Federal stimulus funds are being used to bring more international students to the University of Iowa. U-of-I President Sally Mason says the university’s international student enrollment is jumping, from 30 undergraduates four years ago to nearly 500 this fall.

“This past year we used a little bit of stimulus money to help recruit international students,” Mason says. “…The number of students coming this fall are going to generate millions and millions of dollars, not only to the university, but in terms of what they’ll spend.”

Spending for things like food, clothes and lodging in the Iowa City area. The university used about $200,000 dollars worth of federal economic stimulus money to hire a recruiter and buy advertising. “The three countries that provide us with the largest number of international students are South Korea, China and India,” Mason says.

International students made up nearly 4% of the total undergraduate enrollment at the University of Iowa this past year. Just over 16.5%of the U-of-I’s masters and doctoral students were from another country. Students who come from Iowa pay far less in tuition and fees than out-of-staters and students from foreign countries.

Undergraduate tuition and fees for in-state students were a little less than $7,000 this past year, while students who live in other states or other countries paid about $32,000 in tuition and fees.

Iowa is joining 29 other states in adopting national standards for what students should learn in math and English. The new curriculum is designed to make the expectations for schools uniform from state-to-state.

The national standards differ from what’s known as the Iowa Core Curriculum by setting expectations grade-by-grade instead of clumping two-or-more grade levels together.

The acting director of the Iowa Department of Education, Kevin Fangman, says the state’s standards have also been criticized for their lack of specifics. “I think there’s a little bit more detail, which has been some of the feedback from teachers that they would like. I think a lot of the end of the day…there is a strong alignment or a match between the two in what they looked at to come up with their standards and what we looked at to come up with the Iowa Core were very similar,” Fangman said.

The Iowa Board of Education voted unanimously today to accept the national standards for English and math during its meeting in Marshalltown. Fangman believes the Iowa Core Curriculm isn’t much different from the national standards, so the transition should be a smooth one. “The past two years, districts have been getting their implementation plans ready for the Iowa Core, so some teachers won’t see a change as far as what they’ve been looking at and what’s coming out now,” Fangman said.

Prior to today’s vote, Governor Culver urged board members to adopt the standards, which the nation’s governors and school chiefs released in June. All Iowa school districts are required to implement the new standards by 2014.

A lawmaker who’s on the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee says “something doesn’t smell right” at the Iowa Association of School Boards and he’s puzzled by the lack of “outrage” from the group’s board of directors.

Representative Ralph Watts, a Republican from Adel, says he’s amazed by the “hands-off” attitude of the school board members from around the state who serve as directors for the Iowa Association of School Boards.

“There should be some outrage. I would expect that outrage that would come from the people that run the schools and the people that are in charge of the school organization.  I don’t hear it and I don’t see it,” Watts says. “That’s what’s frustrating to me.”  

Veronica Stalker, the recently-hired executive director of the Iowa Association of School Boards, told Watts few if any school boards have decided against renewing their membership in the Iowa Association of School Boards.

“That doesn’t imply there’s not outrage. There is significant outrage, so I didn’t want to leave that unresponded to because that’s really a misrepresentation if that’s all that’s said,” Stalker said yesterday during a statehouse hearing.

Watts replied: “With all due respect, I think the I.A.S.B. board has departed from its core mission long ago. This process that we’re going through just highlights that.” 

Watts and other members of the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee questioned auditors and officials from the association yesterday. Watts asked why the executive director of the association would earn a salary of over $200,000 to oversee a staff of 35.

“I don’t see this particular job as being anything…like a medical doctor, for instance. It’s not that complex.  It’s not anything mystical,” Watts said.  “It’s a management job that a qualified manager can perform.” 

Stalker and another association official said the $200,000-plus salary and additional benefits are in line with other, similar associations in other states.

The leaders of a legislative committee that’s been investigating alleged financial misdeeds at the Iowa Association of School Boards are expressing frustration with the group. 

