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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK — Do public school teachers get tenure just by breathing? It’s a claim made by a charter school leader in the education documentary Waiting for Superman , which places much of the blame for bad schools nationwide on union rules that protect incompetent teachers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on national television last week that he would overhaul the way city teachers are granted tenure, linking their advancement to improving student test scores. “Just as we are raising the bar for our students through higher standards, we must also raise the bar for our teachers and principals — and we are,” Bloomberg said. But city teachers say that if bad teachers have won tenure protection it’s the fault of the administrators who gave it to them. “We don’t make that decision. Whoever the principal is makes that decision,” said LezAnne Edmond, a Manhattan high school teacher with 15 years of experience. Teacher tenure has its roots in academic tenure, which was intended to protect academic freedom; once granted, professors are rarely fired. Tenure rules for K-12 teachers vary from state to state, with some operating more like universities and others that offer no stronger protection than job security laws that prevent people from being fired without cause. States including California, Florida and Colorado have passed or proposed legislation to change tenure laws in hopes of securing education funding under President Barack Obama ‘s ” Race to the Top ” program. New York City teachers can win tenure after three years. Once they are granted tenure they cannot be fired without an administrative hearing. What the teachers union calls due process, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein call a system that has protected incompetence. The issue gained prominence with the Sept. 24 release of “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” opening to wider release on Friday. The documentary from ” An Inconvenient Truth ” director Davis Guggenheim suggests that kids receive a superior education in charter schools without unions. NBC ‘s Sept. 27-28 education summit covered much of the same ground. Bloomberg used a 15-minute MSNBC segment to announce a tenure crackdown. “We’ll do more to support teachers and reward great teaching, and that includes ending tenure as we know it,” he said. Bloomberg said principals must start denying tenure unless their students have made two years of progress on state tests. Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers , responded that principals can already deny tenure “for any reason” and that teachers “would welcome an objective tenure-granting process based on agreed-upon standards.” But the union has opposed using state test scores — the city’s preferred benchmark — to measure teacher performance. City Department of Education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said the union is being disingenuous. “On one hand, they seem to be blaming principals for too many teachers getting tenure,” she said in an e-mail. “On the other hand, they don’t want principals to take into account student performance when making tenure decisions.” This year, 3.7% of teachers who reached the end of their three-year probationary period were denied tenure, up from 2.3% the year before. Another 7.2% saw their probation extended by a year. Ernest Logan, president of the union representing New York City principals, said his members take student achievement into account. “I don’t think people are just granting people tenure because they’ve been there three years,” Logan said. Veteran city teachers say they need tenure for job security and to protect the First Amendment rights it was designed to safeguard. “I need tenure to speak out,” said Arthur Goldstein, a union chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School in Queens. Goldstein said he has complained publicly about overcrowding and other issues. “I’m standing up for the kids of Francis Lewis High School and I absolutely need tenure,” he said. Katharine Dawson, who retired last summer after 12 years as a city schoolteacher, said tenure “protects you from favoritism, it protects you from all kinds of things.” Asked about tenure protecting bad teachers, she said, “Maybe there’s two bad teachers per school. Is it worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater?” One teacher whom Bloomberg would like to throw out is Melissa Petro, whose essay about using Craigslist to sell herself as a prostitute was published in the Huffington Post on Sept. 7, the same day she was awarded tenure by the principal of her Bronx elementary school. Bloomberg demanded that Petro be pulled from the classroom, but she has tenure and cannot be fired without due process. She has been assigned to an office job pending an investigation. A phone number for Petro could not be found. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama ‘s call for a longer school day and year for America’s kids echoes a similar call he made a year ago to little effect, illustrating just how deeply entrenched the traditional school calendar is and how little power the federal government has to change it. Education reformers have long called for U.S. kids to log more time in the classroom so they can catch up with their peers elsewhere in the world, but resistance from leisure-loving teenagers isn’t the only reason there is no mass movement to keep schoolchildren in their seats. Such a change could cost cash-strapped state governments and local school districts billions of dollars, strip teachers of a time-honored perk of their profession, and irk officials in states that already bridle at federal intrusion into their traditional control over education. “If you extend the school year for, say, five days, you’re paying for another week of salaries, another week of utilities and another week of fuel for, in South Carolina , 5,700 school buses,” said Jim Foster, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Education. Obama told NBC ‘s Matt Lauer on the Today show Monday that the U.S. school year is too short. OBAMA: GOP would reverse education progress REPORT: Poor science education hurts U.S. economy “The idea of a longer school year, I think, makes sense,” he said. He did not specify how long that school year should be, but said U.S. students attend classes, on average, about a month less than children in most other advanced countries. U.S. schools through high school offer an average of 180 instruction days per year, according to the Education Commission of the States. That compares to an average of 197 days for lower grades and 196 days for upper grades in countries with the best student achievement levels, including Japan, South Korea, Germany and New Zealand. Many education experts say American kids should spend more time in school. “There’s a growing awareness that American kids are being shortchanged academically by the short school day and the short school year,” said Pedro Noguera, a professor of education at New York University . Today’s American kids have a long summer vacation because previous generations needed the summer off to work on family farms. Now researchers say the tradition causes a “summer learning loss” as kids put aside the books for the summer. The problem hits low-income students especially hard. A Johns Hopkins University study found that disadvantaged kids fall back during the summer break, while better-off kids hold steady or continue to learn. Charter schools that aim to bring low-income students up to grade level, such as the KIPP academies and the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, generally offer a longer school year and a longer school day. In most cases the charter schools have leeway to set their own schedules, in part because their teachers are not covered by union contracts. At traditional public schools where teachers and other employees are usually represented by unions, lengthening the school day or the school year would be subject to collective bargaining, and more hours would cost more money. “It has to be negotiated, and it takes money,” said Janet Bass, a spokeswoman for the American Federation of Teachers . “Right now teachers and all other school staff are compensated based on the number of hours they work.” Some states embrace the idea. In Massachusetts , the state issues grants to districts with plans to constructively lengthen instructional class time, said Kathy Christie, chief of staff at the Education Commission of the States. Obama’s Education Department already is using competitions among states for curriculum grant money through its ” Race to the Top ” initiative. “The federal carrots of additional money would help more states do it or schools do it in states where they don’t have a state grant process,” Christie said. But the federal budget is hard-up, too. And while many educators and parents believe students would benefit from more quality learning time, the idea is not universally popular. Texas already forbids school from starting before the fourth Monday of August, a provision designed to save money on utility bills and increase business for tourist destinations and other summer attractions. “Ultimately the states, not the federal government, should have the final word on this and other public school decisions,” said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry . In Kansas, sporadic efforts by local districts to extend the school year at even a few schools have been met by parental resistance, said state education commissioner Diane DeBacker. “The community was just not ready for kids to be in school all summer long,” DeBacker said. “Kids wanted to go swimming. Their families wanted to go on vacation.” In some states, the school year already starts well before Labor Day and in others nearly stretches to the Fourth of July. Parents are similarly divided. Parent Irene Facciolo in Montpelier, Vt., said kids need the summer break and learn while they’re away from school. “I really feel like they need the time to regenerate,” she said. But Laura Spencer of Orlando, says she would rather have her 10-year-old daughter learning than hanging out. “Summer is a lost opportunity,” said Spencer, who believes having kids out of school for three to four months makes an already flawed education system worse. Associated Press reporters Erica Werner in Washington; Tom Breen in Raleigh, N.C.; Donna Gordon Blankinship in Seattle; April Castro in Austin, Texas; Alan Scher Zagier in Columbia, Mo.; and Lisa Rathke in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this story. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Yale University says it has hired retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal to teach a graduate level seminar on leadership on its New Haven, Conn., campus. McChrystal is the former commander of the Afghanistan war. He was fired in July by President Barack Obama because of disparaging comments he and his aides made about their civilian bosses. POLL: Public support firing of McChrystal JUNE: McChrystal fired, replaced by Petraeus Yale announced Monday that McChrystal’s seminar will “examine how dramatic changes in globalization have increased the complexity of modern leadership.” McChrystal said in a statement accompanying the release that he was looking forward to sharing his “experiences and insights as a career military officer.