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Secretary of Education

Secretary of Education

6 4.1
The head of the United States Department of Education who oversees national education policy
  • proper noun
  • /ˈsɛkrəˌtɛri əv ˌɛdʒʊˈkeɪʃən/
  • Formal
translation icon : Secretario de Educación
  • The call came from Lamar Alexander, former governor of Tennessee and recently appointed by President Bush to be Secretary of Education.
  • U.S. Secretary of Education
  • Secretary of Education Riley
  • Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

He takes down every We have a Secretary of Education who hates teachers and schools.

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Examples

  • The US Secretary of Education may list state by state how well pupils are achieving in different curriculum areas.

    Academic text (1996)

  • Former Secretary of Education William Bennett was a strong advocate of students studying the classics.

    Academic text (1997)

  • In 1994, the National Standards for Music Education were published and presented to the Secretary of Education.

    Academic text (1997)

  • How would a new Secretary of Education receive the group's report, The Power of the Arts to Transform Education?

    Academic text (1995)

  • Arne Duncan is U.S. Secretary of Education.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the SHEEO Higher Education Policy Conference.

    Blog text (2)

  • NCLB emphasized content knowledge over pedagogical ability, with the Secretary of Education recommending in 2002 that student teaching requirements be eliminated.

    Academic text (2013)

  • On Tuesday, the Senate voted to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

  • "Our responsibility is to protect students and taxpayers," U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in August.

  • If the state meets these terms, the Secretary of Education must continue the performance agreement.

Synonyms

Education Secretary
vsSecretary of Education
  • Formal
14 3.9

A government official in charge of national education policy and schools

is used mainly in the US to name that government position

Surface Forms

Secretary of Education main

Morphology

secretary + of + education

The meaning is directly compositional: 'secretary' (a senior official) + 'of' (linking role to domain) + 'education' (the field/institution) clearly denotes the official in charge of education. This possessive/role construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. "Minister of Education"), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Secretary of Education comes from the idea of a secretary as a leader's close helper who handled important papers and decisions. So the title now means the person 'in charge' of how a country's schools are run, especially in the United States.