LOUISVILLE — Elementary schools in white neighborhoods here are whiter now, and those in the black neighborhoods are blacker. Under an integration plan the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2007, the Jefferson County School District required every school across greater Louisville to have an enrollment that was 15% to 50% African-American. The goal was to make schools in the district, where the student population is about two-thirds white and one-third black, racially diverse throughout. The Supreme Court’s decision ended that. Now, Louisville is taking another swing at school integration. Under a new student-assignment plan that’s tied to household income and dependent on increased cross-town busing, elementary schools slowly are being integrated in a different way. Yet the district that lost its case before the high court has fallen short of its goals of having a mix of students from higher- and lower-income areas and a blend of races in all classrooms. Its situation reflects the new landscape for school integration that’s coming into focus three years after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling. The new reality tests the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education — the landmark high-court decision that struck down the doctrine of “separate but equal” schools more than a half-century ago — as school districts decide whether to continue to make integration a priority or return to neighborhood schools, whose enrollments often reflect communities’ racial divide. “I think that minority schools are going to be even more isolated,” says education professor Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at University of California-Los Angeles , which supports integration. “For very large communities, there is going to be no integration experience available. … Segregation perpetuates itself.” The 2007 decision, the first of a series of conservative blockbusters under Chief Justice John Roberts , came as many districts already had been backing away from race-based integration. Supreme Court rulings in the 1990s and shifting political winds had stalled school desegregation, which began with the 1954 decision in Brown and continued until the late 1980s. The court’s new ruling in paired cases from Louisville and Seattle more definitively challenged the integration efforts of previous decades. For educators seeking to mix students of all races, the decision has led to complex new approaches based on income level and other factors. At the same time, it also has generated attempts to create more magnet schools and strengthen academics. The Supreme Court said districts could not look at the race of an individual student but did not bar districts from broadly considering race in certain communities. Under the new Louisville plan, parents list their top four choices for schools, some of which can be near home and some of which are supposed to be in other neighborhoods. Officials consider parents’ requests and other factors, such as a sibling already in school, as they try to meet diversity goals. The plan has taken effect in kindergarten through second grades. It will be phased in to include all of elementary school over the next three years and will start to take effect in middle school next year. “No retreat” has become the official mantra of Jefferson County School Superintendent Sheldon Berman and other school administrators in Louisville. In other places, most recently Wake County, N.C., school boards have moved back to neighborhood-school plans, which can mean plentiful resources for students in affluent areas but the opposite for students in low-income places. Education researchers such as Orfield note blacks and Hispanics do better in racially integrated schools. Students of all races who go to integrated schools are more inclined as adults to live in integrated communities. Focusing on class, rather than race Yet, Richard Kahlenberg, who has worked with schools in Chicago and elsewhere on approaches that integrate students based on income and other non-race factors, says students ultimately may be better off without exclusively race-based methods. “The things we’re looking for in a school — such as peers who will be positive role models and parents who are actively involved in the school — track closer by class than race,” says Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, which researches economic and social issues. Kahlenberg notes that before the ruling, Louisville’s Roosevelt-Perry Elementary, for example, “was beautifully balanced (racially) but was a disaster” academically since it was nearly “100% poor.” Today, classrooms in the two-story brick school have been modernized with technology themes such as robotics. Principal Pamela Howell has spearheaded the reinventing of Roosevelt-Perry as a magnet school that focuses on math and science. She says the upside to discarding race-based plans is that school officials must be more innovative to draw parents’ interest across neighborhood lines. Her message to parents reluctant to try the near-downtown location: “No matter where you live, no matter what you had to do to get here, you will get a high-quality education once you get here.” Yet the school is still in a run-down urban strip where the area’s average household income is about $20,000 annually and the population is