Woody McClain will star as a younger version of Rod Paige, the nation’s first Black U.S. Secretary of Education, in the upcoming biopic Paragraphs of a Paige. Directed by Isaac Yowman, the film is set to premiere in 2027, with a trailer now released.
McClain, known for Power Book II: Ghost, The Bobby Brown Story, and The New Edition Story, leads a cast that also includes Thomas “Nephew Tommy” Miles and Shawn Hamilton. The project is described as a short hybrid work blending scripted biopic elements with documentary-style reflection, serving as a proof of concept for a future feature-length film, and is fully supported by the Paige family. Paige died in December 2025 at age 92, with Bush remembering him as someone who challenged “the soft bigotry of low expectations” and worked to ensure a child’s background didn’t determine their educational opportunity.
Paige’s path to Washington ran through Texas education for decades before his historic Cabinet appointment. He served as a professor, athletic director, and, beginning in 1984, dean of the College of Education at Texas Southern University, before becoming superintendent of the Houston Independent School District from 1994 to 2000, then the largest school district in Texas and among the largest in the country. That work led to his 2001 Senate confirmation as the seventh U.S. Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush, making him the first Black person to hold the position. Paige later became closely associated with the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal education law that increased school accountability and standardized testing requirements, a legacy that drew both praise for exposing achievement gaps and criticism for encouraging schools to teach toward tests rather than broader learning.
With the project currently positioned as a short rather than a full feature, the bigger question is whether Paragraphs of a Paige can generate enough momentum to become the full-length film its creators are clearly building toward.