* Parliament debating higher education reform

* Bill could see English introduced as teaching language

* Opponents fear French language under threat

By Nicholas Vinocur

PARIS (Reuters) - Defenders of the French language are furious at plans to introduce courses taught in English at public universities, arguing that France must protect itself against linguistic encroachment or risk losing its cultural identity.

Parliament started to debate the issue on Tuesday as part of a bill on a broader reform of higher education, but all attention has focused on an article that would abolish a 19-year ban on English as a teaching language at public universities.

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government backs the change, which it says would help to attract foreign students and help French graduates compete in a global economy as the country struggles to regain competitiveness.

More French students fearing dismal job prospects at home, where youth unemployment is nearly 25 percent, are studying and working abroad, notably in London, which has become the city with the sixth largest French population in the world.

However, opponents of the law, who include professors, lawmakers and the French language oversight body Academie Francaise, say "la francophonie" must be defended and that the change would be a betrayal of other French-speaking nations.

"If France gives other Francophone countries the wrong signal by leading an assault against the language, that would be a very, very regrettable thing indeed," said Claude Hagege, a linguist at the College de France state research centre.

France has long defended its culture at home and abroad, most recently in a debate over a trade deal between Europe and the United States, which Hollande says must respect a French tradition of subsidizing everything from art to cinema.

In 1994, the so-called "Loi Toubon" made the use of French mandatory in all TV broadcasts, meaning all foreign-language programs are dubbed, while radio stations must play at least 40 percent of French music for most of the day.

Seeking to promote a French world view, former president Jacques Chirac launched the France24 international news network, which now hosts 24-hour channels in French, English and Arabic, while Hollande started a Ministry for Francophone Affairs.

Business leaders decry France's low ranking for English proficiency - it placed 23rd in a 2012 global ranking published by education company Education First - even though the use of English has grown, notably in academic circles.

Higher Education Minister Genevieve Fioraso said offering English would boost the appeal of French universities at a time when they are falling further behind in international rankings.

In a 2011-2012 survey by Britain's Times newspaper, the highest-ranked French university is in 59th position. Private business schools where English is taught rank higher.

(Editing by Brian Love and Raissa Kasolowsky)

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City plans to expedite the removal light fixtures containing toxic PCBs from 645 city schools by 2016, five years earlier than originally planned.

The city Department of Education said Tuesday the new timetable was the result of mediation between the city and New York Communities for Change. The group had filed a lawsuit in 2011 demanding the city move faster to remove lighting tainted by PCBs.

PCBs are suspected of causing cancer and other diseases.

City officials say nearly 800 of 1,400 school buildings could have PCB-containing light fixtures. They agreed in 2011 to remove the lights within 10 years, saying the timetable would allow them to more easily absorb the cost.

The agreement was hashed out between New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and city attorneys.

For those of you worried that government can't be proactive, good news out of Texas. On Monday, the state's legislature sent Governor Perry its "Merry Christmas" bill, which would authorize schools to refer to the holiday in non-generic terms. Perry is expected to sign it.

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The bill was introduced shortly before Christmas last year by Rep. Dwayne Bohac. Bohac describes his motivation for the legislation at a site created to advocate for the measure, MerryChristmasBill.com.

This bill originated when I picked up my first grade son from school last year and asked him how his day went. He told me that his class had decorated their holiday tree with holiday ornaments. When I asked what a holiday tree was, he told me it was the same as a Christmas tree.

It's isn't just Bohan. The site also features a number of stories apparently from regular citizens, all of which center around the exclusion of Christmas (but no other holidays) from school celebrations. In Bohan's case, he asked school officials why they didn't use the word. The officials told him that they were "fearful of litigation."

