Literacy Expert Louisa Moats Draws Over 200 Teachers From Across the State

American College of Education announces that more than 200 Indiana reading and literacy teachers attended a professional development conference at the Indianapolis Convention Center on Oct. 24 featuring literacy expert Louisa Moats, Ed.D. The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) and Wilson Education Center collaborated with the online college in sponsoring the day-long program, “Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science.”

Dr. Moats, founder of the LETRS(R) (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) Louisa Moats Literacy Academy, discussed code-based instruction, spelling phonology and teaching vocabulary, basing her presentation on Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR) and real-world experience.

Support for improved teaching methods includes statistics showing that 11 to 17 percent of children are affected by dyslexia, nearly 40 percent of fourth graders are at the national “below basic” reading level, and up to 80 percent of high poverty students are at risk of failing.

Recent data from the College Board further stresses the need for advances in teaching reading, reporting that scores on the critical reading portion of the 2011 SAT college entrance exam resulted in the lowest level on record. The cohort of test takers was the largest and most diverse in history.

“Teachers from across the state of Indiana were engrossed in the depth of Dr. Moats’ knowledge and her research-based presentation,” said Sandra J. Doran, J.D., president of American College of Education. “Her enthusiasm and commitment to enhanced teaching of reading and comprehension skills based on common core standards encouraged many teachers seeking to improve their students’ success.”

K-6 reading teachers have the opportunity to enroll in “The Foundations of Reading Instruction,” a five-week, graduate-level, online professional development course offered by American College of Education. Designed by Dr. Moats the course begins on November 28 and is the first in a new course sequence leading to a Master’s in Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a Louisa Moats Literacy Concentration. Teachers may enroll at http://wesc.k12.in.us/fotr.htm by November 21. For more information about this course and other graduate-level courses offered by American College of Education, visit American College of Education live chat or call 1-800.280.0307.

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About American College of Education: The mission of American College of Education is to deliver affordable, online degree programs that provide evidence-based content and relevant experiences to improve educators’ knowledge, skills and performance. American College of Education is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC/NCA). www.ace.edu

Specifically, the plan is to move away from the No Child Left Behind Act, including provisions to circumvent the act’s 2014 deadline for nationwide academic proficiency. Other requirements, such as preparing students for post-high school plans and creating evaluative benchmarks for teachers, are required for the waiver to be accepted.

We at Student Life support this plan. The American education system needs a serious overhaul. As students and soon-to-be graduates, we understand the value of a good education. We would, however, like to propose a few changes that we hope to see.

We realize that testing will never be the best indicator of academic performance. The ability to fill in bubbles on a Scantron does not necessarily indicate critical thinking skills or academic potential. However, as an indicator of performance overall, the tests do have merit and standardized testing is the only way to track student performance on a large scale. But, we believe standardized testing can be improved significantly. One of those improvements can be requiring testing on more subjects.

At Wash. U., pre-meds and English majors alike understand the importance of a solid science-based education. Tests should evaluate basic knowledge of the sciences because with science education comes innovation and global influence. The American Jobs Act will create new science labs in schools across the country, hopefully improving science curriculum and fostering future advances. No Child Left Behind should put the same emphasis on science.

The president consistently says that the U.S. needs to be better at math and science, but No Child Left Behind requires testing only on math and reading. The country would be better served if education funding for school districts was linked to the sciences as well.

While we recognize that widespread change cannot come from the president alone, he can only do so much with an executive order. While his changes will hopefully bring a beneficial change to the law, a real overhaul is needed in Congress to repair our failing schools. The price to really improve our schools can be incredibly daunting, but we have to keep in mind the future payoff. A country with a better-educated populace is more likely to compete, and more likely to grow. As students, we should bear in mind how imperative a good education is not only to individual success, but also to the success of America as a whole. The economy might be the top concern on everyone’s minds in the next election, but if you look past the next five years, the education and the economy are inextricably linked.

Teachers and their supporters gathered near the White House on Saturday afternoon to chant, cheer, and march for a variety of changes they hope to see in public schools—most notably, a 180-degree shift away from standards- and testing-based accountability.

