Arne Duncan spoke on his resignation from US Secretary of Education at the White House Education Secretary Duncan stepping down Duncan, one of Obama’s few remaining original cabinet members, leaves behind a contested legacy.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, an unwavering advocate for low-income and minority students and longtime basketball buddy to President Barack Obama, said Friday he will leave his post in December, ending a contentious tenure in which he moved aggressively to raise the academic bar in U.S. schools.

Duncan, the former Chicago schools head who is one of the last remaining original members of Obama’s cabinet, has clashed with most camps in the education community since taking the post. He’s supported charter schools, encouraged using testing for measuring teachers and schools, and championed the divisive Common Core standards. He’s also taken on the higher education establishment by pushing policies to regulate for-profit colleges and make colleges and universities more transparent.


His announcement comes as Congress is the closest it’s been in years to updating the long-overdue No Child Left Behind law — the very language of which Duncan used to waive states’ obligations to it, something that will be a key part of his legacy. His term will also be remembered for his embrace of stimulus-fueled Race to the Top grants that helped propel many of the controversial ideas he’s long embraced.

Just this week, Duncan said he thought the forthcoming resignation of House Speaker John Boehner would make it more difficult to get the law updated. Before Boehner's announcement, the odds were "50/50," Duncan said. "I can only think that our odds of having it pass now are worse, not better, which is really disappointing," he said.

Former Duncan aide Justin Hamilton said Duncan likely knew in "his heart of hearts that Boehner was a guy who wanted the deal … The prospects for getting anything done have gone from 50/50 to a snowball’s chance in hell."

But otherwise, Duncan had "accomplished everything the administration set out to do and he should be proud," Hamilton said.

A Republican aide responded by saying Obama will sign a bill to replace No Child Left Behind before the end of the year. “There are too many people invested in making that happen on both sides of the aisle in both chambers and in the White House,” the aide said.

But any additional time spent on No Child Left Behind would inevitably divert energy from Congress’ next huge education policy project — reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, noted Terry Hartle, senior vice president of government and public affairs at the American Council on Education.

Obama has selected former New York state education commissioner John King to replace Duncan. King has had his own clashes with many of the same groups with whom Duncan has sparred.

“What gives me peace with this decision, and I hope comes as a reassurance to everyone here, is the extraordinary talent of John and our leadership team,” Duncan said in a message to Education Department staffers. “John comes to this role with a record of exceptional accomplishment as a lifelong educator — a teacher, a school leader, and a leader of school systems.”

King came to the Obama administration in January 2015 from New York. As education commissioner there, he ushered in the Common Core and new standardized tests, clashing with teachers unions and other groups as a result. He faced criticism from nearly every direction on education reform initiatives like charter schools, teacher evaluations and more — fighting many of the same battles as Duncan has on the national stage. King frequently credits public education with changing his life. His mother died when he was eight and his father when he was 12.

King is expected to serve as acting secretary for the remainder of the Obama presidency, and not face a Senate confirmation process. Nominating King for confirmation would likely take months and could open up a new battle over Common Core.

Earlier this year, Duncan’s wife and children moved back to Chicago, where his children now attend private school. Duncan said that drove his decision and he has no immediate plans for what he’ll do next.

While Duncan took an already powerful post — power enhanced by the 2002 No Child Left Behind law — and made it more forceful. He made major inroads on K-12 reforms, including spurring the widespread adoption of the Common Core academic standards.

Many of the Education Department’s major K-12 initiatives are in already in the can. In 2012, with no rewrite of No Child Left Behind in sight, the Obama administration came up with a way to exert more influence on states than the federal agency otherwise would have, shaping their policies by offering waivers from provisions in the law.

Forty-two states, D.C. and Puerto Rico now have waivers from No Child Left Behind, allowing them to avoid sanctions if all students aren’t reading and doing math at grade level. The vast majority of those waivers were recently extended from one to four years, with states like New York, Kentucky and Tennessee safe from NCLB sanctions well into the next presidential administration.

Using billions in stimulus funding through Race to the Top, states have adopted higher academic standards, with most choosing the Common Core. Duncan is famous for saying that NCLB prompted states to “dummy down” standards in an effort to avoid sanctions.

States overhauled their standardized tests, making them far more rigorous than before. Through the Common Core and two testing groups aligned with it and supported by Race to the Top, states embarked on a national effort to adopt common academic standards and tests that would allow for comparisons of student performance across states.

