LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles teachers union is promising to challenge a proposed agreement that would change how teachers are laid off in the nation’s second-largest school district, while education experts hail it as a landmark that could pave the way for changes in urban districts across the nation. The settlement, which must be approved by a judge, would shield up to 45 underperforming schools from teacher layoffs for budget reasons. It also stipulates that vacancies be filled as quickly as possible, and contains a commitment to explore incentives, such as bonuses, to recruit and retain teachers and principals at poorly performing schools, with additional incentives if the school’s academic performance improves. The agreement stems from a lawsuit by American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California over teacher layoffs at three inner-city schools. The group had filed a class-action suit against the Los Angeles Unified School District in February, saying that mandated seniority-driven layoffs led to the three schools shedding some two-thirds of their teachers, which left students largely in the hands of substitutes. The ACLU said students were being denied their state constitutional right to a fair and adequate education. It won a temporary injunction in May that prevented more layoffs of first- and second-year teachers who form the bulk of faculties at these schools in improverished areas, which more experienced teachers tend to avoid. “Any principal wants a mix of new and experienced teachers, you don’t want any schools skewed,” said John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access and the University of California, Los Angeles . “You need a set of measures to keep teachers at a school. If they had done this, seniority-based layoffs wouldn’t have been an issue.” With the recession spurring teacher reductions across the nation, the issue of how layoffs are determined has become especially contentious. Teachers’ unions have fiercely opposed most moves to change seniority policies to a system based on performance and other factors. Some education reformers lauded the proposed settlement because it seeks to correct the root problem: a lack of ways to keep more experienced teachers at schools, which leads to high turnover and thus staffs largely new to the profession. “The reform train is moving,” said Emily Cohen, district policy director of National Council of Teacher Quality. “Districts aren’t as afraid of unions anymore.” But the city’s teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, said it would be meeting with the school board and the ACLU to review the terms of the proposed settlement and to voice its objections. “When the district makes a long-term policy that’s detrimental to students, we are obligated to challenge it,” it said. The settlement shields teachers from layoffs at the city’s 25 lowest ranking schools according to the Academic Performance Index, a state score based on standardized tests, and another 20 chronically underperforming schools showing improvement, with the idea being that layoffs would set back advancement at these schools instead of boosting them, said LAUSD Deputy Superintendent John Deasy. Other schools would not be disproportionately affected because layoffs will be capped at the district average for each school. The union said it was concerned that the agreement would leave low-performing schools with a higher concentration of less experienced teachers. It also said “state law already gives schools districts flexibility in layoff procedures to best meet the needs of students” and “the settlement does nothing to solve ongoing staffing problems at hard-to-staff schools.” California is one of a handful of states where seniority-based teacher layoffs are mandated by law. LAUSD’s settlement takes advantage of a loophole that allows seniority to be circumvented to meet special staffing needs and to meet the state constitutional right to a fair and adequate education. Seniority-based layoffs are especially thorny in urban districts, where teachers often burn out early at tough, inner-city schools. In Connecticut, the Hartford Public School System has asked the state board of education to change the seniority-driven layoff mandate because the young teaching staffs at its schools in high-povery areas are being decimated. The teachers union has accused the district of “union-busting.” The issue “focuses the question on whether these students are less deserving of a stable set of teachers than students in a more affluent school,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU. “It’s about fairness and equality.” The “last hired, first fired” layoff model has long been a sacred cow for the vast majority of teachers’ unions. In a study earlier this year, the National Council on Teacher Quality found that of 100 large school districts, only 25 considered factors other than seniority in teacher layoffs. In 16 districts, performance carries more weight than seniority. Two bills to eliminate seniority-based layoffs in California died in the past year. Moves in other states have succeeded: Arizona approved a law prohibiting seniority-based layoffs, while Rhode Island said layoffs at low-performing schools must be determined by school need, not seniority. Analysts said LAUSD’s settlement is important because it will give other districts a model to follow. “It’s a good compromise,” said Cohen, of the National Council on Teacher Quality in Washington, D.C. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona’s education chief says the federal government has launched an investigation into whether the state discriminates against teachers who are nonnative English speakers. The probe was launched by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education. It’s the most recent of several federal investigations aimed at Arizona, which has been in the spotlight for its law targeting illegal immigrants, Senate Bill 1070. “It may be that the Senate Bill 1070 issue is causing some sort of campaign, I don’t know, by the federal government against Arizona,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told The Arizona Republic . The state Department of Education for years has been monitoring the fluency of teachers who instruct English learners. In April, the education department began instructing districts to fire teachers who weren’t proficient in English. Federal officials disclosed the investigation in a letter to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Horne said. Justice Department spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa in Washington, D.C. declined comment to The Associated Press on Wednesday. The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Horne predicted the federal agencies will conclude the state has done nothing wrong. “I’m sure they’re going to find everything is fine,” Horne said. “Teachers who are teaching English need to be fluent in English, and if kids can understand what they’re saying, it’s not an issue.” The state Department of Education has pushed a get-tough attitude on teachers who lack basic English skills or whose grammar is considered so poor that it could detract from a child’s ability to learn. Critics say the policy could eliminate talented teachers who have a positive influence on students struggling to learn English. Some believe the Arizona Department of Education singled out Latino teachers when it audited classes taught by bilingual teachers, criticizing them for pronunciation, grammar and not speaking English well. 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

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.

