John King Jr.

John B. King Jr. (born January 5, 1975) is an American academic administrator, currently serving as the 15th chancellor of the State University of New York since January 2023.

He previously served as President & CEO of The Education Trust, a national civil rights nonprofit which seeks to identify and close opportunity and achievement gaps for students from preschool through college. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 10th United States Secretary of Education from January 1, 2016 to January 20, 2017, under President Barack Obama. In April 2021, King announced that he would be running for the Democratic nomination in the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election, but came in sixth place in the primary election, losing to Baltimore author Wes Moore.

Immediately before he assumed leadership of the United States Department of Education, King served as its Acting Deputy Secretary from 2015 until 2016. He previously was the New York State Education Commissioner from 2011 to 2014. King's predecessor as U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was charged with implementing the No Child Left Behind Act; however, King was obliged to carry out the provisions of that law's modified successor legislation, the Every Student Succeeds Act.

On December 5, 2022, King was appointed Chancellor of the State University of New York, succeeding interim chancellor Deborah F. Stanley and becoming its second Black chancellor, with Clifton R. Wharton Jr. being the first, and first Puerto Rican chancellor. He took office on January 9, 2023.

John B. King Jr. was born in 1975 in Flatlands, Brooklyn, to John B. King Sr., a retired public school administrator and teacher, and Adalinda King, a school guidance counselor. He is of African-American and Puerto Rican descent. King Sr. had been Brooklyn's first Black principal and later became New York City's executive deputy superintendent of schools. King Jr.'s mother died of a heart attack when King was eight years old. His father developed Alzheimer's disease and later died when King was 12. When later describing the importance of education, King credits one of his New York City public school teachers with saving him from being "shot or in prison" following the trauma caused by his parents' deaths. King moved to Long Island to live with his 24-year-old half brother. King later attended Phillips Andover but rebelled against its rules and was expelled in his junior year. He moved in with his uncle, a Tuskegee Airman, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where he applied and was accepted to Harvard University.

King earned a bachelor of arts in government at Harvard in 1996, was a Truman Scholar in his junior year, and received the James Madison Memorial Fellowship for secondary-level teaching of American history, American government, and social studies. While at Harvard, he was president of the Phillips Brooks House Association. King received his master's degree at Teachers College, Columbia University in the Teaching of Social Studies in 1997 and taught high school social studies.

in 1999, King co-founded Roxbury Preparatory Charter School, where he served as co-director for five years. Under King's leadership, Roxbury Prep's students attained the highest state exam scores of any urban middle school in Massachusetts, closed the racial achievement gap, and outperformed students from not only the Boston district schools but also the city's affluent suburbs. King then joined as a managing director for Uncommon Schools, an urban, public charter school organization that operates some of the highest performing urban public schools in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

In 2007, King received a Juris Doctor at Yale Law School. In 2008, King received a Doctor of Education in educational administrative practice at Teachers College, Columbia University. His dissertation was titled "Bridging the Achievement Gap: Learning from Three Charter Schools."