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BRUSSELS (Reuters Life!) – Young people in the European Union are less likely to finish higher education than those in Canada, Japan or Russia, according to a new study that underscores the need for the EU to invest wisely in education.

The study by the OECD, a club of the world’s largest economies, looked at participation in education among 25-34 year olds and found that in 21 European countries only 34 percent of people, on average, had completed tertiary education.

Korea, Japan, Canada and Russia all had participation rates of more than 50 percent, according to the report, called Education at a Glance 2010 and released this week.

The highest participation rate in the EU was in Ireland, with 45 percent achieving tertiary qualifications.

The findings have broadbased implications for the European Union as the study also shows that unemployment rates among people with a tertiary education are substantially lower than those without higher education, hovering below 4 percent on average as opposed to being above 9 percent.

With unemployment in the European Union stuck at a 12-year high around 10 percent, the relative lack of youth engagement in further education could mean more people staying unemployed for longer, with a knock-on impact on growth.

“Europe cannot risk falling behind in education and training,” said Androulla Vassiliou, the European commissioner for education, culture and youth, welcoming the study as it reinforces her call for greater education investment.

“Improving education and training systems is one of the key tasks for the future and the means to both secure Europe’s economic success and its social cohesion.”

Earlier this year, the EU set out a series of goals for the next decade, including the aim of raising the level of participation in higher education to above 40 percent by 2020.

Next week, Vassiliou’s department will launch an initiative designed to get more young people involved in training, education and on-the-job learning, part of the 2020 plan.

But despite the focus on investment, there is also worrying evidence that the EU’s spending is not producing results as efficiently as other countries — a sign that some of the investment is either mistargeted or misguided.

For example, Japan saw a 2-to-1 relationship between the amount spent on education and a related increase in those graduating from higher education between 1995 and 2007.

A study of 19 of the EU’s 27 countries found the ratio to be 3-to-1, meaning much more had to be spent to get an equivalent increase in the graduation rate. On average, those EU countries spent 5.4 percent of GDP on education, from primary to tertiary.

“Throwing money at the problem” won’t fix it, said Pierre Mairesse, a senior official with the European Commission’s education department, adding that “reforms coupled with investment” were needed to ensure the money translates into a college-educated workforce.

One area for improvement would be greater cooperation among EU universities to eliminate waste, Mairesse said, and more coordination between universities and the private sector to ensure students are learning what they need to make them employable and competitive in the workplace.

(Editing by Luke Baker and Paul Casciato)

EU lags Russia, Korea on higher education: report (Reuters)

EU lags Russia, Korea on higher education: report (Reuters)

“The education and experiences you get extend beyond the walls of the campus,” says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the non-profit American Institute for Economic Research, whose 2010-2011 College Destination Index is out Wednesday.

“Most students and their parents think about location in a vague way. They have a general impression of locales, but they don’t have much solid information, and it’s hard to compare one to another. And that’s what we’re trying to do — so they can get a picture of that,” Lynch says.

The organization identified 222 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 15,000 students, based on U.S. Census Bureau standards, and then chose the top 75. It then ranked cities in four population categories, from the largest metro areas to small college towns. The rankings are based on 12 criteria in three general categories: academic environment (with an eye toward factors such as student diversity and degree attainment), quality of life (arts and leisure, cost of living, etc.) and professional opportunity (such measures as earning potential, unemployment rate, entrepreneurial activity).

The index is “based on objective data that we get from the U.S. Census Bureau or the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the National Science Foundation, so it’s not colored by the schools providing data or by surveys of students and professors,” says Lynch.

The index is free on the organization’s website (aier.org); it also is publishing a companion guide, 2010-2011 College Destinations ($10), which profiles the top 40 cities in the index — 10 in each of the four population categories.