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York spent $17,173 per student for public education in 2007-08, more than any other state and 67% more than the U.S. average, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Monday. The $10,259 national average — $6,914 less than New York — was a 6.1% increase over 2006-07, the Census Bureau said. New York’s spending went up 7.4% over the two years. New York’s per-student spending was highest in 2006-07 too at $15,981 per student, and the national average was $9,666. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia spent more than $10,259 and 32 spent less in the 2007-08 school year. States and state equivalents that came close to New York’s spending per student in 2007-08 were New Jersey ($16,491), Alaska ($14,630), the District of Columbia ($14,594), Vermont ($14,300) and Connecticut ($13,848), the Census Bureau found. At the other end of the spectrum were Utah ($5,765), Idaho ($6,931), Arizona ($7,608), Oklahoma ($7,685) and Tennessee ($7,739). Public education is the single largest category of all state and local government expenditures, Lisa Blumerman, chief of the Census Bureau’s Governments Division, said in a statement. In New York, lawmakers and Gov. David Paterson have been considering placing a cap on how much school-district expenses can increase each year as a way of providing property-tax relief to strapped homeowners. The amount of property taxes that went to New York education in 2007-08 was $14.8 billion, compared to $14.1 billion in 2006-07, the Census Bureau said. Paterson and lawmakers are also fighting over how much aid to provide to schools. Members of the Assembly and Senate said they plan to pass a joint budget that restores $600 million of the governor’s proposed $1.4 billion school-aid cut. The governor’s revised budget proposal would restore $300 million of the $1.4 billion cut. Public schools nationally spent $593.2 billion in 2007-08, a 6% jump over the previous year, the census report said. Total funding that public-school systems received in 2008 was $582.1 billion, 4.5% more than in 2006-07. State governments’ portion of that totaled 48.3% and local governments contributed 43.7%. The remaining 8.1% came from federal sources, the report said. In New York, state government’s portion was 45.4% in 2007-08, and local governments contributed 48.7% of the total, with 5.9% from federal sources. The spread in 2006-07 was 45.2% from the state, 48.4% from local governments and 6.5% from federal sources. Outstanding debt at the end of the 2006-07 fiscal year was $28.7 billion in New York, and it increased to $29.5 billion the following year, census statistics show. The amount of revenue New York received from the federal government dropped from one year to the next — from $3.3 billion to $3.1 billion. The report was compiled based on data from all 15,569 public-school districts around the U.S. Other highlights in the 2007-08 report: • School districts’ debt totaled $377.4 billion, a 7.9% increase. • The largest single category of spending was for instructional salaries, which were $203.5 billion, 40.2% of the total. • Louisiana had the highest percentage of public-school funding from the federal government at 16.8%, followed by Mississippi (16%) and South Dakota (15.2%). The lowest percentages were in New Jersey (3.9%), Connecticut (4.2%) and Massachusetts (5.1%). • Vermont had the highest percentage of state-government funding at 88.5%, followed by 84.8% in Hawaii, where state government runs elementary and secondary education. States with the lowest percentages of funding from state government were Nebraska (33%), South Dakota (33.2%) and Illinois (33.8%). • States with the highest percentage of local-government funding were Illinois (58.2%), Nebraska (57.3%) and Connecticut (57.3%). The lowest were Hawaii (3%), Vermont (5%) and Arkansas (13.4%). • Nearly 64% of revenue for public education from local sources came from property taxes. 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 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.

