DETROIT — Many college students are carrying more than a heavy class load this fall. Total student loan debt exceeds total credit card debt in this country, with $850 billion outstanding , according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com, websites that provide information about student aid and scholarships. Consumers owe about $828 billion in revolving credit, including credit card debt, according to seasonally adjusted numbers in a report on July credit from the Federal Reserve . DEBT: Credit card use keeps falling amid economic uncertainty YOUR MONEY: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment Finaid.org says it first happened in June. Oddly, some students don’t even know how much they owe — or to whom. “I’m scared to know,” said Carla George, 20, of Detroit, a junior majoring in biology at Wayne State University . She knows that her mother, at one point borrowed about $10,000 through a federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students. The PLUS loan lets parents borrow for costs not covered by a financial aid package. George estimates that she has taken out at least $10,000 in other loans. “I think it’s a whole bunch more,” she said. A college diploma and a good job are supposed to be the payoff for years of hard work in school. But for thousands of today’s students, there’s going to be a payback, too — as those loans come due after graduation. Some college students are failing financially long before they get a diploma — or a grown-up paycheck. “Students are far worse off today with student loan debt,” said Alan Collinge, who runs a website called StudentLoanJustice.org, where students discuss their troubles with college loans. With tuition far outpacing inflation for the past 20 years, student borrowing has continued to grow — a whopping 25% last year. Some students who are borrowing never expected to, but their parents have lost jobs or suffered other financial setbacks in the recession. Dramatic drops in home values also have made it far tougher for some parents to cover college costs by simply taking out a home equity loan. For many college grads, that monthly student loan payment is turning into quite a scary number. Kate Baker, 30, pays $600 a month — and has watched less-encumbered friends her age buy houses, travel and generally enjoy more disposable income. Baker doesn’t regret borrowing huge sums to major in government and urban studies at Smith College , a private liberal arts school for women in New England. She’s convinced that her Smith degree has given her an edge and could be the main reason she has been employed for the past 10 years — even if, she jokes, she’s also going to be in poverty until she’s 50. “As you look longer term, it’s scary that my retirement account is basically non-existent,” said Baker, who makes about $50,000 a year as a development director for Wayne State University Press, and another $5,000 as mayor pro tem for Ferndale, Mich. What can you do to hold down your debt so you’re not digging out of it for years after graduation? Get a handle now on “the number” — what you will need each month for loan payments. If, for example, you have $30,000 in student loans, your could be paying about $350 a month for 10 years — if they’re Stafford Loans at a current unsubsidized rate of 6.8% and have 1% in fees. Including interest, you’d be paying off nearly $42,000. To swing this without hitting the lottery, you’re going to need a job that pays far more than the minimum wage. One estimate, according to a calculator at www.Finaid.org, is an annual salary of $42,000, assuming you use 10% of your monthly gross for loan payments. If you start out making $25,000 a year or less, get ready to move back into Mom and Dad’s basement to make those loan payments. Candy Wright, group manager credit counseling for GreenPath in Farmington Hills, Mich., said many young grads are having a hard time lately finding a job that can pay enough to cover their loans. She warns them to be realistic about borrowing. A visit to your college career office can provide a look at estimated salaries in your chosen field and region of the country. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

BERKELEY, California — Amid the uproar over the proposed mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, a new Islamic college recently opened its doors in California with plans to educate a new generation of Muslim-American leaders. Founded by three prominent Islamic scholars, Zaytuna College in Berkeley is a small school with just five faculty members and 15 students in its inaugural freshman class. The school wants to become the first fully accredited Muslim academic institution in the United States. QURAN: Florida pastor steps back from plans to burn Muslim holy book Zaytuna College is opening at a time when fierce opposition to the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near the former World Trade Center has left many American Muslims feeling under siege. Many mosques are boosting security this week ahead of the Sept. 11 anniversary that some fear could bring trouble to Muslim communities. Zaytuna has generated little controversy in this famously liberal college town, but some conservatives question the founders’ motives. Frank Gaffney , president of the Center for Security Policy , a conservative think tank, accuses the school of seeking to indoctrinate students and spread Islam in America. “This is stealth jihad in the sense that it is about promoting in the United States incubators for sharia,” the religious law of Islam, said Gaffney, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Zaytuna’s founders dismiss such criticism, saying it represents the views of a small minority of Americans who don’t understand Islam. “I think Zaytuna College over time can help contribute to a healthier understanding of Islam by removing ignorance,” said co-founder Zaid Shakir , an Air Force veteran and California native. The college is seeking to “prepare morally committed human beings that can go out and make a difference in the world as Muslims.” Zaytuna, which means “olive tree” in Arabic, offers an education that combines training in Arabic language and Islamic scholarship with courses in the humanities and social sciences. There have been other attempts to start Muslim colleges in the U.S., but those schools have closed or remained obscure. Students of all faiths are welcome at Zaytuna, but its first freshman class is made up of an ethnically diverse group of nine women and