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House Bill 308 was meant to assuage those anecdotal concerns. The legislation is brief. There are four elements. One, schools may educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations. Two, students and teachers can offer "traditional greetings," like "Merry Christmas," "Happy Hanukkah," and the dreaded "Happy holidays." Three, schools can put up displays if they either include multiple religions or a religion and some sort of "secular scene or symbol." Four, the display can't include a message "that encourages adherence" to a religious belief. According to the Fox News report on the bill, that third point includes nativity scenes.

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During debate on the measure, the Texas House held a hearing in its Public Education Committee. The case for the bill was presented by a group called Texas Values, which advocates for issues like religious freedom and against domestic partnerships. (Today the group is holding a rally to protest the Boy Scouts proposal to allow openly gay boys to participate.)

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The Huffington Post reports that the bill will soon become law.

Asked for comment on whether the governor would sign the bill, Perry spokesman Josh Havens told The Huffington Post, "This bill is about the freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, and Gov. Perry supports it."

A recent Gallup survey indicated that at least three-quarters of Texans are some denomination of Christian. Despite the timidity of school officials, that figure has largely remained consistent over the past several years.

Sir Michael Wilshaw says schools cannot have small classes and a highly-paid staff

Head teachers may have to increase class classes if they are to pay the best teachers higher wages, the chief inspector of schools in England admits.

Sir Michael Wilshaw said schools could not afford "highly paid" staff while keep class sizes small.

A new system of performance-related pay is being introduced for teachers in England from September this year.

The move has met with resistance from teachers, but the government says it is vital to recruit and reward the best.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the think-tank, Reform, Sir Michael, former head of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, London, said: "The good heads know they have got these additional freedoms and will reorganise.

"[As] an ex-head teacher, I always said to the staff, 'I want a highly-paid staff, I want to reward those of you who are prepared to commit yourself to the school and do a good job in the classroom.

"To do that, might mean that we have larger classes. You can't have both. You can't have small classes - small groups - and a highly-paid staff.

"It might mean that head teachers have got to make [that choice]… So negotiation with the staff is going to be important."

On the issue of performance-related pay for teachers, Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "This is an invidious choice no head teacher or governor would want to make.

"It gives the lie to the idea that changes to teachers' pay are a free chance for heads and governors to pay 'good teachers' more. The simple fact is there is no more money in the pot."

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education said: "It is vital that schools can recruit and reward the best teachers.

"We are reforming pay so schools can attract and retain the best teachers who have the greatest impact on their pupils' achievements.

"We expect heads to be able to judge what is best for their pupils."

Teachers' pay rises have previously reflected their length of service, but under the new reforms, there will be a stronger link between achievement and pay progression.

Advice to head teachers from the Department for Education suggests teachers' performance might be measured on their impact on pupil progress and on wider outcomes for pupils, improvements in specific areas, such as behaviour management or lesson planning, their impact on the effectiveness of other staff, as well as their wider contribution to the school.

Is diet in pregnancy affecting school ability?

Mild iodine deficiency during pregnancy could be dimming the intellect of some babies born in the UK, say researchers.

Their study of 1,000 families, published in the Lancet, showed lower IQs and reading scores in primary school pupils whose mother had had too little iodine while pregnant.

Academics advise women of child-bearing age to maintain iodine in their diets by eating dairy products and fish.

Women were warned not to take seaweed pills, as they contain too much iodine.

Iodine is essential for the development of the brain as it is needed to build some of the body's hormones. A severe deficiency is the leading cause of preventable brain damage in the world.

It was mainly thought of as a problem in developing countries, yet previous studies have also suggested that some women in the UK are mildly deficient. The impact of low-level deficiency was, however, previously unknown.

Researchers at Surrey and Bristol Universities looked at iodine levels in urine samples taken from pregnant women in south-west England.

It showed that iodine deficiency was common - affecting two-thirds of women.

Their children went on to have slightly lower IQs at the age of eight and worse reading ability aged nine.

Dr Sarah Bath told the BBC: "We saw a three-point IQ difference between children who were born to mothers with low iodine in early pregnancy and children who were born to mothers above the cut-off."

