Poughkeepsie Goes National: John King Replacing Arne Duncan Is A Fabulous Idea

Norm at Ed Notes nails this:

Happy Days for Opponents of Ed Deform: John King Replaces Arne Duncan

Call the King appointment "Building the national opt-out movement one education secretary at a time."

While some of our troops in the battle against ed deform, particularly those in NY State where King served as state ed commissioner, have been tearing a their hair and rending their clothing at Duncan's replacement - ACTING, I offer cheers for the man who had such an impact in fostering NY State in having the largest opt out movement in the entire nation with 20% opting out (Let's pray for a doubling - or more - this year.)

King threw much kindling on the opt out fire while he was here in New York, there's no reason to think he won't succeed similarly on a national stage.

Would also note, just another example of the hubris of the education reformers that they keep recycling the same faces and shuffling them around (Cerf, King, Elia, et al.)

John King To Become Acting Secretary Of Education

Continuing the theme that there is no failure an education reformer cannot fail upward from:

President Obama will tap former New York Education Commissioner John King to become the acting secretary of education, replacing Arne Duncan, who is stepping down at the end of the year. 

King, a Brooklyn native, was the youngest education commissioner in New York history, having been appointed to the post at the age of 36 in 2011 by the Board of Regents.

King’s background is in leading charter school organizations and was the co-founder and co-director of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School.

His tenure at the Department of Education was a rocky one: The roll out of the controversial Common Core education standards was criticized by both parents and the state’s teachers unions. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also was critical of the Department of Education’s handling of the implementation of the standards.

King left for the Obama administration at the end of 2014 to serve as a special advisor to Duncan.

A rocky tenure at NYSED?

That's an understatement.

Cuomo has blamed NYSED for the half-assed Common Core implementation - that was fully King's purview at SED.

Nice thing is, now he can take all that expertise at failing and bring it to the nation at large.

Amplify Lays Off Two Thirds Of Staff - Joel Klein Apparently Not One Of Them

.@amplify just laid off about 800 workers nationwide, including most of the Durham office staff. @TheHerald_Sun @joelklein

— Alex Modestou (@alexvmodestou) September 29, 2015

The Observer confirmed the layoffs:

Multiple sources inside and outside the company said that most of its staff lost their jobs today, effective immediately, at around 10:30 a.m.

Mr. Modestou told the Observer in a phone call that he worked part time on the math curriculum for the company in its Durham office, before being let go today at 10:30 a.m. Mr. Modestou wrote the tweet, he told us, because full time employees had been offered three months salary in a lump sum in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement. He did not sign because he was not offered any kind of package.

 He said, “This is like the cold, inhumane hand of capitalism at work, and it seems wrong that they could stay in the shadows.”

 The 800 employee figure was based on an estimate Mr. Modestou made based on documents he’d seen before leaving. When Amplify announced it was first looking for a buyer, he said that people in the company had warned staff to expect layoffs of a sixth of the company. That rose to half over time.

If 800 people were laid off, that would be roughly two-thirds of the reportedly 1,200-person company.

Another source told the Observer in a phone call that employees in New York City were taken to meetings in the company’s Manhattan office and its Dumbo offices today. Employees in the Manhattan office were told that they were either keeping their job or they would be staying longer to help with the transition, in some new role.

Mr. Modestou said that he and his fellow employees were told by Amplify CEO Joel Klein and Amplify Learning President Larry Berger via a conference call. We’ve also heard that this is how employees sent to the Brooklyn office were told. Mr. Modestou described the call for us, saying that “They didn’t say anything but ‘we’re letting you go’ in very lawyerly terms.”

He added that the pair added a note of appreciation for their service and an apology that they had let the company grow larger than its revenue could support.

More info from EdSurge:

Of Amplify’s many divisions and product lines, it is not clear which was the most affected by the layoffs. But the axe likely fell hardest on the teams producing tablets—the company announced it would stop producing them—and digital curriculum, whose “sales haven’t moved as fast as we initially hoped,” Klein stated in July. Amplify sold its computer science MOOC in July.

 Modestou tweeted Klein for comment:

.@JoelIKlein Would you care to share the truth behind the axing of the majority of your @amplify employees today?

— Alex Modestou (@alexvmodestou) September 29, 2015

Klein didn't respond. 

NYSED Commissioner John King Resigning Post, Heading To Obama Administration

Here's some interesting news:

State Education Commissioner John King, who has had a tumultuous tenure since he was unanimously appointed by the Board of Regents in May 2011, is poised to announce he’s leaving for a job in the Obama administration, TWC News has confirmed.

The commissioner will be taking a job as the second-in-command at the US Department of Education, headed by Arne Duncan.

Given that the Obama administration is out of steam with its education initiatives, especially with a Republican Congress coming into power that looks like it will defund Race to the Top, the Common Core testing consortia and a host of other Obama reform programs, it's hard to know why exactly King is leaving NYSED for the USDOE.

It's not like there's going to be a whole host of reformy things for Kingsie and Arne to do together in these last two years of the administration.

Still, bon voyage, John - don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And don't worry, you'll be able to find a school that doesn't have Common Core for your kids to attend in DC.

Maybe the same school Obama sends his kids to?

More later.