WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, did not like what Veterans’ Affairs had to say to Sandra Strickland, a homeless U.S. Army veteran, when she contacted them for help.

“You got a list of shelters. ‘Here it is. See you later?’” he asked Strickland of her experience last year, during a hearing Wednesday on veteran homelessness.

She nodded, yes.

VA officials, homeless veterans, and community program representatives testified before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about inadequate information, particularly on the safety of transitional housing, as a barrier to achieving the Obama administration’s goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015.

Linda Halliday, representing the VA’s office of the inspector general, presented the findings of a recent audit of the largest of several VA homeless programs, the Grant and Per Diem program. She said the investigation revealed that the VA directs veterans to programs that are not adequately safe or secure, does not fully review organizations before granting money, and inconsistently monitors community programs for how effective they are.

She highlighted the plight of female women homeless veterans. She cited a statistic that 31 percent of the 26 providers audited housed female and male residents on the same floor without access restrictions, and did not have working locks on bedroom and bathroom doors.

Overall, the hearing suggested that the VA is not yet on track to end homelessness among veterans in the next three years.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he worries about the irrational, non-nation groups that have investment in cyber capabilities.

Though the threat of cyber espionage looms as countries such as  China, Russia and Iran build up their capabilities, one of the predominant fears is not knowing who exactly the enemy is or where an attack will originate.

With the rise of hacktivist groups like Anonymous, the war on the cyber threat takes on a novel tone.

Lawmakers have been pressured to make strides in cybersecurity legislation that will protect the private sector going forward. But frequent news of Anonymous’ attacks spark a new wave of potential perils, bringing to light the innumerable possibilities of cyber espionage.

In a bulletin last year, the Department of Homeland Security said  Anonymous has the ability to cause  critical infrastructure damage in the future.

The agency’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center learned of a possible cyber attack operation planned against Halliburton, a U.S. oil and natural gas company in August 2011. Although the attack didn’t happen, the department said it would have been “consistent with Anonymous’ targeting preferences.”

The group often engages in distributed denial of service attacks, disrupting normal activity by making websites unavailable. It has attacked several federal websites this year.

Last month, Anonymous teamed up with Wikileaks to release over five million emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor — one of several private intelligence companies working with the U.S. government that it attacked.

The lingering question is why.

Authorities may have made a break in the cybercrime game. Five members of Lulz Sec, an offshoot of Anonymous, were arrested in connection with cybercrimes last week. Hector Xavier Monsegur, a vocal leader of the collective, worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn the crew.

Cole Stryker, author of “Epic Win for Anonymous,” told the New York Times it would be difficult for the group to work collectively “now that their ranks are undoubtedly infiltrated by feds, security contractors and rival hackers.”

Still, Anonymous’ growing ability to pick and choose what pirated information it wants to release, is a cause for concern, Rogers said.

“They have the capability and they are getting better,” the Michigan Republican said. “At the end of the day, they don’t have to worry about governance.”

Understanding Anonymous

To understand just how Anonymous interacts, Professor Gabriella Coleman decided to peek behind its digital iron curtain and follow the chatter.

Coleman, professor of media, culture, and communication at New York University, embarked on an anthropological study of the group in 2008, the year it launched an attack on the Church of Scientology. She noticed a surprising metamorphosis from pulling pranks for fun to more active forms of protest.

Like workers talking shop at a bar, individuals, only known by their anon, laud the accomplishments of the collective when an attack occurs.  Some lurk on the server, occasionally chiming in to organize protests. Others contribute as experts, providing the collective valuable information or advice for future endeavors.

Anonymous originated as an Internet meme in 2003, spreading through the social image aggregator 4chan. Its moniker — a business suit with either a question mark or a Guy Fawkes mask for a head — reveals itself on the group’s videos to show the leaderless organization.

Before 2008, Coleman says, the group exclusively targeted people and organizations for sheer amusement. But after the attack on the Church of Scientology, the group released a video, joking about its exploits.

“It was a call to arms to dismantle the Church of Scientology,” she said, “but it prompted a discussion on Internet chat rooms, where people ask, “Huh, maybe we should, in fact, protest the Church in earnest.”

Its hackers rely on “relatively crude tools…to deny access to websites, or hijack or deface web pages and post quasi-political statements, or perform other malicious activity,” according to the Homeland Security Department’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center Bulletin.

But the group’s overall identity is often misunderstood, Coleman said.

“Anonymous seems everywhere, and yet, notoriously difficult to pin down,” she said. “Their actions are alternatively peaceful and legal, illicit and disruptive.”

It could be because its members come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are hackers, geeks, even human rights activists — a “cluster of both ideas and ideals adopted by these individuals to organize collective actions,” Coleman said.

The types of attacks the collective partakes in are often unorganized and lack a definitive starting point. In a recent disruption of several Vatican websites, for instance, the group issued a statement to an Italian newspaper, claiming responsibility for the attack

But the reason behind the attack differed depending on what feed one reads.

“Anonymous decided today to besiege your site in response to the doctrine, to the liturgies, to the absurd and anachronistic concepts that your for-profit organization spreads around the world,” the hackers said in a statement to an Italian newspaper.

But the YourAnonNews feed called the attack “for the pure, simple lulz, no other reason.”

Still, the group’s statements signal a new era of cyber activism, sparking worries in government entities. Its members pride themselves on being “social media savvy,” using Twitter and YouTube to take responsibility for their actions.

