Duncan: New standards hope to empower local education officials
(PoliticMo Photo)
JOPLIN, Mo. — On the day before he and President Obama plan to announce an overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Joplin to review tornado recovery.
In addition to lauding the school district its on-time start, Duncan, one of the more vocal members of the president’s cabinet, previewed some of the changes the Obama administration plans to announce to revamp federal education standards by letting states opt-out of the current law, which Missouri education officials have said they will pursue.
“We’ll have an application process, a time frame. This will be very public and transparent. This will be peer reviewed. There will be no competition between states,” Duncan said. “We think a number of states will want to