Yale Law School

A Conversation With John King

In 2015, President Obama named John King the 10th U.S. Secretary of Education. As part of KERA’s American Graduate series, he joins us to talk about the government’s role in education – and about how changing U.S. demographics are affecting our schools.

John King on … 

… the need for more diverse teachers in American schools: 

“We know that today a majority of the kids in our public schools are students of color, but only 18 percent of our teachers are teachers of color. One of the challenges is that we have a leaky pipeline. Fewer students of color, as a percentage, are graduating from high school, enrolling in college, graduating from college, graduating with education degrees, choosing teaching. So, we’ve got challenges at every level of the pipeline.”