“We have not seen critical changes made by the school board association that show Iowans this organization fully appreciates the mismanagement, misuse of taxpayer dollars and culture of ineptitude that allowed many of these practices to happen this past year and in prior years,” says Senator Rich Olive, a Democrat from Story City who is co-chair of the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee. 

The oversight panel opening a hearing this morning at the statehouse to continue its probe of the Iowa Association of School Board.  During an opening statement, Olive questioned why the man who’d been treasurer last year was recently reelected to that position by the association’s board of directors.

“This was the same person that was the school board treasurer last year when many of these problems started,” Olive said. “The school board association members gave testimony before the committee in March that they weren’t to blame for their lack of oversight because they weren’t getting financial statements last year, yet they reappoint the person who failed to do so.”

According to Olive, Iowans “deserve the truth” about how the association spent “every penny” of the tax dollars it received. And Olive said he’s “amazed at the gall” of association members who’ve complained about the inconvenience of publicly revealing the group’s finances. 

“We are concerned that the board culture that contributed to the Iowa school board association’s problems over this last year persists,” Olive said. “…Iowa taxpayers deserve answers. They deserve accountability and, most of all, they deserve the truth.”

Representative Vicki Lensing, a Democrat from Iowa City — the other co-chair of the Legislative Oversight Committee, said she’s “equally frustrated” Iowa Association of School Boards officials are complaining about the inconveninence of testifying before the panel.

“Our hearings are about accountability,” Lensing said.  “We have to be accountable to our citizens — financially, legislatively, policy-wise. And I would think the Iowa school board association would also feel that they need to be accountable because they need to remember where the dollars for their association comes from.”

Representative Ralph Watts, a Republican from Adel, said legislators have resolved to get to the bottom of the problem and will continue their probe of the Iowa Association of School Boards. 

The group’s new executive director was fired nearly a year ago after revelations she had significantly increased her own salary without board approval.  In addition, some of the association’s full-time staff were using association credit cards for personal use, like a trip to Bora Bora. 

The interim leader of the Iowa Association of School Boards told legislators the organization will work as long as it takes to repair the group’s damaged reputation.  Veronica Stalker, the recently-hired executive director of the Iowa Association of School Boards, defended the group’s response to the pay scandal and other questionable financial dealings.

“We are taking this extremely seriously,” she said. “Everything you are asking of us we are willing and ready to comply — not because you’re asking, but because the ethics and the integrity of our association have been called into question.” 

Stalker said the organization’s 64-year history of “outstanding service” had been squandered by “one year” of questionable activities. According to Stalker, the association is trying to “go overboard” and make its operations public. 

“So that’s my committment to you is that we’re open,  we’re responsive,” she said.  “That whatever you need is available to you.”

Representative Clel Baudler, a Republican from Greenfield, suggested the association’s auditors should have gone to the police or federal authorities nearly a year ago with information about the group’s previous managers.

“It’s apparent sitting here that Maxine Kilcrease and Kevin Schick has been running some type of a criminal enterprise, really” Baudler said during today’s hearing, “…including stone-walling, in-your-face and email threats, check kiting and forgery, in my opinion.” 

Legislators also criticized some of the group’s board of directors for complaining about the time it has taken to compile information for the statehouse hearings about the Iowa Association of School Boards finances. 

“I hope that everyone at this table understands that this is all taxpayer money — every red cent,” said Senator Tom Courtney, a Democrat from Burlington. “…If the organization or a former legislator on the board doesn’t like (our investigation)…I couldn’t care less…We’re going to keep trying until we get to the bottom of this.”

Another legislator questioned why the association’s board — made up of school board members — doesn’t seem to be “outraged” by the financial problems that have been disclosed in the past year.

(This story was updated at 1:45 p.m.)

A few Franciscan nuns are hosting Iowa’s newest training center for local electricians and plumbers who want to learn to install solar panels and solar-heated water systems.

There was a groundbreaking Wednesday for the Iowa Renewable Energy Installation Training Center. It’s located at the Prairie Woods Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha. 