“Though Anonymous has increasingly devoted its energies over time toward digital dissent and direct action, marshaled in the service of political causes,” she says,” it has no definite trajectory and its political sensibilities are still drawn by the collective will towards pranking, transgression, and mischief.”

The DHS and private sector watch intently

A few years ago, Larry Clinton and a few colleagues at the Internet Security Alliance — a multi-trade association that lobbies for Internet companies — were worried. They had received information about a potential cyber infiltration to networks from what they thought to be Eastern Europe. After an investigation, the culprit, working surreptitiously, came instead from Texas.

One of the major problems private sector entities face, Clinton says, is the anonymity of attackers who deceptively work behind the scenes to deny or disrupt networks. The enemy can be a foreign entity or a domestic savant. The administration has stated that the Department of Homeland Security is the lead agency on cybersecurity affairs.

“We don’t have a good threat assessment,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Until we do that, we’re not going to get anywhere.”

Clinton expects the private sector to invest more than $80 billion dollars on protection alone this year. The Homeland Security Department proposes $769 million to support the operations of the DHS National Cyber Security Division — double the amount of money Secretary Janet Napolitano requested in 2011.

He says there is a common misconception that the government manages the cyber protection of the private sector, when in fact the private companies are left on their own.

Roger Cressey, senior vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and intelligence contractor that was attacked last year, told the New York Times that Anonymous is a “wake-up call” for other firms who have taken the group’s infiltration capabilities for granted.

Booz Allen Hamilton declined to comment specifically on the attack.

The Department of Homeland Security gathers intelligence from a variety of sources and pushes it out to the business community through the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). US-CERT, a part of the agency’s National Cyber Security Division, provides alerts to the public and private sector in case of a cyber attack.

Information sharing for potential threats, Larry Clinton said, occurs through informal exchanges between companies and hubs called information sharing and analysis centers (ISACS). The centers analyze the pervading trends and distribute relevant information to specific sectors.

Heritage’s Rosenzweig said Anonymous has not demonstrated the ability to disrupt critical infrastructure. He said the loss of six members from Lulz Sec, a group closely affiliated to Anonymous, will deeply affect them.

“Anonymous is kind of the brazen boardwalk at the carnival show, but in the back, there are people who are far more dangerous,” he said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addresses students and teachers at Stuart-Hobson Middle School before an early screening of bullying documentary "Speak Up" on Wednesday. (Patrick Svitek/Medill)

WASHINGTON — Students and teachers at Stuart-Hobson Middle School wrapped up their school day Wednesday with a stern lesson on bullying from some of the country’s strongest voices on the topic.

The pupils and their teachers attended an early screening of “Speak Up,” a half-hour documentary on bullying championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who sat front row in the school’s auditorium.

The movie, slated to premiere on Cartoon Network on Sunday, opened with a brief video message from President Barack Obama, who hosted the first anti-bullying summit at the White House last year.

“I care about this issue deeply,” he told the students. “Not just as a president, but as a dad.”

Speaking to the entire student body, Cartoon Network President Stuart Snyder stressed that the need to tackle bullying at all ages is more pertinent than ever. He cited statistics showing someone is bullied on a school playground every seven minutes.

And 85 percent of the time, no one steps in to help, Snyder said.

The simple act of “speaking up,” he added, prevents the antagonistic act half the time and typically brings it to an end within 10 seconds.

Sebelius said anyone who tries to downplay the perils of bullying is “flat-out wrong.”

“To stop it, you all may have the most powerful voices,” she told students. “You need to be heard. To stop it, we all need to speak up.”

“Speak Up” profiles several bullying victims and how they overcame their tormentors over the years.

One of the documentary’s subjects, 15-year-old Aaron Cheese of Atlanta, participated in a panel discussion moderated by CNN anchor Don Lemon after the Wednesday viewing, which was cut about 10 minutes short due to technical difficulties.

In “Speak Up,” Cheese recalls being mocked for the size of his lips and the glasses he had to wear at an early age.

Lemon told Cheese that he had been teased for “pointy ears” as a child.

“And now I’m on television,” Lemon quipped. “So there you go.”

Sunday’s television premiere of “Speak Up” comes two weeks before another film on the topic, “Bully,” rolls into theaters nationwide.

That take on the dangers of peer-to-peer intimidation has spark a national controversy over its R rating, which prevents the documentary from being shown to its intended audience — those 17 and under — without a parent or guardian present. The Restricted rating stems from a scene in which the F-word is reportedly used six times to harass a bullying victim.

Last week, Katy Butler, a 17-year-old high school student from Michigan, delivered a petition with more than 200,000 signatures to the Motion Picture Association of America’s headquarters in Sherman Oaks, Calif., asking officials to lower the rating to PG-13.

The industry group has already rejected a ratings appeal, leaving director Lee Hirsch with three options: Release “Bully” with its current R rating, censor the coarse language to accommodate a PG-13 rating or release it without an MPAA rating. Most theaters regularly refuse to carry an unrated flick.

Sebelius touched on the tale of two bullying movies in a news conference after Wednesday’s “Speak Up” event.

“I know there’s been a question about language [in "Bully"], but, frankly, bullying is often a difficult language to hear,” she told reporters. “It’s often nasty, mean speak, but using it as a positive impact, I think, could be very beneficial.”

“Speak Up” director Lee Hoffman said he thinks Hirsch is “going after a very different audience” with “Bully” — one that is older and involves bully victims facing a different kind of risk.

He called his work for Cartoon Network a less dramatic approach but one just as important.

