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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the agreement between the State Education Department and NYSUT.

Just hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a deal about the structure of a new teacher evaluation system, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he was no longer concerned about the state’s eligibility for federal Race to the Top funds.

New York won $700 million in Race to the Top funds in large part by agreeing to adopt a new teacher evaluation system. But after passing an evaluation law in the spring of 2010, implementation was slow, and relations between the state and its teachers union, NYSUT, had deteriorated over the implementation.

Last month, charging that the state was “backtracking on reform commitments,” Duncan warned that New York was at risk of losing its Race to the Top funds.

Today, Duncan said he was no longer worried. He struck a tone of unreserved optimism this afternoon while speaking to reporters on a Midtown sidewalk as he dashed between a meeting with the New York Times editorial board and a taping of the Daily Show.

“This was a major roadblock, a major stumbling block, and I think they are over that in a great way,” he said. There’s a whole body of work going forward that New York has to do, but this was a major issue, a major concern of ours and I think they’ve addressed it in an extraordinary way.” (more…)