Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso: no big deal, many college students might say. Three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large espresso times three or four, and they still might tell you they’re not intoxicated. Therein lies the danger of caffeinated alcoholic beverages, whose popularity has grown in recent years among college-aged drinkers, drawing the attention of concerned health officials, politicians and college administrators. Experts say that even one is a recipe for disaster, and so do officials at Ramapo College : they banned alcoholic energy drinks on campus this month. Peter Mercer, president of the New Jersey college, said students referred to the above concoction when describing the effects of drinks such as Four Loko, which is particularly popular around the campus. Four Loko is one of a few flashy, canned drinks that take the mixing out of the equation, making it that much easier for students to get dangerously intoxicated, faster. Mercer said concerned students told him the inexpensive 23-ounce, 12% alcohol energy drinks were “all of a sudden very popular,” and Four Loko was involved in a couple of incidents of excessive drinking. Since the start of fall semester, 23 people have been hospitalized with alcohol intoxication. ON THE WEB: Why do students take so long to grow up? MORE FROM INSIDE HIGHER ED: Are prescription drugs “cheating”? Mercer called Four Loko a “cynical product” whose only purpose is to get the drinker intoxicated quickly. Others agree: Glen L. Sherman, co-chair of the Alcohol and Other Drug Knowledge Community for NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, said the drinks are dangerous because of their apparent targeting of underage student consumers and their high alcohol content — drinking one can of Four Loko is the approximate equivalent of drinking four beers, according to an informational page NASPA recently posted on its website. “These beverages are of great concern to us,” Sherman wrote in an e-mail. “Each campus must decide what specific steps make sense to best educate students about and try to protect them from these risks, and to encourage students to make good decisions when they are confronted by them.” Ramapo’s ban is part of a “multi-pronged approach” addressing excessive alcohol consumption, Mercer said. Other measures the college has taken include increasing after-hours security measures in residence halls, tightening visitor policies and holding student focus groups. Those additional steps may be crucial for the ban to have even a shot at success. Kathleen E. Miller, a research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has studied college students’ use of energy drinks, both with and without alcohol. She said that if the college can’t ban drinks like Red Bull and vodka from local bars, it won’t be able to stop consumption of caffeinated alcoholic beverages. But the college can send a signal. “A college ban will make people take a second look and maybe they’ll be more aware of what they’re drinking,” Miller said. “It’s inherently potentially dangerous to mix caffeine and alcohol because you’re sending your body mixed signals.” The caffeine stimulates the system while the alcohol depresses it, making students feel less drunk than they actually are. Through her research, Miller found that students who consume energy drinks with or without alcohol are more likely to engage in risky behavior like drug use, smoking or binge drinking. That doesn’t necessarily mean the energy drinks cause the behavior, but there is a correlation. Energy drink consumption “isn’t necessarily a gateway behavior, but it is what you might call a red-flag behavior,” she said. In a June 2008 study published in the Journal of American College Health, Miller found that 26% of surveyed public university undergraduates reported consuming energy drinks mixed with alcohol in the past month, while about half said they’d done so more than once. Efforts at Ramapo have curbed and will continue to curb consumption of alcoholic energy drinks, Mercer said, but “it’s unrealistic to assume that it’ll be totally eliminated.” That’s not stopping him from trying, though: At the next meeting of the New Jersey Presidents’ Council, Mercer plans to make his case to other college and university presidents. “The risk for their students is just as high as the risk for mine,” he said. “I’ll tell them what I’ve done and hope that they may want to follow suit.” States such as New Jersey and New Mexico are considering banning the drinks entirely. The drinks are also on the federal government’s radar. Last November, the Food and Drug Administration threatened to ban the drinks if manufacturers could not prove they were safe for consumption. No regulations have been issued yet, but an FDA press officer, Michael L. Herndon, told Inside Higher Ed on Friday that the agency has received 19 responses from 27 manufacturers and distributors, and plans to evaluate those submissions and other scientific evidence “as soon as possible in order to determine whether caffeine can be safely and lawfully added to alcoholic beverages.” Herndon said the decision is a high priority but “could take some time.” But Mercer doesn’t need FDA regulations to deem the drinks unsafe, especially when it comes to students. “I don’t accept that it’s a rite of passage to collegiate life that people put themselves at risk,” he said. “I can’t accept that.”