“I think they want to get at what’s often overlooked, which is the smaller, everyday testing, where it makes you a worse student, it makes you fearful to go to school, but doesn’t rise to the level of suicide or all these really tragic moments,” Hoffman said. “…It shouldn’t be, ‘Well, I didn’t feel like killing myself, so I guess it’s not important.’”

“Speak Up” airs 5:30 p.m. EDT Sunday on Cartoon Network, with an encore showing at 8 p.m.

“Right now, $4 billion of your tax dollars — $4 billion — subsidizes the oil industry every year,” he said in New Hampshire earlier this month. “Now, does anyone think that Congress should give them another $4 billion this year?”

“No!” the audience yelled.

“Of course not,” the president said. “Let’s put every single member of Congress on record: You can stand with the oil companies, or you can stand for the American people.”

Obama started the year with a called to end the tax breaks in his State of the Union address in January, and since then has shown no signs of turning down the pressure. In addition to the speech in New Hampshire, Obama told Congress to repeal the tax breaks in a press conference earlier this month, then again in his regular radio and online address.

Meanwhile, the industry is denying that such subsidies even exist while environmentalists fear that high gasoline prices and lobbying from the billion-dollar oil industry still stand in the way of a victory that to them is years overdue.

A war of words

The $4 billion in tax benefits that Obama wants to see repealed are spread out among several tax policies, and underlying the debate about whether Congress should change these policies is a disagreement about whether they actually qualify as oil subsidies.

“We continue to hear about the need to eliminate subsidies for the industry,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in a news release. “The industry receives not one subsidy.”

To Gerard, Obama is trying to repeal subsidies; he’s trying to raise taxes on an industry that is already “paying its fair share.”

That’s because some of the tax policies under discussion do not apply to the oil industry specifically. Rather, they apply to several industries, although Obama has singled out the oil industry out for exclusion.

For example, one tax policy in Obama’s crosshairs is a broad tax deduction passed in 2004 that all manufacturers can claim. Obama is proposing that Congress modify the policy so companies in the oil industry cannot claim it.

But there are also tax policies that benefit the oil and natural gas industry directly by, for example, reimbursing companies for some of their exploration and production costs, according to the Tax Policy Center.

The continual conflict

Whatever they’re called — “subsidies” or “tax breaks” or “tax expenditures” — they involve taxpayer money helping out the oil industry, sometimes incidentally, sometimes purposefully, and environmentalists and fiscal conservatives have been trying to put an end to some of them for decades, said Benjamin Schreiber, an energy tax analyst for Friends of the Earth, an environmental group.

In times of budget crises, the movement would gain momentum but still fall short of its goal, despite the fact that seven out of 10 Americans want to see the subsidies repealed, according to the Yale Project on Climate Change.

The reason, Schreiber said, is that environmental groups are up against huge clout from the oil industry.

“You’re talking about some of the richest and most well-connected corporations in the world,” he said. “As our elections are more and more being decided by campaign contributions, cozying up to big polluters is more and more important for candidates.”

The oil and gas industry spent $146 million on lobbying in 2011 alone, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group. Environmental groups spent about a ninth of that.

Another hurdle, opponents of the subsidies say, is competing with the influence that corporations wield on public opinion.

“Special interest money floods the airwaves with lies,” said Tyson Slocum, an analyst at Public Citizen, a consumer protection group.

Weak regulations of political advertisements make matters worse, he said.

“There are more regulations on Coca-Cola selling its product than on Exxon Mobil lying to the public,” he said.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a 2010 Supreme Court case that ruled that corporations can make unlimited donations to groups that release political ads, will make it even harder to overcome the industry’s influence, he said.

The politics of the pump

The sudden hike of gasoline prices over the last few weeks has complicated the debate. Which side that hike is helping remains to be seen, but each is trying to use it to win support.

The average national gas price for regular gasoline was $3.83 as of March 12, up about 11 cents from two weeks earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s also up 26 cents from this time a year ago, but still short of the record average high in recent times of $4.05 in July 2008.

Echoing the president, critics of the tax policies point to these prices as proof that the country’s dependence on oil is too great.

“The only real solution to that problem of spending too much money on gas is use less gas,” said John Cross, a lobbyist on transportation issues for Environment America.

Meanwhile, supporters say ”raising taxes” on the oil industry would make gasoline prices noticeably worse.

“It will stifle job creation, drive up imports — and our trade deficit — and increase the volatility of gasoline markets,” Gerard said at a news conference earlier this month.

They say that Obama’s advocacy on the issue is another example of his hostility toward the oil industry.

“Gasoline prices are higher today at least in part because government has neglected to pay sufficient attention to the importance of producing more of our own oil and natural gas,” said Erik Milito, an administrator of the American Petroleum Institute, at a separate news conference.

Obama has fought this characterization of his energy policy, arguing that he has followed an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy and pointing out that dependence on foreign oil has decreased and domestic oil production has increased during his term.

The candidates for the Republican presidential nomination don’t buy that.

“He doesn’t get credit for the increase; he instead has tried to slow the growth of oil and gas production in this country, and coal production in this country,” Mitt Romney said in a speech in North Dakota the same day Obama gave his speech in New Hampshire. “He should be hanging his head and taking a little bit of the blame for what’s going on today.”

A Congressional Research Service study showed that the tax changes Obama pushed for in the 2012 budget, which are similar to the ones he is pushing now, would make oil and natural gas more expensive for American consumers and increase foreign dependence “on what would likely be a small scale.”

