“The Open Doors 2011″ report released by the Institute of International Education (IIE) notes New Mexico colleges and universities have enrolled fewer international students this year than last, amounting to a 6 percent drop off.

The findings of the report determined New Mexico State University led all state higher education institutions in lower enrollment among international students, driving the overall state count down.

According to The Association of International Educators, International students are a boon to the U.S. economy — a self-described “conservative” estimate points to $20 billion in additional economic activity as a result of foreign students studying in the U.S.

New Mexico’s intake of that spending pie is roughly $55 million from a mix of tuition, fees, and living expenses for 2010-2011.

While targeting international students expands the diversity of a campus, it also brings in more money for the colleges. Unlike in-state residents, international students pay full tuition. At NMSU the two categories pay $2,913.60 and $9,134.40, respectively.

International students are so lucrative that many universities pay international student recruiters a commission-based salary to attract more full-paying pupils. That practice is not permitted for U.S.-based students.

Nationally, enrollment among international students was up by 5 percent to 723,277. New Mexico was the destination for 2,724 of those pupils.

“It is positive news that our higher education institutions continue to excel in attracting students from all over the world, and in preparing American students to succeed in an increasingly global environment,” said Allan Goodman, President and CEO of the Institute of International Education, in a statement .  “Educational exchange in both directions furthers business and cultural ties between the United States and other countries.”

The IIE report also notes China was the leading sending country of U.S. bound foreign students, totaling 158,000. Another Asian country, India, came in second with 104,000.

Fifty-eight percent of New Mexico teachers are white, despite minorities constituting an overwhelming majority of the state’s student body.

The findings come out of a set of reports published by a Washington, D.C. think tank that examined the dearth of minority teachers in states having a student body less than 50 percent white.

New Mexico’s student-teacher race disparity ranked in the top 12 nationwide, according to the report. The state’s scored a “29,” meaning the percentage of minority students was 29 percentage points higher than the number of minority teachers.

California scored the highest: 72 percent of the state’s students are of color while only 29 percent of teachers identified as non-white. In Texas, Two-thirds of students are non-white yet only one-third of teachers have similar backgrounds.

Others studies also point to the educational benefits of having more teachers of color.

A 2004 paper  analyzing teacher racial composition and pupil test-results in Tennessee found a small boost in student performance on standardized tests when teachers of the same race taught the class. After four years of receiving instruction from a same-race teacher students improved test scores by a range of 8 to 12 percentage points. Those findings applied to white students as well.

More recently, a 2011 working study by economists focusing on a large community college in California pointed to strong gains by minority students taught by instructors from any minority background.

“Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans are 2.9 percentage points more likely to pass courses with instructors of similar background and 2.8 percentage points more likely to pass courses with underrepresented instructors,” it found.

The authors added: “These effects represent roughly  half of the total gaps in classroom outcomes between white and underrepresented minority students at the college. The effects are particularly large for Blacks. The class dropout rate relative to Whites is 6 percentage points lower for Black students when taught by a Black  instructor.”

Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.

From KOAT:

UNM students who said in interviews Wednesday that they were unsatisfied expressed frustrations ranging from class availability to a sense of detachment from university decision-makers according to the Performance Effectiveness Report.

UNM’s satisfaction rate has remained at 77 or 78 percent over the past 10 years.

Student satisfaction rates are higher than 95 percent at New Mexico State, Eastern New Mexico and Highlands universities. Students at New Mexico Tech and Western New Mexico report satisfaction rates above 84 percent.

University of New Mexico enrolls the most students of any university in the state, and is one of New Mexico’s largest job-generators. The university enrolls roughly 21,000 undergraduate students, while New Mexico State has 14,572 matriculating undergraduates and Eastern New Mexico and New Mexico Tech enroll 5080 and 1454, respectively.

Higher education has been under a microscope as job prospects have dimmed and additional education has become more valued. New student increases are forcing campuses to find new revenue streams to keep up services, often resulting in admitting more students who pay either higher or a greater percent of their tuition. The trend is most visible at public universities that have set their sights on out-of-state candidates who pay considerably greater tuition than local students — at times three times as much.

Taking into account a student’s ability to weather the financial burden of higher education has increasingly become an ethical dilemma.

Student default rates, as determined by the two-year cohort rate calculated by the U.S. Department of Education, is at a 12-year high, with 8.8 percent of graduates not paying their college loans for 270 days or more. A report issued (pdf) by the New America Foundation found that 15 percent of graduates defaulted, while 21 percent were delinquent on their payments.

But despite the costs and risks of falling behind in payments, arguments college is still worth it price abound.