The researchers said this "may prevent a child reaching their full potential" and was an "important public health issue".

They have published advice on iodine on the British Dietetic Association website.

Prof Margaret Rayman said: "Our advice is to make sure they have enough iodine intake, and take additional iodine in safely, probably from food - dairy products, fish."

Dr Bath warned against using kelp or seaweed supplements, as they are packed with so much iodine it could cause problems.

A large number of pregnancies are unplanned, so the advice is to all women of child-bearing age.

It had been thought that the UK had dealt with its iodine problem decades ago by "lucky accident". Changes to dairy farming meant cows' milk contained more iodine and at the same time the government was encouraging people to drink more milk.

Other countries - including the US, Denmark and the Netherlands - added iodine to salt so that bread and processed foods became a major source of iodine.

However, the researchers argue it is too soon for the UK to consider a similar measure, as iodine deficiency across the country has yet to be assessed.

Dr Mark Vanderpump, a consultant physician at the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, argues in favour of adding iodine to salt.

However, he said this would provoke fierce debate similar to arguments about adding fluoride to water in order to protect teeth.

In the meantime, he warned pregnant women against suddenly starting to take supplements.

"If you take a supplement during pregnancy, the thyroid gets stunned and goes down. Taking a supplement during pregnancy may not be the best thing to do."

A Department of Health representative said a healthy balanced diet should be enough for women but: "We keep track of emerging research, such as today's report.

"The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition is currently considering the issue of iodine deficiency in the UK. There are currently no plans for fortification of salt with iodine."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the author of a unanimous decision delivered at the Supreme Court on Monday, but Sotomayor was hundreds of miles from Washington when the court convened.

While her eight colleagues donned their black robes and took the bench to announce opinions, Sotomayor was wearing Yale blue and receiving an honorary degree in New Haven, Conn.

Among her messages to graduates of Yale Law School, where Sotomayor received her law degree in 1979: A justice's life isn't all glamour.

"Sometimes it gets boring. No justice is supposed to say that. But, you know, there's drudgery in every job you're going to do," Sotomayor told more than 200 graduates. Yale posted video of the law school graduation on its website.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts read a summary of Sotomayor's opinion in a case involving attorney's fees. So, point taken.

And who can blame her for finding her day job humdrum at times after the whirlwind she's experienced in recent months?

The 58-year-old justice has traveled the country and conducted many interviews to promote her best-selling memoir, "My Beloved World." The book has been on the New York Times' nonfiction best-seller list for 15 weeks, including several at No. 1.

She was greeted by adoring crowds in her parents' native Puerto Rico. She has appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes," bantered with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, toured her old school with Oprah Winfrey and sat with the co-hosts on ABC's "The View," where some of them called her Sonia.

The larger point of Sotomayor's remarks at Yale was to tell the graduates they can learn in every job they do and urge them to take jobs about which they are passionate, even if they do not necessarily look great on a resume.

Although she did have a bit of bad news for the fledgling lawyers, their elite law school experience notwithstanding. "No, not all of you can be on the Supreme Court. There are only nine seats and you've got the job forever," she said.

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Right about now, people start wondering when the high court will issue the term's big rulings — gay marriage, voting rights and affirmative action this year.

Predicting how the court will decide cases and when, precisely, the decisions will come is notoriously difficult.

But there is little doubt — actually none at all — that the high court will wind up its work sometime during the last week in June.

A quick look at the justices' summer plans tells you all you need to know.

At least four justices have engagements the first week in July, thousands of miles from Washington.

Leading the way in summer teaching gigs, Roberts will be in Prague, in the Czech Republic, for a program led by the South Texas College of Law in Houston and the William Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis. Justice Clarence Thomas is expected in Innsbruck, Austria, for St. Mary's University law school in San Antonio.

Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan both have agreed to speak in Aspen, Colo.