“This is God’s creation and we have a responsibility to take care of it,” says Sister Helen Elsbernd, the center’s director.

The Catholic center soon will host a government facility to provide hands-on training so technicians can learn to install solar energy systems. Mike Carberry of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association says local home owners and businesses will benefit as the technicians will install more affordable solar panels and hot water systems in the area. 

“There is a demand for PV, or photovoltaic, and solar thermal, but to get trained to do that — it really takes electricians and plumbers to do it, but it’s a skill they normally don’t learn. And right now to get that training they have to drive at least five hours from Cedar Rapids to Custer, Wisconsin, to get trained by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association,” he says.  “We thought that, you know, we’ve been doing some training here in Iowa the last few years. Why shouldn’t we be able to get them trained here?” 

State and federal grants, as well as private contributions, are financing the $100,000 center.

When students return to school in seven Iowa districts this fall, they’ll be chowing down on healthier lunches as part of a pilot project. Patti Delger, the Team Nutrition project manager at the Iowa Department of Education, says the food will be better for the kids, and should taste better, too.

“The menus have two fruits and two vegetables every day,” Delger says. “We try to increase whole grains throughout the week. Also, locally-grown foods are offered as an option and beans and legumes have been increased.” Delger says the school districts volunteered for the pilot program, and they’ll be getting plenty in return.

She says, “We’re contracting with chefs to provide some on-site visits as well as Iowa State University Extension specialists that will go and do some staff training with the food service department.” The plan is to eventually roll out the so-called Gold Menu program across Iowa.

Delger says, “We’ll get some feedback and some outcomes from the pilot and then hope to tweak the menus a little bit, improve on them and then release them to all schools next spring.”

The districts taking part in the pilot project are: South Hamilton, Gilbert, Lawton Bronson, Humboldt, Southeast Polk, Johnston and Des Moines Independent. Learn more at the Iowa Department of Education website: www.iowa.gov/educate

Thanks to Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

The University Iowa is reporting another record year for what it calls “external funding,” things like grants for research. U-I interim vice president for research and economic development, Jordan Cohen, made the announcement today.

Cohen says the total awards were $466.5 million, up nearly 9% from last year’s $429.5 million. He says the distribution between federal and non federal sources of the money was 310-million federal 155-non federal. Cohen says the increase continued a trend that saw the external funding remain strong.

“It’s a remarkable story for research for the University of Iowa, really remarkable story,” Cohen says, “if you look carefully at that, really literally going back to the mid 80s, 25 years, 26 years ago, there’ve only been three years where we’ve even had a slight downturn in funding, otherwise it’s been a pretty impressive rise in our funding capability.” Federal funding represented 66-percent of the money.

Cohen says the largest segment of their external funding comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, and the larger component of that is from the National Institutes of Health for the health sciences and college of medicine for health related research. The increase in funding includes more than $40-million in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Iowa State University officials also set a new record for external funding. I.S.U. says the school attracted a record $388.2 million — an increase of $83 million and a 27% increase over last year’s record. Just over $21 million was federal economic stimulus money.

Iowa State’s largest single source of external funding was the U.S. Department of Energy at just over $59-million. The second highest source was the U.S. Department of Agriculture at nearly $52-million.

The third highest was the National Science Foundation at $46.8 million.

U-I’s major funding agencies:
Department of Health & Human Services (includes $219 million from NIH) $240.5 million (up 11.7 percent).
National Science Foundation: $14 million (up 12 percent).
NASA: $9.6 million (up 4.6 percent).
Department of Education: $22.4 million (up 19.1 percent).
Department of Defense: $8.2 million (down 8.9 percent).
States: $61 million (up 27 percent).
Industry: $30.8 million (down 19.7 percent).
Private Organizations: $32.5 million (down 19.1 percent).