Individuals possessing a college-equivalent degree can expect to earn 80 percent more than a person with a high school degree. An earlier study from researchers at Georgetown University found a college degree holder can expect to make $1.4 million more than someone with a high school degree.

In that analysis, Douglas Laycock, the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the First Amendment, said the legislation was poorly drafted and did little to address bullying.

The passage of the legislation last week prompted a national outcry. Democrats in the GOP-controlled Senate said the bill was a “license to bully,” which Republicans denied. That license was an inserted section in the bill which prohibits the law from being used to take action against people for a statement based on a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.

Laycock, in his analysis, said Republicans were right. While the definition of bullying was vague, he said, the reality was, it would not give permission to bullies to act out. However, he said, Republican claims the section was needed to assure First Amendment rights was wrong. He said the law — with or without the section — would still have to adhere to the free speech protections assured by the First Amendment.

Advocates and legislators from both parties responded to the analysis after seeing the full text of Laycock’s analysis.

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) said, “There’s little question that SB 137 as it currently exists is a joke. The Republicans turned a bill that would have been a step forward in protecting our kids from bullying and harassment into a step back. It truly did create a license to bully. I’m glad to hear that the House Republicans may remove that offensive language from the bill when they vote on it, however I challenge them to learn from what other states have already done and improve the bill in all aspects.”

Sen. John Gleason (D-Flushing) said, “Professor Laycock’s assessment shows just how off the mark this legislation is. I’ve long been an advocate for strong anti-bullying legislation, I’m especially concerned for students with disabilities who often suffer unimaginable cruelty at the hands of bullies. The bill reported from committee was not as strong as I would have liked, but I was willing to support it because the limited protections it offered where better than no protections at all.”

The insertion of the religious exemption, Gleason said, showed that “the Republicans were not taking the bullying epidemic seriously.”

Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland), who led a sit-in protest when an earlier version of the bill failed two weeks ago, said, “I understand the basis for Professor Laycock’s concerns … With this version of Senate Bill 137, Senate Republicans have pulled one of the most egregious manipulations of the legislative process I have seen in my 11 years as a state legislator. By adding a last minute exemption for religiously or morally motivated bullying, Senate Republicans effectively enacted a blueprint for bullies to follow when justifying their actions. Instead of providing a safe school environment for all of our students, this bill goes in the exact opposite direction and in fact provides a license to bully.”

Rep. Lisa Brown (D-West Bloomfield), another supporter of strong anti-bullying legislation, focused on what the bill would not do. “Professor Laycock succinctly lays out why this bill will do nothing to prevent our children from experiencing bullying in our schools,” she said. “While encouraging our schools to adopt bullying policies is a small step in the right direction, the bill fails to explicitly prohibit harassment in the hallways. In fact, the bill does little, if nothing at all, to prevent harassment of any kind.”

“As it is written,” Brown continued, “the anti-bullying bill provides no protections to our students and is all pomp with no circumstance. Our schools can and should be arenas for public discourse for our kids, but I think we can all agree that adults in the workplace should not have more protections from harassment than our kids in the classroom. Our kids shouldn’t have to be fearful of or subject to malicious attacks in the classroom or over the internet.”

The only Republican to respond to Michigan Messenger’s inquiry was House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall). Bolger’s spokesperson declined to comment on the analysis because it was “out of date.” House Republicans spent Monday assuring the state they were working to address concerns about the legislation, and Bolger’s office acknowledged that not only did the Speaker oppose the religious exemption in the bill as passed by the Senate, but that that language would not be in the final bill.

The House version of the bill is slated for a vote this afternoon, without first getting a hearing before the House Education Committee. Wednesday’s education committee hearing was canceled after its chairman, Rep. Paul Scott, was recalled by voters in Tuesday’s election.

All three incumbent members of the Anoka-Hennepin School Board were re-elected on Tuesday night amid controversy surrounding the school district’s controversial policy limiting discussions of LGBT issues in the district’s school.

Marci Anderson and Tom Heidemann, both of whom support the “neutrality policy” won, as did Scott Wenzel, who opposes the policy.

Heidemann won over challenger Darin Rorman, 70 percent to 27 percent. Anderson won with 40 percent of the vote, beating challengers Mary Nelson and Randy Kolb who both got 29 percent. Wenzel ran unopposed and got 95 percent of the vote.

The district’s policy limiting discussions of LGBT issues has become a national controversy after reports of bullying and several suicides among LGBT students. It has sparked protests at the district and at least six lawsuits against the school.

The Minnesota Family Council, which supports the policy and endorses only negative portrayals of LGBT people in public schools, implicitly endorsed Heidemann and Anderson on Tuesday.

