Ex-state training czar John King — a devotee of Frequent Core curriculum and constitution colleges — was appointed head of the State College of New York on Monday.
King, who additionally served as US secretary of training beneath former President Obama, advised The Put up he hopes to shut the achievement hole between white and minority SUNY college students whereas addressing points equivalent to youngster care to assist children keep in class.
King additionally mentioned he desires to construct up SUNY’s analysis establishments, together with at its Stony Brook, Buffalo, Albany campuses, in areas equivalent to engineering, science and drugs.
“I’m excited concerning the alternative to make the perfect public increased training system within the nation,” King mentioned.
He was tapped to completely fill the spot vacated by ex-Chancellor James Malatras, a longtime aide to disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Malatras resigned in December 2021 after maligning one among Cuomo’s sexual-harassment accusers.
King landed the highest submit at SUNY, the nation’s largest system of higher-education establishments, at an annual wage of $750,000 and a slew of perks.
The extras embrace: a paid residence in Albany; a further $150,000 a yr for New York Metropolis housing; as much as $4,000 month-to-month for journey bills between New York and his present dwelling in Maryland; a driver when on official SUNY enterprise and a university-owned automobile or a $1,000-a-month automobile allowance.
King additionally has been named a full professor at SUNY, though it's unclear what he may educate and whether or not he would obtain a further wage for that job.
He has been an enormous booster of constitution colleges, that are at the moment regulated in New York by SUNY’s board and the state Board of Regents.
SUNY’s chancellor and his employees make suggestions to SUNY’s board on charter-school candidates — New York Metropolis has pushed to get its constitution college cap lifted or no less than raised in order that extra of the high-performing operators can open them downstate.
“I've a protracted historical past of supporting good constitution colleges and never supporting unhealthy constitution colleges,” King advised The Put up on Monday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, referring to King, advised reporters at an unrelated occasion in Rochester, “We're in search of a transformative determine, somebody that may come right here and reestablish the preeminence that I’ve at all times thought that SUNY ought to have.”
Merryl Tisch, chairwoman of SUNY’s board of trustees and a longtime pal of King’s, mentioned in a press release asserting his appointment, “As we work to proceed to rework SUNY to satisfy the wants of the subsequent technology of scholars and New York’s financial system, we'd like a frontrunner who understands the right way to steadiness striving for each excellence and fairness.
“John King has a confirmed document of doing each,’’ she added of the brand new chancellor, who was New York’s first black and Puerto Rican state training commissioner.
Valerie Jarrett, chief govt officer of the Obama Basis, mentioned in the identical press launch, “As President Obama’s Secretary of Schooling, John King … championed the function of Group Faculties, linked them to the wants of in the present day’s workforce, and helped lead the trouble throughout the administration to elevate up younger males and boys of colour by President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative.’’
King just lately ran within the Democratic main for Maryland’s governor however misplaced, coming in sixth place, over the summer time.
He has additionally has been a cheerleader for Frequent Core standardized testing, which critics say has didn't successfully measure pupil progress.
“As Schooling Commissioner, John King was a catastrophe, pushing the invalid Frequent Core requirements and redesigning the state exams to be excessively lengthy, with studying passages far above grade degree, and filled with ambiguous questions,’’ mentioned Jeanette Deutermann, founding father of Lengthy Island Choose Out, in a press release.
“Many colleges are nonetheless coping with the damaging influence of his insurance policies; I'd be very sorry if SUNY college students are confronted with an analogous destiny,” mentioned the activist, whose group contains dad and mom who select to have their children “decide out’’ of standardized testing due to issues about its effectiveness.
King, requested by The Put up on Monday about his help for Frequent Core in the course of the Obama years, replied, “The politics of the interval had been difficult.”
Deborah Stanley has been serving as interim chancellor of SUNY.
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