The bigger battle

In the first few weeks of the battle between the people who don’t want the government to “raise taxes” on the oil industry and those who want to see the government stop paying out “subsidies” for highly profitable businesses, there is no clear frontrunner. What is clear, however, is that it’s an election year, and the stakes are high.

Although most Americans are against oil subsidies, they are also sensitive to the price of gasoline and most think the government does have control over short-term gas prices, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Although 65 percent of the country does not approve of the way Obama is handling gas prices, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, what effects these trends have on Obama’s overall approval rating remains unclear.

Some polls show the president’s rating faltering. Others show that it is higher than ever, which may suggest that the president is effectively minimizing the political damage the prices could cause to his re-election bid.

Still, Obama still sees the prices as a political liability. When a reporter at a press conference asked him to respond to allegations that he wants gasoline prices to rise to wean the country off oil, he responded, “Just from a political perspective, do you think the president of the United States going into re-election wants gas prices to go up higher? Is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?”

Many analysts think Hispanic voters are the key to the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. With a growing population that hit 50.5 million residents in 2010 and accounted for more than half of the U.S. population growth in the first decade of the millennium, Hispanics are expected to be one of the deciding factors in November. They could be especially relevant in battleground states like Nevada and Florida.

However, as the growing importance of Latino voters becomes more apparent, some Republican hopefuls, appealing to the GOP base, have advocated for immigration policies that have turned off many in this constituency.

This strategy, experts say, could lead to the loss of the Latino vote for the Republican Party and more support for Democrat Obama’s reelection.

The numbers

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Hispanic/Latino population in the U.S. grew by 43 percent from 2000 to 2010. In comparison, the non-Hispanic population increased by only five percent.

“Elected officials really can’t afford to not pay attention to them anymore,” said Elizabeth Garcia, the director of national programs for the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Democracia U.S.A.’s report, National Study of Young Hispanics, found that 500,000 Hispanics reach the voting age of 18 every year. Each political party has the capability to win their votes, Garcia said.

“If we do our job as advocacy groups and register all those eligible Latinos to vote, I really feel that it can be a major force in this election,” she said.

The Issues

Although immigration issues are important to the Hispanic community, Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-Texas, said Hispanics often base their votes on other issues as well.

In the U.S. Education Department’s report on student enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools during the  2009/2010 school year, 22 percent of students were Hispanic. Gonzalez said the large number of Hispanic students in public schools makes education an important issue, along with health care.

A 2010 Pew Hispanic Center survey confirmed that while immigration was one of the top issues for Hispanics during that year’s congressional elections, the top three issues were education, jobs and health care, respectively.

“You earn the Latino vote by the substance of your legislative agenda,” Gonzalez said.

However, Gonzalez continued, both Republicans and Democrats often fall short in promoting Hispanic interests, either in their campaign speeches or in keeping their promises.

The parties

On this year’s campaign trail, Mitt Romney stated he would veto the DREAM Act, which would give undocumented youth a path to citizenship and the opportunity to attend U.S. colleges. He also said that illegal immigrants should self-deport.

Meanwhile, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum advocates for the construction of more fencing along the border with Mexico.

These strict takes on immigration, Garcia said, can easily alienate Latino voters.

“I feel like a lot of times the anti-immigrant or anti-Latino politicians will quickly throw mud on our community and will group us as a community of undocumented Latinos who aren’t eligible voters,” she said.

In the 2008 election, 67 percent of Hispanics voted for Obama, according to a report compiled by the Pew Hispanic Center. In 2004, President George W. Bush received 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Camila Gallardo, a spokesperson for the National Council of La Raza, said this willingness  “to cross party lines” makes the Hispanic community an important voter constituency.

Hispanics also play a larger role in elections because many of the core battleground states, such as Nevada and Colorado, have large Hispanic populations.

Because of the Hispanic community’s potential to dramatically affect the trajectory of elections, Gonzalez said obstacles, such as proposed voter ID laws, are being placed to undermine this potential.

Eight states passed voter ID laws last year, but some of them have been blocked by the Justice Department. These laws include provisions such as requiring all voters to bring a form of state or federally issued ID to the polls.

Many of the states in question have Republican-dominated legislatures, Gonzalez said.

“I keep telling people let’s do away with the charade that this is about voter fraud,” he said. “This is about voter suppression because you believe that the votes are not going to be going your way.”

But many pundits say that the Democratic Party cannot take the Latino vote for granted and assume it will go Obama’s way without any extra work.

For example, Garcia said, many Latinos who value immigration issues were disappointed by the president, who did not pass any comprehensive immigration reform, or the DREAM Act, after promising he would during the 2008  presidential campaign.

“We’re not necessarily any better than we were before Obama in terms of the immigration issue,” Garcia said.

The future

To realize the potential of the Hispanic vote in this year’s election, many grassroots groups are teaming up to increase voter participation.

Latinos for Democracy, a coalition of three Hispanic organizations including the Hispanic Federation, promises that by the end of 2012, the coalition will have registered 200,000 new voters.

The group has created a project called Movimiento Hispano, which has a two-tier mission: to educate Hispanics about voting registration rules and candidates’ platforms, and to register these Hispanics to vote.

Hector E. Sanchez, the executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said mobilizing the Hispanic community is important for its future and to get more Hispanics to the polls.

“Civic participation at a time when Latinos are under attack is the best answer to all those attacks,” Sanchez said. “We need to mobilize Latinos at the highest level now more than ever to make sure that we have a solid representation in the polls, that we have people that are actually going to represent our basic values and issues.”