mostly African-American. The principal-led transformation works for some parents — but not others. Brandy Schad, who protested her 5-year-old son’s assignment to the magnet Roosevelt-Perry, says the promise of better academics could not persuade her to accept a school that was an hour from her home and had comparatively low test scores. “I certainly understand the importance of diversity,” she says, “but not at the expense of a 5-year-old.” The 2007 ruling revealed a young Roberts Court flexing its conservative muscle on social issues. John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, and conservative Justice Samuel Alito succeeded centrist Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006, leading to a more consequential ideological shift. The 2007 decision in the Louisville schools case was a jolt to the right. Justice John Paul Stevens , who had served since 1975 and retired this past summer, said he believed that no one on the court he joined would have voted the way the five conservatives did in the Louisville case. Roberts wrote that the disputed integration plans from Louisville and Seattle recalled a pre- Brown era. In Brown , the Supreme Court said “separate but equal” schools were inherently unequal and violated the Constitution’s equality guarantee. “Before Brown , schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin,” Roberts said, joined by the court’s most conservative justices. “The school districts in these cases have not (demonstrated) that we should allow this once again — even for very different reasons.” He added, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Dissenting justices observed that before the Brown ruling, only black children were told where they could go to school. Justice Stephen Breyer , joined by the court’s three other more liberal justices, said the majority’s decision undermined ” Brown ‘s promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought.” Justice Anthony Kennedy , who is at the ideological middle of a divided court, was the crucial fifth vote for the conservative majority. He wrote a concurring statement that declared diversity in schools remained a “compelling” governmental interest but integration programs had to be “narrowly tailored.” “This nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity for all of its children,” Kennedy wrote, adding that districts could look at race only as part of a “nuanced, individual evaluation of school needs and student characteristics.” Setting the bar higher Louisville’s efforts to follow the high-court ruling have ushered in new challenges. The new plan has turned out to be far more “disruptive” than the prior plan, says student-assignment specialist Barbara Dempsey, requiring more students to be bused between regions. In two years of the new plan, fewer than half of the kindergarten to second-grade classes have reached the district’s diversity goals, she says. Pat Todd, executive director of student assignments, chalks that up to initial difficulties in balancing diversity with other factors, such as requests for siblings to stay together, and says she expects the elementary schools to meet the goals fully in four to five years. “I do think we will have to make modifications,” Todd says. “But we will be continuing with a diversity plan, so the students will be better prepared for the future.” There has been political fallout: Two Republican state legislators recently introduced a bill that would require the district to return to neighborhood schools. In this fall’s school board election, the integration plan is a major issue. The plan prompted hundreds of school-transfer requests, one of which came from Schad who, with her husband, who has Crohn’s disease, wanted their son, Ethan, closer to home. Schad says she was dismayed by Roosevelt-Perry’s academic scores and didn’t want to take a chance on the new magnet program: “It’s so new and so fresh that I don’t feel like you can put a whole lot of stock in it.” Her son is now at a school less than a mile from their home. Still, the district has plenty of supportive parents, such as Shweta Krishnani, who chose Roosevelt-Perry after touring the school. Krishnani says she was reluctant at first to send son Sahil, 5, there because of the neighborhood and the school’s low test scores. But Howell convinced her and her husband the grounds were safe and the new technology program was first-rate. Those and other worries, including the two-bus ride her son must take every morning, have been eclipsed by his academic progress. Sahil began the school year in kindergarten but proved himself so advanced he was reassigned to first grade, where he can participate in a LEGO robotics lab and build robots with moving parts and sensors. Krishnani is from Dubai and her husband grew up in India. She says she wants Sahil to mix with students of all races so he will be ready, as an adult, for anything in life or on the job. Howell says she did not object to the old diversity plan but has since realized that with the poverty levels of students, white and black, the diversity “wasn’t pushing us to the top.” With the magnet program, she says, “we are now able to set the bar a lot higher for our students.” Plans vary across the nation

