Education Secretary Calls For Urgency On ‘No Child’ Fix

ST. PAUL (AP) - U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is in Minnesota calling on Congress to move faster on an overhaul of the nation's most important K-12 law.

The nine-year-old No Child Left Behind law has been widely criticized for branding schools as failures even as they make progress and discouraging high academic standards.

Speaking in St. Paul, Duncan says he "desperately" wants the new bill ready by the time schools resume in the fall, because the current law is an impediment to success.

However, the House education committee is moving more slowly than that. The committee's chairman, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., says Tuesday he won't rush to meet an arbitrary deadline.

Duncan toured the Dayton's Bluff Achievement Plus elementary school in St. Paul on Tuesday at the invitation of Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.