John King, Jr. has officially become Acting U.S. Secretary of Education following Arne Duncan’s resignation. Marketplace.com has some speculations about what that will mean for education on a federal level.

According to Marketplace, as a supporter of Common Core standards and one of the first to implement them as former education commissioner of New York State, despite many states pulling away, the standards likely will still be a big focus of King’s role as temporary acting education secretary.

But "King’s main task now will be implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act just passed by Congress, said Michael Petrilli with the Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank,” the article said.

One of the major goals of the new education legislation was to limit the scope of the Education Department, in turn also limiting the power and capabilities of the education secretary.

Petrilli told Marketplace one of the challenges King will face is pushing against the limitations set by Congress to get things done.

Indeed, the new education legislation put significantly more power and accountability into the hands of states when it comes to K-12 education policy, so many speculate that King will be most active while working on guiding and dictating higher education policy.

According to Education Week, King has some predictions of his own for what will happen in education over the next twelve months.

EdWeek reports that King predicts funding for preschools will increase, more students will access to high-speed internet, and American high school graduate rates will continue to rise to unprecedented numbers.

See the full list of King’s predictions here, and read the full Martketplace article here.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

01/04/2015