Hide the chocolate milk behind the plain milk. Get those apples and oranges out of stainless steel bins and into pretty baskets. Cash only for desserts. These subtle moves can entice kids to make healthier choices in school lunch lines, studies show. Food and restaurant marketers have long used similar tricks. Now the government wants in on the act. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced what it called a major new initiative Tuesday, giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to find ways to use psychology to improve kids’ use of the federal school lunch program and fight childhood obesity. CHEFS: Help craft healthy school lunches BREAKFAST FOR ALL: Kids’ hunger fight starts in class A fresh approach is clearly needed, those behind the effort say. About one-third of children and teens are obese or overweight. Bans on soda and junk food have backfired in some places. Some students have abandoned school meal programs that tried to force-feed healthy choices. When one school district put fruit on every lunch tray, most of it ended up in the garbage. So instead of pursuing a carrot or a stick approach, schools want to entice kids to choose the carrot sticks, figuring children are more likely to eat something they select themselves. “It’s not nutrition till it’s eaten,” said Joanne Guthrie, a USDA researcher who announced the new grants. The initiative will include creation of a child nutrition center at Cornell University , which has long led this type of research. ON THE WEB: SmarterLunchrooms.org Some tricks already judged a success by Cornell researchers: Keep ice cream in freezers without glass display tops so the treats are out of sight. Move salad bars next to the checkout registers, where students linger to pay, giving them more time to ponder a salad. And start a quick line for make-your-own subs and wraps, as Corning East High School in upstate New York did. “I eat that every day now,” instead of the chicken patty sandwiches that used to be a staple, said Shea Beecher, a 17-year-old senior. “It’s like our own little Subway,” said Sterling Smith, a 15-year-old sophomore. (Hint to the school: Freshen up the fruit bowl; the choices are pretty narrow by the time Smith gets to his third-shift lunch period.) Last year, the USDA asked the Institute of Medicine for advice on its school lunch and breakfast programs, which provide free or subsidized meals to more than 31 million schoolchildren each day. The institute recommended more fruit, vegetables and whole grains with limits on fat, salt and calories. But it was clear this wouldn’t help unless kids accepted healthier foods, Guthrie said. “We can’t just say we’re going to change the menu and all of our problems will be solved,” she said. The agency requested proposals from researchers on how to get kids to actually eat the good stuff. Cornell scientists Brian Wansink and David Just will get $1 million to establish the child nutrition center. Fourteen research sites around the country will share the other $1 million. “Findings from this emerging field of research — behavioral economics — could lead to significant improvements in the diets of millions of children across America,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. Cornell’s focus will be developing “smart lunchrooms” that guide kids to make good choices even when more tempting ones are around. “We’re not taking things away from kids,” Wansink said. “It’s making the better choice the easier, more convenient choice.” Wansink is a prominent food science researcher, known for studies on the depiction of food in paintings of the Last Supper and how the placement of a candy jar can affect how much people eat from it. Christine Wallace, food service director for Corning City School District near Cornell University, met him a few years ago and invited him to use her 14 schools as a lab. “We tend to look at what we’re offering and to make sure it’s well prepared and in the correct portion size, and not the psychology of it. We’re just not trained that way,” Wallace said. For example, some Corning schools had express lines for a la carte items — mostly chips, cookies and ice cream. The idea was to reduce bottlenecks caused by full tray lunches that took longer to ring up. But the result was a public health nightmare. “We were making it very convenient for them to quickly go through the line and get a bunch of less nutritious items,” Wallace said. After studies by Wansink, they renamed some foods in the elementary schools — “X-ray vision carrots” and “lean, mean green beans” — and watched consumption rise. Cafeteria workers also got more involved, asking, “Would you rather have green beans or carrots today?” instead of waiting for a kid to request them. And just asking, “Do you want a salad with that?” on pizza day at one high school raised salad consumption 30%, Wansink said. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DES MOINES — Parents remain determined to save money for college even in the tough economy, but they’re not always choosing the methods that give them the best bang for their buck. The nation’s leading college lender Sallie Mae released Tuesday its second annual study of college students and parents conducted by Gallup. It shows 60% of parents have saved money for their child’s college education, about the same as a year ago. However, it is surprising that nearly a quarter of all college savings has been set aside in retirement accounts including 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts, said Sarah Ducich, senior vice president for public policy at Sallie Mae. The typical family saving for college has amassed an average of $28,102 and is projected to have saved $48,367 by the time their child reaches age 18. DEBT: Student loan debt exceeds credit card debt in USA YOUR MONEY: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment The problem with relying on retirement accounts is that when money is withdrawn before age 59 1/2, the accountholder must pay taxes on the funds as well as a 10% penalty. As an alternative, some families are choosing to take out a loan against a 401(k) account. This is also problematic because it removes a portion of the retirement fund, reducing the potential for growth. Also there’s the possibility that the loan will need to be repaid quickly if the accountholder changes jobs. Whether an outright