US education secretary to visit 2nd Ala. school

Associated Press
Posted on Mon, Mar. 8, 2010

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided to visit a second Montgomery school after a complaint by a veteran black legislator.
Officials with Duncan's office in Washington confirmed that Monday's visit to Montgomery would include a stop at King Elementary.
Democratic Rep. Alvin Holmes of Montgomery had complained that Duncan had chosen to visit Robert E. Lee High School. Holmes said that in 1965, the school and its then-principal publicly opposed the Rev. Martin Luther King and the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.
Duncan still plans to visit Lee high school. Officials in Duncan's office said the school is now majority black and the current principal was 2 years old at the time of the march.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
The federal Department of Education plans to intensify its civil rights enforcement efforts in schools around the country, including a deeper look at issues ranging from programs for immigrant students learning English to equal access to a college preparatory courses.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to outline the department's plans in a speech delivered Monday in Alabama to commemorate the 45th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," in which several hundred civil rights protesters were beaten by state troopers on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge during a voting rights march in 1965.
"For us, this is very much about working to meet the president's goal, that by 2020 we will regain our status in the world as the number one producer of college graduates," Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, told The Associated Press.
The department is expecting to conduct 38 compliance reviews around 40 different issues this year, she said.
Though the investigations have been conducted before, the department's Office of Civil Rights is looking to do more complicated and broad reviews that will look not just at whether procedures are in place, but at the impact district practices have on students of one race or another, and if student needs are being met.

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