President Trump has nominated Michigan State Representative Tim Kelly to be the new Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (OCTAE). The appointment requires Senate confirmation and follows an announcement last week naming Dr. Michael Wooten as Deputy Assistant Secretary for OCTAE. Dr. Wooten will serve as the Acting Assistant Secretary until an Assistant Secretary is confirmed.
Kelly’s name was circulated as the possible OCTAE nominee in May, but was not publically announced until this weekend. In the Michigan House, Kelly chairs the Education Reform Committee, which deals with K-12 education. Earlier this year, MLive reported that Kelly has previously “suggested students in Detroit and perhaps the entire state should be able to take their education funding to public, private or charter schools in a voucher-like system, and has supported efforts to end the state’s prohibition on using public dollars to pay for private schooling.”
Speaking about his nomination, however, Kelly told The Detroit News that he and Secretary DeVos “both believe in universal choice, but [the OCTAE Assistant Secretary position] is more about trying to do what we can for kids, instead of loading them up with debt and pushing everybody into four-year college degrees, maybe seeing what we can do for kids who might do well in technical training.”
Kelly has a long record on education and workforce development issues. According to his campaign website, in 1995 he served as education policy advisor to then-Governor John Engler (R-MI). He also served as a special advisor in the Michigan Department of Career Development where he “helped create and lead a state agency that revolutionized career preparation, education and job training for displaced workers and families.” That department, according to Kelly, “was responsible for 25 regional Workforce Investment Boards, over 100 local One-Stop employment centers, vocational and adult education in 28 community colleges and high schools, welfare-to-work, rehabilitation and veterans services.”
Kelly also worked with Michigan’s community colleges and intermediate school districts to establish centers to provide job-profiling services to employers, assessments, instruction and a portable skills credential. Before moving to Michigan, Kelly worked on economic and workforce development issues in Indiana. There, among other positions, he served as the executive director of the Indiana Council on Vocational Education.
Before his election to the legislature, Kelly served as a county commissioner and a local Republican Party chairman. He currently serves on his local Catholic Schools Board of Trustees. Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from the University of Denver.
Comments