Cam Holmes graduated from Tulsa Community College on Friday – and she says that, but for a program created three years ago, she never would have done so. In 2007, the year she graduated from high school, Tulsa Community College created Tulsa Achieves , which waives tuition for many local residents. That year, Holmes was among 1,357 first-time freshmen from local high schools who participated. Overall, first-time freshmen enrollment at the college rose by nearly 400 students from the year prior. College officials attribute this steep enrollment growth to the program, arguing that it has attracted many students to the college who otherwise would not have considered it an option for them. TUITION-FREE: Military, engineering, specialty colleges stand ground against costs BEST VALUE COLLEGES: Top 100 for 2010 “I didn’t know where I wanted to go to college or even if I could have gone to college,” said Holmes, 21. “My G.P.A. wasn’t that high, and I just didn’t apply myself in the way that I do now.” Holmes credits Tulsa Achieves with giving her direction – she plans to transfer to Oklahoma State University in the fall, and to major in broadcast journalism – as well as the finances to afford her first two years of college. She already qualified for Pell Grants, but Tulsa Achieves took care of the remainder of her costs. She said that the program has changed some of her neighbors’ mindsets about attending college. “Some of them feel a different attitude about college and importance of it,” Holmes said. “I know I’ve talked to some people who are new to the program, and they kind of had the same situation I had – people came out of high school not knowing what they want to do.” At a time when community colleges are being urged to attract and to graduate more students, Tulsa Achieves suggests that price matters — even with relatively low-cost institutions. But it also shows that community colleges may be able to waive tuition for many students without breaking the bank. Through a mixture of financial aid, private donations and state support, college officials say they have found a way to make up for the tuition these students would have paid, all while providing access for hundreds more students, boosting retention rates and further diversifying their campus. While tuition at the college – about $1,100 for a full-time semester of four courses – is relatively low, the effort suggests not only that there may be a critical mass of students for whom any tuition may be a hindrance but also that these students can succeed. ON THE WEB: Honors programs booming at 2-year colleges INSIDE HIGHER ED: Community colleges offer classes in ‘graveyard shift’ The college is the largest two-year institution in Oklahoma, serving about 27,000 students per semester. After state and federal financial aid is applied, the “gap-funding program” pays any remaining tuition balance for up to 63 credit hours for eligible students. Only Tulsa residents who graduate from a public or private high school or home school with a 2.0 grade point average qualify. To maintain Tulsa Achieves funding, students must retain county residency, take an orientation class within their first year, complete 40 hours of volunteer service each academic year and stay in “good academic standing.” They must earn at least a 1.7 GPA when they have 30 credit hours or less and at least a 2.0 GPA when they have 31 credit hours or more. Furthermore, they must complete at least three credit hours each semester and complete at least 70% of all of their attempted coursework. The requirements reflect a number of the hot ideas in the discussion about community colleges’ “completion agenda”: that many students need to be taught to study, that efforts to connect students to the college in multiple ways are key to retention, and that avoiding missed semesters is key. Localized programs that help high school students cover the cost of college tuition, like Tulsa Achieves, are not new. For example, Kalamazoo Promise , a program in Michigan that is funded by a small group of anonymous donors, has helped more than 1,100 of the city’s public school graduates pay their tuition at any institution in the state since it began in 2005. Despite the success of such privately funded ventures, it is often hard for public entities such as local governments or colleges to establish and maintain similar tuition-waiver programs. Voters in Davenport, Iowa, for instance, rejected a program last year that would have given each of the city’s high school graduates a lump sum of $20,000 for use at any college or university of their choosing. Tulsa Community College officials said, however, that they have found such an effort affordable. To help maximize federal and state aid awards before institutional funds are used to pay for tuition, Tulsa Achieves students are required to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Aside from this aid, the cost of Tulsa Achieves is kept down by students who qualify for Oklahoma’s Promise , a statewide program that waives public college tuition for those who come from families that earn less than $50,000 a year. The effort led to an immediate gain in Pell Grant funds, which increased by 50% in the program’s first year, to $450,000 — as more students enrolled and more applied for aid. Overall, the college is only paying full tuition for about 37% of those who enroll through