The district has been battered by accusations that its “neutrality policy,” which restricts discussion about LGBT issues. The district is currently being sued by six former students and their families for this policy. Conservatives have long been active in the district, pushing to maintain the policy.

The State University System of Florida’s Board of Governors will meet tomorrow at Florida Atlantic University to vote on USF Polytechnic’s request to split off from USF Main, and become an independent campus. In a letter sent to State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan, state Sen. Mike Fasano has asked that the board to not approve the campus at this time.

USF Polytech is currently seeking separate accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a move school officials say will enable them to offer more on-campus services for students and develop its own degree programs.

Fasano and fellow state Sen. Paula Dockery recently called for an audit of USF Poly, following reports that the school’s chancellor, Marshall Goodman, may have mishandled school funds. Goodman allegedly spent $500,000 on a promotional video to market the school, and has been accused of hiring his son for a $50,000-a-year post at the school, before interviews for the position had even commenced.

“The letter will ask the Board of Governors to vote against the campus for a number of reasons, including the overall cost of such a project, the ability to attract competent teachers, and the ability of programs to attract enough students to make the campus viable,” Fasano aide Greg Giordano says. “The senator is very concerned that the vote is taking place less than two months before the start of the 2012 legislative session. Right now there is an expected $2 billion shortfall in the state budget. He is concerned how Florida can afford a new university all while trying to keep priority services and programs intact.”

Fasano argues that not enough study has been done to determine the viability of the campus. ”USF Main has been critical of the plan and its concerns should be looked at and given great consideration,” says Giordano. “Until important questions can be answered, the Board should not move forward with the campus.”

Screen Caption of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) during ESEA hearing on HELP Committee

Though expected by Senate watchers to be a sideshow and forum for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to voice his criticism of the nation’s top education bill, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing today instead crystallized key provisions of the legislation meant to replace No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

That the hearing was held at all is unusual, since the bill up for discussion was voted out of committee  in October by a vote of 15-7. But an agreement was struck between Paul and committee chair Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to allow the Kentucky senator to learn more about the language of the bill under the condition he drop over 70 amendments proposed in an attempt to slow down its passage.

And while the co-writers of replacement bill, known as Harkin-Enzi, voted to push it out of committee in a bi-partisan fashion, both would like to see more added.

“This bill is not Mr. Enzi’s bill, and it ain’t mine either,” said Harkin. While Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) told the audience, “It is important to note that I do not support 100 percent of the bill we reported out.  I would have supported a much smaller federal role and far fewer federal programs.”

Witnesses were invited to participate in the round table discussion without prepared remarks, a more informal hearing than is typical of Senate meetings. Senators were also invited to ask questions, with much of the dialogue focusing on tracking teachers and their pay, improving student performance, and addressing high-needs pupils like those with disabilities and limited language skills.

Tom Luna, Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction, said the current bill “has kept the good parts of No Child Left Behind.” He likened the 2002 law to the film The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, – with the emphasis on data-collection showing the good, while the federal government prescribing benchmarks and end goals representing the ugly.

He stressed a state’s right to set up its own education accountability measures was a 10th Amendment issue, and in moving away from NCLB, Idaho is “more than willing and ready to hold ourselves to higher level of accountability.”

Still, with many state budgets squeezed, federal largesse helps programs targeting high-needs students stay afloat. But with that financial support comes expectations states will live up to standards articulated at the federal level. That reality prompted Charles Seaton, a teacher at Memphis City Schools in Tennessee, to tell the senators, “We need your money.”

Harkin-Enzi disavows most of the performance targets schools were forced to meet under NCLB mandates, known as Adequate Yearly Progress, or face consequences, and instead focuses on the worst five percent of schools per district.

Pam Geisselhardt, a gifted and talented coordinator at Adair County Schools in Kentucky, welcomes the increased state control of monitoring student output. “The term NCLB is demoralizing for us at this point…testing, testing, testing…we have no time to teach.”

But accessing a rich data set on student learning is important, the other panelists said. “Everyone says we assess too much,” quipped Amanda Danks, a lead teacher in Baltimore who works with special education students. “We assess ineffectively too much.”

Danks’ comment was reiterated by a few of the national thinkers on the panel.

Rick Hess, an education policy analyst at American Enterprise Institute, said, “It is not useful to try to prescribe models” unless they pertain to the lowest five percent of schools. And Luna, a critic of federal involvement in local education, said he would not oppose federally mandated teacher evaluations but would see a problem if the “federal government tries to define it or regulate it.”

