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Tight Leash Likely On Turnaround Aid

Radical Steps Proposed as Price for Title I Grants

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last week that he plans to demand radical steps—such as firing most of a school’s staff or converting it to a charter school—as the price of admission in directing $3.5 billion in new school improvement aid to the nation’s 5,000 worst-performing schools.

In sharp contrast to the current free-flowing nature of Title I school improvement aid, the education secretary is proposing strict conditions on the new funds, which would not only be aimed at elementary schools, but also at what he termed high school “dropout factories” and the middle schools that feed into them.

In exchange, the federal Department of Education could waive key components of the Title I program, such as the requirement that schools needing improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act offer tutoring and public school choice, according to draft regulations ...