro? While declining to get into specifics since he hadn't personally investigated the details, Mr. Paige did say that he felt the "appropriate response has to be aggressive and quick."

Aggressive is one thing Mr. Paige certainly is; his book recounts the fury he kicked up when, as education secretary, he likened the National Education Association to a "terrorist organization," a choice of words for which he quickly apologized. He makes no apology, though, for calling attention to the power of the unions.

"The people need to understand," he says. "The power needs to be rolled back so we can have a more proper balance between the interests of the employees and the interests of the parents, students, and taxpayers."