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CENTRAL FALLS, Rhode Island (AP) — A school district that gained the support of President Barack Obama for promoting accountability after it fired all its teachers from a struggling school announced Sunday it reached an agreement with the union to return all the current staffers to their jobs. The two sides said a so-called transformation plan for Central Falls High School for the coming school year would allow the 87 teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and other staffers who were to lose their jobs at the end of this year to return without having to reapply. More than 700 people had already applied for the positions. The agreement also imposes a longer school day, more after-school tutoring and other changes. The board of trustees overseeing the school system in Central Falls, one of the poorest communities in the state, voted in February to fire the staff of one of the state’s worst-performing schools. “Both the school district and the union agree that while this has been a difficult process for everyone involved, the negotiations resulted in a newfound appreciation for shared responsibility, and a solid commitment to bring lasting solutions that will improve teaching and learning at Central Falls High School,” said a joint statement from the union and the district. The agreement is pending ratification. Under the deal, teachers will need to recommit to their jobs and interview with the new principal. Other changes aimed at increasing student achievement include: a new evaluation system designed to inform teaching and learning, and targeted and embedded professional development. Details of the agreement were to be released following a ratification vote by Central Falls teachers at a meeting Monday. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON — College leaders just about uniformly endorse the idea of community service by students. And college leaders just about uniformly endorse the idea of tax breaks to help pay for college. But combine those two concepts? Higher education isn’t excited about that idea. During his campaign for president, Barack Obama did like it, and proposed that some service requirements accompany new tax breaks. But last year’s stimulus legislation, which created some additional tax breaks, didn’t require service. Instead it required the U.S. Departments of Education and Treasury to conduct a study of the idea. While there have not been signs that the Obama administration is actively pursuing legislation, the two Cabinet departments have formally requested that anyone concerned about the issue respond to a series of questions: • “Should students be required to fulfill a community service requirement for receipt of an education credit?” • “If there were a community service requirement, should the institutions providing post-secondary education and training (hereafter, colleges) be required to administer it?” • If colleges had to oversee such requirements, how would they “ensure that there are meaningful community service opportunities available for all students?” • And if colleges had to oversee the requirements, how would they “ensure that eligible students are identified and able to claim the credit while students who failed to fulfill the community service requirement are not able to claim the credit?” In a letter of response , Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education and writing on behalf of 20 other higher education groups, praised community service, but criticized the concept of requiring it to qualify for tax credits. Broad took care to stress higher education’s commitment to service. She noted federal estimates that 6.7 million students volunteered in 2008, up from 4.2 million in 2000. And she said that the “growth in volunteering and service-learning on college campuses is no accident. It reflects a deliberate and sustained effort by higher education because we believe in its merits for students, our institutions and the world in which we live.” But she then outlined both philosophical and practical reasons to avoid any linkage. She noted, for example, that “contrary to popular images of undergraduates, part-time, older and lower-income students make up a large proportion of today’s college students,” and that many of these students have work or family obligations that make it difficult for them to participate in community service. “Working students, particularly those with families, have very little free time. Requiring community service to access federal student benefits would therefore force some to choose between work and volunteer activities,” Broad wrote. “Given that nearly one out of four colleges students who drop out do so due to financial reasons, it is unlikely that students will sacrifice work hours in exchange for community service hours.” ON THE WEB: Impact of part-time students INSIDE HIGHER ED ARCHIVES: Community service crackdown Further, she said that creating the requirement for the tax credits would effectively be creating a requirement for everyone but wealthy students, who wouldn’t need to worry about using the tax breaks. Broad also raised a series of practical issues, noting that many experts have said that education tax credits need to be simplified, not made more complicated, and that colleges lack the infrastructure to provide service opportunities for all students and to certify participation. She noted, for example, that many students volunteers through off-campus organizations that are not controlled or overseen by colleges and universities. Summing up her opposition to linking tax breaks for education with community service, she said: “We believe that combining these two individually worthy policy objectives would yield a result that is decidedly less than the sum of its parts.”