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.

WASHINGTON — As community colleges take center stage today at a White House summit, a group representing for-profit colleges is taking aim at community colleges. In a report released Monday, a marketing firm working for the Coalition for Educational Success, an advocacy group for several privately held for-profit companies, argues that community colleges engage in “unsavory recruitment practices” and offer students “poorer-than-expected academic quality, course availability, class scheduling, job placement and personal attention.” The report crystallizes arguments from the for-profit sector that community colleges — perceived as the Obama administration’s preferred set of institutions to offer work force training — are ill-equipped to serve the students they already enroll and would struggle in taking on larger enrollments. The document’s release just ahead of today’s summit is intended to tarnish the event’s luster and the praise for community colleges that will come from President Obama and others, and it emerges amid the for-profit sector’s aggressive lobbying, advertising and rallying against the U.S. Department of Education ‘s proposed regulations on “gainful employment” and a Senate panel’s investigation of the sector. ON THE WEB: Is job training a zero-sum game? MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Taking the long view “Community colleges play a vital role in the American economy,” said Jean Norris, managing partner of Norton Norris, the firm that produced the report. “However, they are not the only choice. Community colleges have some systemic issues that really need to be addressed and the singular focus on the problems of the career colleges is a waste of time and money and forgets the institutions that serve a much larger number of students.” For one part of the report, Norton Norris sent “secret shoppers” to meet with admissions officers at 15 community colleges and found that none would provide graduation rates, even when asked. In the report, these findings are likened to those identified by the Government Accountability Office on undercover visits to for-profit colleges, where investigators were told they didn’t have to repay loans and encouraged to lie on financial aid forms. The firm also surveyed current for-profit college students who had been enrolled at community colleges, asking them to compare their satisfaction levels at the two different kinds of institution. In all but one category — price — the for-profit colleges came out on top. David S. Baime, senior vice president of government relations and research at the American Association of Community College, characterized the report as “garbage” and said it was yet another attempt by the for-profit sector to fight scrutiny from the Obama administration and those on Capitol Hill. “It probably makes sense as a sort of PR strategy to try to run us down and sort of boost themselves,” he said. Norris insisted that it was not her aim to attack community colleges, but rather to “highlight issues beyond the career college sector that are the same ones the career college sector is being attacked for.” At last week’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing questioning for-profit colleges’ student outcomes and student debt, Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.) accused the committee’s chair, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), of examining the sector without looking at how it fits into the broader landscape of U.S. colleges and universities. “I agree there is clearly a problem in higher education — now you’ll notice I didn’t limit that comment to for-profit schools,” Enzi said. “It’s na?ve to think these problems are limited to just the for-profit sector. We’ve been looking at this in a vacuum.” While researchers said that some of the report’s findings could be accurate, the study itself is of questionable value. “We can’t call this research,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison . “The for-profits are under attack and this report is being paid for by for-profits. We need to be asking many of these questions, but a report like this one isn’t providing meaningful answers.” In the report’s introduction, Norton Norris concedes a string of flaws with the report. The sample surveyed for the study “was one of convenience and may not represent all student experiences,” the report said. The students given a chance to respond to the survey were ones who withdrew or graduated from a nonprofit college before enrolling at a for-profit, admittedly meaning that “bias may be present” among respondents. The response rate was 10%. And the survey was “custom-designed and thereby not previously proven valid and reliable.” Thomas R. Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center at Columbia University ‘s Teachers College, said he saw the report as “a tactic” for for-profit institutions in their battle against greater regulation. “Certainly from [for-profit colleges'] perspective it would be reasonable to try to put out an argument that says there are many problems with community colleges.” Nonetheless, Bailey said, some of its findings are true. “Community colleges have low resources, the counselor-to-student ratio is extremely low. It’s not surprising that students are not very well-informed about their options at community colleges. But, again, I don’t think we can look at this as a reliable document.”

