Brown seeks to reshape California's community colleges

With a slate of bold and controversial budget proposals, Gov. Jerry Brown has placed a renewed focus on the state's struggling community colleges, the world's largest system of two-year schools that are often overshadowed by the University of California and Cal State systems.

The governor's recommendations are aimed at keeping community colleges affordable, keeping classes accessible and moving students faster through the system to allow them to graduate or transfer to a four-year university at higher rates. Brown's spending plan must clear the Legislature, and some college officials have vowed to oppose — or at least try to modify — some portions.

These proposals are among the most significant policy shifts in years and could reshape many campus operations.

"It's a courageous plan," said Eloy Oakley, president of Long Beach City College. "The governor is focusing on policy issues we've been talking about for many years but dancing around the margins. A lot of this has been on the table in statehouses throughout the nation, but we're addressing these issues in California in a meaningful way."

Community colleges play a vital role in California's higher education system, training large segments of the state's workforce. But the 112-college system has strained under the pressure of huge funding cuts and increased demand. Thousands of courses have been slashed and enrollment has been shrunk by more 500,000 students in recent years.

Most of the schools' 2.4-million students are unprepared for college-level work: 85% need remedial English, 73% need remedial math and only about a third of remedial students transfer to a four-year school or graduate with a community college associate's degree.

Education leaders praised the governor's efforts to follow through on his commitment to voters to restore education funding through the passage of Proposition 30, the school tax initiative —- even while expressing misgivings about aspects of the plan. The budget includes nearly $200 million in additional funding for the colleges.

"It's wonderful to have an environment where we're going to have some provocative conversations about policy," said community colleges Chancellor Brice Harris. "We're not going to shy away and [we] actually look forward to the discussion."

State officials said the plan is meant to build on changes proposed last year by a statewide task force charged with improving the colleges. Measures approved by the Legislature and Board of Governors establish registration priorities, including preventing students from repeating courses to improve their grades and allowing students who participate in orientation and academic assessment programs and have 100 units or less to enroll in classes first. Students also would have to maintain satisfactory grades to continue to qualify for fee waivers.

Brown goes further toward moving students through the system. He is seeking to limit the number of credits students can accumulate. Beginning next fall, he suggests a cap on state-subsidized classes at 90 units, requiring students who exceed that to pay the full cost of instruction, about $190 per semester unit versus $46 per unit. In the 2009-10 academic year, nearly 120,000 students had earned 90 units or more.

Students said they are particularly concerned that the unit cap is punitive for those who have a double major, who may be returning to college to train for a new job or who want to explore their interests before deciding on a field of study.

"We're going to work very hard to get rid of this," said Rich Copenhagen, a College of Alameda student who is president of the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. "The governor does seem to be interested in pushing through a lot of policy in this budget. He's in a position to say I got you more money, now you need to make your system better."

Perhaps one of the more controversial elements of Brown's plan is to change the funding formula for community colleges to pay schools for students who complete courses. Funding is now based on the number of students enrolled at the third or fourth week of the term.

The goal, said state officials, is to provide incentives for colleges to improve.

Brown's performance-based plan would be phased in over several years, and savings would be reinvested in support services.

The task force considered and rejected a similar funding plan.

Harris and others were cautious about many of Brown's proposals. Performance-based funding might encourage colleges to cut courses that are difficult to complete and cause students to switch to less demanding classes. He argued that enrollment priorities suggested by the task force — he served on the panel as chancellor of the Los Rios Community College District — would accomplish the same goals.

The new funding formula also might be an incentive to keep students in classes they are not suited for, said Michelle Pilati, president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. She cautioned that the limit on units could create a two-tiered system of those who can afford to pay and continue their education and those who can't.

"I think he's putting policies on the table we really need to look at and think about," said Pilati, who teaches psychology at Rio Hondo College in Whittier. "As with so many things, the devil is in the details."

The governor also urged UC, Cal State and community college systems to find ways to provide more online classes. The budget provides nearly $17 million to increase those classes for the two-year schools. Brown is proposing a "virtual campus" with 250 new courses available to students statewide that would be transferrable to all colleges. Currently, about 27% of students take at least one course online each year.

System-wide technology, for example, would allow Long Beach City College to expand its online offerings — only about 5% of Long Beach students now take online classes — while keeping down costs, Oakley said.

In a new approach to speeding students' time in school, the governor would allow those with knowledge of a subject to receive course credit by taking a special exam rather than attending classes. The credits would be transferrable to Cal State or UC.