Award-winning actor George Clooney discussed the state of Sudan and South Sudan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday. (Ed Demaria / Medill)

WASHINGTON — In the film Charlie Wilson’s War, a U. S. congressman is stunned when his colleagues on Capitol Hill shift the discussion away from Afghanistan just as the Soviet Union invade the country.

On Wednesday, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., advanced the 2007 drama to modern foreign policy, saying many policymakers turned their attention back to the troubled region only after the September 11 attacks.

Lawmakers now face a similar dilemma as the spotlight illuminates the tenuous situation in Sudan and South Sudan, Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said.

“It is the leaders in Khartoum and Nuba who must choose between a future of conflict and poverty, or a future of security and prosperity,” Kerry said.

At the committee’s hearing, Kerry and other lawmakers expressed concern that the United States would overlook the lingering conflict between the two neighboring countries. Kerry alluded to the late Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson, best known for his persistent push  for increased U.S. support of  the Afghan mujahedeen during its fight against the Red Army  in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

A series of panels discussed the economic and political situation in Sudan and South Sudan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday.

After returning from a visit to Sudan, actor George Clooney, co-founder of the Satellite Sentinel Project, said he had encountered a young boy whose arms were blown off in a bombing in the Khartoum region

“What you see is a constant drip of fear,” he said. “We can’t get those lives back. We can’t give that young boy’s hands back, but we can work together as an international community.”

Clooney asserted that Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir continues to commit war crimes on its people. He urged China to send an envoy into Sudan and “to use the window of opportunity before it is too late.”

Princeton Lyman, U.S. special envoy for Sudan, said conflicts over oil and borders have strained the relationship between Sudan and South Sudan, which gained independence from its northern neighbor last July.

South Sudan produces 75 percent of the region’s oil, yet Sudan has the only pipeline to transport the oil for export. Lyman said Sudan has started diverting oil from South Sudan to its own refinery. South Sudan President Salva Kiir has accused Sudan of illegally seizing $815 million worth of crude oil.

In retaliation, South Sudan halted all of its oil production in early February and cut off the flow through the pipeline. More than 90 percent of South Sudan’s revenue comes from oil production.

At the same time, Lyman said, reports of aerial bombings and border attacks from rebels in the region have lawmakers worried about the long-term stability of humanitarian assistance.

On his trip, Clooney said the people fear the constant buzzing from Antonov planes, which the Sudanese forces use to dump bombs.

Four senators introduced a Senate resolution demanding that Sudan allow immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access to the Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions. According to the Famine Early Warning Network, more than 250,000 people in those regions will face emergency food shortages in the next three months.

“We are on the brink of another major humanitarian crisis in Sudan, and we need to act,” said Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, one of four senators who led the resolution. “If the Sudanese government does not back down, innocent men, women and children will starve to death.”

The sense of the Senate resolution also urges the government of Sudan to cease hostilities and negotiate an end to the conflict. It requests that civilians be allowed to leave the region voluntarily and offers support for ongoing efforts by the administration to facilitate humanitarian access to affected areas.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese Defense Minister Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein last week for the atrocities in Darfur. The Hague is also seeking the arrest of president al-Bashir on charges of genocide.

Kerry, channeling his inner activist, urged countries with a vested interest in Sudan like China, the African Union and the Arab League to share the humanitarian urgency.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said the testimony reminded him of similar hearings a few years ago over the growing conflict in Darfur. He wondered whether the same committee would hear about the current emergency for years without anything happening.

“We talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, but nothing happens,” Cardin said. “Until we change the way the Sudanese government conducts its security issues, there’s little hope that we won’t see a repeat of these disasters.”

Darfur, located in central Sudan, sat at the center of the conflict after the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement attacked government targets in 2003. The groups accused Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, of oppressing black Africans in favor of Arabs.

According to the United Nations, up to 300,000 people died from war, hunger and disease in the six-year conflict, though accurate figures waver.

Lyman, the U.S. envoy, said there is a growing realization in Khartoum that there is no military solution to the problem.

“I hope Omar al-Bashir knows there’s no easy out,” Kerry said. “There’s no way we’re not staying engaged in this. But it’s his choice. Their choice. [The country] will decide where they go.”

Wednesday morning began as Cameron was formally welcomed to the White House by a large crowd and all the pomp of a state visit, although it was technically only an “official visit” because he is not considered the head of state. That title belongs to Queen Elizabeth II .

In meetings throughout the day, the two leaders discussed economic and foreign policy specifically regarding the Middle East and Afghanistan a couple months ahead of the NATO and G-8 summits. The timetable for the withdrawal for U.S. and U.K. troops in Afghanistan will be a major topic of discussion, and troops may be removed from lead combat roles as early as mid-2013.

“If we maintain a steady responsible transition… we can put Afghans in a position where they can deal with their own security,” Obama said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

This official visit followed the killings of 16 Afghan civilians last weekend allegedly by a lone U.S. soldier, and a roadside bomb blast that led to the deaths of six British troops last week.

WASHINTON – Esther Owolabi was in the seventh grade when her dad, a veteran Chicago schools teacher, repeated his principal’s comment from a faculty meeting: “Not all of these kids can be Barack Obama, not all these kids can be president. You need some cab drivers.”

The line rubbed Esther the wrong way.  “It really stuck in my head,” Owolabi said, “well, who are you to decide who gets to be the cab driver or the president?’”

Owolabi, now a freshman at Georgetown University, stepped onto campus motivated to help close the so-called achievement gap. Last October she started work on a new chapter of Students for Education Reform, an organization of undergraduates who advocate for reform policies in K-12 schools that they think put students first.