“Arne Duncan has affected more change in state and local education policies than any secretary in the history of the department,” Democrats for Education Reform National President Shavar Jeffries said. “By actively advocating for the 2009 stimulus, Duncan helped pushed through the largest increase in federal education funding in history, and then worked diligently to ensure the money was put towards programs that worked for students.”

Amid all of this reform, new state teacher evaluation systems have come together more slowly. The Education Department has granted some states more time to incorporate student scores on the harder tests into teacher evaluations and into the decision-making behind the hiring and firing of staff.

All of the upheaval led to an eventual backlash, earning Duncan criticism from every corner, with many crying federal overreach.

“His sincere commitment too often manifested itself as a disregard for limits on the federal role and for possible unintended consequences of a too-heavy federal hand,” said Frederick Hess of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “Duncan’s personal virtues will be missed, but his departure presents a welcome opportunity for the Obama administration to engage in a much-needed course correction.”

Peter Cunningham, one of Duncan’s former advisers, said “all this drama has forced out into the open some tough, but important questions, like how do we hold each other accountable? … I think the fact that many of us are talking about education today is a tribute to Arne.”

Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander has repeatedly accused Duncan of federal overreach into states and their schools.

“Please explain to me how using your waiver authority to place conditions on states about common standards, about performance targets, about teacher evaluation systems that are not otherwise required by federal law and in the case of standards, in my opinion, is prohibited by the law — how does that not amount to, in effect, a national school board?” Alexander asked Duncan during a committee hearing last year.

But in a statement Friday, Alexander called Duncan “one of the president’s best appointments.”

“When we disagree, it is usually because he believes the path to effective teaching, higher standards, and real accountability is through Washington, DC,” Alexander said. “And I believe it should be in the hands of states, communities, parents and classroom teachers.”

The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Patty Murray, said she’ll continue working with Duncan over the next few months to send Obama a bipartisan bill he can sign into law.

Teachers unions have historically allied with Democrats, but Duncan’s policies alienated them. In 2014, delegates from the NEA — the nation’s largest labor union — passed a resolution calling for him to step down.

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said Friday that the union wishes him well in his future endeavors. She said he has made strides in areas such as early childhood education, but noted the union has had disagreements with Duncan.

And the Education Department has yet to release a final regulation that aims to drive bad teacher preparation programs out of business. That final rule is due out sometime this month, but the proposal is widely disliked. And the agency is still working to approve state plans that ensure all students, particularly low-income and minority students, have access to great teachers.

Duncan would occasionally speak out of turn, such as when he told a gathering of state superintendents of education that “white suburban moms” were rebelling against the Common standards because their kids had done poorly on the tough new tests. He later apologized.

And some of Duncan’s work on higher education policy has led to blows with that sector.

First the Obama administration’s gainful employment regulation — which cuts off funding from career training programs whose graduates aren’t repaying their loans — sparked a battle with for-profit colleges. The industry got the first iteration of the rule thrown out in court, but lost a second battle. The regulation is now in effect, though a federal appeals court will hear the case early next year.

Duncan and Obama also went to war with traditional colleges and universities — a war many would argue the administration lost. Obama’s high-profile and incredibly controversial plan to create a federal college ratings system fizzled after two years of work. It was clear that Obama would not achieve his goal of tying federal financial aid to ratings — a Republican-led Congress would not have it. But even the ratings plan itself went kaput when the department finally acknowledged it simply didn’t have the necessary data to undertake such a huge effort. The ratings ultimately morphed into a broader and more user-friendly version of the already existing College Scorecard.

But Duncan has also overseen a major expansion of federal student aid — including increasing Pell grants for low-income students and the American Opportunity Tax Credit – and making loans directly to students, cutting banks out of the system. More recently, the department has moved to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

The department has also worked closely with Obama to boost the funding and stature of community colleges, which the president views as key to increasing the country’s share of college graduates.

“While Secretary Duncan was perhaps somewhat more engaged with elementary and secondary education, his department and the administration have been, generally speaking, extremely supportive of community colleges, and we’re thankful for that,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and research at the American Association of Community Colleges.

At the National Press Club earlier this week, Duncan was asked whether he plans to stay on through the end of the administration. He didn’t explicitly say yes, rather, he said there’s much work left to do.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