What if tiny “nano-bots” could autonomously travel though a person’s bloodstream to find and kill cancerous cells, eliminating the need for surgery? Or what if you could hop into a flying car for your morning commute? No science fiction here: “These are real,” say commercials for Planet Green’s new show, Dean of Invention , which premieres Friday at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Dean Kamen , the show’s host and inventor of various medical technologies as well as the two-wheeled self-balancing personal transporter, the Segway, says he wants the show to get kids excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), although the series is not aimed just at children. Demolishing stereotypes Inspiring and engaging kids in STEM has long been one of Kamen’s goals, which he largely pursues through his FIRST robotics competition, a series of hands-on robotics contests culminating in a large international championship, something of a robot Olympics. “I think the biggest stereotype of all that hurts the world of science and technology is that kids think of scientists as a ‘they.’ Kids think, ‘It’s those scientists who will cure cancer. It’s those weird geniuses. It’s them, those scientists, not me,’ ” says Kamen. Kamen says that he hopes his show will wipe out the image of the crazy or boring scientist by showing kids fascinating technology and fun, exciting scientists of all races, genders and ages. In each show, Kamen takes his audience on “field trips” to labs and other research sites to investigate breakthrough inventions, including a trip to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to study robotic prosthetic limbs, a feature on the first episode. “We want the opportunity to present this information in a way that is broadly interesting and accessible from kids to adults. We want kids to say, ‘I wanna get involved,’ or ‘I wanna build that reality.’ We want to build the army of kids who are going to be the next generation of saviors,” he says. There are educational TV shows that are effective, such as Cyberchase , a science cartoon on PBS Kids that must prove it is reaching kids because the National Science Foundation funds it, says Joe Blatt, Harvard University Graduate School of Education senior lecturer and director of the Technology, Innovation and Education program. Blatt adds, however, that educational shows succeed best when geared toward the appropriate age group. He has not seen Dean of Invention yet, but Blatt says it is not unreasonable to assume that older kids might watch because “teens and tweens” often turn to shows designed for adults as they grow out of kids’ shows. “A lot of the show, from what I can see, is very technically oriented,” says Tony Murphy of St. Catherine University’s National Center for STEM Elementary Education in St. Paul. Murphy watched preview clips of the show on Planet Green’s website. “But it is also done in a way that’s interesting and easy to understand, with graphics and great visuals, that help people to gain an understanding of what’s being done in science and technology,” Murphy says. “It’s very, very exciting, and could be great for parents and kids to watch together.” The show is designed to be accessible to the average adult viewer but stimulating for kids, and informative for professionals in STEM, says Kamen. Although entire episodes may not appeal to some younger kids, Murphy says teachers from elementary to high school could use clips from the show as part of a lesson to get kids thinking about technology, which is vital because by middle school, some children already have negative feelings about those subjects. Outside the typical lab Murphy adds that bringing this show into the classroom could “start kids off with an understanding that we live in a technological world,” and expose kids to scientists and engineers of all cultures and outside of the typical laboratory setting. Kamen says future episodes will feature a range of innovations such as computer programs that can transfer information from the human brain, and the development of human waste as an energy source to be burned like coal.