NEW YORK — Earning a degree online seems like a cheap, convenient way to expand professional skill sets. But do hiring managers take virtual educations seriously? The stigma associated with taking classes over the Internet can be a nagging concern for those about to invest serious time and money to advance their careers. Such fears may be fueled by recently released federal data that suggests graduates of for-profit schools aren’t finding as much success in the job market. These schools, which are known for their online career education programs, had lower repayment rates for student loans, according to data released last month. CONTROVERSY: For-profit colleges under fire over value, accreditation DISGRUNTLED: More lawsuits target for-profit colleges The Department of Education plans to enforce new regulations starting in July 2012 that will restrict federal aid for career education programs, of less than two years, with too many graduates who can’t repay student loans or carry unmanageable debt loads. In the meantime, here are some points to remember about online degrees. • The Virtual Elephant in the Room Before you even start looking into online programs, there’s the matter of the stigma associated with them. As unfair as it may seem, those fears aren’t entirely without base. Only about half of respondents to a Society for Human Resource Management survey this summer said online degrees are just as credible as traditional degrees. The human resource professionals also said online credentials were less acceptable for higher-level positions; just 15% said online degrees were acceptable for an executive position. That said, keep in mind that this is a highly subjective area and that your schooling is just one factor that employers look at. The field of work you’re entering and a company’s culture will also influence how online degrees are regarded, notes Lynn Berger, a career counselor in New York City. “It may be that the person interviewing you got their degree online too,” Berger said. The matter may not be as big a concern if your online degree is from a traditional college. The same is true if you earned your degree from a school that isn’t widely known as a provider of online education. That’s not to say you should hide that you earned your degree online, but you don’t have to make it the dominant description of your education. • The Cost is Anything But Virtual A common assumption is that online schooling will be cheap. That assumption is wrong. At the University of Phoenix, one of the most well-known for-profit schools, each credit for a master’s in business administration costs $685. So earning the 36 credits required for the degree would cost a total of $24,660, not including application and other fees. But keep in mind that for-profit schools don’t have a monopoly on Internet courses. The majority of community colleges and four-year public schools now offer at least some online courses as well, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. “Many for-profit schools try to create the impression that they’re the only schools offering courses online or at convenient times,” said Pauline Abernathy of The Project on Student Debt. And the average tuition and fees at community colleges last year was $2,500. Traditional colleges typically charge the same amount whether students attend classes online or in person. With loan repayment rates at for-profit schools a hot topic right now, it should be noted that the majority of students at community colleges do not have student loans upon graduation. Of those that do, the average debt is $10,000. By comparison, nearly all graduates of for-profit schools have student loans and the average debt is $17,000, according to The Project on Student Debt. • Picking a For-Profit Program A few points to keep in mind if you’re considering a for-profit school. To start, check that the school is accredited at www.ope.ed.gov/accreditation . You can also check the site of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation at www.chea.org . Even if a school is accredited, be wary of aggressive sales tactics or reluctance to disclose information about pricing. Recent undercover tests by the Government Accountability Office found some for-profit schools used deceptive recruiting tactics and encouraged applicants to falsify financial aid forms. For-profit schools also tend to do a lot of handholding through the application process to make it easy for students to enroll. Don’t let this prevent you from shopping around for other options, rather than signing up for the first school you see advertised on TV. To gauge how well graduates of a particular for-profit school are doing, check the Education Department’s list of student repayment rates . Click on the link for “Cumulative Four-Year Repayment Rate by Institution.” Keep in mind that rates may differ for particular programs within the school. Finally, talk to mentors or professionals you know in the field to get their thoughts on your plans to pursue an online degree. They may have some recommendations on a well-respected program or one that others have had a good experience with.

