Civil rights leaders are criticizing Obama administration education reforms aimed at turning around low performing schools and closing the achievement gap for minority students.

Eight civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, contend in a document released Monday the Education Department is promoting ineffective approaches for failing schools. They also claim the $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” grant competition – a program with a goal of spurring innovative reform in states – leaves out many minority students.

“We want to be supportive, but more important than supporting an administration is supporting our children across the country and ensuring that they have an opportunity to learn,” said John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Education, one of the groups that developed the document.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and a White House adviser met with the groups Monday, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the presidents of the National Urban League and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The groups distributed the document to members of Congress last week.

Duncan has called education “the civil rights issue of our generation,” and many of the reforms the administration has pushed aim to improve educational opportunities for the most vulnerable students.

“The administration is dedicated to equity in education and we've been working very closely with the civil rights community to develop the most effective policies to close the achievement gap, turn around low performing schools and put a good teacher in every classroom,'' Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton said.

The Obama administration's education reforms have drawn criticism from education advocates, including prominent teachers' unions like the American Federation of Teachers, which gives money to many of the groups that signed the civil rights document. AFT President Randi Weingarten said she supports the proposal but that her organization had nothing to do with writing it.