Secretary of Ed on state's Race to the Top win
ALBANY, N.Y. -- The U.S. Secretary of Education was in Albany Monday as leaders discussed New York’s Race to the Top education grant.
New York was among 9 states to win funding in the contest, securing as much as $700 million dollars.
State leaders and education officials had to agree to some pretty big reforms in order to win the grant.
That included raising the cap on charter schools and imposing tougher standards for students and teachers.
"This country has a dropout rate of about 25 percent, that is about 1.2 million young people leaving our schools for our streets,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “That is economically and morally unacceptable. In everything we have done, to the Race to the Top we have to challenge the status quota every single day. It does a great job at preparing some students to be successful but not every single child in this country."
Duncan said New York’s win should prove that any state in the country is capable of making the same kind of reforms.