By picking former New York Education Commissioner John King to replace him, Duncan ensured that New York’s close connection to the U.S. Department of Education will continue.
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King is to be tapped by President Obama as acting secretary through the remainder of the president’s term, the state Education Department confirmed. But Obama is not nominating King to be the secretary.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Friday that he would leave the Obama Cabinet in December after almost seven years of attempting to reshape and bring more accountability to public schools and universities.
The 3:30pm ET press conference on October 2 was billed as “President Obama Makes a Personnel Announcement and Answers Questions”.
An education reporter for the Washington Post, Lindsey Layton, argued that Duncan’s role in history is even more important, claiming he changed how American’s view charters.
Over the years, Duncan visited many New York City public schools. “At a time when few states recognized marriage equality, Secretary Duncan sent a critical signal to teachers and school administrators that they must welcome and respect LGBT students and create a learning environment that enables all students to succeed, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity”.
King stepped down in December 2014 to become an adviser at the federal Education Department. The idea proved to be hugely hard and many colleges said they feared being judged unfairly. The union slammed King for his handling of Common Core’s implementation and said he failed to “listen to classroom teachers on professional issues”.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the president would name this polarizing radical to run the education department. The program was the first of several Duncan initiatives that became embroiled in the fight over federal involvement in education.
The turnover comes as the administration heads toward its final year in office and at a time when Congress is wrestling with dueling measures to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
“If we actually want to stop locking folks up, if we can attract and retain great teachers in our poorest communities, that would be life transforming”, Duncan said.
The department has publicized which schools are under investigation for flouting federal guidelines in this area and has launched probes of more than 140 different colleges.
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In a 2011 profile of the new commissioner, the New York Times described him as part of a circle of idealistic charter-school founders in Boston who experimented with longer school days, strict rules to guide student behavior and ways to hold teachers accountable for student performance. Navigating a delicate divide, Duncan sought to use the federal government’s leverage to entice schools and states to follow the Obama’s administration’s preferred approach to higher standards, prompting resistance from both ends of the political spectrum. Equity for him included universal pre-K, boosting Title I dollars to high-poverty schools, and setting high expectations for all children. Republican Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate education committee said in a statement that he’s enjoyed working with the Secretary, despite their disagreements.