And then, starting after July 4, Kagan and Justice Anthony Kennedy are both teaching in Salzburg, Austria, for the University of the Pacific.

At some point early in July, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will alight in Paris to teach in Tulane University's summer law program.

Justices can accept roughly $25,000 in additional income for teaching and speaking, beyond their salary of $213,900 a year. The chief justice earns about $10,000 a year more.

Summer law school classes can add $10,000 to $20,000 to their incomes and also subsidize the cost of family vacations in very desirable locations. The schools are delighted to land a Supreme Court justice.

Last year, Roberts joked about heading to the "impregnable island fortress" of Malta, where he taught after he enraged conservatives with his vote to uphold President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Going to Malta "seemed like a good idea," Roberts joked the day after the ruling.

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If the court ever were to alter its practice of doling out opinions among all the justices and instead put them all in Ginsburg's hands, the term would be pretty close to over.

She's fast. Her unanimous opinion Monday reinstating the murder conviction of former Michigan police officer Burt Lancaster (no relation to the actor) came out 26 days after the court heard arguments, the fastest turnaround this term.

Roberts was a close second, writing another unanimous opinion in a patent case one month and four days after it was argued in January.

Whenever the justices all agree on something, it is much easier to get a decision in the books. But Ginsburg, Roberts and even Justice Antonin Scalia stand apart from the others for their writing speed.

But when the justices are at loggerheads, months can pass without a decision.

The affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas, was argued more than seven months ago, on Oct. 10.

Only the justices can say what's taking so long. They will, eventually, in multiple opinions that are expected the day that case is decided — before the end of June.

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Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at www.twitter.com/shermancourt

Michael Gove's free-schools policy has proven to be controversial

A music school for deprived teenagers in east London and two schools for autistic children are among the latest free schools in England to be approved.

From 2014, 102 new free schools are set to open after being granted approval from the Department for Education.

England currently has 81 free schools, with another 109 set to open in September.

Labour and some teaching unions say the expansion is failing to address a lack of primary places.

A report by the National Audit Office in March found 240,000 more places would be needed in primary schools alone by 2014-15.

Of the 102 approved free schools now set to open from 2014 onwards, just 33 are primary.

The DfE said this latest wave of free schools would create 50,000 pupil places.

In total, 46 of the schemes approved are in London.

The East London Academy of Music (Elam) in Tower Hamlets will work in conjunction with the British music industry to educate 16- to 19-year-olds through music.

And the National Autistic Society (NAS) free schools in Lambeth, London and Cheshire East will serve four- to 19-year-olds with autism.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "There are many innovators in local communities set on raising standards of education for their children.

"I am delighted to approve so many of their high-quality plans to open a free school.

"Free schools are extremely popular with parents and are delivering strong discipline and teaching excellence across the country."

But Christine Blower, general secretary of the NUT, said its research suggested almost £19m had been spent on schools that have yet to open.

"It is extraordinary that at a time when the shortage of primary school places amounts to nothing short of a national crisis that the government is persisting with the folly of its free school policy," she said.

"Less than a third of the approved free schools are primary schools, and... 45% of the new schools will be located in London, which by common agreement already boasts the best schools in the country.

"Education Secretary Michael Gove is clearly letting down parents by squandering resources on schools that nobody wants in places where they are not needed.

"At the same time, in many areas parents are facing rising class sizes and schools are seeing a return to Portakabins in their playgrounds to cope with the unmet demand for primary places."

Shadow schools minister Kevin Brennan said: "David Cameron and Michael Gove should be delivering for children but instead they're ignoring the crisis in primary places and setting up new schools where there is already a surplus of school places.

"Only a third of these new schools will be primaries. Their damaging focus on their own pet projects is failing to put our children first."

Free schools are controversial, with critics saying they could lead to the break-up the state education system.

They can be set up by groups of parents, teachers, charities, businesses, universities, trusts, religious or voluntary groups, but are funded directly by central government.

