U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. will visit Boston on Tuesday, May 31, to participate in a moderated question-and-answer session at an Empower Schools convening titled "The Emerging Third Way: Blazing an Optimistic Path Ahead in K-12 Education." He will discuss innovative new approaches to educating our nation's neediest students and closing education and opportunity gaps for all students. King also will highlight the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the opportunities it presents to promote excellence and equity for all of the nation's students, including those in diverse urban public school systems.
Empower Schools is a non-profit organization that partners with communities to improve student outcomes and empower schools and teachers to have the flexibilities they need to effectively prepare students for college and careers. Its Third Way philosophy focuses on an emerging set of strategies that combine the autonomies and innovation of charter schools with the critical commitment to universal service and local voice of school districts in order to raise student success, especially among disadvantaged students.