Aside from that message, those who attended the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action in the scalding sun preached everything from boosting support for teachers’ unions, to booting U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to getting more federal money for low-income schoolchildren. Student poverty was repeatedly cited as the most pressing problem in public schools.

The more than two hours of speeches and hourlong march, along with other related events, were organized by teachers and teacher-educators who say they are fed up with test-driven accountability for schools—and, increasingly, for teachers. Speakers ranged from such prominent education authors as Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch to the actor Matt Damon.

Organizers estimated the size of the crowd at 5,000, but a rough count by Education Week put it closer to 3,000. Before the event, organizers had said they were expecting 5,000 to 10,000 people.

The gathering, according to the organizers, was aimed at sending a message to national and state policymakers about its participants’ disgust with those policies and to highlight their own principles for improving public education. Members have created a series of position papers outlining the loosely organized group’s views on high-stakes testing, equitable school funding, unions and collective bargaining, and changes to curriculum.

For the most part, those aren’t formal policy prescriptions, and no stronger positions emerged from the rally Saturday. However, policy proposals aren’t necessarily among the organizers’ goals.

“What we’re talking about is creating the right conditions, not prescriptive policies,” said Sabrina Stevens Shupe, a former teacher in Denver who has turned full-time activist and was one of the event’s leaders. “There’s no one silver bullet that’s going to save anything,” she added, referring to attempts to craft education reforms over the past 30 years.

Patrick McCarthy, an 11th grade English teacher from Woodstock, Va., said he is tired of devoting weeks of the school year to preparing students for standardized tests. If he had his way, students would instead spend that time writing more, and improving their writing and critical-thinking skills.

“I’m so tired of hearing teachers are the bad guys,” said Mr. McCarthy, who will start his 17th year as a teacher later this year.

The July 30 event appeared to foster a feeling of solidarity among teachers from across the country who say they have felt under attack. Teachers from Central Falls, R.I., where a move for wholesale replacement of the district high school’s staff drew headlines last year, and from Wisconsin, where a new state law curbed collective bargaining rights for most public employees, made a point of attending. However, not everyone present could pretend to be likeminded on every issue.

Raquel Maya, a graduate student studying elementary education at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, said she understands the arguments against merit pay for teachers—a policy measure that many teachers oppose. Her mother is a longtime elementary school teacher who Ms. Maya said has lost some of her passion.

“But you do need accountability” for student achievement, and testing provides that, she said.

The four-day Save Our Schools gathering also attracted hundreds of teachers and parents to American University on July 28-29 for a series of workshops and seminars about fostering activism and engaging parents, among other topics.

Some of the organizers’ methods during their stay in Washington have been unorthodox. On Wednesday, for example, they created an art installation of 50 dolls, each inside its own cardboard box to represent teachers’ feeling of being boxed in, and placed it outside the U.S. Department of Education headquarters. The move earned them an invitation to speak with Secretary Duncan and members of his staff.

However, the organizers rebuffed an overture from the White House. Although they have denounced the No Child Left Behind Act and the Obama administration’s continued emphasis on high-stakes testing, organizers declined an invitation to meet on Friday with Roberto Rodriguez, a White House education adviser. Organizers cited a busy schedule and instead urged members of the administration to observe and join the march.

Kelle Stewart, a 1st grade teacher from Portsmouth, Va., said she attended in part because five years of teaching exclusively in Title I schools had led her to believe the money spent on testing could be put to better use. In addition, she said that not enough teachers and parents are a part of the debate about education reform, and that the Save Our Schools movement is an opportunity to correct that.

“As teachers, this is a chance for us to model appropriate behavior and how to disagree with each other respectfully,” she said. “We want to encourage healthy debate—it only makes for a richer discussion. That’s a democratic guiding principle, and we have a chance to reiterate that to our students.”

She said had it been her choice, the event organizers would have taken up the White House on its meeting invitation.

“We have to compromise,” she said. “We have to work together.”

The movement has also been the subject of criticism, most notably from the Center for Education Reform, a Washington-based advocacy group for charter schools and other forms of school choice. The center took issue with the SOS group’s call for additional federal money for schools but less prescriptive accountability and testing requirements.