The emphasis on college completion has drawbacks, said some education leaders, and tends to ignore the realities of the typical community college student: They are older and have jobs and families and many attend part time.

"It's probably closing the door and becoming a little more privileged, benefiting students who can go full time," said John S. Levin, executive director of the California Community College Collaborative at UC Riverside.

The governor is also looking to shift some programs from the lower education system to community colleges. For example, the budget provides $315.7 million to shift adult education and apprenticeship programs from K-12, with funding directed to vocational education, English as a Second Language and citizenship classes. Students would be required to pay the full cost of instruction for other adult education courses.

Harris said he expected lively negotiations with the governor and legislators.

"This is about fine-tuning what we think is a great budget," the chancellor said. "We're not going to restore all the access we lost, but it is a modest investment in our future."

carla.rivera@latimes.com

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Soap Bubble Nebula

Informally known as the "Soap Bubble Nebula", this planetary nebula (officially known as PN G75.5+1.7) was discovered by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich on July 6th, 2008. It was noted and reported by Keith Quattrocchi and Mel Helm on July 17th, 2008. This image was obtained with the Kitt Peak Mayall 4-meter telescope on June 19th, 2009 in the H-alpha (orange) and [OIII] (blue) narrowband filters. In this image, north is to the left and east is down.

PN G75.5+1.7 is located in the constellation of Cygnus, not far from the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). It is embedded in a diffuse nebula which, in conjunction with its faintness, is the reason it was not discovered until recently. The spherical symmetry of the shell is remarkable, making it very similar to Abell 39.

Image: T. A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF [high-resolution] Read NOAO Conditions of Use before downloading

Caption: NOAO

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ABC News’ Barbara Walters hospitalized after fall

NEW YORK (AP) — Veteran ABC newswoman Barbara Walters has fallen at an inauguration party at an ambassador’s home in Washington and has been hospitalized.

Walters, 83, fell Saturday night on a step at the residence of Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Westmacott, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. The fall left Walters with a cut on her forehead, he said.

Walters, out of an abundance of caution, went to a hospital for treatment of the cut and for a full examination, Schneider said on Sunday. She was alert and was “telling everyone what to do, which we all take as a very positive sign,” he said.

It was unclear when Walters might be released from the hospital, which ABC didn’t identify.

Walters was TV news’ first female superstar, making headlines in 1976 as a network anchor with an unprecedented $ 1 million annual salary. During more than three decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, her exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers have brought her celebrity status. In 1997, she created “The View,” a live weekday talk show that became an unexpected hit.

Walters had heart surgery in May 2010 but returned to active duty on “The View” that September, declaring, “I’m fine!”

Even in her ninth decade, Walters continues to keep a busy schedule, including appearances on “The View,” prime-time interviews and her annual special, “10 Most Fascinating People,” on which, in December, she asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he considered himself fit enough to be president someday. (Christie, although acknowledging he is “more than a little” overweight, replied he would be up to the job.)

Last June, Walters apologized for trying to help a former aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad land a job or get into college in the United States. She acknowledged the conflict in trying to help Sheherazad Jaafari, daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United States and a one-time press aide to Assad. Jaafari helped Walters land an interview with the Syrian president that aired in December 2011.

Walters said she realized the help she offered Jaafari was a conflict and said, “I regret that.”

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Time Warner Cable Ad Campaign Aims at Regaining Customers

Cable companies big and small have been losing television subscribers — millions of them — to satellite and telecommunications competitors for years. But Time Warner Cable says it is ready to claw some of them back.

On Monday, the company — the second-largest cable provider in the country behind Comcast — will begin a marketing campaign aimed at former subscribers who might be having second thoughts about their current video service.

The company says it will spend at least $50 million on broadcast, print, online and direct mail ads for the campaign, which it is calling “The Better Guarantee.”

The ads convey the idea that while the company’s cable service did not always live up to expectations in the past, it has become better.

“We, as a company, are fundamentally different and better than we were a few years ago when these upstart competitors started coming in,” said Jeffrey A. Hirsch, the chief marketing officer for residential services at Time Warner Cable. By upstarts, he was referring to Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, two relatively new fiber optic television and Internet providers that have gained subscribers at the expense of cable providers.

Some of the Time Warner Cable ads specifically challenge Verizon, saying it promised monthly savings that have not panned out.