CHESTER, S.D. — Homecoming brought joy to Betsy Daniel this fall, when classmates chose her as homecoming queen. A similar scene played out this month in New Mexico, where students erupted in cheers when a classmate with special needs was named homecoming king. In Lawrence, Kan., a boy with Down syndrome is on the homecoming court after classmates went to administrators and demanded his name be on the ballot. The king and queen at that school, Free State High, will be crowned Friday . “It’s really amazing to see because there was a time when they were never even invited to go to prom, so to be the king or queen is just phenomenal,” says Kirsten Seckler, a spokesperson for the Special Olympics . Under federal law, students with special needs have the right to be in the same classes as the rest of the students, to the maximum extent possible, says Frances Duff, a teacher at Cibola High School in Albuquerque. As that has happened, and students with special needs become more integrated into the school culture, “they’re no longer seen as different,” Duff says. “There’s a climate of acceptance and enjoying each other,” says Duff, who has seen this first-hand at Cibola, where students with special needs have been chosen homecoming king twice in the past couple of years. A student with autism, Luke Sachs, was named Cibola High homecoming king in 2008, Duff says. Then, James Keefner, who has Down syndrome, was named homecoming king this fall. “I thought the gym was going to implode because of all the cheering and the stomping of the feet,” Duff recalls. “It was really joyous. It was quite a celebration.” Seckler says activities such as sports have led to more friendships. Special-needs students “start to feel accepted and included in their society and in schools, and their confidence grows and they excel,” she says. In the South Dakota prairie town of Chester, Daniel walked the high school hallways with a sparkling tiara and a grin from ear to ear during homecoming festivities earlier this month. Classmates say her smile and outgoing attitude earned her this year’s title because Daniel, who has Down syndrome, is everything a homecoming queen should be. It punctuated a homecoming week that has brought unity to the community, joy to the queen and her parents, and hope to the families that know Daniel through Special Olympics. “The tears of happiness just keep coming,” says her mother, Connie Daniel. “I’m overwhelmed that the community and the school would do that for her.” At Free State High in Lawrence, some friends of Owen Phariss were telling their classmates to vote for him. When the ballots were distributed, they noticed that Phariss — who has Down syndrome — was left off, says his mother, Nancy Holmes. So they began a petition, and collected 800 signatures to get his name on the ballot, she says. School administrators decided to hold a second vote — this time with Phariss’ name on the ballot — and he was elected to the homecoming court. Holmes says many students have gotten to know her son because she’s always tried to keep him in regular classes with everyone else. “I’ve done that since he was born,” she says. “Even in preschool, I just fought for it and I got it.” Now, he could be named homecoming king Friday. “He’s so pumped,” Holmes says. “And it won’t surprise me if he does win.”

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Determined to energize dispirited Democrats, President Barack Obama told New Mexico voters on Tuesday that Republicans would reverse the progress he’s made on education reform and student aid. Addressing a small group in an Albuquerque family’s front yard, Obama shifted from his recent focus on the economy, which has run headlong into the grim reality of continued high unemployment. Instead, five weeks ahead of midterm elections that could turn into a Democratic bloodletting, the president told voters to think about education when they head to the polls. “Who’s going to prioritize our young people to make sure they’ve got the skills they need to succeed?” the president said. “Nothing’s going to be more important in terms of our long-term success.” Obama argued that Republicans would cut education spending to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Later in the day, Obama was heading to a big rally at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he hopes to replicate the raucous, youthful, big-stage events for which he became famous in the 2008 presidential campaign. Democrats will host hundreds of watch parties nationwide, and Obama will hold other campus rallies before Nov. 2 to warn young voters that the “hope and change” they embraced two years ago is at risk if Republicans sweep the midterm elections. The president is aiming to close the enthusiasm gap that pollsters say separates discouraged liberal voters from energized conservatives who might lift Republicans to huge gains in congressional and gubernatorial races. But Obama got a quick reminder from his audience of about 40 in Albuquerque that education might not be at the top of the agenda for recession-weary voters. “If we don’t have homes to go to, what good is education?” one man asked. A high school principal read a letter that he said was from a class in his school. “What assurance will we have that we will be rewarded for good work?” the students asked. “There seems to be less money that banks lend our families, and most of all no jobs.” The president acknowledged the anxiety of the younger