Washington ? Rod Paige, who rose from racial segregation to become the nation’s first black education secretary, intends to leave his Cabinet position, an administration official said Friday.

“The secretary has been looking at leaving, and he’s been in discussion with the White House about the right time to do so,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A Texan like Bush, Paige, 71, came to prominence as an award-winning superintendent in Houston before becoming secretary in a time of huge change in federal education policy. An outspoken defender of demanding more from schools, he has been the public face behind No Child Left Behind, the law at the center of Bush’s domestic agenda.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan declined to speculate about the Cabinet position.

Paige would be the third member of the Bush Cabinet to make plans to leave since the president won a second term. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and Commerce Secretary Don Evans also are departing.

The official said Paige was content to move on after overseeing Bush’s education agenda for four years. The official declined to be identified because Paige has yet to resign.

A leading candidate to replace Paige is Margaret Spellings, Bush’s domestic policy adviser who helped shape his school agenda when he was the Texas governor.

Paige has presided over the biggest federal shakeup to education in a generation, a law demanding that schools show improvement among all students, regardless of race or wealth. Paige, who grew up in segregated Mississippi, puts No Child Left Behind in the category of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended separating schools by race.

Yet Paige has had rocky moments, with none more glaring than when he called the National Education Assn. a “terrorist organization” in a private meeting with governors.

He apologized but maintained that the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, used “obstructionist scare tactics” in opposing the law. The union called for his resignation.