the program. “The projections were on target,” said Tom McKeon, college president. “One of the primary reasons we’ve been able to do this is we’re one of only three community colleges in Oklahoma that receive local money. … And our tax base is large; we have 14 independent school districts. Local funding makes up a third of our operating budget. … That gave us a lot of flexibility. We feel we’re giving back to a county that’s been supporting us for 35 years.” This year, McKeon noted, Tulsa Achieves cost the college $4.6 million, less than 6% of its operational budget. He said that this is “considerably less” than other community colleges in his state offer in scholarships. The local community has embraced Tulsa Achieves to such a degree, McKeon noted, that local residents and business owners have helped the college raise nearly $1.2 million for a “textbook trust.” In this way, deserving students can also have their textbooks paid for without having to dip any further into institutional funds. McKeon believes the college’s financial planning for the program will keep it around for a long time. “We’re committed to our promise,” McKeon said. “It’s not created a financial hardship for our institution, even in the midst of this recession; we’ve had to cut our budgets just like everyone else. But we’re seeing improvement out there; house prices are steady and unemployment is going down.” Matt Short, college financial aid director, sees other benefits. For example, he noted that the college’s annual loan volume decreased by nearly 1,000 loans when it launched Tulsa Achieves and that “is almost certainly correlated very closely to the 1,300 odd freshmen that did not have loans packaged on their awards that year for the first time.” Lauren Brookey, college spokeswoman, noted that, since the program started, its 4,342 participating students have completed more than 92,000 hours in community service. She added that the Tulsa Achieves has also helped the college reach out to minority and other “underserved” students. “We call this the ‘no excuses scholarship,’ ” Brookey said. “It helps spread the word and get more people to go to college. The simplicity of the program, we think, makes it easy for us to tell students that they have no reason not to go to college.” Tracey Medina, for example, is the first in her family to go to college, and she credits Tulsa Achieves with getting her there. “My parents told me that they would help me as much as they could, but they didn’t think it was going to be possible to pay for college,” the 19-year-old said. “Now that I’m here, they are very proud of me because I’m a first-generation college student and I’m helping other students enroll at the school. The rest of my family, especially my nieces and nephews, really look up to me now and always ask me all about college.” Tulsa Achieves has already influenced the creation of another program in Knoxville, Tennessee called knoxAchieves , which will give 500 Knox County public high school graduates up to $3,000 annually for community college tuition. McKeon also said that he has heard from some elected officials in his state of Oklahoma, who have ambitions of creating a statewide program.

Two Connecticut high school students whose district voted to hold June commencement for two high schools at an area megachurch are suing the district, saying the arrangement “coerces students and parents to receive the overwhelming religious message” of the church as the price of attending “a seminal event in their lives.” The lawsuit, filed Wednesday on behalf of two unidentified students and three of their parents by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State , says the arrangement violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause as well as the state Constitution. The Enfield, Conn ., school board on April 13 reversed a previous decision not to hold commencement ceremonies at The First Cathedral, a Baptist megachurch in nearby Bloomfield. A handful of other Connecticut districts that had been planning graduation ceremonies there changed their plans last year after the ACLU threatened to sue. The lawsuit says the two Enfield High School seniors “do not subscribe to the Christian religion, and they would be deeply uncomfortable attending graduation in the Cathedral’s religious environment.” They want a judge to stop the graduations from taking place there. Vincent McCarthy, the school board’s attorney, said he had planned to meet with the plaintiffs’ attorneys. He noted that the church’s bishop was willing to cover up religious banners that are visible in the sanctuary. “Basically I told them that the case was settleable and that all of their complaints would be addressed,” McCarthy said. “But they went ahead anyway.” The complaint says that in addition to the church’s “obvious religious messages and symbols,” virtually every aspect of its architecture “has religious significance,” including a lower level that represents Earth, a middle level that represents heaven and a cupola that represents “the throne room of heaven, where God is.” McCarthy said the plaintiffs are “basically seeing things that the very designer of the church says were never intended. … There’s so much of it that’s just plain false that it’s hard to respond to.” The complaint is online at au.org/media/press-releases/archives/2010/05/au-aclu-enfield-complaint.pdf.