Education Chief Again Apologizes for 'Terrorist' Remark
By SAM DILLON
Published: March 2, 2004
…"We're not going to focus on it any more," Ms. Rogers said, "but I don't think teachers will ever forget his insulting remark."
…One who did not participate was Jeffrey R. Ryan, a high school history teacher in Massachusetts. Mr. Ryan sent an e-mail message to the Department of Education saying he considered the Bush administration to be "hostile to public education."
"Considering Secretary Paige's recent remarks about the N.E.A. and the teaching profession," he wrote, "I no longer feel that his invitation is sincere."
…Participants in the meeting said that one teacher, Elspeth Corrigan Moore, a librarian at Memorial High School in West New York, N.J., wept as she discussed Dr. Paige's comparison of the teachers union to terrorists. Ms. Moore said after the meeting that because her school had a direct line of sight to downtown Manhattan, she and many students could see the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
"I watched it burn, and I smelled it burn, so I take the word terrorist personally," she said.