generation. “They’re growing up in the shadow of a financial crisis that we hadn’t seen in our lifetime,” he said, arguing his administration has sought to save jobs for teachers and others by closing tax loopholes, and is working to making it easier for kids to attend college. Republican leaders, Obama said, “fought us tooth and nail … That’s the choice that we’ve got in this election.” The event at the stucco home of Andy and Etta Cavalier in a small farming community south of Albuquerque comes as Obama tests out a relatively new format of backyard visits that give him time to explain his policies in cozy, unhurried settings. He’s coupling those with college campus rallies in four states Tuesday and Wednesday, trying to tackle Democrats’ two biggest needs: to pump enthusiasm into young supporters who may stay at home this fall, and to persuade undecided voters that Republican alternatives are unacceptable. In a magazine interview, Obama admonished Democratic voters, saying it would be “inexcusable” and “irresponsible” for unenthusiastic Democrats to sit out the elections because the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years. “People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up,” Obama told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview being published Friday. Making change happen is hard, he said, and “if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren’t serious in the first place.” Obama wants Democratic loyalists to be less apologetic and more forceful in asserting that he and the Democratic-controlled Congress are trying to move the country forward and Republicans would return to the policies of former President George W. Bush . Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SEATTLE (AP) — For many years, diversity in higher education has been measured by how many low-income students and students of color enroll in college. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wants to make a dramatic change in that definition, by focusing instead on college graduation rates. The foundation, along with the National League of Cities, announced Monday that New York City ; San Francisco ; Mesa, Arizona ; and Riverside , California , will each receive $3 million over the next three years for work designed to boost college graduation. The foundation says its long-term goal is to double the number of low-income adults who earn a college degree or credential that meets job-market demands by age 26. The grants announced Monday are for aligning academic standards between high school and college, strengthening data systems, implementing early assessment and college prep strategies and creating support systems to help students get through school. In announcing the grants, the foundation pointed out the following statistics about the cities where the money will be spent: — Low-income students who graduate from Mesa Public Schools and enroll at Mesa Community College have a 5.4% graduation rate. — Ten percent of the students enrolled as first-year students at the City University of New York in 2006 had earned an associate’s degree three years later. — Riverside City College has a graduation rate of 14%. — About 27% of 9th-graders in San Francisco will go on to earn a post-secondary credential or degree. “We know that in today’s economic climate and labor market, a high school diploma is no longer enough,” said Allan Golston, president of the U.S. Program at the Gates Foundation. “We must not only ensure that young people have access to college; we must ensure that they go on to complete college and earn a degree or certificate with value in the workplace.” Since 2000, the foundation has spent $5 billion on its efforts to improve American public schools, send kids to college and, over the past few years, improve college graduation rates. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK (AP) — The City University of New York and IBM will open a unique school that merges high school with two years of college, allowing students to earn an associate’s degree, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday in announcing a series of ambitious educational initiatives. Those students will be “first in line for a job at IBM,” Bloomberg said in his announcement. The mayor also renewed a proposal to do away with automatic teacher tenure and instead ensure it’s linked to classroom performance. He also said the city would work with the state to end “seat time” — requiring students to spend a certain number of hours in desks learning every subject — and would try to change a state law that requires schools to buy printed textbooks rather than use digital content. “That may be good for the business textbook industry but it’s really a bad deal for our students in this day and age,” Bloomberg said. The mayor also said the city will use a $36 million federal grant to enlist highly skilled teachers to work in low-performing schools and mentor fellow instructors. ” New York City is … laying the foundation to ensure that every child who graduates high school is ready to start college or a career,” Bloomberg said. The mayor said the city wants to use a four-tier rating system to determine whether a teacher gets tenure, and said that beginning this year, only teachers rated “effective” or “highly effective” will be awarded lifetime job protection. Tenure