ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia ‘s largest school system has won the nation’s top prize in public education, which will provide $1 million in college scholarships for needy students in the district. Gwinnett County Public Schools snagged the Broad Prize for Urban Education, an award the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation gives annually to urban districts that show the most gains in student performance and closing minority achievement gaps. It’s the second year in a row the 150,000-student district was nominated for the prize. The district is 28% black and 25% Hispanic , with about half of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. But last year in reading and math, Gwinnett County schools outperformed all other Georgia districts serving students with similar family incomes. The district has among the state’s smallest achievement gaps between black and white students at all grades in math, and the district narrowed that gap for middle school math by 8 percentage points between 2006 and 2009. In the same time period, the rate of black students taking the SAT college entrance exam rose 9 percentage points. Ninety-nine percent of the district’s schools met federal benchmarks in 2009, compared with 86% of schools statewide, and the superintendent has been in office nearly 15 years, providing consistency at the helm of the large district. Gwinnett County beat out Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, and Socorro Independent School District and Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso. Though Gwinnett County is in suburban Atlanta, the district meets the criteria for the Broad Prize because it has a high percentage of minority and low-income students. The prize, created in 2002 by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in Los Angeles, is the nation’s largest education award given to school districts. It is designed to reward schools for increasing graduation rates, improving low-income students’ performance, and reducing differences in achievement rates between minority and white students. Winners are chosen from the country’s 100 largest school systems serving a large percentage of low-income and minority students. The prize money goes to college scholarships for students from each district. Runners-up win $250,000 for scholarships. The Aldine Independent School District near Houston won last year. Other past winners include the New York City Department of Education , Boston Public Schools and the Houston Independent School District. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — National leaders of a fraternity accused of directing Yale University pledges to chant obscenities against women as they marched through campus have scheduled a meeting with the Ivy League school’s chapter. Delta Kappa Epsilon International Fraternity says its director will visit New Haven this weekend to discuss the incident, which it condemned as “deeply offensive.” It also ordered the Yale chapter to stop pledge activities. Some students and the Yale Women’s Center board complained after pledges were videotaped last week, chanting about necrophilia and a specific sexual act. Michael Jones, a Yale senior who also is a New Haven alderman, said the DKE fraternity has apologized. Local DKE leaders referred calls to national headquarters. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

%content% Education Dept. sees 11% spike in civil rights complaints

WILMINGTON, Del. — The U.S. Department of Education ‘s office of civil rights is investigating whether black male students are punished disproportionately in the Christina School District in Wilmington and Newark , one of five districts nationwide under scrutiny for its discipline record. Federal investigators are in the process of visiting all of Christina’s schools and have requested detailed discipline data for at least the last two academic years. Education Secretary Arne Duncan first mentioned districts were being investigated at a conference in late September hosted by the Department of Education’s civil rights office and the Department of Justice’s civil rights division. Besides Delaware, the school districts under review are in New York , North Carolina , Utah and Minnesota. CIVIL RIGHTS: Education Dept. sees spike in complaints One of the other districts, the San Juan School District in rural Utah, is being investigated for alleged gender disparities without respect to race or ethnicity, according to a school official. Christina district officials acknowledged that a disparity exists in the discipline rates for black male students that they are working to correct, according to district spokeswoman Wendy Lapham. She added that the district has been cooperating with the federal investigation. Statewide, black students made up about 32% of the public school population last year, but they accounted for about 55% of students who were suspended or expelled, according to an analysis by The News Journal published in June that compared discipline statistics provided by the state to school enrollments. The discipline rates for all students in Delaware are higher than the national average: 21,690 of the state’s 126,801 students — about one in six — were suspended or expelled in the 2009-2010 school year, which is down slightly from the year before. Those numbers include in-school suspensions. Counting only expulsions and out-of-school suspensions, the number dips to 14,368 students, or about one in nine. The Christina School District had the highest rate among the state’s 19 school districts in the 2008-2009 and the 2007-2008 school years. However, the district’s numbers went down in almost every school in 2009-2010. Lapham said the decrease is the result of an effort to better train teachers, help students learn to deal with conflicts and the elimination of a zero-tolerance policy. She said the district has been analyzing its data internally and has been “working to address any issues of disparity by working with teachers at the classroom level, increasing training for para-professionals, reviewing and discussing data at the school level and significantly reducing suspensions and expulsions.” In 2009, a 6-year-old boy brought a Boy Scout tool to a Christina school to eat his pudding at lunch. Under the district’s zero-tolerance policy, the boy faced a punishment of suspension or expulsion. The policy did not allow educators to make a punishment judgment