withdrawal or a loan, either way, parents are shortchanging their retirement savings potential, Ducich said. An additional disadvantage to using the 401(k) for college savings is that the money withdrawn this year counts as income for the parents. This means that when the family applies for financial aid the next year, that amount will be included in income, reducing potential aid. Of course not all savings is held in retirement accounts. About 21% of money set aside for college is in investments and 14% sits in general savings accounts, which return very little interest. About 12% is held in dedicated college savings 529 accounts. A few responses in the 2010 study show signs that economic pressures have affected how families are setting their savings goals. About 72% of parents say they expect to pay half or more of their child’s education costs, but that is down from 79% a year ago. Also, fewer parents intend to pay most of the cost with 27% saying that this year, compared with 33% in 2009. That’s one more indicator that the recession has forced people to make decisions about their money, said Bill Diggins, a senior consultant at Gallup Inc., who helped conduct this year’s survey. Economic confidence has dropped over the last couple of years and discretionary spending has gone down and continues to fall. Savings rates however, have increased. Diggins said Gallup research indicates about two-thirds of those who are saving more say it’s a permanent change. “We’re finding people will pay for and sacrifice for things they value,” Diggins said. “It’s clear from these studies that they continue to place a high priority on college for their kids.” The study illustrates that point with 21% of parents saying college savings is their most important savings goal, up from 14% in 2009. Saving for retirement fell to 22% as the most important savings priority from 27%. About 38% of families said they are saving the same this year as last year and 34% said they are saving less. About 28% boosted their savings. The study also shows that families understand the need to start early. The average age when parents began a college account is about 3 years old. It’s important now to educate parents on the most efficient ways to save, Ducich said. The dedication to help children obtain a college education is there, it’s now a matter of helping families put that savings to work balancing earning potential with safe investments that help them reach their goals. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Families have a tough time paying for college in today’s tight economy, but there are things they can do to make college more affordable and attainable. One key is applying to a variety of schools — public, private, in-state, and a local community college as a backup plan, recommends admissions consultant Katherine Cohen of ApplyWise.com . In an online survey of 137 families with college-bound students, ApplyWise and media partner NextStepU found that more than a third said it was likely that their child would go to community college for two years, then transfer to a four-year school. In 2008, only 13% said that was likely. Make sure every school you apply to is one you would be happy to attend, but also make sure you have one you can get into and afford, Cohen says. “You have to think about fit in so many ways.” It’s also important to start thinking early about how to keep college costs down, such as taking Advanced Placement courses in high school and earning college credit by scoring well on exams. “Taking eight AP exams and scoring 4s and 5s can translate into one year of college” at many colleges and “can decrease your costs by 25%,” she says. Start saving early, if possible, not only for the cost of attending but also for the cost of applying. “There are a lot of hidden costs — from exam fees to application fees to test prep courses to the costs of visiting colleges — that go into applying to college,” Cohen notes. One-fifth of families surveyed said they have saved nothing for their child’s college education; another fifth said they have saved less than $5,000. “We thought families would have saved more,” Cohen says. The survey also found that 13% of parents said their child is changing their major to one that might have more income potential at graduation. That’s up from 4.3% of families in 2008. “Students should pursue their dreams,” Cohen says, but opting for a double major may be one way to do that and add value to your degree. — Michelle Healy

PUEBLO, Colo. — At 8:28 a.m., the cafeteria ladies of Centennial High School take up positions in the second-floor hallway, just outside closed classroom doors. Each woman is pushing a cart loaded with milk, juice, whole-wheat doughnuts and individual packages of Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereal. When science teacher Sue Aronofsky opens the door of her classroom, kids stream into the hallway. “You go around, you get your stuff, and you tell the lady thank you,” she says. Students eat at their desks as announcements drone from the public-address system. After a brief pause to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag and toss empty milk cartons, Aronofsky’s freshmen turn to examining pill bugs under magnifying glasses. Time: 8:45 a.m. The same scene occurs all over the 1,034-student school. Last year, when Centennial served free breakfast in the cafeteria each morning before the start of classes, fewer than 100 students showed up to eat daily. On this morning four days into the new year, with breakfast delivered to classrooms, 864 students have been fed. That many children eating school breakfast is rare. Although the number of hungry children in the U.S. is rising, fewer than half of the kids who could be eating a free or low-cost breakfast at school are getting one. TRAFFIC: Cities opt for creative commuter options COACHING: Qualified students aim higher ‘DROPOUT FACTORIES’: Program fights truancy at young age BACKYARD COTTAGES: Extra income in Seattle In Pueblo, school officials take a counterintuitive approach: They offer free breakfast to all children regardless of income, so no one is embarrassed to be eating it. In most schools here, breakfast is served right in the classrooms. As a result, 76% of Pueblo’s needy kids eat school breakfast. That’s more than any state and almost every big city, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), which tracks participation in school meal programs. Now, states such as Colorado and Florida, anti-hunger groups and congressional lawmakers from both parties are pushing schools to follow programs such as Centennial’s — an effort not only to improve students’ performance in school but to combat rising hunger in tough economic times. The number of U.S. households that can’t consistently put food on the table rose to 17 million, or 14.6%, in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture , the highest level in a decade. The use of food stamps is at an all-time high, and so is the percentage of children receiving free or reduced-price school meals, which rose from 59.3% in 2007 to 62.5% in 2009. DELINQUENTS: For D.C., hope in treating young offenders SOLAR CITY: Toledo reinvents itself as a solar-power innovator STAYING FREE: Unlikely mentors give felons hope The low number of needy kids eating breakfast at school “is a tremendous concern,” says Gary Davis, founder of the Got Breakfast? Foundation, which gives schools grants to increase breakfast participation. “It’s a message that really has to be heard: that there’s just a simple way that we can improve our society.” The cost of school breakfast for needy kids, such as the cost of their lunches, is eligible for federal reimbursement. Most U.S. schools — 86% — offer it. But of the nearly 19 million children who eat a free or reduced-price lunch at school, only 8.8 million also come for breakfast, according to FRAC. Efforts to change this are underway: •In Colorado, where only 39% of needy kids eat a school breakfast, Democratic Gov. Bob Ritter launched an effort in July to get school districts to increase participation in breakfast with the help of Share Our Strength, a national advocacy group that fights childhood hunger. •In Florida, a new law this year requires free breakfast in all schools where 80% of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. •In Congress, renewal of the Child Nutrition Act would allow start-up grants for universal free breakfast programs. The bill also would make it easier for high-need schools to serve universal meals by allowing more ways for schools to make kids eligible for free and low-cost meals. The renewal, postponed from 2009, passed the Senate in August with $4.5 billion in increased funding. A version with $8 billion in additional funding awaits action in the House. The current law expires Sept. 30. “There are just a lot of kids whose families are not going to be able to supply all their meals for them,” says Bill Shore, co-founder of Share Our Strength. “The impact (on hunger) of adding 50,000 kids to the school breakfast program dwarfs anything else we could do.” ‘It’s the right thing to do’ In Pueblo — a city of 103,000 that is 104 miles south of Denver — 72% of schoolchildren qualify for free and reduced-price meals. Under U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, a family of four with an annual income of less than $40,793 can receive school meals at a reduced price of no more than 30 cents. A family of four with income less than $28,665 is eligible for free school meals. But in Pueblo, breakfast is served free to everyone in all 38 schools. In 24 schools, children are served breakfast in the classroom or, if the food carts can’t be hauled upstairs, kids grab breakfast at the front door on their way to class. Jill Kidd, Pueblo’s nutrition services director, started serving breakfast in class in 1998 in four of the district’s poorest schools, and she has been expanding the classroom breakfast program ever since. “It’s simple,” she says. “And it’s the right thing to do for kids.” Pueblo serves a burrito, French toast or other hot breakfast four times a week, and offers cereal every day, including an unsweetened variety such as Cheerios. (Centennial students got only sweet cereals the first week this school year because adding the school to the in-class breakfast program initially stretched district supplies, Kidd says.) Cheyenne Roque, 15, a freshman at Centennial, grabbed the high-fiber doughnut from the breakfast cart. Her mother works at a craft supply store and her dad at a discount store. The family includes three kids, her grandmother and uncle. Food stamps help the family make it through the month, but school breakfast and lunch make the groceries at home go further. “That’s why we have more food at home, because we eat breakfast and lunch at school,” she says. Removing the stigma Getting more kids to eat breakfast at school is key to achieving President Obama’s campaign pledge to end childhood hunger by 2015, according to groups such as Share Our Strength and Feeding America, a food bank network. The best way to do so, they say, is with a program like Centennial’s that feeds rich and poor kids alike. In a 2001 U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program in 79 schools, offering free breakfast to all kids in the cafeteria increased the number of students who ate breakfast in school from 19% to 28%. At schools that served free breakfast in the classroom, participation rose to 65%. Feeding free breakfast to students who can afford to pay avoids the stigma for students who can’t but don’t want everyone to know. Serving breakfast in class means kids don’t have to get there early to be fed, Kidd and other school nutrition directors say. Bus schedules, parents’ work schedules, and, for high school students, the desire to sleep as late as possible make getting to school early for breakfast difficult. Andrea Ayala, 28, an unemployed single mom of four, grew up in Pueblo eating breakfast at school when it was for poor kids only. She and her four siblings “always had to go to the cafeteria and be there before school. … My mom made us,” Ayala says. Now her four kids eat breakfast at school along with everyone else, she says: “They see everybody else getting what they’re getting.” Feeding more children breakfast is an easy pitch to budget-squeezed school districts because if enough of their kids are eligible for low- or no-cost meals, federal reimbursement can cover the cost of the entire program. The more breakfasts they serve, the more federal reimbursement they get and the greater economy of scale they enjoy. The USDA spent $12.7 billion on school breakfast and lunch last year. Reimbursement to schools for breakfast range from 