John B. King, Jr. Named NYS Education Commissioner!

Dear Commons Community,

John B. King, Jr. will be New York State’s next Commissioner of Education.  Dr. King is from Brooklyn and attended public schools.  His parents were both educators in the NYC system.   He earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a law degree from Yale and a doctorate in education from Columbia.   His most important work in education  has been in establishing charter schools in Massachusetts and New York where he helped to start Uncommon Schools, which now has 24 charters.   A NY Times article describes him as:

“part of a circle of idealistic charter-school founders in Boston who experimented with longer school days, strict rules to guide student behavior and ways to hold teachers accountable for student performance. They raised expectations for poor students, and sought to form close relationships with children while reshaping teaching into a more quantifiable science.”

He was a close collaborator of David Steiner, the outgoing Commissioner, who has returned to Hunter College as Dean of the School of Education.

We wish Dr. King well as he takes on this most important responsibility.

Tony