call based on the context of the incident or age of the child. But after public outcry and widespread media attention, the school board decided to amend its policy as it pertained to kindergarten and first-grade students. Parents and officials point to that outcome when they complained about Christina’s high rate of punishment among black males. The 6-year-old was white. Wanda Stanley said she read about the boy’s case with interest because her 11-year-old daughter was expelled after a box cutter fell out of her jacket pocket at Pulaski Elementary School in Wilmington. The girl did not know how the box cutter got in her pocket and had no intention of hurting anyone, her mother said. Police were notified by the school but did not file charges. School officials told her there was no room for debate about the expulsion because of the district’s zero-tolerance policy, Stanley said. From her perspective, Stanley saw that a white boy went unpunished while her black daughter was put out of school. “I am hurt because I know my daughter is totally innocent and I don’t want this to follow my daughter through her schooling,” Stanley said. The district and state boards of education ruled that the expulsion was justified. The district’s board amended the zero-tolerance policy further last school year. A complaint against the school board is pending before the state Human Relations Commission, alleging that the district discriminated against Stanley’s daughter on the basis of age and race. Studies show that minorities are punished at higher rates than their peers, but there’s not evidence that these children misbehave more, said Dan Losen, a former teacher who now works for the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles . The government under President George W. Bush did not investigate many schools for these issues, which are now getting attention under the Obama administration, he said. Typically, reviews from the office of civil rights are used to help districts find solutions and to monitor progress, Losen said, because “the preference has historically been to enter into a joint problem-solving approach rather than issuing violations.” Helen Spacht, principal at Christina’s Wilson Elementary, said programs like the district’s Day of Caring help reinforce the importance of kindness and how to treat others with respect. The school is certified under the Anti-Defamation League ‘s No Place for Hate program, which means staff and students have undergone training on diversity issues. Also, teachers have been meeting to share ideas and literature on better classroom and bullying management, she said. “It’s really changing the strategies and how they work with students,” she said. But the district has not made enough progress in dealing with these issues, said New Castle Councilman Jea Street, who organized a rally in April to protest the discipline rates. “The fact is that (the office of civil rights) is once again going to have to do what local officials refuse to do,” Street said. “Nobody would listen to me when I claimed Christina was discriminating when it changed policy to accommodate one child and knew full well that the same policy had been used overzealously for others.”

WARRENSBURG, Mo. (AP) — Zach Neff is all high-fives as he walks through his college campus in western Missouri. The 27-year-old with Down syndrome hugs most everybody, repeatedly. He tells teachers he loves them. “I told Zach we are putting him on a hug diet — one to say hello and one to say goodbye,” said Joyce Downing, who helped start a new program at the University of Central Missouri that serves students with disabilities. The hope is that polishing up on social skills, like cutting back on the hugs, living in residence halls and going to classes with non-disabled classmates will help students like Neff be more independent and get better jobs. In years past, college life was largely off-limits for students with such disabilities, but that’s no longer the case. Students with Down syndrome, autism and other conditions that can result in intellectual disabilities are leaving high school more academically prepared than ever and ready for the next step: college. Eight years ago, disability advocates were able to find only four programs on university campuses that allowed students with intellectual disabilities to experience college life with extra help from mentors and tutors. As of last year, there were more than 250 spread across more than three dozen states and two Canadian provinces, said Debra Hart, head of Think College at the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which provides services to people with disabilities. That growth is partly because of an increasing demand for higher education for these students and there are new federal funds for such programs. The federal rules that took effect this fall allow students with intellectual disabilities to receive grants and work-study money. Because details on the rules are still being worked out, the earliest students could have the money is next year. Hart and others expect the funds to prompt the creation of even more programs. “There is a whole generation of young people who have grown up under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to them it (college) is the logical next step,” Hart said. The college programs for these students vary. Generally the aim is to support the students as they take regular classes with non-disabled students. Professors sometimes are advised to modify the integrated classes by doing things like shifting away from a format that relies entirely on lectures and adding more projects in which students can work in groups. One program in Idaho offers classes in drama, art and sign language. Students on other campuses can improve their computer skills or take child development classes. Sometimes they’re paired with non-disabled students and advocates say the educational coaches, mentors and tutors who help them often are studying to become special education teachers or social workers and learn from the experience too. Disability advocates say only a small percentage of these students will receive degrees, but that the programs help them get better jobs. Historically, adults with intellectual disabilities have been restricted primarily to jobs in fast food restaurants, cleaning or in so-called “sheltered workshops,” where they work alongside other disabled people and often earn below-minimum wages, said Madeleine