“That promise of new isn’t such a great promise, and people are starting to come back to Time Warner Cable,” Mr. Hirsch said. “So we decided it’s time to put some muscle behind the idea.”

The campaign announcement comes a week before Time Warner Cable releases its fourth-quarter earnings, which may show deepening losses in television subscribers, known in the industry as basic video subscribers. Industry analysts at Jefferies & Company published a forecast last week that had Time Warner Cable losing 140,000 such subscribers, a slight increase from the 129,000 it lost in the same quarter of 2011. The same forecast had three other cable providers stemming their losses year-over-year.

“The Better Guarantee” is an extension of “Enjoy Better,” a brand-image campaign that Time Warner Cable began last February to retain existing subscribers as well as win new ones. The new ads point to specific improvements the company has made: smartphone apps, on-demand TV options and narrower windows of time for home service calls. Gone are the dreaded four-hour windows, the company says; two-hour windows are now the norm and one-hour windows are being put in place.

In an interview by phone, Mr. Hirsch also mentioned “much faster Internet than we had two, three years ago” and a home security service.

To entice former subscribers to try Time Warner Cable again, the ads promote a 30-day money-back guarantee. “If the consumer doesn’t see that we’ve improved our service, we’ll send them their money back,” said Gregg Fujimoto, a senior vice president for the company.

Some of the ads feature actual subscribers, explaining why they came back to the company. Mr. Fujimoto said there would be use of social networking Web sites as well as traditional advertising media.

Other cable providers, facing the same competition from satellite and telecommunications providers, have also tried to burnish their reputations lately with ad campaigns. Comcast started a new phase of its marketing for Xfinity, its consumer services, last summer. The providers have also invested an enormous amount of money in infrastructure so that their television and Internet services are on par, or better, than their competition’s.

The providers are up against persistent discontent from subscribers who say their monthly bills are too high and their set-top boxes are too slow. Surveys for the University of Michigan’s American Consumer Satisfaction Index have shown for three straight years that Verizon FiOS is the highest-regarded television provider in the country.

AT&T and two satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, have also ranked above the industry average, while Time Warner Cable, Comcast and other cable providers have remained below the average. But the 2012 survey had some good news for Time Warner Cable: the company’s score ticked up four percentage points, the most of any television provider on the index.

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Sunset on Mars

On May 19th, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this stunning view as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars. This Panoramic Camera (Pancam) mosaic was taken around 6:07 in the evening of the rover's 489th martian day, or sol. Spirit was commanded to stay awake briefly after sending that sol's data to the Mars Odyssey orbiter just before sunset. This small panorama of the western sky was obtained using Pancam's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer color filters. This filter combination allows false color images to be generated that are similar to what a human would see, but with the colors slightly exaggerated. In this image, the bluish glow in the sky above the Sun would be visible to us if we were there, but an artifact of the Pancam's infrared imaging capabilities is that with this filter combination the redness of the sky farther from the sunset is exaggerated compared to the daytime colors of the martian sky. Because Mars is farther from the Sun than the Earth is, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it appears in a sunset seen from the Earth. The terrain in the foreground is the rock outcrop "Jibsheet", a feature that Spirit has been investigating for several weeks (rover tracks are dimly visible leading up to Jibsheet). The floor of Gusev crater is visible in the distance, and the Sun is setting behind the wall of Gusev some 80 km (50 miles) in the distance.

This mosaic is yet another example from MER of a beautiful, sublime martian scene that also captures some important scientific information. Specifically, sunset and twilight images are occasionally acquired by the science team to determine how high into the atmosphere the martian dust extends, and to look for dust or ice clouds. Other images have shown that the twilight glow remains visible, but increasingly fainter, for up to two hours before sunrise or after sunset. The long martian twilight (compared to Earth's) is caused by sunlight scattered around to the night side of the planet by abundant high altitude dust. Similar long twilights or extra-colorful sunrises and sunsets sometimes occur on Earth when tiny dust grains that are erupted from powerful volcanoes scatter light high in the atmosphere.

Image: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell [high-resolution]

Caption: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell

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Obamas join military families for kids’ concert

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia are rocking out with hundreds of kids from military families and Washington-area public schools at the Kids’ Inaugural Concert.

Pop star Usher started off the proceedings Saturday evening with his hit song “Yeah.” The concert is chock-full of A-list talent, including Katy Perry, Mindless Behavior and members of the cast of the Fox series “Glee.”