The SOS coalition “advocates for the status quo, and reform to them is about money, control, and no high-stakes tests or accountability,” Jeanne Allen, the center’s president, said in a statement. “SOS is about deforming education, not reforming it. They put up the guise that this is for the families and students, but in truth, these groups want to restrict and remove any power parents have in their child’s education.”

Testing Targeted
On Saturday, another art installation set up at the rally involved several tombstones, each inscribed with a message noting the deaths of imagination, creativity, joy, freedom, and critical thinking, among others. The cause of death for all of them? They were killed by high-stakes testing, in the opinion of the organizers.

Mr. Damon, the actor and Academy Award-winning screenwriter, told the crowd that his strengths and talents couldn’t be measured by any test, and that his mother, an early-education professor, had made sure he didn’t take any standardized exams.

“My mom went to the principal and said: ‘It’s stupid. It won’t tell you anything. It will just make him nervous,’ ” he told the star-struck audience. His imagination and love of acting came from the way he was taught, he said.

“None of these qualities that make me who I am can be tested,” Mr. Damon said, then went on to pay tribute to the crowd.

“There are millions of us behind you. Our appreciation for you is deeply felt,” he said. “We love you, and we will always have your back.”

The event also drew the endorsements of others in the entertainment world, including the actor Richard Dreyfuss and the comedian Jon Stewart. Mr. Stewart, who recorded a video aired during Saturday’s rally, joked that he couldn’t attend in person because a dog ate his car.

Events around the country were organized in state capitals to coincide with the march in Washington for those who supported the cause but couldn’t travel so far. Still, marchers in person Saturday included teachers and supporters from at least as far away as California, Idaho, and Texas.

The marchers sported megaphones and signs as they stopped traffic, at one point drawing cheers from protestors who were denouncing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The SOS crowd carried a collection of signs that read “Wisconsin is the canary in the coal mine,” “Build Schools Not Bombs,” and “A Charter School is Not Superman”—the last a dig at the 2010 documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” which many educators have criticized as denigrating regular public schools.

“High-stakes has got to go! Hey-hey! Ho-ho!” some of the crowd chanted.

Support From Unions
The Save Our Schools movement began with a small group of teachers, including former Connecticut teacher Jesse Turner, now the director of the Literacy Center at Central Connecticut State University, who walked from Connecticut to the nation’s capital last August to protest the No Child Left Behind law and the Race to the Top, the Obama administration’s signature school improvement competition.

The Save Our Schools efforts predated actions by state legislatures across the country this spring to curb teachers’ collective bargaining powers and tenure, said Bess Altwerger, a member of the movement’s organizing committee, who hosted a reception for Mr. Turner last summer. The attacks on unions and collective bargaining further galvanized the group, however, and eventually both national teachers’ unions threw their support behind the Save Our Schools effort.

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have donated about $25,000 each to the effort, although most of the rest of the donations have come from one-time gifts provided through the Save Our Schools website, according to organizers. Conference organizers estimated that they’d raised over $125,000 in all. After this weekend, they will have to begin fundraising efforts anew to keep their work going.

Another large donation came from Ms. Ravitch, the education historian, who said she contributed $20,000 she won for the 2011 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize. Ms. Ravitch, who co-writes an opinion blog for Education Week; Mr. Kozol, a former teacher who has written extensively about educational inequities; and the educator and school reformer Deborah Meier, who blogs with Ms. Ravitch, were among those who spoke at the July 30 rally as well as during the conference at American University.

The SOS group will wrap up its gathering with a closed-door meeting Sunday, at which participants will try to determine how to keep the momentum from the rally going. Movement organizers haven’t disclosed the meeting’s location, and it is not open to the press.

Elaine Mulligan, a former special education teacher who is now working on a federally funded technical-assistance project in special education, attended even though she is unsure whether the event will have any long-term effect.

But it’s a start, she said, noting that she brought a friend who doesn’t pay attention to education issues.