Top 10 major metros areas

(Populations over 2.5 million)

1. San Francisco

2. New York

3. Washington

4. Boston

5. Seattle

6. Baltimore

7. Los Angeles

8. San Diego

9. Minneapolis-St. Paul

10. Philadelphia

Top 10 midsize metros

(Population 1 million to 2.5 million)

1. San Jose

2. Austin

3. Raleigh, N.C.

4. Hartford, Conn.

5. Portland, Ore.

6. Pittsburgh

7. Salt Lake City

8. Rochester. N.Y.

9. Buffalo

10. Nashville

Top 10 small cities

(250,000 to 1 million)

1. Boulder, Colo.

2. Ann Arbor, Mich.

3. Bridgeport, Conn.

4. Trenton-Ewing, N.J.

5. Gainesville, Fla.

6. Madison, Wis.

7. Durham, N.C.

8. Santa Cruz, Calif.

9. Honolulu

10. Fort Collins, Colo.

Top 10 college towns

(under 250,000)

1. Ithaca, N.Y.

2. State College, Pa.

3. Iowa City

4. Ames, Iowa

5. Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

6. Charlottesville, Va.

7. Corvallis, Ore.

8. Bloomington, Ind.

9. Lawrence, Kan.

10. Logan, Utah

Source: American Institute for Economic Research

Best college towns (and cities) ranked

Best college towns (and cities) ranked

NEWARK — Shortly after landing at Malcolm X Shabazz High School as a Teach for America recruit, Dominique D. Lee grew disgusted with a system that produced ninth graders who could not name the seven continents or the governor of their state. He started wondering: What if I were in charge?

In a New Role, Teachers Move to Run Schools

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Jefferson Thomas, who as a teenager was among nine black students to integrate a Little Rock high school in the nation’s first major battle over school segregation, has died. He was 68.

Thomas died Sunday in Ohio of pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from Carlotta Walls LaNier, who also enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and is president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.

The integration fight was a first real test of the federal government’s resolve to enforce a 1954 Supreme Court order outlawing racial segregation in the nation’s public schools. After Gov. Orval Faubus sent National Guard troops to block Thomas and eight other students from entering Central High, President Eisenhower ordered in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

Soldiers stood in the school hallways and escorted each of the nine students as they went from classroom to classroom.

Each of the Little Rock Nine received Congressional Gold Medals shortly after the 40th anniversary of their enrollment. President Clinton presented the medals in 1999 to Thomas, LaNier, Melba Patillo Beals, Minnijean Trickey Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Terrence Roberts and Thelma Mothershed Wair.

In 2008, then President-elect Obama sent Thomas and other members of the Little Rock Nine special invitations to his inauguration as the nation’s first black president. During his campaign, he had said the Little Rock Nine’s courage in desegregating Central High helped make the opportunities in his life possible.

Thomas played a number of sports and was on the track team at Dunbar Junior High, but others had little to do with him once he entered Central, the state’s largest high school.

“I had played with some of the white kids from the neighborhood,” Thomas said. “I went up to Central High School after school and we played basketball and touch football together. I knew some of the kids.

“Eventually, I ran into them … and they were not at all happy to see me,” Thomas added. “One of them said, ‘Well I don’t mind playing basketball or football with you or anything. You guys are good at sports. Everybody knows that, but you’re just not smart enough to sit next to me in the classroom.’”

Beals said Monday that Thomas was nicknamed “Roadrunner, because he was so fast. You could sometimes avoid danger by running fast.”

She said by phone from her home in California that Thomas always seemed to bring a light moment to the crisis.

“He was funny, he had a most extraordinary sense of humor. He did sustain an enormous amount of damage and pain during the Little Rock crisis, but no matter what, he always had something refreshing and funny to say,” she said. “It could be the most horrible day and he would say ‘Yes, but how are you dressed and are you smiling?’”

Thomas also brought a bit of levity to the 2007 commemoration marking the 50th anniversary of the integration fight – letting the audience know how angry LaNier was with him when he stood up and cheered at a Central High Tigers pep rally.

Thomas thought the white students were carrying the school flag and yelling the school cheer. He said LaNier glared at him and later set him straight: It was the Confederate flag and the students were singing “Dixie.”

After graduation, Thomas served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and later became an accounting clerk with the Department of Defense.