The concert continues a tradition started at the 2009 inauguration by honoring the nation’s military families. It’s being hosted by Mrs. Obama and the vice president’s wife, Jill Biden, and emceed by Nick Cannon.

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Well: A Great Grain Adventure

This week, the Recipes for Health columnist Martha Rose Shulman asks readers to go beyond wild rice and get adventurous with their grains. She offers new recipes with some unusual grains you may not have ever cooked or eaten. Her recipes this week include:

Millet: Millet can be used in bird seed and animal feed, but the grain is enjoying a renaissance in the United States right now as a great source of gluten-free nutrition. It can be used in savory or sweet foods and, depending on how it’s cooked, can be crunchy or creamy. To avoid mushy millet, Ms. Shulman advises cooking no more than 2/3 cup at a time. Toast the seeds in a little oil first and take care not to stir the millet once you have added the water so you will get a fluffy result.

Triticale: This hearty, toothsome grain is a hybrid made from wheat and rye. It is a good source of phosphorus and a very good source of magnesium. It has a chewy texture and earthy flavor, similar to wheatberries.

Farro: Farro has a nutty flavor and a chewy texture, and holds up well in cooking because it doesn’t get mushy. When using farro in a salad, cook it until you see that the grains have begun to splay so they won’t be too chewy and can absorb the dressing properly.

Buckwheat: Buckwheat isn’t related to wheat and is actually a great gluten-free alternative. Ms. Shulman uses buckwheat soba noodles to add a nutty flavor and wholesomeness to her Skillet Soba Salad.

Here are five new ways to cook with grains.

Skillet Brown Rice, Barley or Triticale Salad With Mushrooms and Endive: Triticale is a hybrid grain made from wheat and rye, but any hearty grain would work in this salad.

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Skillet Beet and Farro Salad: This hearty winter salad can be a meal or a side dish, and warming it in the skillet makes it particularly comforting.

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Warm Millet, Carrot and Kale Salad With Curry-Scented Dressing: Millet can be tricky to cook, but if you are careful, you will be rewarded with a fluffy and delicious salad.

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Skillet Wild Rice, Walnut and Broccoli Salad: Broccoli flowers catch the nutty, lemony dressing in this winter salad.

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Skillet Soba, Baked Tofu and Green Bean Salad With Spicy Dressing: The nutty flavor of buckwheat soba noodles makes for a delicious salad.

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The Boss: New Leaders Inc. C.E.O. on Giving Children a Chance

I AM the youngest of 10 children in my family, and the only one born in the United States. My father was a municipal judge who fled Haiti during the Duvalier regime. He and my mother settled in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, but could not initially afford to bring over my four brothers and five sisters, who stayed in Haiti with relatives.

Jean S. Desravines is the chief executive of New Leaders Inc. in New York.

AGE 41

FAVORITE PASTIMES Karate and taekwondo

MEMORABLE BOOK "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character," by Paul Tough

Since he did not speak English fluently, my father worked as a janitor and had a second job as a hospital security guard. He later took a third job driving a taxi at night to pay for my tuition at Nazareth Regional High School, a Roman Catholic school in Brooklyn. My parents were determined that I was going to get a good education, and wanted to keep me away from local troubles, which did claim two of my childhood friends.

Working so many jobs overwhelmed my father. He had a heart attack and died at age 59 behind the wheel of his taxi. My mother found it difficult to cope without my father and moved back to Haiti in 1989 with two of my siblings. I thought I would have to leave school because I had no money for tuition, but Nazareth agreed to pay my way.

I wound up sleeping in my car for almost three months, showering at school after my track team’s practice. I also held down two jobs, both in retailing, and one of my sisters and I rented a basement apartment in East Flatbush.

After graduating from high school in 1990, I attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn, on athletic and academic scholarships. I worked first at the New York City Board of Education, where H. Carl McCall was president, then in his office after he became New York State comptroller. I later worked in the office of Ruth Messinger, then the Manhattan borough president.

I broadened my nonprofit organization experience at the Faith Center for Community Development while earning my master’s of public administration at New York University. I married my high school sweetheart, Melissa, and we now have two children.

In 2001, I began to work toward my original goal — improving educational opportunities for children — and joined the city’s Department of Education. I was later recruited under the new administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to help start a program as part of his Children First reforms.

In 2003, I became the Department of Education’s executive director for parent and community engagement, and, two years later, senior counselor to Joel I. Klein, then the school chancellor. He taught me a great deal about leadership and how to change the education system. But I began to realize public education could not be transformed without great principals who function like C.E.O.’s of their schools.