“I don’t think it will work. I think it’s incremental, and I have to do what I can,” she said. “Maybe [my friend] will tell someone, and maybe they’ll tell someone. I hope that everybody does the same thing.” Via

Virtual schools allow students to obtain or complete their education using modern technology such as the Internet. They are not for everyone but are another tool educators now have available to achieve the goal of an educated population. Virtual schools recognize the need to focus on learning outcomes regardless of how education is delivered.

Traditional one-size-fits-all teacher/classroom public education is as antiquated as the one-room schoolhouse. Modern public education has been evolving for a number of years, though it isn’t recognized as such by many people who are not educators.

In Jackson-Madison County, the public education system already is comprised of a number of specialized magnet schools that offer unique education opportunities. High schools offer dual-credit college courses that can give students a head start on higher education. A new Bridge Academy was established to accommodate non-traditional students. Pre-kindergarten classes are available throughout the school system to help prepare at-risk children for learning. Special programs exist to help special-needs students and students with advanced learning capabilities. The school system has an alternative school for students with discipline problems, though it still does not fully meet their needs.

Another development is a proposal to reconfigure the school system’s middle schools to address the special needs of those students. Research has shown that this age group is where many students begin to lag behind. Addressing their specific needs is a hallmark of modern, flexible, public education.

While not exactly public education, home-schooling programs exist to allow parents another alternative to educate their children. These programs meet state public education requirements and often are partly integrated with local public school activities.

Traditional classroom education still meets needs of many students. Increasingly, however, other alternatives are called for to help today’s students and families meet the challenges of a rapidly changing, high-tech world. Public education, too, must adapt to these needs with innovation and creative thinking. This calls for public education administrators, teachers and parents who embrace change. It also calls for public support as new methods are adapted and new ideas are experimented with.

The goal of public education is to turn out students prepared to meet a rapidly changing future. How we get them there is not as important as reaching the final destination.

A senior academic at Abertay University may be one of the first to test the laws surrounding the abolition of forced retirement, after he rejected claims by his employer that he had retired.

Professor Bernard King, principal of Abertay University, denied he had retired after an e-mail was sent to staff announcing the news.

The university said that King had been notified of his impending retirement in December last year, after his 65th birthday, well ahead of the 6 April 2011 deadline for forced retirements. Abertay insist that King’s retirement was due to start on 1st July.

However, the professor, who was suspended earlier this year after a row about whether to extend his employment contract, has alleged his employer discriminated against him because of his age.

In a statement from his solicitors, King said he had “not accepted” the email referring to his retirement and that he has started employment tribunal proceedings.

The statement said: “His position is that he has not retired and he remains in dispute with the university over the terms of an extension of contract agreed with the university last year.

“The principal’s claims of age discrimination and whistle-blowing in relation to actions taken to address allegations of bullying and intimidation of members of staff remain the subject of employment tribunal proceedings which will take place later this year.”

The solicitors handling the case have advised him that the university’s current actions were “both unfair and unlawful”.

However, Geoffrey Mead, partner at law firm Eversheds, told PM: “If the employer issued the dismissal notice before the April 6 deadline and the person has reached the age of 65 by the September deadline this year then that dismissal is not unlawful.

“Compulsory retirement of employees [before the abolition deadline], if employers follow the correct procedures, is lawful and the forced retirement would still stand. If he is simply saying that this is age discrimination I can’t see how he will succeed.”

Mead explained that King can “only make a request to stay on” after a compulsory retirement notice, which the employer can still refuse.

An Abertay University spokesman said: “Our position remains that Professor King’s retirement took effect on Friday 1 July and that we will not comment on current unresolved issues relating to his former employment.

“However, we would like to make it clear that Professor King was first given notice of his retirement date in early December, and the university has sent further correspondence since that date about various aspects of his retirement.

“The latest statement – which we only heard about through the media – is the first intimation we have had of Professor King’s clarification of his position relative to his retirement. We welcome the commitment made by his lawyers to the desirability of continued negotiation so as to avoid further legal proceedings.”

Using brain scans, a team of UC San Francisco researchers have discovered that people over age 60 are less agile in switching from one neural network to another — which means that brief attention-grabbing interruptions can undermine their ability to recall the original task.