The schools are established as academies, independent of local authorities and with increased control over their curriculum, teachers' pay and conditions, and the length of school terms and days.

Labour and some teaching unions say they draw money and pupils away from other schools and tend to be located in more affluent neighbourhoods.

There are also fears free schools give too much freedom to faith-based groups or fundamentalist agendas - although schools must show their curriculum is "broad and balanced".

The course wants to get a more in-depth understanding of cheating

Cheating by students is being investigated in a university course dedicated to understanding the hidden world of academic deception.

The course, being run online, is for academics who usually have the task of preventing cheating.

It includes a "cheating confessional" to admit to forms of cheating.

Course leader Bernard Bull, from Concordia University Wisconsin, says there is more cheating going on than universities likely to admit.

"It's fair to say that more than half of students have cheated, even if only in some quite small way," said Dr Bull.

The rapid rise of online university courses has raised questions about how to prevent students from cheating when they are studying and taking tests from home.

This course, on the Canvas online learning platform, wants to dig deeper into how and why people are actually cheating and find ways to organise courses in a way that will make cheating less likely.

Dr Bull said that there could be a simplistic view of cheating, based on what he called "poor cheating", which was usually characterised by students getting caught.

This typically involves copying material from the internet and trying to pass it off as the students' own work.

Dr Bull, based in the university's education department, said people liked to imagine sophisticated "bank robberesque" ways of cheating, but in practice it was much more likely to be cutting and pasting from the internet or relying on someone else's work.

Often students would have been better to put their efforts into studying, he said, rather than trying to get around plagiarism-detecting software used by universities.

A more modern twist, he says, was for students to write their own essays but then to plagiarise the list of reference sources, so-called "source deception", to give the impression of a wide range of reading.

A much tougher problem for universities is posed by essay writing services, where students can pay for customised essays or draw upon banks of stock essays.

Dr Bull said that universities could try to counter this by setting questions which involved a very topical element, such as asking about the relevance to current news event, to make it more difficult for old essays to be recycled.

Cheating can also be about manipulating academic staff to get a second chance or to extend deadlines.

Among the cheating incidents admitted to Dr Bull have been incidents involving imaginary sick relatives in other countries.

A more elaborate version involved the claim that the unsatisfactory work submitted by a student had not been their own, but had been dishonestly submitted in their name by a former partner, after an acrimonious break-up.

And this fiction had been believed allowing the student another chance to hand in an improved version.

Students might see this as a form of white lie, but Dr Bull said it was one of the most commonplace forms of cheating.

Students sometimes did not recognise their actions as cheating, he said, with a blurred boundary between collaborative working and dishonest collusion.

Dr Bull said cheating could take many forms - it might be laziness, but it could also be misplaced cleverness.

As such countering cheating should also be seen in more complex way.

Rather than elaborate technology, he said a strong relationship between staff and students might be a more effective way of deterring cheating. Although this would be more difficult for online courses.

High stakes, all-or-nothing exams, he believed to be more likely to attract attempts at cheating. A series of lower stake, more frequent assessments would be likely to reduce the levels of cheating, said Dr Bull.

There is also evidence that making students publicly commit to not cheating can be enough to make a difference.

In the US, universities can require students to keep these so-called "honour codes".

Dr Bull said that in one experiment academics invoked an honour code that did not exist, but even the idea of such a code seemed to act as a deterrent and influence students' behaviour.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — The principal's voice came on over the intercom at Plaza Towers Elementary School: A severe storm was approaching and students were to go to the cafeteria and wait for their parents to pick them up.

But before all of the youngsters could get there, the tornado alarm sounded.

The plan changed quickly.

"All the teachers started screaming into the room and saying, 'Get into the hallway! We don't want you to die!' and stuff like that," said sixth-grader Phaedra Dunn. "We just took off running."

In the moments that followed, some of the children at Plaza Tower Elementary School would, in fact, die. At least seven were killed by the twister Monday afternoon. Others would crawl out of the rubble, bloodied and bruised, utterly terrified.

