Robert Hammond
Robert Hammond is the former Colorado Commissioner of Education. Hammond was appointed to his position by the Colorado State Board of Education on June 1, 2011.[1] He announced his resignation April 24, 2015, after more than four years in office. The Colorado Board of Education named Elliott Asp, the special assistant to the education commissioner, to replace Hammond on an interim basis.[1][2][3][4]
Biography
Before becoming commissioner, Hammond was deputy commissioner of administration and operations from 2008 to 2011. He was chief operations officer for the Boulder Valley School District from 2001 to 2008 and, prior to moving to Colorado, was an associate superintendent for the Wichita Public Schools in Wichita, KS. Before working in education, Hammond was senior vice president of operations for Farm Credit Services in Wichita and held several city management positions in Norman, Oklahoma, Oskaloosa, Iowa, and Parsons, Kansas.
Hammond obtained a B.A. in psychology from Baker University and an M.P.A. in urban management from the University of Kansas.[5] [1]
Education
- B.A. in psychology - Baker University, Baldwin City
- M.P.A. in urban management - University of Kansas, Lawrence[1]
Political career
Colorado Commissioner of Education (2011-2015)
Hammond assumed office on June 1, 2011. He announced his resignation in April 2015, and formally stepped down July 1.[3]
Issues
Common Core
- See also: Common Core State Standards Initiative
Common Core, or Common Core State Standards Initiative, is an American education initiative that outlines quantifiable benchmarks in English and mathematics at each grade level from kindergarten through high school. The Colorado State Board of Education adopted the standards in August 2010—prior to Hammond's appointment as commissioner—with implementation set to be achieved in the 2013-14 academic year.[6][7] Because the Colorado Commissioner of Education is appointed by, and serves as a non-voting member of, the board, neither Hammond nor his predecessor, Dwight Jones, who was among Common Core's architects, were directly responsible for the state adopting Common Core.[8] Despite not having played a role in Colorado's adoption of Common Core, Hammond, an outspoken advocate of the initiative, was a key player in the state's participation in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC), a nonprofit national testing consortium. In 2012, Hammond broke ranks with the board in his support of a measure requiring Colorado to become a governing member of PARCC or another consortium aimed at helping states comply with Race to the Top Federal Grant Program. The board, among other teachers, parents and local education authorities were concerned about the potential costs involved in making Colorado a governing state.[9] In 2013, amid a nationwide swell of backlash against some of the recently developed Common Core testing regimes, the Colorado Board of Education sought to block the renewal of the requirement binding Colorado to a multi-state consortium. Hammond opposed defection, asserting that PARCC was the "greatest assessment in the history of American public education."[10] With the consortium's survival riding on the continued commitment of at least 15 states, Hammond, a PARCC Governing Board leader, was accused of having a conflict of interest serving both as commissioner and on the PARCC board—a claim the state attorney general later dismissed.[9]
Appointments
2011
Hammond was appointed to his position on June 1, 2011, by the Colorado Board of Education.[1]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Robert Hammond Colorado Education. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Colorado Commissioner of Education
- Governor of Colorado
- Lieutenant Governor of Colorado
- Colorado school districts
- Colorado Department of Education
External links
- Colorado Department of Education
- Commissioner of Education Page
- Commissioner's Biography from Department of Education
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Colorado Department of Education, "Commissioner's Biography," accessed July 2, 2015 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "bio" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ The Denver Post, "Colorado Education Commissioner Robert Hammond announces retirement," April 24, 2015
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chalkbeat Colorado, "Asp nominated to be interim education commissioner," June 3, 2015
- ↑ Chalkbeat Colorado, "Education Commissioner Robert Hammond stepping down July 1," April 24, 2015
- ↑ Colorado Department of Education, "Commissioner's Biography," accessed July 15, 2011
- ↑ Common Core State Standards Initiative, "Core Standards in your State," accessed June 12, 2014
- ↑ Colorado Department of Education, "Standards and Instruction," accessed June 13, 2014
- ↑ Colorado Department of Education, "Board Member Profiles," accessed May 14, 2014
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Watchdogwire.com, "UPDATE: Rotten to the Common Core?" May 28, 2014
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Common Core supporters say defections are no big deal," July 29, 2013
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Dwight D. Jones |
Colorado Commissioner of Education 2011-2015 |
Succeeded by Elliott Asp |