six men who are all Muslims. Most students wear head scarves or skull caps and participate in afternoon prayer. Zaytuna is housed in rented classrooms at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, just a few blocks from the University of California, Berkeley campus. “Religion is the main part of my life. I have religion and then everything else comes around that. So that was definitely the main reason I wanted to come to Zaytuna,” said Sumaya Mehai, 21, who spent two years at community college in Santa Barbara before enrolling at Zaytuna. The college is working toward earning accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, one of six regional accrediting associations in the U.S., a process that is expected to take four to eight years. The founders hope to build an institution that will train scholars, professionals and religious leaders to serve the country’s fast-growing Muslim population, which now numbers in the millions. With few Islamic seminaries or colleges in the U.S., many American mosques have brought in imams from countries including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which can lead to a disconnect between religious leaders and their congregations. The three founders of the school are all leading Islamic scholars. Hatem Bazian is a Palestinian-American who teaches Islamic studies at UC Berkeley. Shakir and Hamza Yusuf are American converts who spent years studying Islam overseas before becoming leading Muslim scholars in the U.S. Zaytuna, where tuition is $11,000 a year, offers a bachelor’s degree with two majors: Arabic language and Islamic law and theology. Students take classes in subjects such as Islamic ethics, Islamic finance and Muslims in America, as well as courses one finds at a traditional liberal arts college — sociology, philosophy, linguistics, astronomy. Zaytuna’s opening is “one of the signs that Muslims have come of age in this country” and will be “a unique contribution to higher education,” said Ebrahim Moosa , a professor of Islamic studies at Duke University . But Moosa said the bachelor’s degree curriculum seems more like that of a theological seminary than a liberal arts college because most of the required courses are related to Islam. “From where I’m sitting, it’s heading in the direction of becoming a theological seminary, unless there will be a radical rethinking of the program,” Moosa said. In the years to come, Zaytuna’s founders hope to enroll more students, add more majors, offer graduate programs and have its own campus. The school is raising money from Muslim communities in the U.S. and trying to build an endowment. Freshman Hadeel Al-Hadidi, 24, completed her bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Michigan-Dearborn before enrolling at Zaytuna. She hopes to pursue a career in film. “Zaytuna College is more of a personal thing,” she said, “to make myself a better person, to better myself in my religion.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

IOWA CITY — The hour when Ariana Kramer will begin her college career is fast approaching — and her parents are in an office supply store, disagreeing about hanging files, of all things. “She’ll need them,” her mother says. “I don’t think so,” her dad counters. Ariana, meanwhile, walks dreamily through the store, offering no opinion on this particular decision. She is, in fact, confident that she will have what she needs when she starts her freshman year at the University of Iowa . FRESHMEN: Class of 2014 doesn’t know cursive, Clint Eastwood BY THANKSGIVING: Some first-year students want to call it quits NAVIGATING COLLEGE: Authors offer updated advice She has mom, the family organizer, with her, and dad, the calm encourager. And they have “the list,” which mom printed from one of those “what-you’ll-need-at-college” websites. New laptop. Check. Comforter with matching sheets. Check. Laundry detergent. Body wash. Antacid. Check. Check. Check. Mind you, Robin and Paul Kramer aren’t those crazy college parents — not like the mother who, as relayed by one dean of students at one California college, stayed in her daughter’s dorm room with her for four nights to help her adjust (until the daughter’s roommate complained). Nor have they ignored barricades intended to keep parents from trying to register for classes for their children, or crashed student-only orientation events, which officials at universities across the country say happens more and more. Still, even for average parents, the letting go is difficult — more so, they and many others say, than it was for parents of college-bound freshmen in decades past. Robin Kramer recalls how her own parents, who never attended college, dropped her off with a trunk full of belongings at Drake University , also in Iowa, in 1978. She set up her room and attended orientation without them there. “It’s just what you did then,” she says. It was much the same for Paul, whose father took him to the University of Wisconsin in 1977 and then went fishing. “It was a culture shock,” he says. “I wasn’t sure I was going to survive.” Perhaps that is part of what makes this “process of leaving,” as Robin calls it, more difficult. It is, all at once, overwhelming and exciting for everyone involved. But some say it’s often hardest for parents, who remember the days of college when there were fewer support systems in place for students. “I’m supposed to shed a few tears and then send her to the world, right?” the rational Robin tells her emotional self as she considers 18-year-old Ariana, the eldest of their two children. That remains to be seen. ‘Cut the cord!’ So how did we get here, anyway? It’s not that saying goodbye was easy for parents of past generations. But these days, moms and dads have gone from reading books that tell us how to raise The Happiest Baby on the Block to new handbooks such as The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent’s Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child) . YOU and your child? Linda Bips, a psychology professor who advises parents on letting go, used to carry scissors into workshops. “Cut the cord!” she would tell them. It evoked the chuckles she was looking for. “But I don’t do that anymore, because no one would listen anyway,” says Bips, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and author of Parenting College Freshmen: Consulting For Adulthood . The process, she has learned, has to be gradual. Marshall Duke, a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, has been giving those kinds of talks for three decades and also has noted more parents struggling. For one, they’re more connected than ever, by Facebook and text messages and, increasingly, online video chat. They’re also often paying huge sums of money on their children’s education. “So they think that gives them license to intervene as they would in other investments,” says Duke, who also encourages parents to take a step back, even when it goes against the fiber of their very being. He wants them, in effect, to let their children falter, to figure things out for themselves, to become adults. For Ariana Kramer, it means giving up the comfort of what she freely calls the “bubble” she grew up in, the quiet home and highly ranked schools in suburban Chicago where her main task in life was to study hard and get herself where she is today. In physical distance, it wasn’t so far from the working-class neighborhoods where her parents grew up. The Kramers both marvel at the freedom they had as kids, riding city buses as preteens and able to stay out with friends until the street lights came on. That was their signal that it was time to go home. They went to neighborhood schools. Their friends lived across the street. They walked home for lunch. “When we were growing up, there were no Amber Alerts,” says Paul, who is 50. After they finished college and married, the Kramers eventually moved to their current home. Paul worked his way into medical sales and Robin, who is 49, created an at-home job for herself by managing businesses of lawyers and other self-employed professionals. It became apparent how different their children’s lives would be when they found themselves arranging “play dates” and driving them from activity to activity. “You had to be so much more involved,” Robin says — partly because, like a lot of people, they had fewer children to focus on than the average family of generations past. Ariana worked in the summers, eventually becoming a counselor at a Wisconsin camp she attended for years. That helped her become more independent, she says. But even she’ll acknowledge that the thought of taking the train or bus into the city, as her parents did, is still daunting. Over this past summer, she took on household duties — doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, learning how to write a check — to help prepare her for that real world she’s anticipating. In August, she moved in to her dorm at Iowa on the first day possible, so she had extra time to get her bearings. “I like simple,” she says. “I need simple.” Times are a-changin’ By many estimations, the Kramers are a low-drama family. But even they are having their prickly moments when they arrive in Iowa City, and that’s to be expected in this time of heightened emotions, experts say. Ariana rolls her eyes, for instance, when her mom suggests that she put her class assignments in her BlackBerry calendar. “Mom, I’m not like you. You’re way, too, uh …” — Ariana pauses and chooses her words carefully when she remembers her words are being monitored by a reporter — “better organized than I am.” It’s all part of the subtle push and pull that has been happening all summer, her mother says. One minute it’s “I can do it myself!” The next, Ariana is asking, “Mom, can you help me with this?” Robin is having her own internal struggles, trying to step back but finding it a challenge. “Let’s be real. As a mom, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself,” she says, as she stands amid boxes and unpacked suitcases in the room Ariana will share with a roommate. It’s nothing fancy, your basic 1920s-era dorm room, upgraded with an air conditioner that is welcomed on a late summer day in muggy Iowa. “Thank God I have you guys. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do this,” Ariana says, as her mother deals out tasks. Per Robin’s instructions, mother and daughter unpack her clothes first, as Paul sets up the clock radio, the portable telephone and the microwave. For him, the dorm room and this whole visit make him a bit wistful: “I wish it were me,” he says. That, too, is a normal parental response to this transition, says Bips, the Muhlenberg College psychologist who’s also a baby boomer and remembers “never trusting anyone over 30″ back in her own college days. “Life is more serious as you get older. There’s more loss. There’s more responsibility,” she says “So I would guess people in their 50s, who have to pay for college and worry about their jobs and the economy — yeah, wouldn’t it be nice to go back?” Some parents also feel nostalgic as the realization hits that their role — one of their main purposes in life — is changing, says Duke, the Emory psychologist: “If it’s a first child — my gosh, that’s a sobering signal about the progress of life.” Increasingly, colleges and universities have noted the support parents need in letting go, so much that they are starting to formalize the goodbye. At St. Olaf College in Minnesota, incoming freshmen are shown a video with their smiling, crying parents waving goodbye as one big group. First-year students at the University of Chicago, meanwhile, walk their parents to the university gate as bagpipes play in what some university staff call the “parting of the seas.” At Drexel University ‘s LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, a goodbye reception includes an unofficial “crying room,” set up with tissues and a counselor. It’s kind of a gentle joke, but one that’s meant to send a message. “The idea was that we understand this is a major change for everybody,” says Ian Sladen, LeBow’s assistant dean of undergraduate programs. “It’s just as tough for parents — probably tougher, really.” But in the end, the message from universities and colleges is the same: Parents, please go home. At the University of Iowa, there is no formal goodbye ceremony. The university does, however, have an orientation and newsletter for parents and an advisory board, where any concerns are addressed. Meanwhile, Ariana also is taking a class called “The College Transition,” a relatively new course that helps freshmen ease into college life. “I clearly need a course like that to survive,” she says, her eyes widening for emphasis. Courses like these, often referred to as “University 101,” are becoming more common on college campuses. The aim is to turn out students who are independent and ready for the workplace — without their parents in tow. “It was almost a badge of honor 30 years ago when students couldn’t make it,” says Sladen at Drexel. “No one would be proud of that today.” And that should help put parents at ease, he says. ‘Make the most of it’ After nearly three days together in Iowa, the moment for Ariana to say goodbye to her parents and 16-year-old brother Chase finally arrives. Her parents get a little philosophical over sushi. “If they ask you ‘What’s the best time of your life?’ I think everybody will say college,” her dad says. “So make the most of it.” “Have fun,” her mom adds. “But don’t forget about the academics.” As her parents say goodbye, Ariana takes on the role of comforter. “I’ll call you,” she says as she hugs her mom, who begins to tear up. Ariana grabs dad and then her brother, who’s also starting to cry. She teases him: “If you break anything in my room, you’re in trouble.” They laugh. Chase, of anyone, has seemed the saddest about his sister leaving: “I think she’ll be OK as long as she copes with everything,” he had said the day before. “Oh, she will,” her mom assured him. “She’s a coper.” And it is true, Robin and Paul have faith in their daughter. “Basically, I think she’s very grounded and has a good head on her shoulders,” Robin says. She pauses. “But I’ll still be thinking, ‘Did she remember to do X, Y and Z?’” Ariana’s family departs, and the new freshman looks content, if not a little lost. She leaves her door open (that’s how you meet people, her resident adviser said). She looks around her room. “It’s weird,” she says. “What do I do now?” It won’t be long before she phones home. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

If community colleges were to find all the formerly enrolled students whose academic records qualify them for an associate degree and retroactively award them the credential, then the number of associate degrees awarded in the United States would increase by at least 12%. This compelling projection by the Institute for Higher Education Policy is one of the primary reasons why it is working with the Lumina Foundation for Education to roll out the three-year, $1.3 million Project Win-Win. This initiative will financially support 35 community colleges and four-year institutions in six states — Louisiana , Missouri, New York , Ohio , Virginia and Wisconsin — so they can track down and retroactively award qualified students associate degrees who, for whatever reason, never received one. It also will help these institutions identify students who have recently dropped out who are “academically short” of an associate degree by nine credits or fewer and re-enroll them to finish a degree. ON THE WEB: Movement, but miles to go MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Why reverse transfer? “Project Win-Win has the potential to make a considerable down payment on increased degree completion goals set by state governors and the Obama Administration,” said Michelle Asha Cooper, IHEP president, in a statement. Last year, nine of the project’s institutions ran a pilot of this program during a seven-month period; they awarded nearly 600 associate degrees and identified almost 1,600 students who were just shy of earning one. The pilot, however, revealed a number of difficulties that institutions face when attempting to retroactively award degrees. “It’s not as easy as it sounds,” said Stephanie Tarver, dean of enrollment management at McNeese State University, which awards associate degrees as well and was part of the pilot program. “We were kind of bumbling around in the dark a bit. When you pull data, it doesn’t always match up like you thought it would. You have to have a lot of staff to dedicate to a project like this to keep it going.” Then, even when candidates for degrees and those just shy of them were identified, reaching them proved just as challenging. “At that point, we don’t have as much control as we do in the other areas because these students have been out for a while,” Tarver said. “We didn’t know if the contact information we had for them was accurate. We didn’t know how to get accurate information without spending lots of money to find it. Also, when we finally did make contact, some of the students were leery of us. ‘You’re calling me out of the blue and saying I’m qualified for a degree and want to offer it to me? What’s the catch?’ ” Eventually, though, McNeese awarded about 15 associate degrees, out of approximately 150 former students who met degree requirements. Officials also tracked down about 300 students who were just short of graduation and are in the process of helping those who wish to complete find a way to do so. “A lot of the students who dropped out of school didn’t realize just how close they were to finishing,” Tarver said. “The success stories we’ve had are truly heartwarming, especially for those who didn’t realize they were qualified for a degree. We made an immediate impact on their lives. Rarely have I felt we’ve impacted students as we did through this project.” Though many of the institutions participating in the project had never before made efforts to retroactively award degrees, a few of them have been doing it for a while and have found ways to integrate this into regular degree audits for current students. Anna Flack, registrar at Suffolk County Community College, in New York, noted that her institution has made it a point to search for these “lost graduates” at least once every year for the past decade. “We did this on a small scale,” Flack said. “It was really part of office procedure. {hellip} We made it part of the daily responsibilities of the degree audit staff.” With students who are just a few credits short of earning an associate degree, Flack said, the college has adopted a no-pressure approach in approaching them. “We’ve just sent letters to students, saying that can finish if they’d like to,” Flack said. ” ‘Here are the different ways you can reach that degree.’ There’s no convincing, no strong-arming, no sales pitch. ‘We just see this, and we’d like you to know about it.’ ” Those pushing the project at the national level argue that, despite some of the challenges in the degree audit process, this is a relatively easy way to boost graduation rates around the country. “This is an issue that hasn’t been raised,” said Cliff Adelman, senior associate at IHEP. “We’re saying to these institutions, ‘Hey, guys, you haven’t paid attention to people based on your criteria who’ve crossed the degree threshold. You’ve been asleep at the wheel.’ There’s all this talk about awarding these degrees, but they’re just making a lot of noise. This is low-hanging fruit.”

