Duncan departs Obama’s cabinet

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Friday he's leaving the Obama administration after nearly seven years of attempting to reshape public schools and universities with a controversial emphasis on standardized testing, teacher evaluation, the value of a college degree and reducing campus sexual assaults.

Duncan, an original member of the Obama administration and former head of Chicago Public Schools, won praise from supporters for pushing higher standards, backing charter schools, expanding federal financial aid and cracking down on corrupt for-profit colleges.

But he angered teachers unions - otherwise key Democratic allies - with his proposals to change the way instructors are evaluated and he eventually abandoned his efforts to create a ratings system for colleges.

Only two weeks ago, Duncan brought his campaign for reforms to Cedar Rapids, observing a teacher coaching session at Roosevelt Middle School and praising Iowa's teacher leadership and compensation system. The system - funded through state grants - gives teachers part- or full-time release from classroom teaching so they can coach other teachers and help develop curriculum.

Brad Buck, formerly Iowa's Department of Education director and now superintendent of Cedar Rapids schools, said Friday that Duncan's focus on meeting the needs of all students 'is and has been remarkable.”

Still, both he and Iowa City schools Superintendent Stephen Murley struck a common theme - that there needs to be more local control.

'I am cautiously optimistic that we can continue this focus but move away from the unworkable sanction model currently in place under No Child Left Behind,” Murley said.

At a White House news conference, President Barack Obama said he would appoint Duncan's deputy secretary, John B. King Jr., to succeed him. King gave few specifics for his plans as secretary of education.

Obama praised Duncan, saying that 'America is going to be better off for what he has done. It's going to be more competitive and more prosperous. It is going to be more equal and more upwardly mobile.”

Duncan said he wants to spend more time with his family in Chicago after he departs in December. He did not discuss his next career move.

Duncan, 50, was one of Obama's major players who used executive power in response to congressional gridlock. In light of Congress' failure to revise the No Child Left Behind Act, he offered states waivers from the accountability law's most stringent restrictions in exchange for signing onto some Obama-preferred education policies.

Congress 'essentially ceded power to the executive branch,” said Thomas Dee, professor of education and director of the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis. 'This created a lot of innovation in the field that we could study and learn from, but it also was the beginning of the sense that top-down reforms are sometimes not what people want.”

Some of his policies faced immense pushback from Republicans who think the administration has exerted too much control over the nation's public schools and from teachers unions that resented his emphasis on holding instructors accountable for test results.

'When we disagree, it is usually because he believes the path to effective teaching, higher standards and real accountability is through Washington, D.C.” said a statement from Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former U.S. secretary of education, 'and I believe it should be in the hands of states, communities, parents and classroom teachers.”

In higher education, Duncan pushed to reduce the role of commercial banks in student lending, crack down on for-profit schools that had low graduation rates and make the performance records of colleges more transparent.

His department also attracted attention by launching investigations into how campuses handled allegations of sexual assaults and harassment.

Iowa State University is under federal investigation for its handling of sexual assaults. The University of Iowa is under investigation because of sexual harassment allegations involving its field hockey program.

The Los Angeles Times and Andrew Phillips of The Gazette contributed to this report.

Only Vilsack remains from original cabinet

Gazette staff

And then there was one.

With Education Secretary Arne Duncan's announcement Friday that he's quitting the Obama administration, that leaves just one member of the president's original cabinet - former Iowa governor and current U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Vilsack served as Mount Pleasant mayor, Iowa state senator and then Iowa governor before being sworn in as ag secretary in 2009.

A year ago, he told reporters he intended to remain in the job.

'At this point in time, unless the president has different thoughts about this, I'm keeping the job I got because I'm not sure I can get another one,” the Democrat said.

During his tenure, the USDA has taken some flak for its standards on healthier foods in the national school lunch program, and still is coping with an unprecedented outbreak of bird flu, which has nationally impacted nearly 200 sites and eliminated than 40 million turkeys and chickens - most of them in Iowa.