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

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

The number of college students who defaulted on their federal student loans climbed in the fiscal year that ended in September 2008, according to new government data released Monday. And once again, those who attend for-profit colleges and universities were the most likely to default. The grim numbers are no surprise, given that the timeframe roughly aligns with the start of the recession. But they come at a politically charged time, as for-profit colleges fight proposed regulations that would cut off federal aid to some programs if too many students default on loans or don’t earn enough after graduation to repay them. YOUR MONEY: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment DEBT: Student loan debt exceeds credit card debt in USA Figures from the U.S. Department of Education show 7% of borrowers of federal student loans defaulted within two years of beginning repayment, up from 6.7% the previous year and 5.2% the year before that. Default rates crept up in all sectors of higher education — from 3.7 to 4% for private nonprofit schools, 5.9 to 6% for public nonprofit schools, and 11 to 11.6% for for-profit schools. The data covers borrowers whose first loan repayments came due between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, and who defaulted before Sept. 30. 2009. “Even before the economy went down, student borrowing had doubled in this decade,” said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, Calif. “More students borrowed and they borrowed more money, and they’re now they’re going out in a very tough economy.” The Education Department underscored the for-profit default rates. Education Secretary Arne Duncan , repeating what has become his mantra on the fastest growing segment of higher education, voiced concern about excessive debt and useless degrees while simultaneously highlighting the sector’s positive contributions. Students at for-profit schools represented 26% of federal loan borrowers and 43% of all defaulters in 2008-09, the department says. Citing those figures and the sector’s rapid growth, the department has proposed a complicated aid eligibility formula that would weigh both the debt-to-income ratio of recent graduates and whether all enrolled students repay their loans on time, regardless of whether they finish their studies. The department was flooded with more than 80,000 comments on the proposed regulations in a public feedback period that closed last week. For-profit colleges argue the government is soft-pedaling the potential harm and say the changes would disproportionately hurt minority students. Harris Miller , president and CEO of the Career College Association, which represents for-profit schools, said the major factor driving defaults is not an institution’s tax status but student demographics. For-profit colleges accept higher-risk and lower-income students, and Harvard would have higher default rates if it did the same, he said. Experts caution that the two-year rate does not provide a full picture and many more students default in subsequent years. The Education Department is moving to a three-year rate to determine schools’ eligibility to take part in taxpayer-supported student aid programs. Donald Heller, director of Penn State University ‘s Center for the Study of Higher Education, also cautioned against comparing for-profit college default rates with those at all public and private colleges. He said it’s more accurate to stack them against community colleges, which are closer to for-profits in programming and student makeup. By that measure, for-profits still have default rates that are worse, but it’s closer. The default rate for students at public two- to three-year programs — which covers the vast majority of community colleges — was 10.1% in fiscal year 2008, the new data shows. At for-profit schools, the rate was 12.6% in two- to three-year programs. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Two years of cuts in state support saddled the Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento this spring with what school board president B. Teri Burns calls “horribly painful” choices: fewer teachers and larger classes, or keeping teachers but cutting athletics, counseling and after-school programs. Like many districts across the nation, Natomas chose to lay off teachers. So for every three classes of 20 students each that the schools had last year, this year they’ll put 30 students in two classes. The teaching staff in this 10,000-student district will be cut by 100 to 340 next fall. No one’s happy, Burns says: “We have to make choices, and none of them are good.” Conventional wisdom says the smaller the classes, the better the education, because teachers can pay more attention to each child. But while smaller classes are popular, decades of research has found that the relationship between class size and student outcomes is murky. LAYOFFS: Federal funding won’t save many teacher jobs “The research doesn’t show that you get significantly different student outcomes when you go from a class of 25 to a class of 30,” Burns says. With state and local budgets still in flux, it’s hard to know exactly how many teachers will lose jobs this year. But even with $10 billion in additional federal money, part of the $26 billion bill President Obama signed recently, the struggling economy is expected to reverse a decades-long trend toward smaller classes. Education statistics show that school personnel were hired at twice the rate that student enrollment grew from 1999 to 2007. An experiment drives change In the early 1990s, when many states were flush with cash, policymakers championed the findings of a 1985 experiment in Tennessee. The Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project compared academic achievement in small classes of 13 to 17 low-income students with that of students in classes that had 22 to 25 students. The experiment found modest but lasting gains for impoverished African-American students in the much smaller classes in kindergarten and first grade. States extrapolated from those findings to justify spending billions to make relatively modest cuts in class size in all schools, not just in those serving the poor. About three dozen states now fund either voluntary or required class-size reduction programs. In 1996, California launched the first and largest such effort, eventually providing incentives for school districts to lower class size to 20 in kindergarten through third grade at a cost of $20 billion. In 2002, Florida voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that reduced class size over time in all grades. The state estimates that it will cost an additional $353 million this year, on top of the $16 billion the state has spent so far, to meet the requirements. In November, Florida voters will be asked to loosen those requirements to avoid massive spending cuts. A study released in May by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University found that the Florida program had no effect on student achievement. Research on California’s program also showed no gains in achievement attributable to smaller classes. Michael Kirst, an emeritus professor at Stanford University , says excitement over the program resulted in school districts hiring “all sorts of teachers just off the street” who lacked any formal training. Space shortages forced schools to hold the newly created classes in hallways and closets and on auditorium stages. Nonetheless, Kirst says, the program was popular. “One lesson from California is that with parents, smaller class size is overwhelmingly favorable, and they don’t give a fig about the research that says this is not going to help their kids,” he says. “They intuitively believe that small class sizes will allow more individual attention.” Slippery slope? Dan Goldhaber of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington-Bothell says that “the effects of class-size reduction are pretty marginal,” except in the early grades for disadvantaged students. With rampant teacher layoffs, Goldhaber says, “it probably makes sense … to focus not so much on class sizes but on making sure that the teachers you are keeping are really effective.” But Kirst says school districts are facing “a very dangerous period. We are increasing class size to extremely high levels. “I don’t worry about going from 20 to 25 students that much, or 15 to 20,” he says. “But when you go from 20 to 35 in a year or two, I don’t think we don’t know the effects of that.” Contributing: Susan Sawyers of Hechinger

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.