would be awarded only if a teacher has made an impact on student achievement, he said. “Just as we are raising the bar for our students through higher standards, we must also raise the bar for our teaches and principals — and we are,” the mayor said. Bloomberg has proposed ending automatic teacher tenure in recent years. The state Legislature amended the law earlier this year to add student test scores and performance as criteria in evaluating teachers. Tenured teachers can be dismissed for incompetence or insubordination under the law but have due process rights. “If the mayor wants to change seniority he will need to talk to the Legislature,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers , the city teachers’ union. Mulgrew said that tenure decisions are arbitrary. “Most teachers would welcome an objective tenure-granting process based on agreed-upon standards,” he said. The partnership with IBM for a high school-college hybrid will build on work that the company is already doing in community colleges, said Stan Litow, vice president of corporate affairs for IBM. “We have every confidence that large numbers of those kids would be able to assume entry-level jobs at IBM and other IT companies,” Litow said. Earlier Monday, Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker said about $40 million has been raised so far to match the $100 million donation to the city’s school system from Facebook ‘s founder Mark Zuckerberg . Booker appeared in Manhattan with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Zuckerberg at NBC News’ “Education Nation” Summit. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The gender gap among college majors once dominated by men is narrowing, and younger generations of women account for nearly half of science and business graduates, a USA TODAY analysis of new Census data shows. In 2009, about 47% of science and engineering degree holders ages 25 to 39 were women, compared with 21% among those 65 and older. For business majors, about 48% of younger graduates were female — more than double that of older generations. MAP: Participation in 2010 Census FULL COVERAGE: Census 2010 VIDEO: 10 strange facts about the Census The data, released Tuesday in the government’s annual American Community Survey, come as women this year for the first time outnumbered men in the nation’s workforce of 130 million. “Larger percentages of these professions are attracting women,” says Betty Shanahan, executive director of the Society of Women Engineers. But, she says, disparities persist among strictly engineering majors, where more than four in five are men. In the sciences, women account for a majority of graduates in psychology and the biological sciences, 2007 data from the National Science Foundation show, but trail in engineering and computer science, around 18% of both majors. “Girls see (engineering) as a very ‘white male’ profession, which it is, and they don’t get messages about how they can balance their personal lives and a very exciting career,” Shanahan says. This Census tallied, for the first time, the number of bachelor’s degrees among women and men 25 years or older. Among all majors counted — humanities, business, education, science and engineering — women under 40 had greater parity among men when compared with older generations of Americans. Still, gender pay inequities persist in the workforce: Among full-time workers in 2009, the new Census data show a woman’s median earnings were roughly 78% of a man’s ($35,549 compared with $45,485). Newer Labor Department figures from the second quarter of 2010 show women earned about 83% of a man’s median weekly wage. Overall, the new Census data show more Americans are earning college degrees, a likely byproduct of the recession. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 27% in 2006 to almost 28% in 2009.

A couple million sets of U.S. parents just realized a dream: They sent sons and daughters off to colleges. Most immediately set their sights on a new dream: attending graduation ceremonies at those colleges. But right about now, some are getting the first clues that might not happen. A few know it won’t — because their kids have already dropped out. “I had a student leave the first week,” says Marcus Hotaling, a psychologist who directs the counseling center at Union College in Schenectady , N.Y. FRESHMEN YEAR: May be harder on parents than students THE TURKEY DROP: Some want to call college quits by Thanksgiving LAST PARENTING, PART II: Sweet 16 even sweeter without a car “It does happen,” says Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota -Twin Cities. In fact, surveys by ACT (the non-profit company behind the ACT test) show one-third of freshman do not become sophomores at the colleges where they started. ACT doesn’t track how many students drop out in less than a year, transfer to another school or return later. But just under half get degrees from the colleges where they first enrolled (within three years for associate degrees or five years for bachelor’s degrees). “The numbers are dreadful, and the freshman year is key,” says James Boyle, president of College Parents of America in Arlington, Va. That might strike panic into parents already getting distress signals: •A drumbeat of negativity , via calls, e-mail, online status updates and other communications. A little