26 cents for a child who pays full price to $1.74 for a free breakfast in a high-poverty school. More than half of all students in Pueblo eat breakfast at school. The program pays for itself and doesn’t require any money from the district, Kidd says. “We aren’t asking taxpayers to feed every kid a free breakfast at school,” says Courtney Smith, director of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry program. “We are saying that in very high-need areas, a way to effectively provide breakfast at school is through a universal breakfast program.” Part of an education In Pueblo, Kidd has converted schools to free in-class breakfast one principal at a time. Administrative reluctance is typically the biggest obstacle to classroom breakfast, its proponents say. Since the federal No Child Left Behind law made performance on state tests critical to schools, the pressure to maximize class time is intense. “As a principal, you have to guard instruction time,” says Tharyn Mulberry, Centennial’s principal. When he first mentioned classroom breakfast, his faculty “did not like it,” he says. “They did not want the disruption of it.” First, Kidd arranged to serve breakfast in class last year on the days when Centennial students took the all-important state assessment tests. Then she told Mulberry, “If it’s good for test days, it’s good for every day.” Studies indicate that children learn better when they aren’t hungry. Kids who eat breakfast right before taking tests score higher than kids who ate hours before. Results of pilot programs in the city of Milwaukee, statewide in Maryland and elsewhere show that serving breakfast in class results in less tardiness, less disruptive behavior and fewer visits to the nurse. “We’re a little obsessive about it at this point,” Kidd says. She has pitched one principal on the idea of in-class breakfast so many times — without success — “if I mention it again, he’s going to kill me.” At Park View Elementary, on Pueblo’s east side, where all 418 students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, breakfast is served only in the cafeteria, not the classroom. “I don’t feel that that truly is the best use of the instruction part of the day,” Principal Shiela Perez says. “By the time that it’s been delivered, by the time they’ve been given the opportunity to eat and everything’s been cleared up, that can drag out … into 45 minutes of the day.” Instead, children must arrive by 7:40 a.m. to eat, 20 minutes before class begins. A little more than one-third of the students — 37% — eat breakfast at school. “If they walk in at 7:55 they’re not going to get turned away,” Perez says. “We’re just trying to encourage them to get here.” Like it or not, making sure children get fed has become central to schools’ mission. Feeding hungry kids “is a given. We’re in many cases the biggest social support for our children,” says Stephanie Garcia, president of the Pueblo school board. “This is a necessary part of the educational process.” For Kidd, the next step in helping hungry children is to move beyond the school day. Like other schools, Pueblo has a program that sends bags of food home with needy kids on Friday to get them through the weekend. Kidd would like to add an after-school supper program, and start farmers markets at schools located in “food deserts,” neighborhoods without food stores. She is also now in charge of the 10% of Pueblo students who are homeless. It’s a job Kidd feels highlights the difference a school can make in a kid’s life, especially if it comes with decent meals. “We’re the safe time in their day. We’re the good time in their day,” she says. “If we can feed them and love them, maybe we can make the other 16 hours more tolerable.”

Average national SAT scores for the high school class of 2010 fluctuated slightly by section compared with last year, but remained unchanged overall, a report says. Asian students continue to post the greatest average increases among racial and ethnic groups, and average scores for students from wealthy families were highest of all. The report also highlights a gap in average scores between students who completed a core academic curriculum, and who took honors or college-level coursework, and those who didn’t. “This report confirms that there are no tricks and there are no shortcuts to college readiness,” says Gaston Caperton , president of the non-profit College Board , which released the report today. “Students who take more rigorous courses in high school are more prepared to succeed in college and beyond.” Test takers averaged 1,509 points out of a possible 2,400 in three sections, the same as last year. Nearly 1.6 million 2010 high school graduates took the test, a record. The report says SAT performance remained “stable” this year even as a larger and increasingly diverse number of students took the test. Typically, average scores drop as more students, and a more diverse range of students, take the test. Since 2000, math scores have climbed 2 points while critical reading scores have declined 4 points. Over 20 years, critical reading scores have increased 1 point and math scores 15 points. But critics of standardized testing say aggregate scores of both the SAT and ACT over the last several years suggest that the federal No Child Left Behind law has failed to reform education. The law, which went into effect in the 2003-04 academic year, requires states that want to receive federal funding for schools to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades. SAT scores released Monday show a steady decline in average reading scores since 2004, from 508 to 501, and a 2-point drop in that time in average math scores, from 518 to 516. Writing scores have dropped 5 points since that section was added in 2006. Average composite scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fluctuated between 20.9 and 21.2 (out of 36) since 2003-04; this year’s scores, released last month, averaged 21.0. At the same time, gaps in SAT and ACT scores by racial and ethnic groups are widening or, at best, remaining steady. Those data “contradict the claim that more high-stakes testing improves educational quality and equity,”says Robert Schaeffer, spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a critic of standardized tests. “We keep adding more and more high-stakes tests (but) have left more children further behind.”

