Long Live the King...

With the recent announcement that Arne Duncan is stepping down as Secretary of Education, and Dr. John King would take his place as acting secretary, I can't help but share a file from my YouTube channel. While Dr. King is not without controversy, let me remind people that he did not bring the CCSS to NY, but rather inherited these standards when his predecessor, David Steiner, resigned just after signing on to  the "Race to the Top" (RttT) bottom line--and the necessary adoption of the Common Core Standards to compete for the pot of gold.  At that time, I heard one Superintendent remark, "the rats are the first ones to abandon ship." 

John King had to make the best of it, and when NYS won RttT money, we saw the bulk of it was placed into teacher-training programs. Most people fault King, but it is not the CCSS that wrought havoc in New York, but rather the teacher evaluation system.  What a messy, dysfunctional, and inaccurate way to evaluate teachers. (Why should we quantitatively try to measure a qualitative job?) My intention here is not to debate the CCSS or the controversial NYS teacher evaluation standard, but to share how this man, Dr. King, understands the vital role of research in education. 

All this said, I do believe John King is a library supporter. He values reading, libraries, and research.  Here's a clip that I heard him deliver at a CCSS Teacher Training Day (NTI as they were known here in NY).  After this speech, I emailed his office asking for the few minutes of video...And--a week later, this was delivered in a DropBox link.  Thank you Dr. King.  I have this on tape on the power of research for our librarian file! 

 

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vonYP3YRIo

One of many Secretary of Education announcement articles which can be found online: 

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-02-who-is-john-king-and-will-he-be-even-more-controversial-than-arne