Following the 2008 election, Thomas said in an interview that he supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Ohio primary and he also liked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who made a bid for the Republican nomination.

“It would have been a hard decision for me to make if Huckabee was running against Obama,” Thomas added.

Still, he said, he was overjoyed with Obama’s victory.

“This was really the nonviolent revolution,” Thomas said. “We went and cast our ballots and the ballots were counted this time. I’m thinking now we’ve got to do something. I don’t know what. But there are a lot of things Obama ran on, what he’s saying he wants to do.”

Little Rock 9 member Jefferson Thomas dies in Ohio (AP)

Little Rock 9 member Jefferson Thomas dies in Ohio (AP)

Last Dec. 3, after years of attacks on Asian immigrant students, something finally snapped.

Fueled by rumors, a group of students roamed the halls searching for Asian victims until one was attacked in a classroom. Later, about 70 students stormed the cafeteria, where several Asians were beaten. About 35 students pushed past a police officer onto the so-called “Asian floor,” but were turned back. After school, Asians being escorted home were attacked anyway by a mob of youths.

Almost all the attackers were black — but few observers believe the violence was due to racial hatred. Instead, they cite isolation of different groups within the school, certain students’ warped “gangster” values, and for some, simmering resentments over perceived benefits for Asian students.

About 30 Asians were injured that day; seven went to hospitals. Past attacks had been reported to administrators and police, but students say nothing seemed to change.

Ly (pronounced LEE) was in the lunchroom for what he calls “the riot.” Days later, he was followed home from school and punched in the face on his front stoop.

He had arrived from Vietnam two years earlier, speaking nearly no English, the son of poor, uneducated parents. He thought America would be like the Hannah Montana TV episodes he had watched in Vietnam. What he found was closer to The Wire. So he kept his head down, sought silent refuge among his countrymen and tried to make his way through the broken system.

Dec. 3 was a turning point. He realized the system must change — and that he and his fellow immigrants were the ones to make that happen.

Their method? Guided by local activists, and despite reservations from some parents, about 50 Asian students boycotted school for a week.

“Before, I was timid. I didn’t really want to get myself into trouble,” says Ly, 18. Then he realized, “If everybody’s silent, nobody speaks up, the problem keeps going on without being resolved. I feel like I or my friends have to speak up and organize to tell people this is not right.

“We had to fight for it.”

‘Just suffer it’

Duong Ly’s parents, ethnic Chinese who grew up in Vietnam, worked 27 years to grasp the bottom rung of the ladder to American success.

His mother, Phung Mac, attended school through the second grade, when her family ran out of money to pay for more. His father, Tu Ly, made it through the sixth grade. In 1981, they submitted their first paperwork to immigrate to the United States.

“You had to have a certain background to go to school, be in the Communist Party,” Tu Ly says in Cantonese as his son translates. “Your grandparents had to be a party member for you to get into good schools. Otherwise it cost a lot of money to get an education.”

Ly’s parents lived in Ho Chi Minh City, eking out a living selling “pho” noodle soup, rising at 5 a.m. and working in their shop until 9 or 10 at night. All extra money went toward school for Duong (pronounced YUHNG) and his older brother, and fees for immigration paperwork. At times they could not pay their rent and were forced to move, but they always made sure their boys stayed in school.

Ly’s mother developed painful hip problems. Her younger brother, who had already moved to America, sent money to pay for an operation. It was unsuccessful — the doctor said it was “an experiment. If you want a better … operation, you need to pay more money,” she says in Cantonese.

In 2008, after spending about $20,000 on immigration fees, the family was approved and came to Philadelphia. “We finally achieved our wish: freedom,” Tu Ly says. “We finally had a chance for a better education.”

South Philadelphia High looms over an entire city block in a poor section of South Philadelphia long populated by descendants of voyagers from Italy, other European nations and the black American South. Asians and Latinos are now coming in greater numbers. Today, the school is about 70% black and 18% Asian.