Dropping out of college after a year can mean lost time, burdensome debt and an uncertain future for students. Now there’s an estimate of what it costs taxpayers. And it runs in the billions. States appropriated almost $6.2 billion for four-year colleges and universities between 2003 and 2008 to help pay for the education of students who did not return for year two, a report released Monday says. In addition, the federal government spent $1.5 billion and states spent $1.4 billion on grants for students who didn’t start their sophomore years, according to “Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year Student Attrition in America’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities.” The report takes into account spending on average per-student state appropriations, state grants and federal grants, such as Pell grants for low-income students, then reaches its cost conclusions based on student retention rates. The dollar figures, based on government data and gathered by the non-profit American Institutes for Research, are meant to put an economic exclamation point on the argument that college completion rates need improvement. But the findings also could give ammunition to critics who say too many students are attending four-year schools — and that pushing them to finish wastes even more taxpayer money. The Obama administration, private foundations and others are driving a shift from focusing mostly on making college more accessible to getting more students through with a diploma or certificate. Mark Schneider, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research and former commissioner of the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, said the report’s goal is to spotlight the costs of losing students after year one, the most common exit door in college. “We’re all about college completion right now, and I agree 100% with the college completion agenda and we need a better-educated adult population and workforce,” Schneider said. The cost of educating students who drop out after one year account for between 2% to 8% of states’ total higher education appropriations, Schneider said. He said the report emphasizes state spending because states provide most higher education money and hold the most regulatory sway over institutions and can drive change. Ohio, for example, has moved toward using course and degree completion rates in determining how much money goes to its public colleges and universities instead of solely using enrollment figures. “We recognize an institution is not going to be perfect on graduation and completion rates,” said Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. “But at the same time, we know they can do better than they’re doing. And if you place the financial rewards around completion, then you will motivate that.” The AIR report draws from Department of Education data, which Schneider concedes does not provide a full picture. The figures track whether new full-time students at 1,521 public and private colleges and universities return for year two at the same institution. It doesn’t include part-timers, transfers or students who come back later and graduate. The actual cost to taxpayers may run two to three times higher given those factors and others, including the societal cost of income lost during dropouts’ year in college, said Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economics professor. And tying state appropriations to student performance could just cause colleges to lower their standards, he said. Robert Lerman, an American University economics professor who, like Vedder, questions promoting college for all, said the report fleshes out the reality of high dropout rates. But he said it could just as easily be used to argue that less-prepared, less-motivated students are better off not going to college. “Getting them to go a second year might waste even more money,” Lerman said. “Who knows?” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The difference between the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Applied Engineering and Technology Library and other science-focused libraries is not that its on-site collection is also available electronically. It is that its on-site collection is only available electronically. The idea of a libraries with no bound books has been a recurring theme in conversations about the future of academe for a long time, and it has become common practice for academic libraries to store rarely used volumes in off-campus facilities. But there are few, if any, examples of libraries that actually have zero bound books in them. UNTESTED: Can college students learn as well on iPads, e-books? Some libraries, such as the main one at the University of California at Merced, and the engineering library at Stanford University , have drastically reduced the number of print volumes they keep in the actual library building, choosing to focus on beefing up their electronic resources. In fact, some overenthusiastic headline writers at one point dubbed Stanford’s library “bookless.” But that is “a vision statement, not a point of fact,” says Andrew Herkovic, the director of communications for Stanford’s libraries. San Antonio says it now has the first actual bookless library. Students who stretch out in the library’s ample study spaces — which dominate the floor plan of the new building — and log on to the its resource network using their laptops or the library’s 10 public computers will be able to access 425,000 e-books and 18,000 electronic journal articles. Librarians will have offices there and will be available for consultations. ON THE WEB: Is a campus library valuable? INSIDE HIGHER ED: The joy of stacks Students used to get their engineering and technology books from a collection at the campus’s main library. That collection is still there, and books from it are available upon request. But at the new library dedicated to that specialty, the only dead trees are in the beams and furniture. The fact that San Antonio has actually built a literal version of what many in the industry hold up as symbol of the inevitability of electronic as the prevailing medium in academe may be commendable, but it is not “earth-moving,” says Roger Schonfeld, the managing director of Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit that promotes innovation in libraries and elsewhere. Many libraries, especially science and engineering ones, have started moving their print volumes out of the building and into remote storage. Lisa Hinchliffe, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries and head of the undergraduate library at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, says that her institution, along with several others, has embedded librarians in various department buildings. Their offices in those building, it could be argued, constitute bookless libraries inasmuch as they are places where students and professors go to learn about how to use campus collections that can be accessed from anywhere. More interesting than the fact that San Antonio’s newest library has no printed books in it is the fact that more and more libraries are devoting less space to printed books, and are thus reimagining the physical space of the library, Hinchliffe says. Whether the building houses half of its former print collection or none of it, the evolution of the library as a physical hub is something nearly every library is dealing with. As a shared space for discovery, socializing, and studying, the library is still very much relevant and in demand, says Krisellen Maloney, dean of libraries at San Antonio. That is why the university invested $82.5 million in a new library building instead of just putting librarians in offices around campus, Maloney says. “You study and work in the library,” she says. “That’s how libraries have always been. When people come to the library with books, they’re not necessarily using the books. They’re also there for the services — to consult, get instruction, find content, and use the content.”

