National
New Education Official Wants to Reform NCLB
John King Jr., the new deputy secretary for the Department of Education, wants to reform the No Child Left Behind Act. (Freddie Allen/NNPA)
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – John King, Jr., a highly-respected educator from New York City, says that teachers saved his life and in his new post as the deputy secretary at the Department of Education, he wants all children to have the support in school that he had growing up.
Both of King’s parents were life-long educators. His father, John King, Sr., was the first Black principal at an integrated school in Brooklyn, N.Y. and also served as a the deputy superintendent for New York City schools after the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education banned “separate, but equal” practices in public schools.
In elementary school, King used to ride to work with his mother, Adalinda, who worked as guidance counselor at the middle school. When King was in the fourth grade, his mother suffered a heart attack at work. That night he went to the hospital with his father and the next morning, his father broke the news to him. His mother was gone. She was just 48. It was hard for the younger King to understand at 8 years old.
“Losing my mom in a lot of ways was the moment when school took on this much larger importance in my life,” said King. School became the safe harbor from the turmoil in his home life that slowly deteriorated after his mother passed away.
His father, then in his 70s, started to forget things.
“I didn’t know why he would forget things,” King recalled, though he later learned that his father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. “I didn’t know why he would be upset one moment and not upset the next.”
In an environment where there was a lot of instability, King said school was a source of stability, structure and support and for three years, from the fourth grade to the sixth grade, Alan Osterweil’s classroom anchored that stability.
In that class, King read the New York Times every day, memorized the capital and leader for every country in the world and performed Shakespeare. King said he felt free to be a kid.
“He set very high expectations for us,” said King. “Sometimes people think that kids will be overwhelmed by higher expectations, but I think that kids rise to higher expectations and one of the things that I experienced in his classroom was that his high expectations were motivating and encouraging to all of us. He also paid a lot of attention to a full range of subjects.”
King said that Osterweil saw his role as a teacher wasn’t just about conveying knowledge, but it was also about mentoring and supporting students.
John, Sr. died at 79, when John Jr., was 12 years old. He then lived with a half brother on Long Island and later, an uncle and aunt in Cherry Hill, N.J.
King said that he carried the lessons he learned in Osterweil’s class with him when he taught his own social studies class and co-founded a charter school in Boston, Mass., after attending Harvard University and earning a master’s degree at the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York.
Following in his parents’ footsteps, King dedicated his life to education, rising through ranks to become the first New York State education commissioner of African American and Puerto Rican descent in 2011. King was recently selected to become the deputy secretary of the Department of Education.
“Not only am I here doing this today because of that teacher, but I’m alive, because [Osterweil] provided stability during that period in my life,” said King.
In his new role, King will manage the agency’s major initiatives that includes working to revise President George W. Bush’s 2002 “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law.
King noted that, by some measures, student achievement has improved since NCLB updated the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), originally signed into law in 1965.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, high school graduation rates for Black students (measured as the average freshman graduation rates) increased from 59 percent in 2006 to 68 percent in 2012, compared to White students who saw their graduation rates rise from 80 percent to 85 percent over the same time period.
The 2014 study “Building a Grad Nation” reported that when researchers began analyzing the effects of “dropout factories,” defined as schools where less than 60 percent of the students were graduating, almost half of all Black students attended one of them. By 2012, the report said, the number of Black students attended one of those schools had been slashed in half to 23 percent.
King said ESEA is really a civil rights law that was intended to ensure equity for all students across the country and there is still a lot of work to do.
“One of the problems with the NCLB law is that it focused just on absolute performance,” said King. “What we’ve tried to do at the department with the ‘waiver process’ is to focus on growth.”
Through the waiver process, the Obama administration freed more than 30 states and Washington, D.C. from NCLB’s stringent testing requirements, which often faced sharp criticism from educators and school administrators. Exempt school districts tracked the individual progress of students independent of how they ranked against other students on a standardized test.
More than a decade since NCLB was enacted, civil rights groups and Washington lawmakers are now focused on improving it.
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, recently issued a draft proposal aimed at reforming NCLB.
He suggested shifting more responsibility for designing programs that measure student achievement to state and local jurisdictions and also proposed limiting the Education Secretary’s ability to craft guidelines that direct instructional material, evaluation systems and “definitions of teacher, principal, or school leader effectiveness.’’
While Senator Alexander’s proposal shifts responsibility for targeted funding for at-risk students and teacher evaluation tools back to the states, civil rights groups want more federal oversight.
Nearly 30 civil rights and education advocacy groups united to express their concerns about the reauthorization of the ESEA in a joint statement.
The coalition recommended that each state provide annual assessments for all students in the third grade through the eighth grade and high school and that targeted funding be used to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children in our nation’s schools including youth in juvenile and criminal justice system. The group also said that states should expand data collection and reporting to parents and the public on student achievement, course-completion and graduation rates.
Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said his organization is deeply opposed to Senator Alexander’s approach to reauthorize ESEA.
“When President Johnson signed ESEA into law he said that the bill represented ‘the commitment of the federal government to quality and equality in the schooling we offer our young people,’” said Morial in a statement. “Yet, with this draft, Chairman Alexander moves our nation in the opposite direction and strikes at our most cherished civil rights principle: that every child has fair and equal access to a quality education regardless of family income, ZIP code, disability, language or race.”
Morial said that lawmakers must rewrite the bill and commit to strong federal oversight in education and equity in access to high quality instruction and resources for all students.
Morial continued: “This partisan bill, drafted with little input from civil rights partners, cannot be tweaked to meet the needs of the communities in which we serve. We believe that Chairman Alexander’s ESEA draft moves us backwards—it ignores equity, guts federal accountability and shifts resources away from children in most need.”
King echoed Morial’s concerns and said that the fear is that some of what has been proposed would be a step backwards from equity and opportunity.
“We know that for our kids, their best shot is if they have a high quality education that prepares them to be successful after they graduate from high school,” said King. “We have no future as a country if we don’t ensure that African American students get a high quality education, that Latino students get a high quality education, that our English language learners get a high quality education. Our future depends on ensuring that every student has the full range of opportunities.”
Business
Port of Oakland, Army Corps Sign Historic Harbor Design Agreement
OAKLAND POST — Oakland Port Commission President Stephanie Dominguez Walton called the agreement a historic milestone that will support thousands of jobs. “Today marks a historic occasion for the Port as we sign the inaugural Design Agreement for the Turning Basin Widening Project, which will keep Oakland competitive,” said Walton.
A $642 million project designed to accommodate larger cargo ships and strengthen the Port of Oakland’s position as a major Pacific trade gateway moved a significant step closer to construction on Aug. 27.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) San Francisco District and the Port of Oakland commemorated the signing of the inaugural Design Agreement for the Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Widening Project during a ceremony aboard the USS Potomac, the presidential yacht once used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The project will widen the Port’s Inner and Outer Harbor turning basins, allowing today’s increasingly larger and longer vessels more space to safely maneuver and turn around. The current basins are narrow, creating delays and operational inefficiencies.
Oakland Port Commission President Stephanie Dominguez Walton called the agreement a historic milestone that will support thousands of jobs.
“Today marks a historic occasion for the Port as we sign the inaugural Design Agreement for the Turning Basin Widening Project, which will keep Oakland competitive,” said Walton.
The agreement advances the project into its preconstruction engineering and design phase following years of planning and collaboration.
Lt. Col. Virginia Brickner, commander of the USACE San Francisco District, said the signing represented tangible progress toward construction.
“We are moving forward. We are showing progress,” Brickner said.
Major General Jason Kelly, USACE Deputy Commanding General for Civil and Emergency Operations, said dredging is critical for maritime dominance, supply chains, and economic competitiveness.
“Dredging sustains our national economic infrastructure,” he said. “The future demands more, the taxpayer deserves more, and together we’re going to deliver.”
For U.S. Representative Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12), the Port project will support jobs beyond its completion. “This will impact workers and businesses, and every shipping container represents multiple jobs.”
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee described Oakland as a gateway to international markets and spoke on earlier efforts to deepen Oakland’s shipping channel to 50 feet. While serving in the California Legislature, Lee helped bring together labor, business, environmental advocates and Port officials to resolve disputes surrounding dredging and environmental protections.
“We want the Port to remain competitive economically,” Lee said, excited about both protecting the environment and generating sustainable jobs in the region. “We want to make sure that we create good-paying union jobs, and that the Port continues to not just survive, but thrive.”
Port of Oakland Executive Director Kristi McKenney said economic growth is dependent on investments in the Oakland Harbor’s infrastructure.
“This investment and staying competitive will fuel our economy for years to come,” said McKenney.
The Port of Oakland, with its partners, supports more than 98,000 regional jobs and $174 billion in annual economic activity. The Port oversees the Oakland Seaport, the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport (OAK), and nearly 20 miles of waterfront, including Jack London Square.
Community
Democratic Clubs Interview Candidates for Oakland School Board
OAKLAND POST — For the first time, the interviews were jointly sponsored by the John George Democratic Club, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Oakland East Bay Democratic Club, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), Niagara Democratic Club, Block by Block Organizing Network and Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce.
Local Democratic clubs and community organizations interviewed candidates running for Oakland school board in the November elections, including incumbents Jennifer Brouhard in District 2, Mike Hutchinson in District 4 and Valarie Bachelor in District 6.
For the first time, the interviews were jointly sponsored by the John George Democratic Club, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, Oakland East Bay Democratic Club, Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), Niagara Democratic Club, Block by Block Organizing Network and Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce.
