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Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Tag: Secretary

Education Secretary confirms exams WILL go ahead next summer



Gavin Williamson in a suit holding a flower: MailOnline logo

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Most A-level and GCSE exams in England will be delayed by three weeks next year to allow pupils to catch up on time lost to pandemic closures, Gavin Williamson  confirmed today.

The Education Secretary also outlined plans to streamline some subjects saying it would ‘support teachers and students by freeing up valuable teaching time’.

Most exams will take place between June 7 and July 2, but Mr Williamson also said that one maths and one English GCSE exam will take place before the May half-term, to allow pupils forced to self-isolate during the main exam period a chance to sit a paper in a core subject. 

In a written ministerial statement today, Mr Williamson confirmed that he had rejected calls for the exams next summer to be scrapped or postponed for longer, as had been called for by some teaching unions.

They warned

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Schools allege overreach by New Mexico education secretary

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A coalition of school districts is challenging the authority of Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s education secretary to drastically limit in-person instruction, dictate COVID-19 testing procedures and ensure employment for school staff whether they return to work or not.

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in state court asked a state judge to limit a litany of measures implemented during the pandemic, from mandating COVID-19 testing of staff to dictating how and when student lunches are distributed.

“This is about local control and the competence of our school boards to make these decisions. We don’t need to be micromanaged. This is not about avoiding the science or avoiding safety protocol,” Gallup-McKinley School District Superintendent Mike Hyatt said.

The Gallup-McKinley School District, on the outskirts of the Navajo Nation that was ravaged by early outbreaks of coronavirus, is one of the plaintiffs.

An injunction in the case

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Joseph M. Cronin, first Massachusetts secretary of education, dies at 85

“In order to really give poor people in the inner city a chance to compete,” he told the Globe, “we will have to spend more on their education than on the average child in other communities.”

Dr. Cronin, who in his long, multifaceted career as an educator had also served as president of what is now Bentley University, died Saturday in the Pat Roche Hospice Home in Hingham of progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 85 and had lived in Milton for many years.

As he prepared to retire in 1997 from leading what was then Bentley College, he received a letter from nearly 20 colleagues who signed themselves as “the faculty and staff of color.”

“Under your leadership diversity has become a business imperative for the college,” they wrote. “Your leadership in diversity has resulted in many of us joining the Bentley community.”

When Dr. Cronin first arrived in 1991

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Classroom focus on Hong Kong independence ‘inappropriate’, unnecessary, education secretary says in defending teacher’s ouster



a person standing in front of a building: A student walks into the Alliance Primary School in Kowloon Tong. Photo: Felix Wong

© SCMP
A student walks into the Alliance Primary School in Kowloon Tong. Photo: Felix Wong

A teacher’s deregistration for creating lesson plans that touched on Hong Kong independence was not a free-speech issue, as any number of examples could have been used to make similar points, the city’s secretary for education said on Wednesday.

Kevin Yeung Yun-hung’s defence of the move came as the chairman of a primary school heads alliance said the Education Bureau’s decision had “caused waves in the sector” and was disagreed with by many.

Although Alliance Primary School students interviewed by officials denied the class had led them to support Hong Kong independence, Yeung on Wednesday insisted that was “not the point”.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

“There are many other examples that could be used to discuss freedom of speech,” Yeung

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Former Obama education secretary forms political group

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A former U.S. education secretary and potential candidate for governor of Maryland in 2022 announced a new political group in the state on Monday that includes other alumni of former President Barack Obama’s administration.

John King, Jr., who served as Obama’s education secretary in the last year of his presidency, said Strong Future Maryland will focus on helping Maryland recover from the coronavirus pandemic and battling systemic racism.

King also said the group will focus on advancing action to fight climate change.

“This effort is really one to try to put some additional wind in the sail of progressive policy change in the legislature,” King, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, said in an interview Monday.


King said he has raised more than $1 million to fund the organization.