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

The kindergarten class of 2010-11 is less white, less black, more Asian and much more Hispanic than in 2000, reflecting the nation’s rapid racial and ethnic transformation. The profile of the 4 million children starting kindergarten reveals the startling changes the USA has undergone the past decade and offers a glimpse of its future. In this year’s class, for example, about one out of four 5-year-olds will be Hispanic. Most of today’s kindergartners will graduate from high school in 2024. More Hispanic children are likely in the next generation because the number of Hispanic girls entering childbearing years is up more than 30% this decade, says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire ‘s Carsey Institute. “It’s only the beginning.” U.S. MAP: County-by-county look at diversity DIVERSITY: Minority births drive growth in U.S. CENSUS 2010: Full coverage A USA TODAY analysis of the most recent government surveys shows: •About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1. •The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%. “This is not just a big-city phenomenon,” Johnson says. “The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas.” In Lake County, Ind., a Chicago suburb, the under-20 population went from 51.8% white in 2000 to 47.1% in 2008, Johnson’s research shows. In rural Nebraska’s Colfax and Dakota counties, the share of Hispanic youths is rising while young whites are down from 60% to about 45% in the same period. •Schools face linguistic challenges. The share of 5-year-olds who speak English at home slipped from 81% in 2000 to about 78%. The share of Spanish speakers grew from 14% to 16%. “That makes issues of language development and how to teach them even more important than 10 years ago,” says W. Steven Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. “In some districts, 40% of their kids are Latino, and 4% of their teachers are. It’s a huge gap.” Educators are grappling with the challenge, and “we really have a long way to go before we understand what the best methods are,” says Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the non-profit New America Foundation . Today’s kindergartners are tomorrow’s high schoolers, and “we need to know what their needs are.” •Kindergarten enrollment is up, from 3.8 million in 2000 to about 4 million.

Many students dread public speaking and say they only sign up because the class is required. But in Sam Blank’s classroom, they find it isn’t so terrifying. “I’m a pretty well-liked person, considering the fact I teach a course that creates fear in people,” jokes Blank, 62, a communications professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York . Blank is among millions of educators who are praised, glorified — and sometimes verbally torn to shreds — on websites where students go to rate their professors. Luckily, he got a stellar rating: the No. 1 community college professor on the website RateMyProfessors.com . RateMyProfessors.com, known as RMP, is the front-runner among such sites, with about 1.9 million unique visitors a month, says comScore, which tracks Web traffic. Owned by MTV ‘s college network, mtvU, RMP lists more than 1 million professors from 6,500 schools in the USA, Canada and England . Other smaller such sites include KnowYourProfessor.com and ProfessorPerformance.com . On RMP, professors are rated on a five-point scale, for overall quality, helpfulness, clarity — and how easy it is to get an A in their class. Students also give chili peppers to professors they consider “hot.” Despite some harsh comments warning others away from professors some raters didn’t like, the website is about “shining a spotlight” on the best professors, mtvU’s Carlo DiMarco says. “College students always sought the advice of their peers, friends and family members” about which classes to take, he adds; online, they can seek advice from thousands of voices. Rodney Kashem recently bought RMP’s rival, ProfessorPerformance.com, and has revamped the site. Kashem, 24, a grad student at Dartmouth College, says it’s the same as checking hotel ratings before spending money on vacation; students are “customers” who want to make sure their tuition is well spent. Blank says he didn’t know about his top rating on RMP, but when a reporter told him, he said it was “absolutely wonderful. … Perhaps it’s an affirmation of my ability to teach.” Juann Watson, a psychology and mental health professor at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, N.Y., was rated the site’s “hottest” professor of the year. Watson, 44, says she’s honored to be recognized, but “a chili pepper means nothing at this stage in my life or in my accomplishments.” Ted Coladarci, director of institutional research at the University of Maine, has studied how closely RMP’s ratings align with the teacher evaluations students write at the end of courses, and he says there’s a strong correlation. His findings , with co-author Irv Kornfeld, were published in the journal Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation. But he cautions that students motivated to go online to rate a professor do not necessarily share the same opinions as everyone who took the class. “An instructor’s RMP ratings tend to derive from an exceedingly small and arguably biased sample of all students the instructor has had,” he says. Coladarci adds that some instructors receive less-than-stellar RMP ratings but nevertheless enjoy high ratings on their school’s official student evaluations of teaching. These cases, he says, “serve as an important cautionary note for RMP users. In short, it’s risky to form judgments about instructors and their courses based solely on what you see on RateMyProfessors.com.”