Special education took up a significant portion of the two and a half hour hearing, but was limited to matters of assessment, as well, with some senators and panelists arguing allowing more students with disabilities to receive alternative assessments would demoralize the students.

Harkin-Enzi puts a cap on the number of students who could qualify for alternative assessments as one percent — a point of frustration for low-performing schools with many high-needs students whose test scores would factor into the school’s overall performance.

Perhaps the bill’s harshest critic on the panel is Wade Henderson, President and CEO of  The Leadership Conference. “We must look at our history: states have achieved what they have because of the federal role, not in spite of it,” he said. Countering Sen. Paul’s assessment of the hearing, Henderson argued federal involvement is not a philosophical question, but a “practical debate affecting real-live students.”

Groups as politically divided as The National Council of La Raza and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce side with Henderson. In a letter released today, nearly 30 organizations that seek greater accountability standards for students and teachers said they do not support Harkin-Enzi.

From the statement:

Federal funding must be attached to firm, ambitious and unequivocal demands for higher achievement, high school graduation rates and gap closing. We know that states, school districts, and schools needed a more modern and focused law. However, we respectfully believe that the bill goes too far in providing flexibility by marginalizing the focus on the achievement of disadvantaged students.

Last month, President Obama unveiled his plan to grant states waivers from No Child Left Behind, putting pressure on congress to come up with a reauthorization of the 2002 law, which has been due for overhaul since 2007. Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the chair of the House education committee, has stated he prefers to augment the nation’s top K-12 law with smaller bills.

The policy, often dubbed the neutrality policy, is at the center of a nationwide discussion about suicide and anti-LGBT bullying and the subject of a lawsuit by six district students and their families.

The family council wrote that this is a “critical election” for the board.

“As you may know, the district has been targeted by national liberal organizations for its neutrality policy on sexual orientation. The neutrality policy states that school officials and teachers will remain neutral on issues involving sexual orientation. The school district believes these issues are better addressed by parents and families than by school officials. For taking this reasonable position, the school district is being sued by national liberal organizations.”

The MFC asked supporters to “vote their values” by supporting Tom Heidemann in District 1 and Marci Anderson in District 2.

At the bottom of the email was a short disclosure: “Prepared and paid for by Minnesota Family Council, in support of Tom Heidemann and Marci Anderson. This is issue advocacy and is not approved by the candidate nor is the candidate responsible for it.”

Tuesday’s election has been higher profile than in recent years due to the controversy over the neutrality policy. Three of the board’s six seats are up for election on Tuesday, and two of the seats–those of Heidemann and Anderson–are being contested.

Anderson’s opponents, Mary Nelson and Randy Kolb, oppose the neutrality policy. Heidemann’s opponent, Darin Rorman, hasn’t stated where he stands on the issue. Current school board member Scott Wenzal opposes the policy, but is running unopposed.

The Minnesota Family Council has been at the heart of the controversy surrounding LGBT issues in the district. In the past, its employees have played a part in forcing a transgender music teacher to quit, backed a policy that said “homosexuality not be taught/addressed as a normal, valid lifestyle and that the district staff and their resources not advocate the homosexual lifestyle” and worked to ban posters with suicide help-lines targeting LGBT students.

The Anoka-Hennepin School District drew national attention after a number of students, some of whom were gay, committed suicide.

Image from the Louisiana Department of Education

As reported by TAI last Thursday, Roemer received $20,000 in donations from East PAC last week, one of the four “Big PACs” affiliated with The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), an organization claiming to promote the“free-enterprise system.”

The campaign gift appeared to exceed state limits on electoral contributions by $10,000; State campaign financial reports indicate the Roemer campaign returned that same amount on Friday.

Chris Sommers, Director of the Louisiana Campaign Finance Division within the Louisiana Board of Ethics, told TAI the Roemer campaign “realized [the $20,000] as soon as it happened.” Pressed for the date campaign officials first notified her over the excess amount, Sommers said she could not say.

TAI attempted to reach the Roemer campaign by contacting the number made public through state financial disclosure forms but was greeted by Mr. Roemer at Roemer Robinson Melville And Company, a venture capital firm. The candidate asked to speak to us at a later time.

Roemer, the son of former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, narrowly missed earning the majority vote in an Oct. 22 election that would have resulted in his outright taking the BESE seat — instead receiving 45 percent of the vote. Donald Songy finished second with 28 percent. A run-off between the two is scheduled for November 19.

While Roemer’s fundraising far exceeded that of his opponents in the BESE seat election, as previously reported by TAI, his supporters are aggressively raising money on his behalf.

