The Department of Education

The secretary of the Department of Education is Arne Duncan. Barack Obama appointed Arne as secretary on January 20,2009. Just recently Duncan worked with a board of education to raise the percentage of questions students must answer correctly to be deemed proficient on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) and the Michigan Merit Exam Tests. Duncan likes these changes becasue even though most students pass state tests it is still basically a failing percentage; students have to get 40% or more questions right to pass these tests. By making the percentage higher students will at least try to acheive and score better scores on these tests.
In Texas, teachers are worried about a massive lay-off due to pay cuts. Texas has until September 30 to receive $830 million in federal emergency funding to prevent teachers from lossing their jobs. But Texas is having trouble with actually receiving this money in time. Duncan is trying to help the state. Arne Duncan is a really dedicated secretary who wants to improve education all over America. Barack Obama and Arne work together to save the public school systems for the future generations.
Connection to class: This was on the list of cabinet departments. The mission statement is to strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual; supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education; encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs; promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of imformation; improve the coordination of Federal education programs; improve the management of Federal education activities; increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.

Information was found from multiple stories and articles from google.com