The nation’s education secretary said yesterday that kids should spend more time in class as one way to eliminate the racial achievement gap.
Speaking at a five-day Midtown conference of the mentorship group 100 Black Men of America, Arne Duncan also said he supports charter schools.
“If all we do is sustain the status quo, that is not going to get us where we need to go,” he said.
Duncan gave the Bush administration credit for the accountability it introduced with the No Child Left Behind Act, and for the law’s requirement that schools break down data by race.
“We can no longer sweep under the rug the horrendous disparities between the outcomes of white children and black and Latino children,” he said.
But he criticized the act for allowing states to set their own standards.
The goal of the conference — which is co-sponsored by News Corp., the parent company of The Post — is to get to the root of the racial achievement gap.
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are scheduled to speak at the event today.