Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged lawmakers on Wednesday to make education reform a top priority this year.
In testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Duncan warned that nearly three quarters of all public schools could soon be given “failing” labels by the federal government. As a result, Duncan challenged members on the panel to work with the administration in re-writing Republican President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” law.
“No Child Left Behind is broken, and we need to fix it now,” Duncan said during his opening remarks. “This law has created a thousand ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible and focused on the schools and students most at risk.”