Back-to-school supplies for middle school students used to mean pens, notebooks, maybe a new backpack. But for a growing number of families, the list now includes a laptop computer. “We would never send our own kids to pediatricians that were practicing medicine from the ’70s or ’80s,” says Mark Hess, principal of Sarah Banks Middle School in Wixom, Mich. “Why would we send our kids to schools that are practicing instructional techniques that are decades old? If we did that, it’d be educational malpractice.” A districtwide laptop program in the Walled Lake (Mich.) Consolidated School District starts in the sixth grade and incorporates technology in math, science, English and history lessons. Parents of sixth-graders have the option to buy a $784 laptop and enroll their child in the program; those kids are placed in a classroom where all students have their own laptops. Those not in the program have access to 7,000 district-leased laptops that teachers share on rolling carts. INSIDE HIGHER ED: Should colleges give students iPads? The 500 sixth-graders in Walled Lake’s laptop classrooms use their computers for most of the school day. They revise papers, solve math problems and even take tests and quizzes on the computer. Students also use “smart boards” and electronic clickers to key in answers, like on a game show. Better grades, test scores “It’s just another tool for learning,” Hess says. Though they were a novelty a decade ago, “in 2010, laptops should just be commonplace.” Schools across the country have a similar mind-set. In 2000, Maine entered an agreement with Apple to provide all seventh- and eighth-graders in the state with laptops. This year, Maine gave about 70,000 laptops to middle and high school students. The goal: a laptop for every student in grades 7 through 12 by 2013, says Jeff Mao of Maine’s Department of Education. The program costs $242 per student, or about $17 million each year. “Some people will say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of money,’ but that represents less than 1.5% of the total education budget,” Mao says. School officials say laptops improve grades, boost critical-thinking skills and increase collaboration among students. Since the Walled Lake district implemented its laptop program about a decade ago, the officials say, achievement in all subjects has increased in grades 6-8. In 1999 and 2000, researchers from Wayne State University and the University of Memphis analyzed student achievement with laptops. Thirteen teachers said students had better research and writing skills, more interest in school and improved self-confidence. Most students said their research and computer skills had improved. At the Reyburn Intermediate School in Clovis, Calif. — where one-third of the students speak English as a second language — about 350 seventh- and eighth-graders own a laptop for classroom use. Teachers have seen grades and test scores rise among these students, says laptop program coordinator Debbie Allee. But learning is not just about the technology. “There’s this perception out there that laptops would improve student achievement,” Hess says. “It’s just like a calculator. Giving a child a calculator does not necessarily raise their math score.” ‘A top priority,’ even in recession Students without laptops get the same curriculum, says Walled Lake Superintendent William Hamilton. Students in the program, however, benefit from the skills they gain. “You’d have to be living in a cave to not be aware of the fact that technology is a critical part of a skill set people use in the real world,” he says. Parents, too, see the value of computer skills. Though Michigan was hit hard by the recession and has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, enrollment in the laptop program has not dropped in the past few years. “Because of the economy, we wondered if the program would fizzle out, but it just hasn’t,” Hamilton says. “A significant part of our community thinks this is a top priority, and they’ve hung in there.” “It’s just part of their daily routine,” says Kim Wolfe, whose four kids are in grades 2 through 7 in Walled Lake. “In the morning, they grab their backpacks and grab their laptops.” She has spent more than $1,300 on laptops for two kids and plans to buy two more for her younger kids. “This computer program is absolutely a blessing,” she says, especially for Jacob, 12, who has a reading disability. “It would take hours and hours to finish homework, but because he has a laptop, he’s keeping up with the other kids.” In 1996, Microsoft launched laptop programs at 29 schools in the USA. The company leased laptops to the schools and worked with administrators to develop sustainable laptop programs — teaching educators how to integrate technology into their curriculums. Over time, the program evolved into a non-profit and grew; more than 10,000 schools across the nation participate. While the non-profit doesn’t donate computers, it helps schools set up systems where families who can’t afford laptops can borrow or rent them. In some cases, schools don’t charge families, says executive director Susan Einhorn. And as laptop costs continue to decline, the idea of providing all students with computers is “much more feasible.”

An estimated 2.6 million American college freshmen are about to head off to campus. USA TODAY book critic Deirdre Donahue examines four new books about this rite of passage for American teenagers and their parents. Excuse her if she’s a bit wistful: Her own son is part of the departing horde. The iConnected Parent: Staying Close to Your Kids in College (and Beyond) While Letting Them Grow Up Are cellphones, Facebook and e-mail morphing into the campus equivalents of baby monitors? And are these digital tethers healthy for college students and their parents? That’s the question posed by The iConnected Parent , a thoughtful and accessible guide that examines a new reality in which going off to college no longer means a weekly phone call home on Sunday night. Thanks to technology, many parents and children are in constant, daily communication. (The authors, Middlebury professor Barbara Hofer and journalist Abigail Sullivan Moore, provide compelling statistics to back up their point.) They also offer sensible guidelines about how to navigate this unprecedented access to your child’s life in college. They point out why certain behaviors — providing a last-minute edit on a term paper, intervening with a dean because your child says her roommate is mean — can damage your college kid’s ability to solve problems without you, a key element in becoming an adult. Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — And What We Can Do About It Don’t read this book the night before you drive the little darling to that pricey private college, because you might cancel the trip. Queens College sociology professor Andrew Hacker, author of the best-selling Two Nations , and New York Times reporter Claudia Dreifus take no prisoners in their blistering attack on American colleges and universities, particularly the Ivy League. They compare the $420 billion per year higher education business to American health care, saying it’s a bloated bureaucracy that costs an astronomical amount of money yet fails to achieve its core mission: teaching undergraduates to think, to question, to be inspired. Their claim: This failure is going on at the nation’s 4,352 colleges and universities, from the biggest sports powerhouse to the most elite private enclave. Money doesn’t solve the problem. The authors argue provocatively that Ivy League students are among the least well-served in terms of teaching, despite parents writing those $37,000 tuition checks. Star professors have never had much interest in teaching undergrads, leaving it to overworked, underpaid grad students. But with that price tag? Ouch. The authors propose dramatic solutions: abolish tenure, stop paid sabbaticals, spin off medical schools. Most of all, they want parents, students, politicians, professors and taxpayers to ask themselves, what is the purpose of college? A real education isn’t about job training or establishing a “Best and the Brightest” elite. Because Higher E ducation? wrestles with all sorts of big-picture, philosophical questions, it’s a thought-provoking book. Perhaps a touch too intense for parents writing tuition checks. Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching off My Parents At age 21, Zac Bissonnette, an AOL finance blogger and University of Massachusetts senior, delivers a real mule kick to the higher educational status quo with his impassioned Debt-Free U . In an admiring foreword, Andrew Tobias gets it right when he says the author is “Doogie Howser meets the boys from Facebook.” Mincing no words, Bissonnette argues that students and their parents must stop taking out loans to pay for college. In 2006-2007, he points out, the average student graduated owing almost $23,000 (with some owing as much as $120,000), while strapped parents took out home-equity loans. This debt will hurt parents approaching retirement and handicap kids entering adulthood. The author writes out of his own experience of growing up with financially improvident parents. (His father’s house is in foreclosure, and his mother lives with her mother.) His advice is old school. Consider community college. Live at home. Save money. Get a part-time job. And parents who want to help? Get a second job. The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent’s Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child) By Harlan Cohen Sourcebooks, 618 pp., $14.99, paperback original Taking a cue from the ever-popular What to Expect When You’re Expecting series, Harlan Cohen uses a similar perky approach in his user-friendly The Happiest Kid on Campus. The funny part, despite the “happiest kid” title, is Cohen gently reminding parents and kids that most college students probably won’t be happy at first. Most freshmen are painfully homesick their first semester, and often longer. Not to mention anxious, stressed-out, confused and lonely. But he has a lot of sensible ways to get to happy, if not happiest. Cohen, author of The Naked Roommate , offers advice on how parents should handle move-in day (remember, it’s the kid’s room, not yours), how much digital communication is too much (the roommate she-devil of yesterday’s text might be the BFF of tomorrow, so don’t intervene), and warns against contacting professors about a failed quiz. Some of his tips are stunningly sensible. If your child is shy, encourage him to get a job in the cafeteria or library so he has to leave his room and talk to people. The funniest advice? Mom, no cougar-ing, and Dad, quit leering.

Every year, the scene plays out in classrooms across the nation. A child clings to his mother, tears welling in his eyes as he pleads with her to stay a few moments longer. The first day of kindergarten is an exciting time for parents and children, but it can also be stressful, especially for kids who have never spent significant time away from Mom and Dad. The good news is that psychologists say separation anxiety is generally short-lived and there are time-tested methods to help reduce everyone’s tension. The root of the problem Experts say separation anxiety can be spurred by biology and environment. “What’s known about separation anxiety is there’s not really one single cause for it,” said Wendy Bravo, a marriage and family therapist based in Reno “If the child tends to be more anxious, you know, anxiety-prone, there are certain things in the environment that will trigger it.” In other words, there are certain children who simply are born anxious. “Different kids have different strengths and weaknesses,” said Kristen Davis-Coelho, a psychologist for Renown Behavioral Health in Reno. “Some are much more adventurous, really like new experiences, and other ones are a little more tentative. Sometimes it can surprise a parent.” Biology or not, family psychologist and syndicated columnist John Rosemond said he believes parents almost always play a significant role in the problem. “When you find a child of school age, kindergarten, first grade, it is almost always associated with parents and specifically a mother who has had difficulty separating from the child from day one,” he said. The good news? In most cases, separation anxiety is quickly reversible. Davis-Coelho said only about 5% of children suffer from separation anxiety disorder, a severe form that lasts longer than a few weeks. Advance planning Bravo said children who are prone to anxiety tend to do better when they know what to expect each day, so she suggests getting them settled into a predictable schedule early. “The child would have their time to eat, their time to go to sleep,” she said. “Maybe a couple of weeks before they start school, they can start a new routine that won’t change when school starts.” Davis-Coelho agreed that advance parental planning can make a big difference. She said parents can do other little things, too, like drive their child to school before classes even start. “Show them where you’re going to be dropping them off, where they’re going to get to play at recess,” she said. “Or pretending. Playing school. Actually getting the toys, having the kid be the teacher and the parent be the teacher. Playing school bus if they’re going to be riding the school bus, where they walk down to where their bus stop is and the parent pulls up in their car and pretends to be the school bus.” The goal, she said, is to make school feel familiar, so the transition is less difficult. Rosemond said his approach to treating separation anxiety is unorthodox because he actually recommends against prolonged conversations about a child’s issues. “Most professionals are going to tell parents to reassure the child and sit down and talk to the child,” he said. “I am absolutely convinced, and my