Education secretary pushes for school turnarounds

From The New York Times: Arne Duncan, U.S. education secretary, wants to take school turnaround efforts nationwide on a scale never tried before. He says he will urge local authorities to close thousands of the country’s worst schools and reopen them with new staff members. Duncan wants to see 250 schools closed and reconstituted next year. That would mean dismissing thousands of teachers next spring, hiring replacements and opening newly reconstituted schools in fall 2010.