The number of U.S. students earning college credit abroad dipped in 2008-09, the first decline in the 22 years since the data have been tracked, a State Department-funded report out today shows. The dip is mostly due to the recession. The economic downturn also may have accelerated a trend in which students increasingly travel to less traditional destinations, says the report, based on a survey of about 3,000 colleges by the Institute of International Education , a New York-based non-profit organization. Europe still attracted the largest share of U.S. students — more than 140,000 — but enrollments dropped 4%. They rose in Africa (16%), Asia (2%) and South America (13%). That growth was fueled in part “by new and sometimes more affordable” programs in developing countries, the report says. “The economic situation around the world, not just the U.S., is clearly having an impact,” says Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the institute. Although the 2008-09 figures are the latest available, there are signs that the most recent year has begun to see an uptick in U.S. students going abroad. For those who didn’t go abroad, money wasn’t the sole factor. Mexico ‘s H1N1 virus outbreak probably contributed to a 26.3% decline in the number of U.S. students studying there, the report says. Also, many colleges pulled programs there based on State Department advisories about drug-related violence along the border, Blumenthal says. Family finances and campus budgets were top concerns. “I heard stories about parents losing their jobs and students who would really like to go, but could not afford it,” says Howard Davison, a program coordinator for at Central Penn College in Summerdale, Pa., who canceled a 2008 student trip to Ireland. State Department Assistant Secretary Ann Stock said study abroad is an important part of making U.S. students more world-conscious. “In a globalized economy, this just makes sense for our young people and our country,” Stock said of student travel to more diverse locations. Among the highlights of the institute’s “Open Doors” report: •260,327 U.S. students earned credit for study abroad in 2008-09, the latest year for which comprehensive data are available. That’s more than double the number from a decade ago but down 0.8% from the previous year. • In a “snapshot” survey last month of 238 colleges, 55% reported an increase in the numbers of students going abroad last fall, a sign that the 2008-09 decline could be a short-term blip. •A similar slowdown occurred among foreign students enrolling in U.S. institutions last year. Enrollments increased 3%, to 690,923, and pumped about $20 billion into the U.S. economy, according to Commerce Department estimates. However, the growth was driven primarily by a 29.9% surge among Chinese students; more than half of countries that send large numbers of students to the USA showed decreases. Some, such as Davison, say they are hopeful that things are turning around. He took nine students abroad last year, and returns today from seven weeks in Croatia with 17 students. They “have had their horizons not only expanded, but exploded,” he says. “Students come back from this program with a new confidence.”

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.

For months, pink-slipped teachers across the USA have waited for long-sought federal funding to save their jobs. And Congress finally appropriated $10 billion this month to bring back thousands of teachers, nurses, bus drivers and others. But as the school year begins, many educators are still waiting for the phone to ring. “As far as I know, I’m not going to get my job back,” says Kirsten Jensen, 31, a sixth-grade teacher in Hillsborough, N.J. She was laid off last spring, one of about 3,900 pink-slipped New Jersey educators. “I haven’t heard anything,” she says, “but I’m not very hopeful at this point.” Many school districts might not get the money in time to bring back teachers. Others, fearing even worse economic times over the next two years, are simply planning to put a large share of their money in the bank to ward off further cuts next spring. “It looks to me like we’re not going to get any of this new money for the 2010-2011 school year,” says Joe Gertsema, the Yankton, S.D., schools superintendent, who’s trying to patch a $1.5 million deficit. He tapped cash reserves to keep teachers on the job this fall but says his tiny district “will have to make some tough decisions” if the money doesn’t come through next year. The cash is “a welcome relief at a time when state budgets are being cut,” says Gene Wilhoit of the Council of Chief State School Officers , which represents state superintendents. But he and others say the timing of the aid — states face a Sept. 9 deadline to apply for their share — makes it unclear whether they’ll get money in time to save many jobs this fall. And rehiring thousands of teachers may, in fact, produce its own set of problems, says Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy. “It’s a real dilemma, because if you bring somebody back, you may have to lay them off again next year.” But National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel says Congress wanted districts to use the money to save jobs now, “not as a savings account for next year.” Districts have spent the past few years trimming payrolls, trying to limit the number of classroom teachers they let go. In Cupertino, Calif., superintendent Phil Quon says a week-long furlough and “massive” local fundraising staved off layoffs, saving 107 teaching jobs. So any cash he sees from Congress will keep people on the payroll next fall. “There are no more ‘edges’ to our budget,” he says. Jensen, the New Jersey sixth-grade teacher, worked nine years before getting pink-slipped in May. “It was pretty devastating,” she says. “I never in a million years expected it to happen.” She has been watching job postings but can’t imagine doing anything but teaching. “I have no idea what else I would do. I’m used to being around children every September.”