During Duong Ly’s first year, there were 45 reports of “dangerous incidents” such as weapons possession or assaults at the school of about 1,000 students, enough to earn a “persistently dangerous” label from the state. There also were 326 reports of lesser crimes such as fighting, threats or robberies. The graduation rate was 48%. Only 16% of students were proficient or better in reading and 8% in math, according to state test results.

Within weeks of starting school, Ly was robbed in the bathroom. His older brother was punched in the face. “Our friends told us, ‘Just suffer it,’” Ly says.

They didn’t report either incident.

‘Discrimination happens’

Duong Ly speaks dispassionately, expressing no racial animosity, when asked to explain how fellow students could commit such vicious attacks.

“Because they live in a violent environment,” he suggests. “Maybe their parents have problems and troubles, so they want to express their anger by violence.”

His father also declines to condemn the attackers. “In Vietnam,” he says, “the original Vietnamese people don’t like us because we are a different ethnicity. People from the countryside who move to the city get discrimination from city people. It’s the same here. They don’t have an understanding about who we are. Discrimination happens in every society.”

About a dozen black students were suspended or expelled after Dec. 3. Their names have been kept secret, and they have not commented publicly.

Some other black students show little sympathy for them. “They’re just hating on other races. They don’t have anything better to do with their lives,” says Tyreke Williams, who graduated last June.

Wali Smith makes no excuses for the attacks, but understands where they come from. A community specialist who holds workshops on anger management and conflict resolution in various schools, he witnessed the Dec. 3 violence.

The South Philly native says blacks have always felt marginalized in the neighborhood dominated by Italians and Irish. Now, some students feel an almost unconscious resentment when they see their Asian counterparts studying on their special second-floor sanctuary, which was established to provide language programs and provide a more welcoming environment.

“Those (black) kids feel the majority of the staff there does not care about their education,” Smith says. “They see these Asian kids come in and be nurtured, and they want that same kind of comfort.”

Then there is a small group of troublemakers with a value system that says, “it’s cool to be gangster,” Smith says. “But really you’re afraid, a scared coward. So you take advantage of weak people.”

“It’s not based on race, it’s based on opportunity,” Smith said of the history of violence against Asians. “If they go to the bathroom and take your money, and you don’t report it, they’ll just keep riding it until the wheels fall off.”

School, community and beyond

The Asian students and activists reserve almost all of their criticism for administrators and the school district, which they say consistently failed to protect students.

A school district spokesman did not return a call for comment. Administrators have insisted that they responded to Asian students’ complaints and tried their best to combat violence that has become part of the culture for some Philadelphia youths.

“These problems are long-standing and go beyond the school and into the community,” district superintendent Arlene Ackerman said a week after the attacks.

A report by a retired judge, which was commissioned by the district, said there were confrontations between a small group of black and Asian students on Dec. 2 that led to the widespread Dec. 3 attacks on random Asians. The report was criticized by Asians who say it failed to account for years of documented violence and that investigators did not interview many student victims and witnesses.

Yet Duong Ly is still enthusiastic about his school. He says the English as a Second Language program is good, the teachers care, there are plenty of computers with Internet access — and it’s all free.

“If I study hard I will get a lot of opportunities, scholarships, grants…,” he says. “It’s rewarding to work hard and study hard here, more than in Vietnam. I can go to a better school, go to college, get a career, then I can take care of my parents. So I like it more here.”

He also likes his new home, a narrow, two-story row house bought from his uncle. They are the only Asians on the block.

The front door opens into the living room, where the family’s bicycles (they have no car) share space with an old, fat television, couches and a folding table for meals. On the far wall is a handsome curio cabinet of polished wood, ornately carved, holding photographs of ancestors.

Tu Ly works as a cook in an Asian supermarket. His wife is unemployed. The family has permanent resident status and expects to become naturalized citizens within a few years. Recently, Medicaid paid for a hip replacement for Duong’s mother.

“We owe this country a lot,” Tu Ly says. “The government paid a lot of money for my wife’s operation. We will work our best to contribute to society. My children can choose whatever job they like, as long as they do something to contribute to this country.”

New initiatives

The boycott was not an easy step to take. Some students were afraid of being expelled. Many parents were against it, fearing their children would become even more conspicuous targets. Some said local activists were making the situation worse.

Once it started, though, attitudes changed. “After the boycott, I felt much more confident and powerful because our voices were heard by the people,” Duong Ly says.

The district installed 126 security cameras. A “50-50 club” took Asian and black students on group outings. More bilingual staffers and diversity training were added. Principal LaGreta Brown was forced out on the eve of a faculty no-confidence vote after a local newspaper discovered her certification had lapsed.

All eyes are on the incoming principal. Otis Hackney III is 37, a black Philadelphia native, fresh from two years as principal of a mostly white suburban high school. He got the call from Philly one night when he was standing on the sidelines of his school stadium, watching a lacrosse game under the lights.

“My first thought was, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Hackney says during an interview in his new office, the cinderblock walls bare except for a picture of the singing legend Marian Anderson, class of 1921.

Soon, though, Hackney accepted the challenge. His immediate agenda includes building a relationship with the Asian community and creating a group of school stakeholders who meet regularly to set goals.

Hackney says all students should feel comfortable approaching him: “I want to listen more than I speak. Students are often much more honest than adults.” He bought a new conference table and spiffed up a room for community meetings: “The message is, this is an important place where we talk about important things.” He’s getting Asians out of their special floor and into the rest of the building. He’s looking at United Nations-style translation headphones for immigrant parents.

He is the fifth principal in six years, and he wants to stick around.

There is much to heal. The Vietnamese embassy has complained to the U.S. State Department. The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a complaint with the Justice Department, which on August 27 found merit in the claims and advised the district to settle the matter. An investigation by the state Human Rights Commission is pending. The dynamic that exploded on Dec. 3 has not disappeared.

“If you’re that angry and frustrated about something that your behavior manifests itself that way, what are we not addressing as a school, as a community?” asks Hackney. “As African-Americans, we can’t forget our own struggle to the point that we become what we fought so hard against.”

“That’s one side. The other side is, when you have an immigrant population that comes in, what are the skill sets they need to function in this society? It can be very difficult for that child and that family to function in schools. So how do you put all that together? That’s my job.

“Part of it is getting people to see the human side in every person, identifying with their struggle. Once people begin to do that, you realize folks aren’t as privileged as you think they are. They don’t speak the language. They don’t have that many advantages over you. You’re just not taking advantage of the ones you have.”

Hope ahead?

Duong Ly had a busy summer: An internship at the University of Pennsylvania on Asian health issues; a psychology class at a community college; trips to conferences in Houston and Boston to discuss his new activism; being photographed for a Philadelphia magazine story that labeled the boycotters “heroes.” In between, he spent a little time working on his college essays and a lot of time on Facebook.

On Wednesday, he will walk through the battered metal doors of South Philadelphia High to start his senior year at what he hopes is a changed school.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he says.

Can Philadelphia school end black vs. Asian violence?

Can Philadelphia school end black vs. Asian violence?

“She’ll need them,” her mother says.

“I don’t think so,” her dad counters.

Ariana, meanwhile, walks dreamily through the store, offering no opinion on this particular decision. She is, in fact, confident that she will have what she needs when she starts her freshman year at the University of Iowa.

She has mom, the family organizer, with her, and dad, the calm encourager. And they have “the list,” which mom printed from one of those “what-you’ll-need-at-college” websites.

New laptop. Check.

Comforter with matching sheets. Check.

Laundry detergent. Body wash. Antacid.

Check. Check. Check.

Mind you, Robin and Paul Kramer aren’t those crazy college parents — not like the mother who, as relayed by one dean of students at one California college, stayed in her daughter’s dorm room with her for four nights to help her adjust (until the daughter’s roommate complained).

Nor have they ignored barricades intended to keep parents from trying to register for classes for their children, or crashed student-only orientation events, which officials at universities across the country say happens more and more.

Still, even for average parents, the letting go is difficult — more so, they and many others say, than it was for parents of college-bound freshmen in decades past.

