The Senate will hold a confirmation hearing this afternoon to determine whether or not John King will become the next Secretary of Education. Director of Education Policy Studies Rick Hess identifies 10 questions the Senate should ask of King at today’s hearing on important policy issues, including:
1. ESSA: On his way out of office, former secretary Duncan suggested that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) does not reduce the department’s authority in the manner that Democrats and Republicans intended, because, as he told reporters, “candidly, our lawyers are much smarter than many of the folks who were working on this bill.” Do you agree with Duncan that creative lawyering will or should allow the secretary to disregard portions of the statute in implementing the law?
2. COMMON CORE: The Obama administration has long championed the Common Core. ESSA stipulates that “the Secretary shall not attempt to influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards . . . or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States, or assessments tied to such standards.” Given that you have been an outspoken advocate for the Common Core in New York and here in Washington, can you give us your pledge that you will respect the spirit as well as the letter of that prohibition?
3. VOUCHERS: In 2008, candidate Obama said of Milwaukee’s school voucher program: “Let’s see if it works. . . . If it does, whatever my preconceptions, you do what’s best for the kids.” Yet the administration has aggressively sought to put an end to the federally funded model voucher program in Washington, D.C. Perhaps the president is just confused. In 2014, he explained: “Every study that’s been done on school vouchers . . . says that it has very limited impact, if any.” In fact, the evaluation of the D.C. program for the federal Institute of Education Sciences found that the program “significantly improved students’ chances of graduating from high school.” Given the findings, and your own impressive record in charter schools, will you work to remind the president of his earlier pledge, to explain the evidence to him, and to reverse administration hostility to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program?
Read the full piece: Ten questions the Senate should ask Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Education.
To schedule an interview with Rick Hess, or another AEI education scholar, please contact AEI Media Services at mediaservices@aei.org or 202-862-5829.
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