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.

WASHINGTON — More than 10 years have passed since she gave up her pursuit of a degree in computer science, but Yajahira Deaza still has regrets. “I feel incomplete,” says the 33-year-old, a customer service representative for a major New York bank. Her experience reflects the findings of an Associated Press-Univision poll that examined the attitudes of Latino adults toward higher education. LATINOS: Students face barriers Despite strong belief in the value of a college diploma, Hispanics more often than not fall short of that goal. The poll’s findings have broad implications not only for educators and parents, but also for the U.S. economy. In the next decade, U.S. companies will have to fill millions of jobs to replace well-trained baby boomers going into retirement. As the nation’s largest minority group, Latinos account for a growing share of the pool of workers, yet their skills may not be up to par. Aware of the challenge, some California State University campuses are reaching out to Hispanic children as early as the fourth grade. “Aspirations for higher education are very strong among Hispanics, but there is a yawning discrepancy between aspirations and actual attainment,” said Richard Fry, an education researcher at the Pew Hispanic Center. Indeed, the poll, also sponsored by The Nielsen Company and Stanford University , found that Hispanics value higher education more than do Americans as a whole. Eighty-seven percent said a college education is extremely or very important, compared with 78% of the overall U.S. population. Ninety-four percent of Latinos say they expect their own children to go to college, a desire that’s slightly stronger for girls. Seventy-four percent said the most important goal for a girl right after high school is to attend a four-year college, compared with 71% for boys. Enthusiasm about higher education hasn’t been matched by results. Census figures show that only 13% of Hispanics have a college degree or higher, compared with 30% among Americans overall. The poll revealed some of the roadblocks: Latinos do not have enough money, yet many are reluctant to borrow. Family obligations intervene. Parents and teachers provide only lukewarm support. Fifty-four percent said their own parents either did not expect them to go to college, or did not care either way. After graduating high school, Angel Vasquez of Port Arthur, Texas, wanted to go to a technical school to become a diesel mechanic. First he wanted a six-month break. No, said the grandfather who raised him: Go to school immediately or get a job immediately. Now 23, Vasquez works as a technician for a company that repairs buildings damaged by water and mold. “My grandparents raised me pretty good, and I understand where they were coming from,” he said. But “I seriously wish I would have gone to school because I could be making double the money.” In the poll, just 29% cited poor grades in high school as an extremely or very important reason for not going to college. “A main takeaway here for policymakers is that there are a lot of things that are inhibiting Hispanics, other than their academic performance,” said Michael Kirst, a Stanford University education professor. “They have really major barriers that are more intense for this population.” Affordability was the top reason for not completing a college degree, cited by 54% as “extremely” or “very” important. Financial pressure is magnified by a reluctance to borrow that appears to be cultural. The second most common reason for not finishing college was family responsibilities, cited as extremely or very important by 52%. Deaza, the New York bank employee, said that is why she had to leave her computer studies back in the late 1990s. A single mom-to-be, she was expecting her first child, a daughter who’s now 11. Deaza is married with three children now, and says she has a lot to be thankful for. Still, she feels bad not having her degree. “I feel it the worst when I’m trying to find a job,” she said. 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. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Forget about students spending one year in each grade, with the entire class learning the same skills at the same time. Districts from Alaska to Maine are taking a different route. Instead of simply moving kids from one grade to the next as they get older, schools are grouping students by ability. Once they master a subject, they move up a level. This practice has been around for decades, but was generally used on a smaller scale, in individual grades, subjects or schools. Now, in the latest effort to transform the bedraggled Kansas City , Mo. schools, the district is about to become what reform experts say is the largest one to try the approach. Starting this fall officials will begin switching 17,000 students to the new system to turnaround trailing schools and increase abysmal tests scores. “The current system of