A Louisiana Republican group affiliated with Gov. Bobby Jindal is asking supporters to help raise $200,000 for the Roemer’s reelection.

An e-mail attachment directs users to the 2011 Republican Victory Fund donation page. Contribution requests range from $5,000 to $100,000. Those limits are defined by state laws that say individuals can contribute up to $5,000 to a candidate per election — or up to $100,000 to a Political Action Committees (PACs) over a four-year period.

Filings after October 11 show Roemer added an $16,149.48 from state Republican Party contributions, plus an additional $53,500 from other sources.

Songy, meanwhile, has added $5,000 to his campaign purse strings following donations from a local SEIU chapter and the Louisiana affiliate of the National Education Association. The available records as of last week on Songy indicate his campaign has raised $13,830.00. Roemer’s earnings total $222,125.50, based on last week’s figures.

Yet state campaign finance records also show Roemer has spent less than $25,000 since January of 2010 through last week on his reelection effort. In the same period, Songy spent just over $6,400 on campaign expenses.

Roemer’s membership on BESE has been a source of rancor for groups opposing his unabated support for charter schools. Roemer’s sister, Caroline Roemer Shirley, is executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools (LAPCS). The group advocates for expanding charter schools in the state and loosening restrictions on teacher tenure. In 2008, the state’s top ethics committee ruled Caroline Roemer cannot appear before BESE, but LAPCS is not restricted. Chas Roemer was not asked to recuse himself from hearings when LAPCS is present, though sections 1112 and 1120 of the Louisiana Code of Governmental Ethics indicate that he should.

A look at BESE meeting minutes in January of 2011 reveals (PDF) Chas Roemer voted on renewing the charters of multiple charter schools (Type 5 Charter Schools) that are members of the charter school association his sister leads. Some of those include the McDonogh schools, which belong to the KIPP and Algiers charter school networks.

“The bill as passed by the Senate, is not what the final law will look like,” Adler tells Michigan Messenger.

This announcement comes as outrage about the bill reached a crescendo over the weekend. The legislation contained language which some said would allow bullying based on a sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions. Senate Democrats took to calling it a “license to bully.”

On Friday, Adler released a statement saying the Speaker would allow the committee process to play out before he would comment on his views of the legislation.

This legislation is just now arriving in the House and will soon be going through the committee process, where those supporting and those opposing the bill are free to share their position. Speaker Bolger will monitor the debate as it takes place and weigh in with his position at the appropriate time. Until then, we need to let the committee process take its due course.

Saturday, however, Bolger changed that statement and Adler tweeted on the Speaker’s behalf: “Bullying is wrong and the reason for bullying should not make it worse nor excused.”

Monday, Adler said that statement does in fact mean the Speaker opposes the religious exemption contained in SB 137.

Asked to explain the change in the Speaker’s view, Adler wrote in an email to Michigan Messenger:

“At the time, we were just finding out about what was in SB 137 and the issues that were arising. Part of the disadvantage of the instant news cycle fed by blogs like Michigan Messenger is that we sometimes have to offer comments before we have all the facts. That’s not meant as a slam on blogs, jut an observation of the 24-second news cycle we are all living with these days. After further information was obtained throughout Friday and into the weekend, Speaker Bolger’s position became clearer, at which point I reported it on Twitter and via comments on Michigan Messenger, the two outlets where people seemed to be talking about SB 137 the most at the time.”

Adler said House Republicans are working to develop a “consensus” bill which would address many concerns the Senate bill has raised, and that action could be taken as soon as this week — but could take longer because it takes time to develop full consensus.

Even as House Republicans moved to minimize the political fallout from their Senate colleagues’ actions, Democrats in the Senate were pressing their public relations advantage, with Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, (D-East Lansing) the Senate Minority Leader, scheduled to appear on Anderson Cooper 360 Tuesday night. Whitmer’s floor speech condemning Republicans for the bill has gone viral, receiving over 350,000 views since Thursday, her office reported Monday morning.

Emily Dievendorf, policy director at Equality Michigan, used the speaker’s statements as a chance to push for what she calls a more inclusive bill.

“The Senate Republicans took an already ineffective bill and made it an abusive bill that justifies bullying against our students. While the national spotlight is on the neglectful actions of the Senate Republicans, House Republicans can pass the strong, comprehensive, enumerated bill Governor Snyder references when he recommends Michigan legislators model this legislation after the State Board of Education policy,” she said. “Oregon wasted ten years following a policy that accomplished almost nothing before it took responsibility for Oregon kids and passed the effective enumerated language Michigan advocates are requesting. Michigan has the data and case studies to do what is right for our students the first time. The nation is watching.”