homesickness is normal. But a student calling home “multiple times a day, crying or angry, overreacting to little things” is in trouble, Hotaling says. Savage says struggling freshmen say things like: “I can’t sleep. I hate the food here. I don’t like the people. It’s not what I expected.” •No communication. “There’s a lot of pressure to succeed,” Hotaling says. So when things don’t go well, students often don’t want parents to know. •Bad grades. Those are almost a rite of passage, “a reality check that typically comes in the first four weeks,” Savage says. But if the bad news is still coming four weeks after that, she says, “you might start to worry more.” College students who live at home can show many of the same signs, Savage notes — and are at high risk for dropout due to the competing demands of school, home and, often, a job. Also at high risk: students who came to school with a disability or a mental illness such as depression. Hotaling recalls one bright young man with a form of autism who came 3,000 miles and “didn’t last the semester because he couldn’t handle the social aspects.” And sometimes leaving is the right thing, he says. But, often, parents can help students stay put, without jumping in and taking over. “Stay in touch and provide coaching,” Boyle says. Remind students that academic advisers, counselors and others are there to help, he says. Encourage students to get involved in campus clubs, teams and activities, Savage says. “Typically, if you give them a few weeks, they are going to adjust,” Hotaling says. But, he adds, if you are concerned about safety — and, especially, suicide — don’t hesitate to call the campus counseling center and ask for help.

What do a fiction writer, a marine biologist and a sculptor have in common? Those are just some of the professions of 23 trailblazers named today as winners of the so-called genius grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation . Each fellowship comes with $500,000 over the next five years. Since 1981 the foundation has annually selected 20-25 fellows to receive the no-strings-attached award, with the hopes of encouraging freedom of creativity and future contributions. “We’re looking for creativity, brilliance and potential,” says foundation President Robert Gallucci . The foundation selects hundreds of nominators to recommend possible fellows, which are narrowed down and finally selected by a group of professionals in a variety of fields. Some fellows work in fields of math, science and engineering: • Amir Abo-Shaeer, a physics teacher at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta , Calif. • Kelly Benoit-Bird, a marine biologist and professor at Oregon State University. • Drew Berry, a biomedical animator at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. • Carlos D. Bustamante, a population geneticist and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif. • John Dabiri, a biophysicist and associate professor at California Institute of Technology , Pasadena , Calif. • Michal Lipson, an optical physicist and associate professor at Cornell University , Ithaca, N.Y. • Nergis Mavalvala, a quantum astrophysicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge, Mass. • Marla Spivak, an entomologist and professor a the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Abo-Shaeer is the first high school teacher to be a MacArthur Fellow. He created project-based engineering classes and curriculum for his high school. “Project-based learning is something kids can’t get anywhere else. When they come here, it’s experienced-based learning they can’t get from the Internet,” says Abo-Shaeer. Other fellows work in areas of the arts, the economy and many other fields: • Nicholas Benson, a stone carver and owner and creative director of The John Stevens Shop, Newport, R.I. • Matthew Carter, a typographer and co-founder and principal of Carter & Cone Type, Cambridge, Mass. • David Cromer of Chicago, a theater director. • Shannon Lee Dawdy, anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago . • Annette Gordon-Reed, an American historian and law professor at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass. • Yiyun Li, a fiction writer and assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. • Jason Moran, a jazz pianist and composer of New York. • Carol Padden, a sign language linguist and communications professor at the University of California, San Diego. • Jorge Pardo, an installation artist of Los Angeles. • Sebastian Ruth, a violist, music educator and founder and executive artistic director of Community MusicWorks of Providence • Emmanuel Saez, an economist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. • David Simon, author, screenwriter and producer, Baltimore. • Dawn Song, a computer security specialist and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. • Elizabeth Turk of Santa Ana, Calif., a sculptor. • Jessie Little Doe Baird, indigenous language preservationist and co-founder and director of W?pan?ak Language Reclamation Project of Mashpee, Mass. Padden, who is deaf, studies the linguistics of sign language, various types of sign language and how sign language is developed. She said, through a sign language translator via telephone, that she could use her fellowship funding to create a fun artificial sign language — “something of the Star Trek line.”