Since first lady Michelle Obama planted a garden at the White House in the spring of 2009 and invited schoolchildren to help tend and harvest the produce, more school gardens have been sprouting up across the country. Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces it will award $1 million in grants for eligible high-poverty schools to start community gardens. The goal: to teach students about gardening and nutrition and to provide fresh produce for school meals. Some of the harvest may also be given to students’ families, as well as to local food banks and senior-center nutrition programs (www.fns.usda.gov). Improving nutrition in schools is part of the first lady’s Let’s Move! initiative to fight childhood obesity. OBAMA’S PROJECT: More on the Let’s Move! campaign SCHOOL LUNCHES: Chefs help make them healthier LATEST NEWS: Keep up with fitness and nutrition developments School gardens “give kids exposure to where food comes from and encourages them to try foods they might not otherwise try,” says Kevin Concannon, USDA undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services. They give teachers an opportunity to talk about soil, water, sun, health and science, and the gardens can be used for math and art programs, he says. Concannon has visited school gardens from Maine to Missouri to California. When a second-grade girl took him on a tour of her elementary school’s 2-acre garden in Riverside, Calif., she waxed eloquent about strawberries, he says, pointing out that they contain vitamin C. “This was music to my ears,” he says. Estimates suggest that about 15% to 20% of schools across the country have gardens, says Mike Metallo, president of the National Gardening Association, a non-profit group that provides gardeners and teachers with information and resources. Since 1982, the gardening association has given out 9,310 grants and awards worth $3.7 million, reaching 1.4 million young gardeners, he says (kidsgardening.org). “We’ve supported everything from small herb gardens at inner-city elementary schools to large, raised-bed vegetable gardens in middle schools,” Metallo says. The group is taking applications for its youth gardening programs, which are financed by corporations. “In most areas of the country, schools can do a spring garden and fall garden and get parents, kids and community volunteers to maintain them throughout the summer,” Metallo says. The gardening association also provides money for indoor gardening projects with light tables and curriculum, he says. “It teaches students about roots and stems and the process that is going on. A lot of times, they can grow lettuce and herbs quite easily. “Kids love to plant seeds. They love to watch them sprout and grow. It’s magical.”

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.”

Want to feed squirrels, transform into a zombie or use science to whip up bacon-flavored cotton candy? Forget chess club. College students today are attracted to clubs with activities that are more innovative — maybe even downright wacky. College experts say students who participate in extracurricular activities are more engaged in the college experience, and benefits can be seen both in and outside the classroom. Students who participate in co-curricular activities study more, have higher GPAs and are more satisfied with their social lives, says Kevin Kruger of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. DISTANCE EDUCATION: Students form clubs online STUDENT ENGAGEMENT: Survey measures it using five categories The average student participates in two campus activities, according to a 2009 NASPA report, which surveyed more than 14,000 students from 35 U.S. colleges and universities. Students who attend smaller colleges tend to become involved in more organizations, the report says. Joining clubs is one of many ways students network and develop lasting friendships, says John Gardner, president of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education and author of Your College Experience: Strategies for Success . Students interact, learn more David Bebeau, 20, founded the Humans vs. Zombies club at the University of Wisconsin in 2009. Bebeau describes Humans vs. Zombies, which has become popular on campuses across the country, as a “massive game of tag.” Players are split into two groups; humans who are tagged by zombies become zombies themselves, and the game ends when the last human is tagged. As many as 300 students play the week-long game that goes on 24/7. Bebeau says the club brings together a diverse group of students who wouldn’t otherwise interact. “We get athletes with the hardest of the hard-core nerds, and people who would never actually play together have become very good friends,” he says. Though the main purpose of some clubs is just to have fun, others extend the learning experience. At the Culinary Institute of America , students may sit in a wine class for several hours a day and then attend a wine-tasting sponsored by the Bacchus Wine Society later that night, says David Whalen, associate dean for student activities, recreation and athletics. “They’re back there lining up at the door because they want to learn more about wine.” Students also flock to cooking demonstrations by the Avant-Garde Cuisine Society, which has taught aspiring chefs how to make ice cream using liquid nitrogen. Students who had a handful of clubs at their high school are often overwhelmed by the hundreds of organizations they can join once they step onto large campuses. Officials have different views on whether they should dive in right away or wait a few weeks until they’ve adjusted to their new courses and environment. The answer depends on the student, says Tina Samuel Powellson, associate director in the Office of Student Involvement at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, which offers about 345 student organizations. She says there is no “cookie-cutter” plan — “I would encourage students to take their time, to get to know what’s the best fit for them,” she says. In the NASPA survey, 65% of students said participating in campus activities helps them learn to balance their social and academic lives; 14% said their commitment to clubs caused their grades to drop, but 25% said their grades increased. Gardner says it’s good for students to “jump in” and join clubs right away because clubs can make a large campus feel smaller, and students can immediately make friends. “Friendship formation is task No. 1 for most students,” he says. “If you don’t make friends, you’re lonely, you’re anxious, you feel sort of adrift.” But he adds that students should be careful not to join too many organizations at once, so they’re not distracted from other activities such as studying and going to class. “It’s a question of balance and not overdoing it,” he says. R?sum?