Strong Future Maryland will include other former officials in the Obama administration, including Denis McDonough, who was

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New Mexico public education secretary under fire amid pandemic | Coronavirus

State lawmakers and top school officials on Thursday raised sharp criticisms of the New Mexico Public Education Department’s leadership as districts navigate the challenges of reopening elementary schools to students using a hybrid model amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Several members of the Legislative Finance Committee castigated the state agency for what they called an overreach of its authority when it came to creating and abruptly changing stringent guidelines districts must follow to open schools through the hybrid approach, which combines in-classroom instruction with remote learning from home. Some even suggested stripping power from the department and letting school administrators have a greater voice in the process.

Much of the concern centered on Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart, who was not present for the legislative hearing on the state’s efforts to comply with a judge’s ruling in the landmark Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico lawsuit, which called for heavier investments

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State education secretary calls Little Rock teachers’ union announcement ‘absurd’

story.lead_photo.captionJohnny Key, right, Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Education, is shown with Governor Asa Hutchinson in this April 6, 2020 file photo.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ John Sykes Jr.)

Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key is calling a Little Rock School District teacher announcement Sunday night that they would only teach via virtual instruction an “absurd, eleventh-hour scheme” by leadership of the Little Rock Education Association, the union organization representing teachers in the district.

LRSD Superintendent Mike Poore sent a letter to parents Sunday night informing them that starting today teachers would not be showing up for in-person classes out of safety concerns related to the pandemic. District spokesperson Pamela Smith said 150 teachers have called in sick as of early Monday morning. Schools remain open with substitutes covering classes.

“During the first five weeks of school, LRSD administrators, educators, and staff have done a tremendous job of providing onsite and virtual

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announces grant award at Hampton University

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and assistant secretary for career, technical, and adult education at the U.S. Department of Education Scott Stump were at Hampton University Friday to announce that the university was one of eight locations to receive grant funding to provide students the opportunity to develop new skills in high demand areas.



a group of people in a room

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The recipients will leverage the expertise and facilities available on college campuses to spur entrepreneurship and foster business development and innovation, as the country starts to recover from COVID-19-related disruptions to education.

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Hampton University received $17,735,349.43. Through Hampton University, the Virginia Board of Workforce Development will establish the Virginia Workforce Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center.

The center will provide opportunities to aspiring entrepreneurs to help grow the recovering economy, such as new education and training opportunities.

Hampton joined California, Hawaii, New York, and other states that will use the

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S.D. education secretary holds pandemic calls each week with K-12 school superintendents

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Weekly talks with heads of South Dakota’s K-12 districts about COVID-19 are open to a state panel that sets regulations for the school systems, the state education secretary said Monday.

Ben Jones told the state Board of Education Standards at its meeting in Aberdeen that approximately 140 to 190 superintendents and others participate in the calls each Thursday. He said the calls had been daily last spring.

The board’s president, former teacher Jacqueline Sly of Rapid City, said board members would like to be able to answer more than “I don’t know” when people ask about South Dakota schools during the pandemic.

“We can certainly do that,” Jones said. He said it was good to have students back in the classrooms taking courses face to face with teachers this fall semester. Classrooms shut down in March and schools switched to online courses to finish spring semester.

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos under investigation for potential Hatch Act violation: report

The Office of the Special Counsel has started investigating Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for potentially violating the Hatch Act for her comments during an interview with FOX News’ Martha MacCallum, according to Politico.

During the interview on “The Story”, DeVos had been asked about Biden’s promise to roll back her school choice policies.

“Today he’s turned his back on the kids that we’re talking about and he’s turned his face in favor of the teachers union and what they have to say and what they have to demand and it’s really shameful,” DeVos said.

The interview was then promoted through the official channels of the Department of Education, according to an email shared by the outlet.

EDUCATION SECRETARY DEVOS WARNS ABOUT WAVE OF PRIVATE SCHOOL CLOSINGS: ‘THAT’S A CRISIS IN THE MAKING’

The complaint, shared by Politico, alleges that DeVos’ comment “attacked Democratic Presidential Candidate Vice President Joe Biden and

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