Robin Kramer recalls how her own parents, who never attended college, dropped her off with a trunk full of belongings at Drake University, also in Iowa, in 1978. She set up her room and attended orientation without them there. “It’s just what you did then,” she says.

It was much the same for Paul, whose father took him to the University of Wisconsin in 1977 and then went fishing. “It was a culture shock,” he says. “I wasn’t sure I was going to survive.”

Perhaps that is part of what makes this “process of leaving,” as Robin calls it, more difficult.

It is, all at once, overwhelming and exciting for everyone involved. But some say it’s often hardest for parents, who remember the days of college when there were fewer support systems in place for students.

“I’m supposed to shed a few tears and then send her to the world, right?” the rational Robin tells her emotional self as she considers 18-year-old Ariana, the eldest of their two children.

That remains to be seen.

‘Cut the cord!’

So how did we get here, anyway? It’s not that saying goodbye was easy for parents of past generations.

But these days, moms and dads have gone from reading books that tell us how to raise The Happiest Baby on the Block to new handbooks such as The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent’s Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child).

YOU and your child?

Linda Bips, a psychology professor who advises parents on letting go, used to carry scissors into workshops.

“Cut the cord!” she would tell them.

It evoked the chuckles she was looking for. “But I don’t do that anymore, because no one would listen anyway,” says Bips, a professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., and author of Parenting College Freshmen: Consulting For Adulthood.

The process, she has learned, has to be gradual.

Marshall Duke, a psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, has been giving those kinds of talks for three decades and also has noted more parents struggling.

For one, they’re more connected than ever, by Facebook and text messages and, increasingly, online video chat. They’re also often paying huge sums of money on their children’s education.

“So they think that gives them license to intervene as they would in other investments,” says Duke, who also encourages parents to take a step back, even when it goes against the fiber of their very being.

He wants them, in effect, to let their children falter, to figure things out for themselves, to become adults.

For Ariana Kramer, it means giving up the comfort of what she freely calls the “bubble” she grew up in, the quiet home and highly ranked schools in suburban Chicago where her main task in life was to study hard and get herself where she is today.

In physical distance, it wasn’t so far from the working-class neighborhoods where her parents grew up.

The Kramers both marvel at the freedom they had as kids, riding city buses as preteens and able to stay out with friends until the street lights came on. That was their signal that it was time to go home.

They went to neighborhood schools. Their friends lived across the street. They walked home for lunch.

“When we were growing up, there were no Amber Alerts,” says Paul, who is 50.

After they finished college and married, the Kramers eventually moved to their current home. Paul worked his way into medical sales and Robin, who is 49, created an at-home job for herself by managing businesses of lawyers and other self-employed professionals.

It became apparent how different their children’s lives would be when they found themselves arranging “play dates” and driving them from activity to activity.

“You had to be so much more involved,” Robin says — partly because, like a lot of people, they had fewer children to focus on than the average family of generations past.

Ariana worked in the summers, eventually becoming a counselor at a Wisconsin camp she attended for years. That helped her become more independent, she says.

But even she’ll acknowledge that the thought of taking the train or bus into the city, as her parents did, is still daunting.

Over this past summer, she took on household duties — doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, learning how to write a check — to help prepare her for that real world she’s anticipating.

In August, she moved in to her dorm at Iowa on the first day possible, so she had extra time to get her bearings. “I like simple,” she says. “I need simple.”

Times are a-changin’

By many estimations, the Kramers are a low-drama family. But even they are having their prickly moments when they arrive in Iowa City, and that’s to be expected in this time of heightened emotions, experts say.

Ariana rolls her eyes, for instance, when her mom suggests that she put her class assignments in her BlackBerry calendar.

“Mom, I’m not like you. You’re way, too, uh …” — Ariana pauses and chooses her words carefully when she remembers her words are being monitored by a reporter — “better organized than I am.”

It’s all part of the subtle push and pull that has been happening all summer, her mother says.

One minute it’s “I can do it myself!” The next, Ariana is asking, “Mom, can you help me with this?”

Robin is having her own internal struggles, trying to step back but finding it a challenge.