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

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

These aren’t your old-school fundraisers. Bake sales to pay for field trips are giving way to online giving, fairs and businesses donating percentages of their sales as parents raise money to pay teacher salaries and save sports and art programs from budget cuts. “We see an ever-increasing need for parents to go above and beyond the call of duty,” says Chuck Saylors, 50, president of the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association). “School districts can’t keep the cuts out of the classrooms.” “Really, we shouldn’t have to be put in this position,” says Melissa Neumann, 39, who has two children in Cupertino , Calif., schools. “We shouldn’t have to fundraise basically for the core curriculum: reading, writing and math.” Still, she and others say they’ll do what they can: • In Cupertino in the Silicon Valley , parents have collected $1.6 million, close to the $2 million they hope to raise by Saturday, to save the jobs of 110 teachers. The district of 18,000 children needs to close a $7.3 million budget shortfall next year. The parents have asked every household in the community to donate $375. They got businesses to donate a portion of their sales on given days. • In Mokena, Ill., outside Chicago, parents want to raise $250,000 by December to keep 48 sports and other activities, including band and after-school tutoring. The district of 2,100 students needs to cut $2 million from its budget next year. The parents have raised $27,000 with movie nights, concerts, car washes and fairs. • In Portage, Mich., parents have $10,000 of the $1.3 million they need by June 2011 to offset state cuts that forced the district of 8,700 to end school a week early and offer teachers early retirement. Educators applaud the efforts, but they say fundraising to operate schools is not sustainable. “You have the funding for one year and then what?” says Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators . He warns fundraising will widen the opportunity gap between affluent and low-income children. The National PTA discourages parents from raising money for school operations, Saylors says. He says parents need to hold officials accountable. Goals can be hard to reach. Parents in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., tried to raise $186,000 to save three teachers. They got $30,000, not enough for one job, says Elizabeth Neve Calderone, 42, a mother of two. “It’s disappointing,” Calderone says. “We don’t want to be dipping into our pockets any more than we have to, but if it means saving a teacher or two, we’ll do it.”

WASHINGTON — Facing a recession and the coming end of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding, school districts nationwide are handing teachers pink slips for the upcoming school year. The Obama administration estimates that as many as 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs unless Congress steps in with emergency money. The cuts may ultimately be milder than the dire predictions — and critics are already joking that school advocates should soften the “teacherpocalypse” rhetoric. But the grim predictions have already generated protests. Teachers in several states have rallied to keep school funding, and across the USA, teachers today will wear pink hearts as part of a national “Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips” campaign organized by the American Federation of Teachers , the nation’s second-largest teachers union. A Los Angeles-area PTA even persuaded actress Megan Fox to film a comedy short dramatizing the effects of school budget cuts — and mocking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘s tough-guy image. The film, viewed nearly 1 million times on the Funny Or Die website, closes with Fox urging viewers to “call, write and annoy the governor until he cries for his mommy.” California hit hard U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday that the situation was serious. “I’m very, very concerned,” he said in an interview. “I can’t say that strongly enough.” Although most of the pink slips are conditional on final budget calculations — and in many cases warnings are required by teacher contracts — the teachers federation says there’s little good budget news in most of the hardest-hit states, which include California (36,000 pink slips), Illinois (20,000 jobs threatened), Michigan (4,000) and cities such as New York (8,500). ANALYSIS: Pension funds for teachers are short billions REVERSAL: Teacher shortage gives way to teacher glut FIRING TEACHERS: Useless or 1st step to reform? The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in March that state deficits “of a very large magnitude are likely to persist for another two or three years,” and that despite improvements in the economy, state budget pictures in 2011 and 2012 “look as bad, or nearly as bad, as those for 2009 and 2010.” It estimates that states will face total deficits as large as $260 billion beyond what the stimulus can provide. Sen. Tom Harkin , D-Iowa, has proposed $23 billion to help schools keep hundreds of thousands of teachers. Duncan hasn’t endorsed the bill but says Congress should act soon. “There are pink slips being sent out as we speak,” Duncan said, “so unless something changes, those are layoffs that are going to happen.” A few critics have pointed out that virtually all of the pink slips are based on preliminary budget estimates and that real job losses could be smaller. “This is a slightly larger than normal version of the nearly annual phenomenon in which school districts and teachers unions use the media to try and scare parents to scare lawmakers into funding education,” says education blogger Alexander Russo. The short Fox film dramatizes the effects of budget cuts on an L.A.-area elementary school. It was sponsored by the Wonderland Avenue Elementary School PTA in Laurel Canyon. Principal Don Wilson, who appears briefly in the film, says the project began as a letter-writing campaign for kids, but the PTA expanded it and asked Fox’s boyfriend, Brian Austin Green , a Wonderland Avenue parent, to pitch in. The duo and production staff worked free. Cuts are real for one principal Response to the film, Wilson says, has been “overwhelmingly positive.” Among other things, it earned the PTA president a trip to Sacramento to talk with Schwarzenegger’s staff. Wilson says most of the cuts at his school are real — since last May he has lost an assistant principal and special-education teacher; his nurse now shows up just once a week. This year, three of 21 teachers have been pink-slipped — he believes that two of the jobs will be saved. In one of the film’s more jarring moments, Fox looks on as a fifth-grader complains about school conditions — in Korean. No one can translate. Wilson says the exchange is fairly typical. Though most of the Korean-American children at Wonderland Avenue speak English, few Korean parents do. He has been trying to get a translator on staff “for years,” he says: “Almost half of our school is Korean, and nobody speaks Korean.”