Will, vice president of the National Down Syndrome Society. With additional training, Hart said participants can go on to do everything from being a librarian’s assistants to data-entry work in an office. Much remains to be learned about what type of program works best, but Hart said that will likely change. Besides allowing for federal financial aid for these programs, Congress also has appropriated $10.56 million to develop 27 model projects to identify successful approaches. The infusion of federal money has generated some criticism. Conservative commentator Charlotte Allen said it’s a waste to spend federal tax dollars on the programs and insisted that calling them college dilutes the meaning of college. “It’s a kind of fantasy,” said Allen, a contributing editor for Minding the Campus , a publication of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute . “It may make intellectually disabled people feel better, but is that what college is supposed to be all about?” Oftentimes students with these disabilities stop their formal education when they finish high school, which is usually around the age of 21. Some districts have a partnership with colleges under which the district pays for their 18- to 21-year-old students to take higher education classes. In other cases, college costs are paid for by the parents. Their children previously haven’t been eligible for grants and work study money because they generally weren’t seeking a degree and wouldn’t have been admitted to college through the typical process. These programs look “at higher education for what it’s purpose in our community and our culture is — to provide opportunities for learning,” said Meg Grigal, a researcher who works with Hart. Back at the University of Central Missouri, Neff and another participant in the program for students with developmental issues, Gabe Savage, laugh with friends during lunch in their residence hall cafeteria. Savage, a 26-year-old from Kansas City, is grateful for it all — new friends, the chance to try out for a school play, brush up on his computer skills and even take a bowling class with non-disabled students looking to earn a physical education credit. “It’s an answer to my prayer that I am here,” he said. “I always wanted to do this.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Investors fled for-profit college stocks on Thursday after the sector’s bellwether predicted a 40-percent drop in student enrollment next quarter and withdrew its forecast for next year. The news chilled an industry facing increased government scrutiny over concerns about soaring student loan defaults. Enrollments at for-profit schools surged during the recession. Big advertising budgets drew students trying to bolster their resumes as a hedge against high unemployment. But critics claim the schools are not helping students find better jobs and say enrollment counselors sign up many students who are unprepared for higher education. When they drop out, they are still stuck paying back their student loans. CLOSER LOOK: For-profit colleges under fire over value, accreditation Apollo Group Inc ., which runs the University of Phoenix , attributes its expected enrollment decline to changing practices aimed at satisfying new government regulations. Apollo will no longer pay its counselors bonuses based on how many students they enroll. It also will provide new students with a free three-week trial program to see if they are ready for school, weeding out those at risk of leaving school before earning degrees. Meanwhile, the industry is facing a proposed new rule from the Department of Education that could limit schools’ access to federal financial aid — the bulk of their revenue — if graduates’ debt levels are too high or too few students repay loans. And, many schools are close to maxing out how much revenue they can receive from federal financial aid resources. Federal regulations cap that amount at 90%. The industry averages 83%, largely because they focus on recruiting lower-income students who qualify for federal Pell Grants . “Now, they have to slow down enrollment and be less active in targeting these students. They have to go back to the more traditional students who are working adults,” said Matt Snowling, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. In afternoon trading, shares of Apollo tumbled $12.64, or 26%, to $36.86. The rest of the sector followed suit. Education Management Corp. shares lost $2.70, or 20%, to $10.57. DeVry Inc . fell $8.67, or 17%, to $41.90; Corinthian Colleges Inc . decreased $1.16, or 19%, to $4.86; ITT Educational Services Inc. dropped $10.58, or 16%, to $55.34; Career Education fell $3.29, or 16%, to $16.898; Strayer Education Inc. declined $21.21, or 14%, to $135.84. Shares of newspaper publisher Washington Post Co., which owns the Kaplan school chain, slumped $34.61, or 8.1%, to $394. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON — Could the nation’s best-known and most controversial education reformer be headed to New Jersey ? Michelle Rhee , who recently resigned as schools chancellor in Washington, D.C ., is being talked up as a potential candidate for New Jersey education commissioner or Newark school superintendent after she leaves her current job on Oct. 31. Gov. Chris Christie is her fan and Newark Mayor Cory Booker is her friend. Both have top education jobs to fill. Right now, the official word is that Rhee isn’t in the running for either job. “We don’t have any comment except to say that the governor admires what Michelle Rhee accomplished in the D.C. schools and wishes her well,” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said in an e-mail. And Booker spokeswoman Anne Torres said in e-mail that “at this moment in time, there are no plans to talk to Ms. Rhee about the position.” Christie fired his education commissioner, Bret Schundler , in August after the state failed to win a $400 million competitive grant from the Obama administration. Clifford Janey, Newark’s superintendent, was told shortly after the Schundler dismissal that his contact wouldn’t be renewed. In 2007, Janey was fired as the Washington, D.C. schools chancellor and was replaced by Rhee. The Newark job pays $280,000 a year and the statewide commissioner position about half that. Newark’s schools will receive $100 million in Facebook stock over the next five years from the social networking site’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg , making New Jersey’s biggest school district the center of education reform efforts. Rhee didn’t return telephone messages left with her aides Wednesday and Thursday. She told ABC’s Good Morning America she’s looking to remain in K-12 education but wants to move closer to her fiance, Kevin Johnson , the mayor of Sacramento , and a former player with the Phoenix Suns basketball team. But the Garden State could still be on her mind, according to one of her acquaintances, Derrell Bradford, executive director of a Newark school-choice group called Excellent Education for Everyone. Before she announced her resignation Wednesday, Rhee e-mailed Bradford several times to learn about Newark’s schools and the reforms underway there, but Bradford said she never directly expressed an interest in working there. Newark and Washington are both overwhelmingly minority school districts with high levels of per-pupil spending — over $20,000 a year in Newark — and substandard student achievement, Bradford said. Turning Newark around is the type of challenge Rhee would love, he said. “The stuff she is about is the core of the education reform agenda,” he said. “People make the mistake of believing that education reform is something you can hatch and implement in the classroom. It is really about political and social change.” In Washington, Rhee toughened teacher evaluations, closed badly performing schools and linked teacher pay to student achievement. She stressed scores on standardized tests, which rose for the first two years of her tenure. Elementary school math and reading scores dipped this year, though middle-school and high-school scores continued improving. Rhee, 40, was admired by Washington’s white residents for her aggressive reforms, but her critics, including many of the city’s black residents, derided her as arrogant and uncompromising. She is lionized in Waiting for ‘Superman,’ a documentary about American schools. In her most controversial statement, she told a business magazine that some of the 266 teachers she fired last fall either had sex with children or hit them. She later said only one of the teachers had been accused of sexual misconduct. Joseph Del Grosso, president of the 5,500-member Newark Teachers Union, said what he’s read about Rhee worries him. The next superintendent should seek to work with union members, not antagonize them, he said, and would “not use the whip but use logic and temperance to figure out solutions.” “People want to be involved. People don’t want to be dictated to,” Del Grosso said. “The dictatorial superintendent hardly ever lasts.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Cheryl Hines spent her summer at school. Make that several schools. But the star of HBO ‘s Curb Your Enthusiasm wasn’t sitting at a desk. Instead, she was cleaning up run-down schools. The project became School Pride , a seven-episode series that premieres tonight at 8 ET/PT on NBC . Think Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for schools. But don’t expect to see much of Hines, who is School Pride ‘s executive producer, in front of the camera. She will “pop up here and there to try and guide people who might be inspired by the show,” she says. The gig is different. “When I go to work as an actress, I show up in an air-conditioned, nice place and somebody gets me coffee, and they do my hair and do my makeup until somebody tells me to go to the next air-conditioned room. On this project, I might have a toilet-bowl brush in my hand. I might be painting a classroom. At the end of the day, I just feel dirty and good.” A feeling she might not have if it weren’t for daughter Catherine Rose, 6, who started first grade this year. “Before I had my daughter, I really didn’t think about schools at all,” Hines says. “When she started school, it made me think about other parents and children, and made me feel like it does take a village. The idea of a child going to a school where the lights don’t work, where the toilets don’t flush, it makes me sad. “I know that it’s not because parents don’t care. … Most of the time the resources aren’t there. What I’ve learned and what I’m still learning is how to connect all the resources to the right people.” School Pride began with a “cold call” a few years ago to the principal of a school in Compton, Calif., where she volunteered. “I said, ‘I was wondering if your school needs any help,’ ” Hines says. “I thought I could donate some soccer balls and jump ropes. So she said, ‘Why don’t you come over and I’ll show you around.’ ” What she saw was “a bigger project than jump ropes and soccer balls. The school hadn’t been painted in 28 years.” The playground couldn’t be used because the sand was infested with bugs. After renovations were completed, the series idea sprouted. “I was just in a camera truck crying,” says Hines, who is calling from the site of her last school “reveal.” “I’ve cried a lot of tears of joy in the past five months.” This summer included the end of her nearly eight-year marriage to Paul Young (father to Catherine Rose), so the project’s timing “has been helpful,” Hines says. “My ex-husband is truly a good friend of mine. I still talk to him every day. He was part of the inspiration for this show.” Despite going through an amicable divorce, “it’s hard to go from being married to not being married,” Hines says. “Paul and I have so much respect for each other that it’s been difficult, but positive. We really do care about each other, and we’re going to be great parents to her.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is calling on Congress to make permanent a $2,500 college tuition tax credit that’s set to expire at the end of the year. The American Opportunity Tax Credit was included in the $814 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed last year. He had proposed making the tax credit permanent in his 2011 budget proposal, but Congress has not acted on his request. YOUR MONEY: Some tax benefits for college expire at end of 2010 COSTS: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment Obama appeared in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday with three families who have taken advantage of the tax credit. Obama says the credit is worth $10,000 over four years and will help families invest in their children’s future. A Treasury Department analysis says 12.5 million people used the credit last year, for an average of about $1,700. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.