The Georgetown chapter, set to launch next fall in Washington, will join more than 80 chapters of Students for Education Reform across 29 states. What two Princeton students started as a school club three years ago has grown into a national non-profit. And the rapid expansion drew attention in high places.

The group intends on closing the achievement gap mainly by raising awareness. Members share the news about education reform through an internal social networking tool called “Yammer,” and organize viewings of recent education documentaries including Waiting for Superman and The Lottery. Then they discuss and, from there, advocate or fight against bills before state legislators based on whether they hold students to high expectations, allow school choice, and lend themselves to retaining great teachers.

The founders also envision their spirited, informed members will work in all areas of education, even if not all members want to teach.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan invited Owolabi and other members to the cabinet agency earlier this month.  But one month after the push for more teacher voices in policy with the RESPECT initiative, which will put $5 million toward improving the profession based on continued conversations with educators, the secretary opened his round table talk with a word of caution to the reform-minded students: gain hands-on experience in schools.

Duncan alluded to one unique aspect of Students for Education Reform. As co-founder Catharine Bellinger estimated, only about half of the members are interested in actual teaching jobs at some point in their careers. The rest of them want to enter the policy-making, government, or non-profit fields right out of college.

“I really am quite wonkish,” said Zhan Okuda-Lim, a member of the original chapter at Princeton.

Zhan paused when asked how he knows which policies will work best.

“The first thing to consider is there is no such thing as a one-size fits all solution,” he ultimately explained. “But I do think people can agree on certain principles that can be advocated for.”

Zhan may only be a college freshman, but he already boasts an impressive education  resume that includes terms as a student representative on the Nevada State Board of Education, Youth Legislature, and his school district’s advisory committee. His ultimate goal: The U.S. Senate.

The rapid growth of Students for Education Reform shows there is no shortage of grassroots-level passion behind solving education inequality. Yet some career educators say they worry the undergraduates’ limited exposure to the public school classroom means they don’t yet know what works in the trenches – similar to many professional policymakers.

“I think someone who hasn’t been in a classroom making education policy is about as effective as me making a medical decision,” said Maddie Fennell, who has taught for 21 years in Nebraska public schools. “I can do it based on what I’ve read on the Internet. I can do it based on my own experience.”

Fennell recently chaired the National Education Association’s commission on effective teaching, which produced the report behind project RESPECT. She explained education is that rare policy area that everyone has some personal experience with, but added, “Just because you’ve been in school [as a student], doesn’t make you an expert.”

Students for Education Reform’s website emphasizes that college students are stakeholders in policy decisions, and have a unique perspective as the most recent graduates of K-12 schools. Chapter members do research, write numerous op-eds and meet with state legislators. They cover everything from charter schools to teacher tenure.

“I don’t know every policy and every law, but I know that a passion can spark any interest,” said Owalabi, who has already begun hosting Waiting for Superman watch parties in her dorm to build interest among friends.

Fennell said she respects student voices – when they join, not replace, teachers’.

“You know, I’ve done a lot of great lessons in the past that I can’t do now because of No Child Left Behind,” she explained. “I can see a student group coming in and saying, ‘Our teachers should do this and this,’ not realizing that teachers would love to be doing that stuff too.”

Owolabi, for one, said she understands that teachers can bring her more philosophical ideas down to earth – her Dad does it all the time.

“We can sit and have hour-long conversations about education,” she said. “He’s like ‘No, I’ve lived this. You might read this part, but this is what really happens.’”

Owolabi said she used to think charter schools, for example, were “God’s gift and the holy grail of all the answers.” Then, her Dad told her that test scores are not always better and many charters close. She said she now plans to advocate for specific aspects of the model like the ability to hire and fire teachers freely, not necessarily the whole concept.

Students for Education Reform, Georgetown holds its first general meeting this week, and the Hoyas are ready to add to the cadre of college students speaking up about education inequality.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russylnn Ali reveal new civil rights data on education at Howard University (James Arkin/Medill)

WASHINGTON – Maryland teacher Damian DiCamillo was surprised when he first saw the government’s new report on the opportunity gap in public education – not by his school’s impressive achievement numbers but by the reaction they received.  Seventy-two percent of black and Hispanic students are enrolled in physics at Albert Einstein High School, far above the report’s overall average.

“I realize that according to the report, it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s some amazing thing going on here…’” said DiCamillo, a research teacher for the science, technology and engineering department at Einstein. “For us, that’s just the expected normal. We don’t look at it like some amazing event. We look at it like that’s what we do here every day.”

The information on Einstein was part of the most comprehensive education civil rights data ever collected. The Civil Rights Data Collection, put together by the department’s office for civil rights, covered self-reported data from more than 72,000 schools serving 85 percent of the nation’s students in grades K-12. It is been made available online, giving users the ability to view data on specific districts or schools from Maine to California.

The data found that serious inequities remain for minority students across the nation. Specifically, schools with high African-American and Hispanic populations offer fewer advanced level courses, have fewer experienced teachers and have lower average teacher salaries than schools with low African-American and Hispanic enrollment. Though the data mostly displayed legitimate racial gaps in education standards, it also highlighted several schools, such as Einstein, that have much narrower achievement gaps than the national average.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali released the results on March 6 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. There, Duncan called access to quality education the “civil rights issue of our generation … yet as the data we are releasing today shows, for far too many students and for far too many schools, inequity remains the reality.”