The tornado that smashed through this Oklahoma City suburb of 56,000 people flattened Plaza Elementary and also slammed Briarwood Elementary, where all of the children remarkably appear to have survived. Students and parents recounted stories Tuesday of brave teachers who sheltered their pupils. But there were also moments of pure panic and fear.

After the tornado alarm went off, students at Plaza Elementary scrambled to the halls. But the halls — some of which were within the view of windows — did not appear safe enough.

Sixth-grader Antonio Clark said a teacher took him and as many other youngsters as possible and shoved them into the three-stall boys' bathroom.

"We were all piled in on each other," the 12-year-old said. Another teacher wrapped her arms around two students and held Antonio's hand.

Twenty seconds later he heard a roar that sounded like a stampede of elephants. His ears popped.

Then it all stopped almost as suddenly as it started. Crouched down, his backpack over his head, Antonio looked up. The skylight and the ceiling that had been there just moments before were gone, and he was staring up into a cloud of debris.

Antonio and a friend were among the first to stand up. They climbed over debris where their classroom had been just moments earlier. Students and teachers were struggling to free themselves from under the bricks, wooden beams and insulation. Some people had bleeding head wounds; blood covered one side of someone's eyeglasses, Antonio said.

"Everybody was crying," Antonio said. "I was crying because I didn't know if my family was OK."

Then Antonio saw his father ride up on a mountain bike, yelling his son's name.

Phaedra survived, too. Her mother rushed to the school just moments before the tornado hit, covered Phaedra's head with a blanket to protect her from hail and ushered her out the door. Phaedra's 10-year-old sister, Jenna, didn't want to budge from the school.

The principal "grabbed her backpack, put it over her head and literally said, 'You're mom's going to open the door. Get out. You're safer with your mom,' and pushed her out the door," said Amy Sharp, the girls' mother.

At Briarwood Elementary, the students also went into the halls. But a third-grade teacher didn't think it looked safe, so she ushered some of the children into a closet, said David Wheeler, one of the fathers who tried to rush to the school after the tornado hit.

The teacher shielded Wheeler's 8-year-old son, Gabriel, with her arms and held him down as the tornado collapsed the school roof and starting lifting students upward with a pull so strong that it literally sucked glasses off kids' faces, Wheeler said.

"She saved their lives by putting them in a closet and holding their heads down," Wheeler said.

Gabriel and the teacher — whom Wheeler identified as Julie Simon — had to dig their way out of the rubble. The boy's back was cut and bruised and gravel was embedded in his head, Wheeler said. It took nearly three hours for father and son to be reunited.

Other parents waited even longer, as they drove from one emergency shelter to another in search of their children.

At St. Andrews United Methodist Church, 15-year-old Caitlin Ulrey waited about seven hours before her parents found her. Her high school had not been hit by the tornado. But her nerves were frayed.

"I was starting to panic and shake and have an anxiety attack," Caitlin said.

At Plaza Towers, several students were pulled alive from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried dazed and terrified children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot.

Hundreds of Oklahoma schools have reinforced tornado shelters, but not the two that were hit on Monday.

Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said it is up to each jurisdiction to set priorities for which schools get funding for safe rooms. But he said a shelter would not necessarily have saved more lives at Plaza Towers. The tornado was an EF5 twister, the most powerful type, with winds of at least 200 mph.

"When you talk about any kind of safety measures ... it's a mitigating measure, it's not an absolute," Ashwood said. "There's not a guarantee that everyone will be totally safe."

Moore School Superintendent Susan Pierce said teachers and administrators put their well-rehearsed crisis plan into action as the tornado approached. But she suggested there are limits to what people can do in the face of such a powerful storm.

"Safety is our main priority," Pierce said. "We monitored the weather throughout the day and when it was time to shelter, we did just that."

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Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnik Masti contributed to this report.