Iowa State’s external funding came from the following sources:
Federal
Energy, $59,267,985
Agriculture, $51,883,266
National Science Foundation, $46,797,648
Education, $28,662,828
Health and Human Services, $20,533,625
Defense, $10,945,023
Transportation, $7,986,419
Commerce, $3,122,887
NASA, $1,529,047
Interior, $388,796
Environmental Protection Agency, $245,462
Other, $5,631,671
Total Federal $236,994,657 

Non-Federal
ISU Foundation, $42,471,075
Businesses/Corporations/Commodities, $38,681,411
State, County and City Government, $35,139,824
Universities and Colleges, $17,757,528
External Foundations and Associations, $13,428,710
Individuals, $120,800
Other, $3,593,586
Total Non-Federal $151,192,934
Grand Total $388,187,591

Some Area Education Agencies in Iowa are purchasing technology bunkers to protect important data from being destroyed by a fire, severe storm or other disasters. The Grant Wood A.E.A. in Cedar Rapids installed it’s bunker last April after the old housing unit was inundated with a foot of floodwater in 2008.

Grant Wood A.E.A. Director of Information Technology Dave Brousard says the new shelter provides much safer protection of payroll for the 60 school districts the agency serves around the state. He says the 2008 flood nearly jeopardized timely paychecks sent to roughly 20,000 teachers.

Fortunately, Brousard and others were able to move the computers and servers to higher ground before their building was flooded. But, the scare prompted the Grant Wood A.E.A. to spend $200,000 on the new bunker. Brousard says it’s designed to withstand 150 mile per hour winds. It’s also bulletproof and fireproof.

Flooded site where Grant Wood AEA servers used to reside.

The Heartland A.E.A. in Johnston should have a similar technology bunker in place later this year. Brousard says his agency in Cedar Rapids will share capabilities and back up plans with the facility in Johnston.

“We’ll have some servers at each other’s sites, so assuming that a tornado hit our bunker and destroyed it, we could go to Heartland and they would have our data backed up and some servers that we could start restoring to. They would do the same thing with us,” Brousard said.

In addition to the payroll information, the Grant Wood A.E.A. stores information for approximately 86,000 Iowa high school students.

President Obama is expected to sign legislation overhauling the nation’s financial system this week. The new law is designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 banking industry meltdown. It will also set up a single federal agency to regulate private student loans.

Consumers have complained about predatory loan practices and no enforcement. However, Grinnell College President Russell Osgood says he’s not convinced the new law will effectively regulate private student loans. “We all watched when Katrina happened and the federal agency in charge dropped the ball and look what happened, people died. Now, I don’t think people are going to die, but I am concerned about giving monopoly control over something as important as student loans to a single agency,” Osgood said. 

Osgood says, if the new system doesn’t work, the country should go back to having multiple loan providers. “I think we should go back to a system of licensing probably more than one loan originator,” Osgood said. “I think maybe the problem with the old system is that we had too many licensed and too little regulation.”

Osgood made his comments on the Iowa Public Radio program, The Exchange.

A data breach on the Buena Vista University campus has allowed unauthorized access to a database of thousands of records.

University officials say a nationally-recognized computer forensics team was hired to conduct an investigation and discovered the breach, which may include names, Social Security numbers, and some driver’s license numbers for B-V-U students, parents, faculty and staff, alumni, and some donor records.

The records date back to 1987. Campus officials say there’s no indication any of the personal information has been or is being misused or disclosed to other people. The unauthorized access was confirmed in June, and they began identifying and notifying the 93,000 people involved. The incident has been referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.

University president Fred Moore says the security of all personal information provided to the university is of utmost importance and they deeply regret this incident has occurred. He says they’re taking steps to mitigate any risk of potential harm. The university is in the process of providing formal notification to state attorneys general and to authorities in Puerto Rico.

It also mailed letters to all 93,000 people whose data may have been accessed, informing them of the incident and about steps they can take to protect their personal information and credit. The school has also contracted with a leading national credit protection agency to provide credit monitoring and protection services at no charge.

By Joel Hermann, KAYL, Storm Lake