This inequity does not stem from different levels of individual ability, Duncan said, but from different levels of access. In his time in charge of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan said the number of minority students taking AP classes tripled and the number passing the courses doubled.

“Our students weren’t twice as smart four years later, they simply historically hadn’t had those kinds of opportunities…” he said. “At the end of the day, we don’t have equal access here and those are the disparities we’re trying to challenge.”

Both Duncan and Ali cautioned against rushing to the conclusion that racial disparities in education were automatically caused by discrimination or racism.

“There’s a multitude of factors and it’s far too simplistic to say that it’s one thing or another,” Duncan said. “What we’re trying to point out is the facts and I think what’s historic about the data is we’ve never had this kind of transparency.”

Bucking the trend?

Duncan and Ali highlighted several schools that had significantly narrower achievement gaps as examples where a high minority population does not necessarily mean inequity.

Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy at the National Education Association, said that while the data is a good first step in identifying school’s that are closing the achievement gap, the more important step is finding the underlying factors behind the success of these schools.

“While the results are impressive, and I don’t mean to denigrate those, it is more important to figure out how they got there and how they can sustain it,” she said. “Those are the things that other districts and other schools can look to and look for in their own schools. “

(James Arkin/Medill)

DiCamillo did not point to one specific aspect of Albert Einstein High School that caused the high percentage of minority access. Rather, he said it is because in the culture of the school in suburban Washington, all students are expected to challenge themselves in their coursework.

“I have to say that I guess there are other places where they just, maybe they just don’t expect those students to achieve what we expect our students to achieve,” he said. “[For us] it’s just they’re here now, they’re in our class, and we’re going to get them to learn it”

The number of rigorous courses Einstein offers may be a significant factor in the narrow achievement gap between white and minority students. The school offers 18 Advanced Placement classes and 16 classes within the International Baccalaureate program. Additionally, DiCamillo said Einstein benefits immensely from high quality instructors, such as physics teacher Eric Kirsley.

“I think [students] know that I have a good time with them. I think they know that I’m having fun while I’m doing it,” said Kirsley who often stays late and works through the lunch hour with his students.  “And so I try to constantly provide a challenge and constantly show my enthusiasm… I think the teacher’s attitude is very important and the fact that the teacher’s having fun helps to make it fun for them.”

Many schools struggling with racial disparities in achievement do not have the same access to high quality teachers. Those schools with the highest black and Hispanic enrollment have seven percent more first and second year teachers – and teachers are paid on average $2,251 less per year – than those at schools with the lowest black and Hispanic enrollment, according to the data.

The reason behind this imbalance, according to Duncan, is the fact that many of high quality teachers do not remain for the long term at schools of need.  NEA’s Harris-Aikens said stopping the turnover is the key to fixing the gap in teacher quality.

“If this is the problem with the turn, there should be some incentives for great educators to go there and stay there,” Harris-Aikens said of what she calls “priority” schools. “And we need to make sure the conditions at the school are conducive to students being there and educators being there. People want to be safe.”

The importance of an early start

Early access to rigorous courses is a crucial element of student success and closing the achievement gap. Fulford Elementary School in Dade County, Florida, has an enrollment that is 96 percent black or Hispanic, with more than 90 percent of its students growing up in poverty. Despite this, the school has nearly four times the national average for minority students enrolled in Gifted and Talented (GATE) programs, according to the report.

“We identify kids as early as kindergarten and first grades…” Fulford Principal Jean Teal said. “Instead of them just being mixed in the group of students, you can really identify them early, challenge them, nurture it so they don’t lose it, and build on it.”

(James Arkin/Medill)

Beyond simply learning subject matter, Teal said students that are placed in gifted and talented programs early in their education develop critical skills that allow them to succeed down the road.

“They’re used to the critical thinking and expanding on their answers and not just the ‘right there’ kind of questions, but to think and search and support their answers,” Teal said. “Synthesize, evaluate, analyze – you’re doing that early on so as the kids matriculate through their school years, they’re already accustomed to it.”

Teal emphasized the importance of starting as early as possible, but Ali said middle school and high school were “not too late” to start challenging students with more rigorous courses.

This is the case at Albert  Einstein High School, where 9th grade students attend meetings explaining the importance and expectations of rigorous coursework. DiCamillo added that no matter their academic background, all Einstein students are encouraged to challenge themselves with high-level courses.

“We’ve got some starting out real challenging and then by the time they’re in 11^th or 12^th grade they’re in these AP classes, they’ve built up this confidence,” he said. “And it’s not like they’ve become straight-A students, but they’ve become students that have learned, ‘Man, if I put some effort, if I put some focus, if I put some of my time into learning, I can be successful.’”

Duncan stressed the importance of shrinking the racial disparities in education as part of the Obama administration’s continued efforts to increase the number of students attending college. Teacher Eric Kirsley has seen first-hand how challenging students in high school can give them a leg-up in college.

“I always tell the kids that take physics that they have a lifetime guarantee…” Kirsley said. “I hear from kids over the years. Many of them will write to me to say ‘I’m finally taking an upper level physics course,’ and they tell me in the email ‘I felt really well prepared.’”

(Ariel Rothfield/ Medill)

WASHINGTON—While the economy still tops the talking points of Republican presidential candidates, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues has sprung to life on the primary campaign trail as a hot-button issue that some say will drive women away from the GOP.

Until recently, the election had been mostly dominated by the economy and high unemployment rates. But now, social issues like contraception and birth control access are driving the political conversation.