-building While some campuses boast hundreds of clubs — the University of Michigan has more than 1,200 — students attending smaller schools don’t lack opportunities to get involved. Cape Fear Community College in North Carolina sponsors about 40 student organizations. Because it’s a two-year college with about 9,000 full-time students, clubs experience a high turnover. This can present a challenge for less popular clubs, says Chris Libert, student activities coordinator. “Most likely, the club advisers are here, but the participants might not be,” he says. But Libert says it’s important for students to partake in activities — even at community colleges — if they want their r?sum?s to stand out. Employers look for “well-rounded people” and students who did more than one activity, he says. Even if clubs like the University of Minnesota’s Campus People Watchers or Princeton University’s Muggle Quidditch Team (based on the Harry Potter stories) seem to have no apparent benefit, college experts say they provide a way for students with similar interests to “connect” and “engender creativity.” They also offer an alternative to the party scene. “They’re a very healthy form of stress relief,” Gardner says. “It’s better to spend time in this kind of group, rather than drink excessively.”

They have generic, forward-sounding names like Horizon Science Academy, Pioneer Charter School of Science and Beehive Science & Technology Academy. Quietly established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators, these 100 or so publicly funded charter schools in 25 states are often among the top-performing public schools in their towns. The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they’d make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade. But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania . Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and “contemporary Islam’s Billy Graham ,” Fethullah G?len has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called G?len Movement operate an “education, media and business network” in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick. Top administrators say they have no official ties to G?len. And G?len himself denies any connection to the schools. Still, documents available at various foundation websites and in federal forms required of non-profit groups show that virtually all of the schools have opened or operate with the aid of G?len-inspired “dialogue” groups, local non-profits that promote Turkish culture. In one case, the Ohio-based Horizon Science Academy of Springfield in 2005 signed a five-year building lease with the parent organization of Chicago’s Niagara Foundation, which promotes G?len’s philosophy of “peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence.” G?len is the foundation’s honorary president. In many cases, charter school board members also serve as dialogue group leaders. Education officials who are familiar with them say the schools aren’t trying to proselytize for G?len’s vision of Turkey . While Turkish language and culture are often offered in the curriculum, there’s no evidence the schools teach Islam. Nelson Smith, former president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, sees no evidence of an “active network. What I do see is a really impressive group of educators.” The Turkish-affiliated schools focus on math and science and often appear as top scorers on standardized tests. Still, lawmakers, researchers and parents are beginning to put the schools under the microscope for hiring practices — they import hundreds of teachers from Turkey each year — and for steps they take to keep their academic profile high. The schools’ unacknowledged ties to G?len, they say, mock public schools’ spirit of transparency. “That’s what I was always asking for,” says Kelly Wayment, a former board member and parent at Beehive Science & Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah. He has pressed for more than a year to get the school to acknowledge ties to G?len. “I said, ‘Parents have a right to know.’ ” Wayment says Beehive removed him from the board last year after he began investigating the decision to fire a popular Spanish teacher, saying it was based on a single classroom visit by the Tustin, Calif.-based Accord Institute of Education Research, an education services company with ties to a chain of California charter schools inspired by G?len. He complained to Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican lawmaker, who launched an audit of charter school governance — the audit is ongoing. But Beehive’s Karlene Welker says Wayment “removed himself (from the board) by pulling his students out of the school.” Utah’s State Charter School Board launched an investigation last year after American teachers complained that Turkish colleagues got hiring and promotion preferences. The charter school board looked into Beehive’s ties to Islam and found them “circumstantial,” but a financial probe found that the school was $337,000 in the red — and that Accord officials had loaned it thousands. The board last April revoked its charter, but in June voted to keep the school open on probation. Dunnigan, the state lawmaker who requested the legislative audit, says the financial details, such as personal loans and public funds spent recruiting overseas faculty, are what concern him. “When they’re in such financial difficulty, should they spend $53,000 to bring these people over from another country?” But questions about hiring and academics also have arisen in Arizona, where Daisy Education Corp. runs five schools and has received certifications for 120 H-1B visas for foreign teachers since 2002, records show. In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of “pushing out” underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed. Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an “extraordinarily high” student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight. “It’s not hard to be ‘exemplary’ if you lose all the kids who aren’t performing,” Fuller says. Crossing the line? At minimum, the rapid growth of the Turkish-affiliated schools shows how the freewheeling world of charter schools has changed the face of K-12 education in the USA. In most cases, charters are loosely regulated in exchange for improved performance. A few schools are affiliated with religious groups or offer programs that others can’t. But in several cases, a school’s orientation has forced it to show that it’s not crossing lines and endorsing religion. Examples: •Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a Minnesota charter school authorized by Islamic Relief USA, a Virginia-based aid group. In 2008, the school ran afoul of state officials who said having teachers take part in voluntary Friday prayers could give students the impression that the school endorsed Islam. •Sacramento City Unified School District in California, which for 12 years has fought a lawsuit that says the city’s Waldorf schools are based on the religious beliefs of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Whether such schools continue to grow is no small question, since President Obama has made charter school expansion a priority. While the Turkish-affiliated schools disavow any connection to the G?len Movement, G?len himself maintains in legal filings that he’s the inspiration behind their growth. But William Martin of Rice University in Houston says educators’ assertions of “no organic connection” to G?len are accurate. Nonetheless, he says their efforts to minimize ties to G?len, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring “unnecessary and probably counterproductive” suspicion. “I do not think they are a sinister organization.” In an e-mail interview, Mehmet Argin, principal of Tucson’s Sonoran Science Academy, says his school’s parent corporation, Daisy Education Corp., “has no legal or organic ties” with other schools. He cautions against linking charter schools founded by Turkish-Americans directly to the G?len Movement “just because Turkish-Americans may be inspired by Mr. G?len.” In an e-mail interview, G?len denied any direct connection to these schools, rejecting the notion that there is a “G?len Movement,” but acknowledging there may be educators now in U.S. schools who have listened to his philosophy. “I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership or any similar kind,” he said. A ‘third force’ G?len has pushed for more dialogue between the Western and Muslim worlds, yet he is a controversial figure in Turkey. The University of Oregon’s Hendrick, whose writings explore the G?len Movement, calls him “Turkey’s most famous religious personality.” His movement is considered the nation’s “third force” alongside the military and Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, or AKP Party. In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, G?len was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania. After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in 2007 denied his bid for a visa as an “alien of extraordinary ability in education,” G?len sued, saying his followers “had established more than 600 educational institutions” worldwide. He eventually prevailed, earning a green card in 2008. But Turkish educators in the USA continue to disavow their ties. “G?len is both the reason behind his schools, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with them,” Hendrick says.

NEW YORK — For their first fire drill, students at the Refugee Youth Summer Academy trooped out of the building behind their teachers. All that was missing were the sirens. The blaring alarms had been muted, for fear they could trigger terror in children who recently arrived from war zones and other conflict areas. The silent fire drill was part of the balancing act for staff at the six-week program that helps youngsters who have survived wars and refugee camps prepare for a new experience — American public school. For some of the kids, formal education has been haphazard or nonexistent, said Elizabeth Demchak, principal of the school, run by the International Rescue Committee , which works with refugees and asylum-seekers. For others, school consisted of sitting and taking notes surrounded by dozens of others with a teacher reciting a lecture. Preparing them means helping them learn how to go to school along with what they learn there. “When they enter the classroom in September, things won’t be so new for them, and having taken away that freshness, that newness, you’re also taking away that fear,” Demchak said. That’s where something like the fire drill comes in. Running a drill, explaining what it is, can help keep students from reacting negatively when they experience it in school. “If a child has lived in an environment, especially in a conflict area, where they’re accustomed to hearing sirens and sirens are a signal for an emergency … when they hear an alarm going off in their school it may trigger a certain memory, it may make them act in a certain way,” Demchak said. “We’re teaching them how to disassociate certain triggers that had a negative connotation with things that are here to help and protect them,” she said. The Youth Academy program has about 120 kids this summer who will be in kindergarten to 12th grade this school year. The students’ homelands are a litany of the world’s hot spots, combat zones and conflict areas: Iraq. Afghanistan. Sierra Leone. Burma. Most have been here for less than 18 months. Some will be starting school in America for the first time. In the program, the children work on their English, writing and math. They take art, dance and music. They go on field trips. From the length of the day to changing rooms between classes to raising their hands and interacting with teachers, the program tries to mimic what students will experience. That was a blessing for Helen Samuels, 17, who attended two years ago and works there this summer. Half Burmese and half Thai, she hadn’t been in school for two years when she arrived here in June 2008 from the refugee camps along the Burma-Thailand border. She was a frightened girl and the program helped reassure her. “We had to learn all the basics of how to be a student, starting from you had to come to class on time,” Samuels said. “It helped me, to prepare me to see school is not something scary.” Among those starting this fall is Basserou Kaba, a 16-year-old from Ivory Coast, an African nation divided between government and rebel forces. The teen, who was in 12th grade before coming here in