The Democratic clubs interviewed only registered Democrats.
John George and Wellstone endorsed Brouhard and Bachelor. Neither endorsed Hutchinson.
In District 4, Wellstone ranked Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams first and Kathryn Camp second. John George ranked Camp first and Williams second.
Hutchinson, an Oakland native and Oakland public schools graduate, highlighted his record.
“I was in board leadership and chaired the Budget and Finance Committee,” he said. “We passed balanced budgets and paid off the state loan early, which allowed us to finally leave state receivership after 22 years.”
Hutchinson said the district faces a financial crisis requiring changes in board leadership and district policies.
“We need a different majority so we can get back on track, end school closures, and manage our resources better,” he said.
Williams taught adult education in Oakland for 18 years.
Williams said her philosophy “comes from the disability justice world, to center the needs of the most vulnerable. When we center the needs of the most vulnerable, we create environments, systems, and learning experiences in which everyone can thrive.”
Williams framed potential school closures as an equity issue.
“Are we thinking about closing schools up in the hills?” she asked. “Or are we thinking about closing schools where communities are in crisis right now?”
Camp, a Bay Area native and Oakland resident of 25 years, has a son in second grade.
“Our kids are only getting one shot at a great education, and I’m running to bring pragmatic, student-centered leadership that restores trust, builds responsibility, and delivers results for every child,” she said.
On her website, Camp pledged accountability and transparency. “As a proud OUSD parent, I know our schools need more than promises – they need fiscal responsibility, equity, and meaningful action guided by long-term strategy,” she said.
“That means protecting classrooms, supporting teachers, using resources wisely, and making decisions that reflect clear priorities and real accountability,” said Camp. “It also means bringing people together and providing the kind of steady leadership that can navigate complex systems, ask hard questions, and stay grounded in what matters most: student outcomes, thriving schools, and a district that works for the communities it serves.”
Wellstone’s Education Committee said it opposed Hutchinson because he frequently challenged the board majority and superintendent.
“He also claims that the teachers’ contract is illegal that a grand jury should be called. He is not endorsed by the teachers’ union; he has been disruptive and non-collaborative at meetings,” and he has been absent 26% of the time, the committee said.
“He claims that the teachers’ contract is illegal and that a grand jury should be called,” the committee said. “He takes individual credit for accomplishments, including paying the state loan, when in fact these changes came from the work of the entire board, or were the result of following through on policy.”
Next week: District 6 school board candidates.
Black History
Nuna Phillips-McKee Celebrates 100 Years: ‘A Century of Faith, Family and God’s Amazing Grace!’
OAKLAND POST — Nuna’s life has been one of Christian service. A longtime member of Wings of Love Maranatha Ministries, now Incredible Church, she serves as director of Community Services and is actively involved in the church’s Food Ministries.
Nuna Phillips-McKee will reach an extraordinary milestone on Sept. 24 —her 100th
birthday, marking a century filled with faith, family, service, laughter and the amazing grace of God.
Born Sept. 14, 1926, in Oakland, Nuna has witnessed a world of change during her lifetime, yet the values that have guided her remain constant: a deep faith in God, devotion to family, a strong work ethic and a heart for serving others.
She enjoyed a distinguished career as a civil servant for more than 40 years, demonstrating the dedication, dependability and strength that have characterized so much of her life.
Nuna’s life has been one of Christian service. A longtime member of Wings of Love Maranatha Ministries, now Incredible Church, she serves as director of Community Services and is actively involved in the church’s Food Ministries.
Through the years, she has continued to help meet the needs of others—not merely with food, but with kindness, compassion and a genuine desire to serve. Her ministry reflects a simple principle by which she lives: when God blesses you, you bless others.
Nuna is the proud mother of one son, whose memory she carries in her heart, and the beloved grandmother of three grandchildren, as well as six great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
At 100, she has the rare blessing of seeing several generations of her family carrying forward a legacy that began long ago.
She remains the loving, intelligent, witty, and, when the occasion calls for it, delightfully sassy Nuna that her family and friends know so well. Her contagious laugh, quick wit and youthful spirit have endeared her to generations of relatives, church members and friends.
Nuna was born into the large and loving Phillips family of seven sisters and one brother, with bonds that formed in childhood and have remained precious throughout the decades. Their shared love, faith, and family traditions have continued to be a source of joy, strength and countless treasured memories.
As family and friends gather for this special occasion, they will celebrate far more than a number. They will celebrate 100 years of prayers prayed and answered; 100 years of lessons learned and wisdom shared; 100 years of family, faith, laughter and love; 100 years of serving God and serving others.
Most of all, they will celebrate a life that stands as a testimony to God’s faithfulness through every season.
Nuna’s century-long journey can be summed up in the words chosen to commemorate this remarkable occasion: “100 years of God’s amazing grace.”
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