“A lot of us feel the need to respond really rapidly to an email or text message,” said Dr. Adam Gazzaley, director of the UCSF Neuroscience Imaging Center and senior author of the study, which was published in Monday’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If we stop what we’re doing to send a reply, Gazzaley says, “there may be a price to be paid.”

While others have observed that aging adults experience difficulty completing a task after a distraction, no one had explored neurological science to learn why.

The problem is central to daily life as increasing numbers of digital distractions — such as electronic messages, alerts and feeds — demand our attention, interrupting the process of retaining information from deep learning.

The topic has growing relevance “especially as older adults stay in the workplace later “… and the societal expectations increase about how quickly we should respond” to interruptions, Gazzaley said.

In the study, the UCSF team compared two groups of healthy people, one averaging 24.5 years in age and the other averaging 69 years. Using “functional magnetic resonance imaging,” which reveals the activity of different neural networks, the team tracked and compared the blood flow in the participants’ brains.

Both groups were asked to view a natural scene, and hold it in mind for 14 seconds. But in the middle, an interruption occurred: a face popped onto the screen, and participants were asked to identify its sex and age. Then they were asked to recall the original scene.

Older people had more difficulty than younger people in maintaining the memory of the original image.

The brain scans showed why: Younger subjects could quickly disengage from the original image, respond to the interruption and then refocus their memory back onto the original scene. But older adults failed both to disengage from the interruption and re-establish the memory of the original scene. They continued to process the interrupted — and irrelevant — information, rather than suppress or forget it.

What’s to blame is not merely the memory, a problem familiar to many older adults, said Gazzaley.

Rather, it’s an impairment of the ability to shift between two neural networks: one for attention, and the other for memory.

“The impact of distractions and interruptions reveals the fragility of ‘working memory,’ ” he said.

Scientists speculate that the prefrontal cortex, which shrinks in volume as we age, may hinder the ability of the brain to “switch tracks” with agility.

It’s known that the brain retains a certain amount of plasticity in life — that is, it can be trained to respond to a faster pace. So there may be generational differences in our ability to multitask simply because younger people have more practice in handling interruptions, Gazzaley said. If so, perhaps older adults could be trained to better handle distractions, he said.

“We think that multitasking is a good thing, because it makes us more efficient,” he said.

“But this data suggests that performance declines when engaging in more than one thing at a time.”

Effective Jan. 1, 2012, new regulations will establish more accountability on the behalf of insurance providers. Because University-sponsored insurance is mandatory for students, these new regulations will not affect students’ ability to obtain health insurance coverage.

In smaller ways, students may experience some benefits.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, insurance companies will not be allowed to levy lifetime coverage limits on student health plans, drop students’ coverage when a student becomes ill but has an error on an application, or deny coverage to students who are younger than 19 and have pre-existing conditions.

Before the health care law was enacted, many students were covered only under their parents’ plans until they were 21 years old, but the new act allows them to stay on until age 26. This means Washington University students will be able to use their parents’ insurance as secondary coverage in addition to the University-sponsored plan.

Virginia Wells, director of the health center at the College of William & Mary, a public university in Williamsburg, Va., attested to the health care law’s measurable benefits.

“When students require hospitalization or specialty care away from the confines of the University Health Center, their parents’ health plan becomes their secondary coverage, which helps offset the charges which may have exceeded the limits of their primary plan,” Wells said. “Before the affordable health care act, undergraduate and graduate students over the age of 21 would not have the option of this secondary coverage.”

Nearly 3 million college students participate in university-sponsored health plans across the country, according to recent studies, and more than 2,000 colleges and universities collaborate with insurance companies to provide students, faculty and staff with health care.

Washington University partners with Aetna to provide all full-time undergraduate and degree-seeking graduate students with health insurance. Some provisions included in the student health plan are a $500,000-per-year maximum, a $350 preferred-care deductible, a $10,000 out-of-pocket maximum and 80 percent coinsurance for covered expenses.

Bradley Stoner, associate professor of anthropology and medicine at Washington University, said that the University student health plan offers standard coverage that is comparable to insurance available to the general public.

“For a young, healthy student body, these kinds of limits and coverage should be pretty good,” he said.

