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Education Secretary Arne Duncan will step down as the nation's top education official in December, an Education Department source confirmed Friday morning.
Duncan has overseen a department that has taken an activist role in higher education policy making, from revamping the student loan programs to aggressively cracking down on for-profit colleges and sexual assault to turning up the accountability pressures on colleges.
As has been true with many U.S. education secretaries, whose backgrounds have universally been in K-12 education, Duncan has sometimes not appeared to be the primary driver of the policy changes themselves.
Other news organizations report that President Obama plans to appoint John B. King Jr., the deputy secretary focused on elementary and secondary education, to replace Duncan. A news conference is scheduled for this afternoon to discuss the changes.
A more expansive article on Duncan's resignation will appear later on this site.