experience confirms this, that the more you talk to the child about the problem, the worse it gets.” So, who’s right? Davis-Coelho said she believes different strategies work with different children. Ultimately, it’s up to parents to decide what approach is resonating with their child. Crying fits One thing everyone agrees on is that parents should nip meltdowns in the bud. That means the best thing a parent can do if their child is crying is leave. “The parents have got to say, ‘We’ve talked about this, and we’re not going to talk about it anymore. You’re going into class, and I’m leaving,’” Rosemond says. “It’s got to be very, very short and sweet.” Bravo and Davis-Coelho agree. “Keeping the amount of time that you let that go on to a minimum is important,” Davis-Coelho said. “The longer the child is feeling that level of panic and upset, the more the memory is getting burned into their head at how awful it is.” Planning an exit Although it’s difficult to leave a child in tears, Rosemond said parents need to be tough. “These parents have this anxiety that this reflects some deep-seated psychological issue that has to be resolved,” he said. “I say to parents, ‘No, there’s no deep-seated psychological issue here at all. It’s just that this child has never learned to comfortably separate from you because of your anxieties. You have to be the actor here. You have to suck it up. The minute the child sees that you have no anxieties whatsoever, the child’s going to be fine. Even if the child cries … it’s no problem. The schools are used to dealing with these things.’” Experts say that most anxious children will stop crying within 15 to 20 minutes of their parents’ departure, and they will then join the class. “Eventually, they’ll calm down,” Bravo said. “Some kids will be different than others if they have a different temperament. … The parent has to be really firm and just leave and let the teacher take care of it. Many times, just 10, 15 minutes later, they will go away and the child will slowly get used to the new environment.” The day after Often, the first day is the toughest, but Davis-Coelho said parents also can take steps to make the rest of the week go smoothly. “The first strategy you can use is developing what I call a special ritual in the morning between you and your child,” she said, “a particular way of saying goodbye. A phrase that you both repeat to each other about seeing each other later. A special handshake. Some sort of ritual in the morning. … Every morning you say goodbye in that particular way.” Pay attention Most children will have conquered their separation anxiety within a month, experts say. If the problem drags on, there might be a broader problem. “If it’s interfering with their functioning or with the family’s functioning, if it’s causing a lot of stress or interfering with them going to school, making friends, probably at that point therapy should be sought,” Davis-Coelho said. In the unlikely case that it comes to that, Bravo said parents should consider a family appointment because the child could be reacting to something unexpected. “Look at if there are any major changes going on in the family, for instance divorce, moving to a different neighborhood, different school, someone who died recently,” she said. “If the parents think that this is a problem, you know, the separation anxiety is becoming a problem, I would recommend they seek treatment that includes family therapy because many times the child is just reflecting something else that’s going on in the family.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON — English only? With Hispanic enrollment surging in schools, many Spanish-speaking parents are having trouble helping their children with homework or communicating with U.S. teachers as English-immersion classes proliferate in K-12. An Associated Press-Univision poll highlights the language and cultural obstacles for the nation’s Latinos, who lag behind others when it comes to graduating from high school. MISMATCH: 87% of Hispanics value higher education, 13% have college degree The findings also raise questions about whether English-immersion does more to assimilate or isolate — a heated debate that has divided states, academics and even the U.S. Supreme Court. Arizona recently ordered its schools to remove teachers with heavy foreign accents from English-language instruction, while the Obama administration is seeking to push more multilingual teaching in K-12 classrooms. “The language barrier is still a serious risk factor for Hispanics,” said Michael Kirst, a Stanford University professor emeritus of education who helped analyze the survey. Even with many schools replacing Spanish with English in classrooms, for a student evaluated as learning English, “the odds of completing high school, and particularly college, significantly drops.” The nationwide poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University, found the vast majority of Hispanics — 78% — had children enrolled in K-12 classes that were taught mostly in English, compared with 3% in Spanish. Just 20% of mainly Spanish-speaking parents say they were able to communicate “extremely well” with their child’s school, compared with 35% of Hispanics who speak English fluently. About 42% of the Spanish speakers said it was easy for them to help with their children’s schoolwork, compared with 59% of the Hispanics who speak English well. Children of Spanish-dominant parents also were less likely to seek help with homework from their families. Fifty-seven% of those parents said their children came to them with school questions. That’s compared with 80% for mainly English-speaking Hispanic parents, who also were more likely to send their children to relatives or friends for answers. The hardships often center on language for Latino parents, who value a high school diploma more than the general population and want to support their children, according to the poll. But educators say the problems can be cultural, too, if some Hispanic parents feel less comfortable acting as vocal advocates for education, such as meeting with teachers or lobbying for an extra honors class. Under federal law, if the parents’ English is limited, schools must provide notices and information about student activities in a language they can understand. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is now reviewing some school districts to see if students are being denied a fair education. “It’s difficult for me,” said Carmen Arevalo, 30, who arrived in the United States 12 years ago from El Salvador and doesn’t speak English. Arevalo has an 8-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter in Miami public schools and says she has constant challenges with communication, even though many of her children’s teachers speak English and Spanish. “Sometimes I feel uncomfortable, because sometimes I don’t know what they will be saying to the children,” Arevalo said as she watched her son play soccer. Roxana Montoya, an El Salvador native in Miami who is learning to speak English, says she often struggled to help her 12-year-old son with school. Montoya said she would check the Internet to translate her questions for teachers and spend hours going through his middle-school coursework. “He’d get out at 3 and at 9, we still wouldn’t be done with the homework,” she said. The educational stakes are high. Roughly 1 in 5 people in the U.S. speaks a language other than English at home, with Hispanics representing the largest share, according to 2009 census data. Hispanics also now make up one-fourth of the nation’s kindergartners, part of a historic trend in which minorities are projected to become the new U.S. majority by midcentury. Still, Hispanics are nearly three times as likely than the general U.S. population to drop out of high school, and half as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree. Other AP-Univision poll findings: •Many Hispanics lack confidence in the quality of education at their local public schools. About 47% said they believed the K-12 schools were excellent or good, compared with 48% who described them as “fair,” “poor” or “very poor.” •About 63% of Hispanics believe it would help the U.S. economy “a lot” if more students completed high school, compared with 40% for the general population. Citing some of the racial gaps, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is urging parents to take more responsibility. He said the government will require districts to get input from communities on ways to improve underperforming schools before receiving federal money. The Education Department also wants to devote an additional $50 million next year to promote English learning. Part of that will be used for research and development of “dual-language immersion,” a bilingual approach gaining favor among many linguists. Dual-immersion is a shift from the direction of states such as California, Arizona and Massachusetts , where voters have largely banned bilingual classes. On a broader level, some 30 states and numerous localities have passed laws making English the official language, a move that critics say will lead to more cuts in bilingual programs. The debate has splintered the Supreme Court, which sided 5-4 with Arizona last year in saying the federal government should not supervise the state’s spending for teaching students who don’t speak English. Doris Chiquito, 30, of Miami, who was born in the U.S. to Ecuadorean parents, is among those who would like their children to value Hispanic culture. Chiquito, fluent in English, says she enrolled her 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter in bilingual classes so they would also speak Spanish and not “feel ashamed of being Hispanic.” Her daughter, Ariana Gonzalez, says she likes having classes in both languages. “It helps me learn Spanish, and I know how to talk with my grandparents,” she said. “I like that I get to speak English because some of my friends don’t know Spanish, and then I talk to them in English.” The AP-Univision Poll was conducted from March 11 to June 3 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago . Using a sample of Hispanic households provided by The Nielsen Company, 1,521 Hispanics were interviewed in English and Spanish, mostly by mail but also by telephone and the Internet. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Stanford University’s participation in the study was made possible by a grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DES MOINES, Wash. (AP) — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is urging Congress to act soon to increase education funding because cash-strapped states can’t wait until the fall to determine if they must lay off thousands of teachers. Duncan made his remarks Friday at a forum on innovation in education at Aviation High School in Des Moines, a small college prep school that focuses on science, technology and mathematics. At the forum, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said she hopes fellow lawmakers spent their Fourth of July break hearing from parents and teachers, like she did. Murray said if they got the message about how urgent the school budget crisis is, they will return to Washington, D.C ., with the drive to find more money for schools. OUTRAGE: Is 2010 the year of the education documentary? A proposal to send billions more to the states has hit a number of roadblocks. The U.S. House has proposed cutting money from Race to the Top and other Duncan initiatives in order to send $10 billion to the states to keep 140,000 teachers in the classroom, and about $5 billion to shore up the Pell Grant program, which helps low-income students pay for college. Murray and Duncan both said many different proposals to pay for the emergency dollars are on the table. “He and I have to go back to Washington and make this work,” the senator said. Several dozen teachers and others held signs and chanted outside the school to protest Race to the Top and demand changes in the upcoming overhaul of the No Child Left Behind act. Some people inside the auditorium also expressed skepticism about education reform. “I’m very concerned. We have a lot of kids who don’t know how to engage with schools like this,” said Don Rivers, a Seattle man who works for an organization that monitors school improvement. Rivers is also a candidate for Congress in Washington’s 7th district. Students packed the non-air conditioned auditorium on a steamy summer afternoon for a chance to meet Duncan and show off their school, which is one of the state’s most unique. They spoke of the way their teachers taught them to not be afraid of trying new things and skills they picked up while believing they were just building rockets or doing chemistry experiments. “The only way to learn is by failing,” said Navid Shafa, whose remark inspired adults on the stage and in the audience to talk about education innovation and the need for experimentation and potential failure. Duncan said he was impressed by students and teachers at Aviation High School and would like to see a hundred more schools like it across the country. “This is a model for the country, absolutely,” he said, adding that the administration is interested in both charter schools and other innovative approaches. State education officials see the school as an example of what they hope to accomplish if the state wins a grant from the competitive Race to the Top program. Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said that if Duncan sees how innovative some of Washington’s public schools are, he’ll recognize that creativity can live outside of charter schools. Washington state voters have voted repeatedly against charter schools. Gregoire was at the National Governors Association meeting on Friday so U.S. Sen. Patty Murray brought Duncan to the south Seattle high school. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.