ATLANTA, March 7, 2003—The Leadership Center at Morehouse College presents U.S. Secretary of Education, Rod Paige. Paige will speak at Morehouse about the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative.

The initiative has been in the forefront of the news since it was signed into law in January 2002. It redefines the federal role in K-12 education and will help close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers. The “No Child Left Behind” initiative is based on four basic principles: stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work.

Who: Rod Paige, U.S. Secretary of Education

What: Lecture on the “No Child Left Behind” act

When: Thursday, March 20, 2003

2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Where: Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel

Free and open to the public

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Ranked twice as the number one college in the nation for educating African American students by Black Enterprise magazine, Morehouse College is the nation’s largest, private liberal arts college for men. Founded in 1867, the College enrolls approximately 3,000 students and confers bachelor’s degrees on more black men than any other institution in the world.

Morehouse offers a number of programs and activities to enhance its challenging liberal arts curriculum through the Leadership Center at Morehouse College, Morehouse Research Institute, and Andrew Young Center for International Affairs. Morehouse is one of only two Historically Black Colleges or Universities to produce two Rhodes Scholars.

Prominent alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize laureate and civil rights leader; Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General and director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine; Sheldon “Spike” Lee, filmmaker and president of 40 Acres & A Mule Productions; Maynard H. Jackson, president of Jackson Securities and the first African-American mayor of Atlanta; and Nima A. Warfield, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar from an Historically Black College or University.