According to Alan Glass, assistant vice chancellor and director of the Habif Health and Wellness Center, the University anticipates few significant changes to the student health insurance program for the 2011-2012 academic year.

For the 2010-2011 school year, the student health fee is $575. According to the Student Health Services website, this fee covers the Aetna health insurance policy, care and services rendered at the health center and the equipment used to treat patients. The insurance premium makes up 70 to 75 percent of the student health fee. The premium is guaranteed to remain the same despite projected increases in the student health fee.

“The student health fee for 2011-2012 will be no higher than $632 for the basic student plan,” Glass wrote in an e-mail to Student Life.

Earlier this year, University of Washington alumni formed a group, UW Impact, to push for more funding for the university. Both Washington State University and Western Washington University are following suit with groups of their own.

The newest group, the College Promise Coalition, was announced Tuesday. It’s an umbrella group that includes public colleges and universities, faculty and student groups, business leaders and education organizations. “This is a broader statewide coalition that will help play a coordinating role” among all the different groups, said spokesman Sandeep Kaushik.

The coalition plans to hold events and rallies in Olympia during the legislative session, Kaushik said, and “make some noise about higher education” and the cutbacks the state’s institutions face.

The coalition is concerned that Gov. Chris Gregoire is downplaying the size of the cuts to higher education proposed in her budget, Kaushik said. Gregoire has said her cuts would trim higher education by 4.2 percent, when tuition increases are taken into consideration.

The coalition says the cutbacks are closer to 8 to 12 percent. The higher number includes a proposed 3 percent salary reduction for state employees, and a proposal that would shift the burden of funding faculty and staff retirement plans to the colleges and universities.

It is National Heart Month, a perfect time to show your own heart some love. It is imperative that you know how to follow a heart-healthy lifestyle and try to avoid heart disease. That is best for you and all those who love you.

Heart disease, including stroke, is the No. 1 killer of both men and women.

The more risk factors you have, the greater the chance you will develop heart disease. The probability goes up with physical inactivity, smoking, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

The good news is you can reduce risk through lifestyle changes. Try to follow what the American Heart Association calls Life’s Simple 7:

1. Don’t smoke.
2. Do at least 150 minutes of physical activity each week.
3. Meet the healthy diet requirements of the American Heart Association.
4. Have a total cholesterol of less than 200.
5. Have a blood pressure below 120/80.
6. Have a fasting blood glucose level less than 100.
7. Achieve a body mass index of lower than 25.

There are plenty of good things to achieve — besides getting a chance back at life. Lots of delicious foods with plenty of good taste are ready to be eaten: lean meats, low-fat dairy products and whole grains. Seasonings beyond salt, like life-preserving spices, also give flavor. In the cold months when many fresh fruits and vegetables are not in season, canned or frozen ones hold all the nutrition of those recently picked.

If prevention does not go far enough, it is wise to know the signs and symptoms of a cardiovascular event.

The five major symptoms of a heart attack are pain or discomfort in the jaw, neck or back; feeling weak or faint; chest pain; pain in arms or shoulder, and shortness of breath. Someone having a stroke may have numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg; be confused; have trouble speaking, seeing or walking; dizziness, and loss of balance or coordination.

Any of these signs or symptoms requires emergency care immediately.

It is possible to celebrate Valentine’s Day while being good to your heart. Heart-Healthy No-Bake Cookies provide a treat both heart-healthy and delicious, with smart-to-eat fats, antioxidants and fiber that emphasize eating for and with a healthy heart. The recipe, adapted from www.food.com, needs no baking as well.

Beth LaRue, dietetic intern at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Louis, prepared this material in accordance with the guidelines of the American Heart Association.

HEART-HEALTHY NO-BAKE COOKIES

2 tbsp. ground or milled flaxseed
1 cup uncooked quick oats (not instant)
3 tbsp. skim milk
2 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup peanut butter

In large bowl, mix oats and flax.

In small saucepan, heat and stir milk, honey and cocoa powder over high heat until honey and cocoa dissolve. Remove mixture from heat. Stir in vanilla and peanut butter until melted. Stir into oats mixture. Drop by spoonful on waxed paper or plate. Cool at room temperature or in refrigerator.