April, will start in 10th grade to improve his English. He is happy that U.S. teachers expect students to ask questions, unlike those in his homeland. “In my country, the teacher teach what he wants,” Kaba said. “You don’t understand, it’s your problem.” Kaba admits he’s a little nervous about his language skills but says he’s now comfortable with the idea of going to school. “In this program, I came to know what is the school in U.S.,” he said. The IRC program and others like it can play a vital role in helping them build their lives in a new country, said Michele Pistone, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law who specializes in refugee issues. New arrivals can benefit from being taught such common practices for Americans, she said, as parental involvement in a child’s education. “In the United States, our system, there’s much more interaction between parents and teachers than there is elsewhere around the world,” Pistone said. “A lot of the refugees I’ve worked with — because they’re coming from an environment where there isn’t that expectation of involvement — they tend not to be.” The IRC program, which ends Friday, holds parent-teacher conferences and encourages parents to get involved. One who did is Bushra Naji, 53, who was a teacher in Iraq for 25 years before leaving for Syria in 2006 and the United States in 2008. Now she volunteers, helping students in kindergarten through second grade. In Iraq, she said, she taught English by writing on a blackboard and having her students repeat after her. Here, she said, her eyes shining and her smile bright, it’s “very exciting” to see the teachers interact with the children. “I wanted to be younger,” she said, “to be teacher here.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ATLANTA (AP) — States are cutting hundreds of millions from their prekindergarten budgets, undermining years of working to help young children — particularly poor kids — get ready for school. States are slashing nearly $350 million from their pre-K programs by next year and more cuts are likely on the horizon once federal stimulus money dries up, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. The reductions mean fewer slots for children, teacher layoffs and even fewer services for needy families who can’t afford high-quality private preschool programs. HEAD START: Some workers commit fraud so kids qualify RECESSION: Fuels shift from private to public schools One state — Arizona — has proposed eliminating its 5,500-child program entirely. Illinois cut $32 million from last fiscal year’s pre-k budget and plans to slash another $48 million this year. “The overall impact is less access to a quality education in the early years at a time when parents have reduced capability to purchase that on their own,” said Steve Barnett, co-director of the Rutgers institute. “Families are getting hit from both sides.” Wealthier parents can afford to send their kids to private preschools, but children from poorer families will likely languish in lower-quality childcare that doesn’t prepare them for kindergarten, experts said. On a recent morning at Walden Early Childhood Center in Atlanta, a pre-K class worked on shape and color identification by making flowers out of glue and construction paper. Afterward, the 4-year-olds broke into stations where they put on puppet shows, read books by themselves and played at a basin filled with water and toys. “It is important to really give kids that foundation before they go to school,” said Michael Morrier, project director for the center’s grant with the state. “It really closes the gap between the middle class kids and the lower-income kids.” Thirty-eight states had pre-k programs serving more than 1.2 million 3- and 4-year-olds as of last year, the latest data available. Barnett said just four states had made cuts by last year, but that number jumped to 14 this year and likely will be another 14 next year. The cuts come at a time when the demand for quality prekindergarten is at an all-time high as states struggle to improve test scores in early grades and give more students a better chance of getting a high school diploma. In Washington state, for example, lawmakers passed a bill that would expand the state’s pre-k program for needy children from 8,000 to more than 45,000 by 2018. At the same time, the legislature cut $1.6 million from the program last fiscal year and $10.4 million this year. Arizona voters will decide in November whether to eliminate the state’s fledgling First Things First prekindergarten program — created by voters in 2006 and paid for with tobacco tax money — and use the money to balance the state’s bleeding budget. Ohio cut its $23 million program to $11 million last fiscal year, which ended June 30, meaning 12,000 poor children no longer had access to prekindergarten. Massachusetts cut $9 million last fiscal year, and New York cut more than $36 million. For Georgia’s program — among the largest in the country — a $9 million budget cut this year meant eliminating half of the 500 workers who help the poorest families navigate speech therapy, kindergarten applications and dental appointments so that the number of classrooms could grow from 82,000 to 84,000 children. Marci Young, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Pre-K Now program, said prekindergarten is the key to helping the Obama administration achieve one of its main goals — improving persistently failing schools. “When you’re thinking about turning around low performing schools or making sure you’re helping close the achievement gap … you’ve got to start in the early years,” said Young. She pointed to studies that show states see a $7 return for every $1 they invest in early education because children who attend prekindergarten are more likely to not need remedial education, to graduate from high school, to go to college and to have higher-paying jobs that produce more taxes. The key, said Jacqueline Jones with the U.S. Department of Education ‘s early learning office, is making states believe that pre-k is part of the education package rather than something they do only during flush times. “If you see preschool as a warm and fuzzy thing you do for children or as baby-sitting, then it’s easy to cut,” she said. “But if we can meet the educational needs before kindergarten, we can save a tremendous amount of money in special education and remediation.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.