Disgruntled students, employees and shareholders have filed a flurry of lawsuits against for-profit colleges since a federal investigation last month found deceptive practices at 15 campuses. The Government Accountability Office report was released Aug. 4, and class-action lawsuits have now been filed in California, Colorado, Arkansas and Utah by former students and employees, who argue in most cases that a school lied to them or misled them. Some companies, including the University of Phoenix and Westwood College, closed campuses or launched internal investigations after the release of the report, which found that admissions officials in four cases encouraged applicants to commit fraud by lying on financial aid forms. Shareholders have filed class-action lawsuits against at least five schools, noting the effect of the report on stock prices and citing securities fraud. Lawsuits alleging deception at for-profit colleges are not new. Last year, the parent companies of the University of Phoenix and Westwood agreed to pay the federal government millions of dollars each to settle separate false-claims lawsuits. In both cases, the schools admitted no wrongdoing. John McKernan, chairman of Education Management Corp., which operates about 95 schools in 31 states, including Argosy University, says lawsuits are part of the territory. “Statistically, the bigger you get, the more (complaints) you’re going to have.” Tampa lawyer Jillian Estes, whose firm has represented students in several class-action suits against for-profits, including Westwood College, says she hopes the federal scrutiny will bolster students’ cases. “We’ve been trying to raise this flag for so long,” she says. “It helps for judges to realize this isn’t just some kids who are a little unhappy, but a nationwide systemic problem.” Westwood in March sued Estes and her law firm for defamation. A Texas agency has threatened to revoke or deny one company’s licenses to operate three for-profit campuses there. One college received a similar warning in Wisconsin. Still, tens of thousands of students say for-profit colleges are their best option. An unprecedented 91,000 public comments were submitted in response to a proposal that would deny federal student aid to for-profit colleges whose graduates don’t earn enough to pay back student loans. The Education Department estimates one-third or more came from students worried that their college would close if the proposal is adopted.

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — New Jersey has already thrown enough money at its largest school district to make it among the nation’s best-funded, yet it remains in the pits. Can a $100 million gift from the founder of Facebook really turn it around? The money hasn’t even arrived, but it’s already creating a buzz in Newark, where three out of five third-graders can’t read and write at their grade level. Barely half the students who begin high school manage to graduate, and most of them do so without passing the state’s standard graduation exam. “This money makes us feel good about ourselves, that we’re being noticed,” said 15-year-old Estephany Balbuena, a student at Newark’s Arts High School. “There’s a bad reputation of Newark, but it’s not true. Some of us are successful.” The three players seeking to turn the windfall into a renaissance — a 26-year-old Internet wunderkind, a Democratic mayor described by Oprah Winfrey as a “rock star” and a Republican governor drawing criticism and acclaim for his budget-slashing ways — announced their plans Friday on Winfrey’s talk show. FACEBOOK CEO: Donating $100 million to Newark schools REACTION: Facebook friends Newark Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he would donate $100 million worth of Facebook stock over the next five years through his new Start-up: Education foundation. Gov. Chris Christie said he would give Mayor Cory Booker a major role in overseeing any major changes in the district, which the state took over in 1995 because of persistently low test scores and wasteful spending. Booker pledged to raise an additional $150 million for the effort. “What’s the alternative? Is it to continue what we’re doing now, with nearly a 50% dropout rate?” Christie said. “I’m much more willing to take risks and take chances when it comes to this.” Zuckerberg paid a visit to Newark on Saturday, spending time with Booker and holding a press conference with the mayor and the governor at a downtown hotel. The three were short on specifics, saying that a key first step of the process would be getting community input on changes that need to be made. Recounting how his grandmother had been a teacher and his parents had worked hard to give himself and his three sisters a good education, Zuckerberg said he hoped to do the same, not just for thousands of Newark students, but to help create a new model for successful public education that could be replicated nationwide. He dismissed questions about the timing of his donation, which coincides with the release of a movie about Facebook that portrays him in a less than flattering light. “This (donation) is something that’s going to play out for years,” he said. New Jersey’s Supreme Court has found in rulings over the past two decades that urban schools were underfunded and ordered the government to fund the most impoverished districts as well as its most affluent suburban schools. The court has