public education in this country is not working” said Superintendent John Covington. “It’s an outdated, industrial, agrarian kind of model that lends itself to still allowing students to progress through school based on the amount of time they sit in a chair rather than whether or not they have truly mastered the competencies and skills.” Here’s how the reform works: Students — often of varying ages — work at their own pace, meeting with teachers to decide what part of the curriculum to tackle. Teachers still instruct students as a group if it’s needed, but often students are working individually or in small groups on projects that are tailored to their skill level. For instance, in a classroom learning about currency, one group could draw pictures of pennies and nickels. A student who has mastered that skill might use pretend money to practice making change. Students who progress quickly can finish high school material early and move forward with college coursework. Alternatively, in some districts, high-schoolers who need extra time can stick around for another year. Advocates say the approach cuts down on discipline problems because advanced students aren’t bored and struggling students aren’t frustrated. But backers acknowledge implementation is tricky, and the change is so drastic it can take time to explain to parents, teachers and students. If the community isn’t sold on the effort, it will bomb, said Richard DeLorenzo, co-founder of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, which coaches schools on implementing the reform. Kansas City officials hope the new system will help the district that’s been beset with failure. A $2 billion desegregation case failed to boost test scores or stem the exodus of students to the suburbs and private and charter schools. The district has lost half its students and will close about 40% of its schools by the fall to avoid bankruptcy. Covington wants to start the system in five elementary schools in hopes of spreading it through the upper grades once the bugs are worked out. “This system precludes us from labeling children failures,” Covington said. “It’s not that you’ve failed, it’s just that at this point you haven’t mastered the competencies yet and when you do, you will move to the next level.” As it plans for the change, Kansas City teachers and administrators have visited and sought advice from a Denver area school district that uses the reform. Adams County School District 50 has about 10,000 students this past school year its elementary and middle students made the shift. The reform will be phased into the high schools starting in the fall. Count 11-year-old Alex Rodriguez as a convert to the new approach. He used to get bored after plowing through his assignments. He had to bring books from home or the library if he wanted a challenge because the ones at his old school were one or two grade levels too easy. “I liked school,” he said. “But it was hard sitting there and doing nothing.” His parents transferred the high achiever and his three younger siblings to the Denver area district after learning it was trying something new. His father, Richard Rodriguez , has been thrilled with the turnaround. “I wish school was like this when I was growing up,” he said. There also is growing interest in Maine, where six districts, with a combined 11,248 students, are transitioning to the reform, starting with staff training and community meetings and gradually changing what happens in classrooms. “It is incredible what is happening in the classrooms in Maine that are trying it,” said Diana Doiron, who is overseeing the effort for the state’s education department. Education officials in Kansas City, Maine and elsewhere said part of the allure is the success other districts have after making the switch. Marzano Research Laboratory, an educational research and professional development firm, evaluated 2009 state test data for over 3,500 students from 15 school districts in Alaska, Colorado, and Florida. Researchers found that students who learned through the different approach were 2.5 times more likely to score at a level that shows they have a good grasp of the material on exams for reading, writing, and mathematics. Greg Johnson, director of curriculum and instruction for the Bering Strait School District in Alaska, recalled that before the switch there were students who had been on honor roll throughout high school then failed a test the state requires for graduation. Now, he said if students are on pace to pass a class like Algebra I, the likelihood of them passing the state exam covering that material is more than 90%. He’s proud of that accomplishment and said teachers love it. “The most die-hard advocates for our system are our teachers because, especially the ones who were back with us before the change, they saw where things were then,” he said. “They see where things are now and they don’t want to go back.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.