“I think the Republican primaries have put a lot of emphasis on certain women’s issues and unfortunately they are choosing the ones that are politically expedient, not necessarily the ones women want to talk about,” said Lisa Maatz, director of Public Policy and Government Relations at the American Association of University Women.

Social issues first emerged on Feb. 2 when the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation announced it was ending its grants to Planned Parenthood. After three days of criticism from politicians and the public, the foundation reinstated its funding.

This incident was quickly followed by a standoff between the White House and the Catholic Church over an addition to the health care law that required that all employers to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees.

Congressional Republicans joined the fight, unsuccessfully attempting to pass an amendment that would allow employers to opt out of providing birth control. President Barack Obama quickly exempted nonprofit religious organizations from the requirement, moving the onus of coverage to insurance companies.

Within days, birth control and contraception became a heated talking point on the GOP campaign trail.

“These issues are something the Republican [presidential candidates] seem to have really locked onto,” said Maatz. “But their positions don’t seem to be reflective of where most women are at.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has taken a forceful position on social issues. On the campaign trail, Santorum has argued that the wide availability of birth control has had “negative moral and social impacts” on the country.

Although Mitt Romney is more socially moderate than his competitor, the former Massachusetts governor also rejected President Barack Obama’s mandated health care plan.  At an event in Fargo, North Dakota, Romney said requiring institutions to provide birth control violated the First Amendment.

According to survey released by the Centers of Disease Control, virtually all women ages 15 to 44 have at one time used some form of contraception.

“The idea that major party candidates would be questioning birth control is really shocking,” said Lois Uttley, co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices. “Contraception was legalized for married people in 1965 with the Griswold Supreme Court decision. For most Americans, this has been a settled issue ever since.”

The latest comments from the Republican candidates have aimed to energize the party’s conservative base. Yet these comments have enraged many moderate and independent women—one of the most important electoral swing votes.

“The issues have really hit home and the reality is women are not liking what they are hearing,” said Maatz. “These are the few issues where women will split with their families and church and go to the ballot box to vote for who they want—not for who their husband told them to vote for.”

Charles Cook, editor of The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns, said focusing on social issues will hurt the Republicans in the general election.

“This year, it seems that Republicans have become self-absorbed and obsessed with their conservative base,” said Cook. “They seem unable to acknowledge or unwilling to care that the rest of the electorate is watching and getting turned off by overheated rhetoric almost guaranteed to alienate all but the most conservative voters.”

(Ariel Rothfield/Medill)

From 1992 to 2008, Democrats won the overall women’s vote in every presidential election. But in the 2010 midterm election, women overwhelmingly supported Republicans.

Now, there are signs of another shift in party allegiance.

According to an Associated Press poll, Obama’s approval rating among women has jumped since December, from 43 percent to 53 percent. The poll suggests this gain was fueled by the current focus on contraception in the political world.

“Right now [the Republican Party] is in the process of losing young women’s votes for an entire generation,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization of Women. “It’s troubling.”

According to O’Neill, the Republican Party has created a sudden “culture war” over the rights of women and their place in society.

While officials of the Republican National Committee did not respond to requests for comment, the president of the National Federation of Republican Women said there is “absolutely no gender gap” within the Republican Party.

“From RNC staff members to Republican volunteers, there is always an even mix of females and males,” said Rae Chornenky, president of the NFRW.

The 2012 Republicans primaries are a good indication of this, she added.

“Republican women are very involved and connected with the different candidates and their staffs,” said Chornenky. “When we do get a candidate, I think women’s voices are going to be heard—heard more and heard more strongly.”

War on Women

O’Neill, however, called the GOP primaries “a referendum on the war against women. Santorum is one of the most enthusiastic warriors against women and that is a huge part of his policy and platform.”

After the Pentagon announced that women would formally be permitted to have jobs closer to the front lines of combat, Santorum expressed skepticism. The Republican presidential candidate said women’s “emotions” could create a “compromising situation.”

“Rick Santorum does not know what he is talking about,” said O’Neill. “Combat today is not arranged in front lines and back lines. Women who serve in Iraq or Afghanistan are every bit in harms way as the men who serve alongside them. But the difference is they are not entitled to combat pay.”

According to Service Women’s Action Network, more than 140 women in the American military have lost their lives during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon’s new rule opens up specialty jobs previously limited to men. Women can now be tank mechanics, radio operators, medics and fire detection specialists.

Although many women already have these jobs, they now will get corresponding salaries.

“Currently, our military policies are creating what we call ‘a brass ceiling’,” said Katy Otto, communications director for SWAN. “Women are performing a lot of the same jobs as men that carry similar risks, but they are not being allowed to have the appropriate titles and rankings. The Pentagon’s decision is just one small step forward to solving this problem.”

According to Otto, the subject of women in combat will “definitely” be a topic of discussion in the upcoming general election.

“Santorum has already commented on this subject. And although his comments were kind of ridiculous, he brought attention to it,” Otto said.

In an interview on NBC’s Today show, Santorum clarified his comments about women in the military.

“The issue is—and certainly one that has been talked about for a long, long time—is how men would react to seeing women in harm’s way, or potentially being injured or in a vulnerable position and not being concerned about accomplishing the mission,” Santorum said.

Women advocacy groups argue that Santorum’s backpedaling illustrates the growing problem within the Republican Party—an inability to connect with women voters.

According to O’Neill, this is because the Republican Party is a “male-dominated” establishment.

“One of the reasons the Republican Party is losing its way is because it has pushed out its women,” she said. “It would be a better, stronger party if it brings more women into its leadership.”