“Let’s be real. As a mom, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself,” she says, as she stands amid boxes and unpacked suitcases in the room Ariana will share with a roommate.

It’s nothing fancy, your basic 1920s-era dorm room, upgraded with an air conditioner that is welcomed on a late summer day in muggy Iowa.

“Thank God I have you guys. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do this,” Ariana says, as her mother deals out tasks.

Per Robin’s instructions, mother and daughter unpack her clothes first, as Paul sets up the clock radio, the portable telephone and the microwave.

For him, the dorm room and this whole visit make him a bit wistful: “I wish it were me,” he says.

That, too, is a normal parental response to this transition, says Bips, the Muhlenberg College psychologist who’s also a baby boomer and remembers “never trusting anyone over 30″ back in her own college days.

“Life is more serious as you get older. There’s more loss. There’s more responsibility,” she says

“So I would guess people in their 50s, who have to pay for college and worry about their jobs and the economy — yeah, wouldn’t it be nice to go back?”

Some parents also feel nostalgic as the realization hits that their role — one of their main purposes in life — is changing, says Duke, the Emory psychologist: “If it’s a first child — my gosh, that’s a sobering signal about the progress of life.”

Increasingly, colleges and universities have noted the support parents need in letting go, so much that they are starting to formalize the goodbye.

At St. Olaf College in Minnesota, incoming freshmen are shown a video with their smiling, crying parents waving goodbye as one big group. First-year students at the University of Chicago, meanwhile, walk their parents to the university gate as bagpipes play in what some university staff call the “parting of the seas.”

At Drexel University‘s LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, a goodbye reception includes an unofficial “crying room,” set up with tissues and a counselor. It’s kind of a gentle joke, but one that’s meant to send a message.

“The idea was that we understand this is a major change for everybody,” says Ian Sladen, LeBow’s assistant dean of undergraduate programs. “It’s just as tough for parents — probably tougher, really.”

But in the end, the message from universities and colleges is the same: Parents, please go home.

At the University of Iowa, there is no formal goodbye ceremony. The university does, however, have an orientation and newsletter for parents and an advisory board, where any concerns are addressed.

Meanwhile, Ariana also is taking a class called “The College Transition,” a relatively new course that helps freshmen ease into college life. “I clearly need a course like that to survive,” she says, her eyes widening for emphasis.

Courses like these, often referred to as “University 101,” are becoming more common on college campuses. The aim is to turn out students who are independent and ready for the workplace — without their parents in tow.

“It was almost a badge of honor 30 years ago when students couldn’t make it,” says Sladen at Drexel. “No one would be proud of that today.”

And that should help put parents at ease, he says.

‘Make the most of it’

After nearly three days together in Iowa, the moment for Ariana to say goodbye to her parents and 16-year-old brother Chase finally arrives. Her parents get a little philosophical over sushi.

“If they ask you ‘What’s the best time of your life?’ I think everybody will say college,” her dad says. “So make the most of it.”

“Have fun,” her mom adds. “But don’t forget about the academics.”

As her parents say goodbye, Ariana takes on the role of comforter. “I’ll call you,” she says as she hugs her mom, who begins to tear up.

Ariana grabs dad and then her brother, who’s also starting to cry. She teases him: “If you break anything in my room, you’re in trouble.” They laugh.

Chase, of anyone, has seemed the saddest about his sister leaving: “I think she’ll be OK as long as she copes with everything,” he had said the day before.

“Oh, she will,” her mom assured him. “She’s a coper.”

And it is true, Robin and Paul have faith in their daughter.

“Basically, I think she’s very grounded and has a good head on her shoulders,” Robin says.

She pauses. “But I’ll still be thinking, ‘Did she remember to do X, Y and Z?’”

Ariana’s family departs, and the new freshman looks content, if not a little lost.

She leaves her door open (that’s how you meet people, her resident adviser said). She looks around her room.

“It’s weird,” she says. “What do I do now?”

It won’t be long before she phones home.

