The DOE was created in 1976, correct?
So you are going back to 1986. I would like more details as to what position he had and when and how this happened. Your timeline seems correct as to when there was a shift in secondary education.
I was studying secondary ed in college in the early 80s. I changed majors after one “clinic” in a local high school.
Ayers graduated from the Bank Street School at Columbia with an M.Ed in Education in 1984. Subsequently, he became a Professor of Curricula at the University of Illinois in Chicago. From that post, he became prominent in education circles and specialized in curricula development.
Ayers was elected Vice President for Curriculum Studies by the American Educational Research Association in 2008.[68] William H. Schubert, a fellow professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote that his election was "a testimony of [Ayers'] stature and [the] high esteem he holds in the field of education locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally."[69]Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank praised Ayers as a "model citizen" and a scholar whose "work is esteemed by colleagues of different political viewpoints."[70]
It's Wiki, so it's a favorable treatment of an anti-American radical, but here's his brief biography: William Ayers