Makes about 8 cookies; 113 calories, 5g (1 g saturated) fat, 14 g carbohydrate, 4 g protein, 40 MG sodium and 2 g dietary fiber each.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposals to slash state spending on higher education has triggered anxiety across California’s already budget-battered public colleges and universities about possible new waves of staff and faculty layoffs, reductions in class offerings and higher tuition bills.

Administrators said it was too soon to say definitively how they would respond if the Legislature approves the $1.4 billion in proposed state funding cuts for the University of California, California State University and the state’s community college system. But they predicted that daily life at the schools would surely suffer in various ways, including more-crowded classes and less pristine campuses.

“It’s not so much the quality of instruction but the quality of the overall educational experience for these students” that may be affected, said Steve Boilard, higher education director at the state Legislative Analyst’s Office,

Among the most concrete predictions came from California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott, who said the cutbacks will mean, in effect, that about 350,000 students will not be able to enroll in any classes at those 112 schools.

UCLA students go through commencement last June. Even before Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal, UC leaders had decided to raise annual undergraduate tuition for the 2011-12 year by 8%. (Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times / June 10, 2010)

“We just can’t keep doing more with less,” Scott said Tuesday. “This is really sad because we are going to turn away students we would love to educate.”

The governor’s plan also calls for community college fees to rise from $26 per credit unit to $36, which Scott noted would still be among the lowest in the nation.

At Los Angeles City College on Tuesday, psychology student Nela Laveni said higher fees would mean requesting additional hours at her part-time job at an insurance office to continue her schooling.

“That’s the main reason people decide to come here, because it’s so much cheaper,” said Laveni, 18, who is in her first term at the college. “That might be too expensive for me.”

Instructors at the college said they wondered which materials and course offerings would be cut next. Last year, for example, the school’s business department ran out of money for the paper used for teaching and for exams. Now, instructors either buy it with their own money or ask students to bring their own, the teachers said.

Rob Sambrano, who has taught computer and business courses at the college for six years, said the budget cuts and fee increases could keep students from enrolling and improving their job skills during sour economic times.

“A lot of people that are unemployed and looking for work, they’re turning to us to get some skills under their belt and return to the job market,” he said. “And what are we doing? We’re cutting back.”

UC leaders already had decided to raise annual undergraduate tuition for the 2011-12 year by 8%, or $822, to about $11,124, not including campus fees or living costs. That is about triple what it was a decade ago, although financial aid will shield many students from the latest increase.

The university’s regents are not likely to seek an additional tuition increase for the current school year or for the fall unless voters in June reject the governor’s proposal to extend several tax measures, said Patrick J. Lenz, UC’s systemwide vice president for budget. But if the tax plan collapses, he said, “options that may not be very palatable today become more realistic.”

Lenz said it was probably too late in the UC admissions process for enrollment for this fall to be substantially reduced. However, the number of slots for midyear transfer students could be cut, and the freshmen numbers for 2012 might be affected too.

Rather than revive last year’s required furlough days for most faculty and staff, the most likely scenario to cope with the $500-million proposed reduction in state funding for UC’s 10 campuses would be layoffs, he said. And programs deemed not essential to the university’s teaching and research missions “are going to be subject to a great deal of scrutiny and are at jeopardy of being closed.”

At California State University, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said officials would consider reducing enrollment, eliminating classes, laying off staff, furloughing employees and increasing class sizes to address the proposed $500-million loss in state support.

Less likely, Reed said Tuesday, are further tuition increases at the 23-campus university. In November, Cal State trustees approved a 5% increase for winter and spring terms this year and an additional 10% boost for fall 2011. That will bring undergraduate tuition to $4,884, in addition to campus fees that average about $1,000.

Cal State had been ramping up enrollment by 30,000 students for this spring after two years of cuts. The governor’s budget proposal means the system once again is likely to have to restrict enrollment for fall 2011, Reed said.

Overall, the cuts will lead to a lower quality of education for Cal State’s 433,000 students, Reed predicted. “In the end, we won’t be able to provide access to as many students, students will not get the kinds of services and classes and sections they deserve and that they are paying for,” he said.

Via:Los Angeles Times