He endorsed King as his successor and included this reflection King wrote about his upbringing. “Since our time together at Teacher’s College he has amazed me with his intellect, commitment and conviction”.
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He also advocated boosting salaries for teachers in high poverty schools and worked to expand and improve pre-K pay and training. “In my capacity as Commissioner on the White House Commission on Educational Excellence for African-Americans, I have appreciated the Secretary’s willingness to tackle tough issues and provide practical solutions to ensuring all students reach their full potential”.
He received a law degree from Yale and a doctorate from Columbia University’s Teachers College, according to the Albany Times Union.
Duncan also visited Aviation High School and New York Harbor School, which offer their own speciality CTE credentials. From 2005 to 2009, he was managing director of the network Uncommon Schools, which runs charters in New York and Boston.
King most famously served as the New York State education commissioner from 2011 until 2014. First, what is for me a few bittersweet news: after several months of commuting between my family in Chicago and my job here in DC, I have made the decision to step down in December. But much of America most likely knows him not for his views on student-loan servicing but for being the biggest basketball devotee in the USA cabinet. And 46 states and DC dropped their prior standards to adopt the Common Core.
King responded by holding public forums, which became so raucous that he briefly suspended them.
“This is a moment where every one of us – parents, teachers, students, elected officials, and all people of conscience – needs to stand up and speak out against intolerance in all its forms”, Duncan said.
Initially, he had the backing of both national teachers’ unions and the most knowledgeable Republican in Congress on education issues-Sen.
If changes to states’ education systems were the only yardstick to measure accomplishment, than Duncan could certainly claim success.
However, one of the major points of disagreement was the administration’s insistence on linking teacher evaluations to test scores.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who plans to step down in December as one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving Cabinet members, has pushed through an unprecedented level of change in K-12 education in his almost seven years in office-and drawn the ire of critics from across the ideological spectrum in the process.
Throughout his tenure, Duncan stood firmly behind federal standardized testing requirements, even as he readily handed out waivers exempting states from George W. Bush-era requirements under No Child Left Behind. Ijeoma Duru, a 23 year-old graduate of the Roxbury charter school King helped start, remembered him from when she was a sixth-grader.
Especially since King is controversial – lots of teachers don’t like him any better than they liked Arne Duncan.
“Everything he did was for the benefit of students”, she said.
A coalition of education and parent groups called on King to resign.
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The New York State United Teachers union continued to knock King on Friday, urging its members to call the White House to express their displeasure with his selection.
