May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged states to “turn around” 5,000 of the lowest-performing U.S. public schools in the next five years.

Turning a school around may mean replacing its leadership or teaching staff, or converting it into a charter school, Duncan said today in a speech in Washington. Charter schools operate under contracts with school districts and are exempt from many state and local regulations that govern traditional public schools.

“When a school is chronically underperforming despite additional supports and other strategies, we have a moral obligation to consider bolder action,” he said. “We want to know which states have done this and if not, why not.”

States and school districts could change the lives of millions of low-income children by turning around the 1,000 lowest-performing U.S. schools each year for five years, he said. That would add up to about 5 percent of the nation’s 100,000 public schools.

To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: May 11, 2009 14:37 EDT