So in 2006 I returned to the nonprofit world, to New Leaders, a national organization founded in 2000 to recruit and develop leaders to turn around low-performing public schools. Initially, I managed city partnerships and expanded our program in areas like New Orleans and Charlotte, N.C.

In 2011, I became C.E.O., and revamped our program to produce even stronger student achievement results, streamlined our costs, diversified funding sources and forged new partnerships. We have an annual budget of $31.5 million, which comes from foundations, businesses, individuals and government grants, and a staff of about 200 people at a dozen locations.

We have a new partnership with Pearson Education to provide greater learning opportunities to public school principals. The goal of these efforts is to have a great principal in each of our nation’s public schools — to make sure that, just as I did, all kids get a chance at success.

As told to Elizabeth Olson.

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Mali conflict exposes White House-Pentagon split

WASHINGTON — The widening war in Mali has opened divisions between the White House and the Pentagon over the danger posed by a mix of Islamist militant groups, some with murky ties to Al Qaeda, that are creating havoc in West Africa.

Although no one is suggesting that the groups pose an imminent threat to the United States, the French military intervention in Mali and a terrorist attack against an international gas complex in neighboring Algeria have prompted sharp Obama administration debate over whether the militants present enough of a risk to U.S. allies or interests to warrant a military response.

Some top Pentagon officials and military officers warn that without more aggressive U.S. action, Mali could become a haven for extremists, akin to Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Militants in Mali, "if left unaddressed, ... will obtain capability to match their intent — that being to extend their reach and control and to attack American interests," Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of the U.S. Africa Command, said in an interview.

But many of Obama's top aides say it is unclear whether the Mali insurgents, who include members of the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, threaten the U.S.

Those aides also worry about being drawn into a messy and possibly long-running conflict against an elusive enemy in Mali, a vast landlocked country abutting the Sahara desert, just as U.S. forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan.

"No one here is questioning the threat that AQIM poses regionally," said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing internal deliberations. "The question we all need to ask is, what threat do they pose to the U.S. homeland? The answer so far has been none."

Another U.S. official, who is regularly briefed on such intelligence, said the groups' goals were often hard to distinguish.

"AQIM and its allies have opportunistic criminals and smugglers in their midst, but they also have some die-hard terrorists with more grandiose visions," the official said. "In some cases, the roles may overlap."

The internal debate is one reason for a delay in U.S. support for the French, who airlifted hundreds of troops into Mali last weekend and launched airstrikes in an effort to halt the militants from pushing out of their northern stronghold toward Bamako, the Malian capital.

The Pentagon is planning to begin ferrying additional French troops and equipment to Mali in coming days aboard U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo jets, according to Air Force Maj. Robert Firman, a Pentagon spokesman.

Military planners are still studying the airport runways in Bamako to determine whether they can handle the huge C-17s. If not, they will land elsewhere and the French troops will be flown into Mali on smaller aircraft. French officials have asked the U.S. to transport an armored infantry battalion of 500 to 600 soldiers, plus vehicles and other equipment.

The U.S. is also providing France with surveillance and other intelligence on the militants.

But the administration has so far balked at a French request for tanker aircraft to provide in-air refueling of French fighter jets because the White House does not yet want to get directly involved in supporting French combat operations, officials said.

U.S. officials have ruled out putting troops on the ground, except in small numbers and only to support the French.

"I think the U.S. ambivalence about moving into Mali is very understandable," said Richard Barrett, a former British diplomat who serves as United Nations counter-terrorism coordinator. Noting the instances where U.S. forces have been drawn into conflict with Islamic militants, he said, "Why would they want another one, for God's sake? It's such a difficult area to operate in."

After 2001, Washington tried to tamp down Islamic extremism in Mali under a counter-terrorism initiative that combined anti-poverty programs with training for the military. The U.S. aid was halted, however, when military officers overthrew the government last March in a violent coup.

Gen. Ham has warned for months that AQIM was growing stronger and intended to carry out attacks in the region and elsewhere. To combat the threat, some officers favor building closer ties with governments in the region and boosting intelligence-gathering and special operations.

But other administration officials question the need for a bigger U.S. effort.

Johnnie Carson, who heads the Africa bureau at the State Department, told Congress in June that AQIM "has not demonstrated the capability to threaten U.S. interests outside of West or North Africa, and it has not threatened to attack the U.S. homeland."

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