also pushed the state to spend billions to upgrade school buildings in cities and provide free preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. While some areas have seen gains, most of those schools still fall far short on measures such as standardized tests and graduation rates. Money alone doesn’t seem to be the answer, but money is what wealthy funders can offer. Through his foundation, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — like Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout — awarded $290 million in education grants in November 2009, including $100 million to the school system that includes Tampa, and $90 million for the Memphis, district. The foundation has also given $150 million to the New York City schools over the past eight years. Most of the funding in New York has gone toward the creation of smaller schools that aim to boost graduation rates for the most academically challenged students; several teachers also participate in a foundation-led training program. One recent study of Gates’ efforts found that graduation rates in those schools had improved. The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Saturday that Gates, among a roster of current and new donors, had expressed interest in donating to the Newark initiative. Booker would not confirm the donation but said several donors had made pledges since Zuckerberg’s announcement, and that he would release details soon. Florida’s Hillsborough County district, the nation’s eighth-largest, is designing a way to pay teachers, in part, by using a system that includes measuring gains with standardized tests, along with observations by principals and evaluations by other teachers. The money is also being used to train veteran teachers to mentor others. The evaluation program is just beginning, so it’s too early to tell how it will work, district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe said. The district, though, has gotten positive comments from new teachers about the mentoring program, she said. Similar measures are underway in Memphis, where school officials are working out how to identify, reward and retain effective teachers. “We are seeing results of our plan,” said Superintendent Kriner Cash. “We are right on target.” Education advocates in New Jersey call for similar steps to be taken in Newark, where more money is spent per pupil than any other city in a state that ranks near the top in per-pupil funding. Newark was once booming, with its 1940s population of about 430,000 working in good-paying jobs in the teeming textile and manufacturing industries. But after World War II , the city began a postwar descent into racial unrest, white flight, crime and corruption. Its population suffered — it’s now down to around 275,000 — along with its schools. Few steps on Newark’s path are clear beyond hiring a new superintendent. On her show, Winfrey endorsed current Washington, D.C., Chancellor Michelle Rhee , who has implemented changes popular among school reform advocates. Rhee wasn’t available to comment to The Associated Press. Joseph De Pierro, education dean at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University, said his advice would be for Newark first to consider hiring back at least some of the educators laid off this year. Students say they’ve seen the effects, with some sports teams eliminated and classes growing. “There are now 40 students in my math class; it’s suffocating,” said Balbuena, the Arts High student. De Pierro would also find a way to pay the best teachers more and buy better equipment and materials. And he noted that better training would be key. “It would not be the standard kind of stuff after school and in the summer,” he said. “It would be something that takes place in their classroom when they’re teaching.” Derrell Bradford, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone, a Newark-based group that is pushing to broaden school choice in New Jersey, said some of the steps he would take in Newark wouldn’t cost much. For instance, he would give charter schools unused space in traditional public schools and set up virtual learning programs in which the best teachers could come into contact — online, at least — with more children. He said he would also look for a way to pay top teachers more and exempt them from union work rules. Any major changes might require buy-in from union members who have vehemently opposed Christie’s school cuts. Newark Teachers Union President Joseph Del Grosso said he hopes the decision makers will consult with teachers about their plans — but said he is excited about the gift. Christie had choice words Saturday for the unions and others he said have been an obstacle to education reforms in New Jersey. “We’re about yes, they’re about no. We’re about tomorrow, they’re about yesterday. We’re about the kids; they’re about their paychecks,” he said. David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which advocates for students in the state’s poorest cities, said he worries the new measures could undo the progress that’s already been made. The city has developed one of the nation’s best early childhood education programs, and middle and high schools are improving, he said. “The question is how to make sure this money is used to enhance the reforms that have been made and not to undermine them,” he said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.