New-look education commissioner pursues similar agenda
ALBANY—New York’s new education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, and her predecessor, John King, both support the state’s controversial reform agenda, including implementing the Common Core standards, testing students on the more difficult material and evaluating teachers using students’ exam scores.
But it’s what makes her different from the former chief that state education officials have highlighted.
Elia is seasoned at 66, compared to King, who at 36 became the youngest education commissioner in the state’s history. Elia spent more than four decades working in traditional public schools, as a teacher, an administrator and a superintendent, while King had relatively limited experience in schools before founding a prominent charter school network. She has been described as a skilled listener, communicator and collaborator, while he was often criticized as being out of touch and tone deaf.
In hopes of turning King’s critics into Elia’s supporters without reversing course on the reform agenda they’ve pursued for five years, the new commissioner, her communications staff and the State Board of Regents, which appointed her in May, have pitched her as his opposite.
So far—and granted, it’s still early—the strategy seems to be working.
As an outspoken advocate for the reforms, King had been called to resign by lawmakers, lost the confidence of teachers and maligned by parents. Pursuing the same reforms he helped implement, Elia has been broadly praised by national, state and local leaders and groups, including those who often vehemently disagree on policy issues, such as U.S. education secretary Arne Duncan and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, as well as charter school advocates funded by wealthy hedge-funders and pro-labor Democrats in the state Legislature.
Elia’s record, like King's, is that of an aggressive reformer. In her last position as superintendent of a large, diverse school district in central Florida, she implemented teacher evaluations before the rest of the state with a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and negotiated with teachers a merit-pay system. Since coming to New York, she has repeatedly described herself as a believer in “accountability.” She New-look education commissioner pursues similar agenda | Capital New York: