Critics make last-ditch effort to stop education secretary's nomination

If the U.S. Senate confirms John King this month as education secretary, as expected, it will be against the wishes of educators, parents, students, and activists nationwide. Especially in New York, where King was education commissioner for three years, opposition to his policies and pattern of disregard for those who disagreed with him is vigorous. An award-winning New York educator said that when King left the state, “everyone breathed a sigh of relief.”

“If there were goodbye parties, I certainly don’t know where they were,” Carol Burris, director of the non-profit Network for Public Education, said of King’s departure. A former New York high school principal of the year and educator of the year, Burris worked as a principal during King’s tenure as commissioner.

When King left New York in 2014 to work at the Education Department under Secretary Arne Duncan, the state’s largest teachers’ union said it had “disagreed sharply and publicly with the commissioner on many issues.”

King caused problems almost immediately, Burris said, by his rushed drive to implement a teacher evaluation system linked to student standardized test scores. One-third of New York’s principals wrote a letter to the state education department’s board of regents expressing “deep concerns” about the review regulations, saying they were “seriously flawed, and our schools and students will bear the brunt of their poor design.”

According to Burris, the board ignored the letter, also signed by thousands of parents, teachers, and other administrators.

“We weren’t used to that at all,” she said of King’s disregard for critics’ concerns. “We had had differences with commissioners before, but they had been respectful.”

Recently, Burris signed her name to another letter, this time sent to the U.S. Senate, asking lawmakers to reject King’s all-but-certain confirmation. Initiated by 20-year-old author and speaker Nikhil Goyal, who was a high school student in Long Island during King’s time in New York, the letter includes signatures from a long list of educators and organizations.

In the letter, scholars, educators and activists warn King’s policies “have been ineffective and destructive to schools, educators, and most importantly students.”

“His policies failed,” they wrote in the letter, published by The Washington Post. They also wrote that King’s style is “inflexible and he is quick to criticize the motives of those with whom he disagrees.”

Burris, who helped Goyal compose the letter, said those who signed it felt a “strong moral and ethical obligation to register a protest” against King. But she doubts it will help.

“At this point, it’s a lame duck administration and the Senate just wants to put somebody in there,” Burris said. “I think they’ll regret it, but it’s a short period of time so hopefully not too much damage will be done.”

After he’s confirmed, King will be responsible for implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces No Child Left Behind. The new law bars the department from telling states and local districts how to assess the performance of schools and teachers. King promised senators at a hearing last month that the focus is “rightly shifting” to the states and away from the federal government and promised to adhere to the new limits.

“As a former teacher, principal, and state commissioner, I know from personal experience that the best ideas come from classrooms, not conference rooms,” he said at the hearing.

Besides coming under fire for his teacher review policy, King also drew criticism for other controversial school reforms, including the implementation of Common Core standards.

“Common Core’s implementation in New York has been flawed and mismanaged from the start,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote in a 2014 letter to top state education officials.

King’s policies spurred an opt-out movement in which 20 percent of New York’s third- through eighth-graders refused to take statewide standardized English and math tests.

King’s background—he was orphaned at age 12 and credits public school teachers in New York City with giving him hope and purpose—is widely reported as giving weight to his worthiness to lead the nation’s Education Department. But Burris said other factors need to be considered, too.

“He may have a compelling story, but your record also matters,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.