Commissioner Scott Announces Resignation

Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott announced this week that he will resign his office, effective July 2, the Texas Education Agency reported.

Scott, 43, began his career at the TEA in 1994 as an assistant director of governmental relations and served as interim commissioner from Aug. 1, 2003, to Jan. 12, 2004, and again from July 2, 2007, to Oct. 15, 2007, before being appointed commissioner on Oct. 16, 2007.

TEA noted some of Commissioner Scott’s career highlights as having:

  • increased emphasis on early childhood and pre-kindergarten education through the development of pre-K curriculum standards and other school readiness initiatives;
  • established the Texas High School Project, a public-private partnership that worked to improve college readiness and high school graduation rates;
  • created the Texas Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (T-STEM) initiative, an idea which has now been adopted by many states;
  • worked with the State Board of Education to improve the state’s curriculum standards, which form the backbone of instruction in the public schools; and
  • created Project Share, a free global online learning community where educators collaborate, share resources and showcase accomplishments. Less than two years old, Project Share already has 900,000 subscribers, including about 600,000 students.

Although there were many new initiatives begun during his tenure, TEA said in a news release, it also fell to Scott to twice oversee drastic downsizings of TEA during a budget crisis. This prompted reorganizations of the agency and the way it operates.

 
   
 
 

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