Start of college can be harder on parents than freshmen

Start of college can be harder on parents than freshmen

AS a Harvard professor who teaches introductory economics, I have the delightful assignment of greeting about 700 first-year students every fall. And this year, I am sending the first of my own children off to college. Which raises these questions: What should they be learning? And what kind of foundation is needed to understand and be prepared for the modern economy?

Economic View: A Course Load for the Game of Life

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. – Teachers who were fired and ultimately rehired in a dispute that focused national debate over education reform have returned to their Rhode Island classrooms amid hopes that changes they agreed to will help improve student performance at their persistently troubled high school.

The changes at Central Falls High School — where just 7 percent of 11th graders tested last year were proficient in math — include a longer school day, more rigorous teacher evaluations and flexible schedules to provide more classes for struggling students. Teachers were also required to participate in more days of professional development.

Education Commissioner Deborah Gist acknowledged the obstacles facing students in Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest city.

“They’re movable,” Gist said. “We can push past them, we can climb over them, we can climb under them.”

Before school started on Wednesday, juniors attended a math “boot camp” to help them prepare for October’s tests and school leaders visited the homes of incoming freshmen. The administration is also reaching out to recent dropouts and others who have been out of school, said Superintendent Fran Gallo.

“We want children back, and we’ll find paths for them, multiple pathways, whatever it might take to work for our students, we’re committed to,” Gallo said. “I think that kind of public commitment has never been clearly defined, clearly hasn’t been put out there in a transparent way.”

Several students this week said the mass firings were unnecessary and that teachers were unfairly scapegoated for problems beyond their control. Central Falls, a cramped city just a square mile in size, has budget problems so severe that this summer it was placed under the supervision of a state-appointed receiver.

More children live in poverty in Central Falls than anywhere else in Rhode Island. Just under half of the city’s residents identify as Hispanic, and many say they do not speak English at home.

“Some kids want to come here and actually go to school and work and everything,” said junior Angela Collazo, 16. “But some kids don’t.” She added that students would have benefited more from extra tutoring than having new teachers.

The firings last February came after the state identified the high school as one of Rhode Island’s worst and ordered improvements. When reforms talks between Gallo and the teachers’ union broke down, the entire staff was issued termination notices — one of four reform options outlined in federal guidelines.

Under that model, no more than half the teachers could be rehired.

Teachers and students protested the firings, though the plan was applauded by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. President Barack Obama, in a March education speech, singled out Central Falls as an example of accountability for poor performance.

“If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn’t show any sign of improvement, then there’s got to be a sense of accountability,” Obama said. “And that’s what happened in Rhode Island last week.”

The teachers got their jobs back in May after agreeing to similar terms they had previously resisted.

There’s plenty of work to be done, both to raise performance and soothe lingering bruised feelings.

Though the union and administration struck a unified tone in announcing the new agreement, many teachers remain apprehensive and need to rebuild trust lost during the acrimonious dispute, said Jane Sessums, president of the local teachers’ union. Fewer than 10 decided not to return.

“Partly it’s the way they were treated and everything that happened last year,” Sessums said of the overall mood of the teachers. “Their job security, that trust factor, that’s really important in any teacher-administrator relationship. I don’t know if they felt as if there was a lot of collaborating going forward up to this point.”

Susan Vollucci, a visual arts teacher, said she is hopeful the changes would lead to progress, but said time will tell.

“If we could keep the kids for four years, from 9th grade to 12th grade, they would all pass the test. We don’t,” Vollucci said. “They come here, then they go to the Dominican Republic, they go to Woonsocket, they go to Providence, and they bounce around, so we can never gather the skills on a consistent year-to-year basis.”

Richard Kinslow, an English teacher at Central Falls for 21 years, said the entire episode was unsettling. He said he felt insulted and embarrassed by the negative attention, lampooned in the media and fodder for critical blogs.

But he proudly shows off a recent postcard from a student who graduated a decade ago as a reminder of the good work he believes he does.

“It was hurtful,” Kinslow said, “but it’s time to move on.”

Fired, rehired teachers back at troubled RI school (AP)

Fired, rehired teachers back at troubled RI school (AP)