ATLANTA (AP) — Dave Ebersbach lost his job as a math teacher this summer, and he spends each day hoping that his poverty-stricken school in Ohio will call up and offer him his position back. He and thousands of other teachers around the country could get their jobs back now that the Senate has approved an emergency stimulus package designed to keep educators and other public employees out of the unemployment line. ANALYSIS: Teacher pension funds are short billions SURVEY: Self-evaluation better than parent, student evaluation, teachers say “My biggest thing is I want to go back to the school I was at for the students,” said Ebersbach, 43, one of 14 math teachers in the Toledo school district to receive notice a few weeks ago that their jobs were cut. “We’re in a high-poverty school and one thing the students need more than anything else is consistency. And they’re not going to get that.” The $26 billion measure passed Thursday is less than was initially proposed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan , but will provide $16 billion to help states balance their Medicaid budgets and $10 billion for grants to school districts to forestall layoffs. Republicans strenuously opposed the measure, denouncing it as yet another federal bailout the government cannot afford and calling it a giveaway to public employee unions. For educators across the country, it’s been a bewildering summer as money to save thousands of jobs stalled in Congress and unions and administrators sparred over ways to rehire laid-off teachers. The result has been what is referred to in education circles as the “yo-yo effect.” School budgets, facing severe reductions in state funding, are cut. Layoffs are made. And some or even all of the teachers are hired back over the summer as officials scramble for money. The money coming from Congress could help fill some of that void. But until districts actually have the money in hand, thousands of teachers must wait in limbo not knowing whether they’ll have jobs when school starts in a few weeks. Data provided by the U.S. Department of Education on how many jobs the bill is expected to fund reads like the medical chart of a battered patient: 16,500 in California. In Texas, 14,500. More than 9,000 in Florida. Some 161,000 education jobs across the country in all. “The Senate amendment will go a long way to protecting these jobs and ensuring that America’s educators are working to educate our way to a better economy,” Duncan said. “It’s the right thing to do for America’s students and America’s teachers.” Throughout the summer, many districts had despaired that Congress would deliver any money, and scrambled to find other ways to bring back the teachers, offering early-retirement incentives and negotiating furlough days. In Iowa, where 1,500 layoffs were announced earlier this year, the Des Moines district has called back all but 30 of the 173 teachers who were laid off. Twyla Woods, the district’s chief of staff, said they opened an early retirement option and hope to have enough attrition overall to bring back the remaining teachers. In Santa Cruz, Calif., 82 teachers were laid-off this spring and rehired again this summer, also largely due to a negotiated retirement incentive that 41 workers opted into. Teachers also agreed to take furlough days. The entry level salary in the district is $40,000. The efforts all saved jobs, but are not considered long-term solutions. In other districts, no solution was reached at all, leaving hundreds unemployed and hoping for federal money. Gretchen Marfisi in Florida was laid off in each of the last two summers, only to be rehired by the Broward County School District. This year she canceled her family vacation and put her life on hold before being called back Thursday. “Why are they firing all of us?” Marfisi said, her voice ringing with frustration. “Besides giving us all more gray hair and wrinkles, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic involved.” Marfisi is now preparing to unpack all her boxes of teaching materials once again. “It’s a relief to get a paycheck,” Marfisi said. “It’s just very weird and bizarre emotionally. It just in the process makes you feel like garbage.” Mike Langyel, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, worries about the long-term effects these series of layoffs will have on the teaching career. “We don’t need to turn this into a Wal-Mart employment where you’re in for a while and you’re out,” Langyel said. Teachers say the effect on morale has been overwhelming. “Somebody said to me, ‘Teacher: I thought that was one field that was recession-proof,’” Ebersbach said. “I’m at a 50-50 shot.” Turner reported from Atlanta. Armario reported from Miami. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By MARTIN MERZER The Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — They showed up earlier, observed strength in numbers but shared a sense of futility, their legislative battle pretty much assuredly dropped even ahead of they awakened Monday. But many hundreds Florida

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