The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . And by the corporation for public broadcasting, this program was also made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. If Macedonia's rival political leader signed a piece of court today, it's intended to stop a six-month rebellion by minority ethnic Albanians. Among other things, the deal gives them a greater say in the government and allows for NATO troops, including Americans, to disarm the rebels. Palestinians today protested the Israeli takeover of PLO offices in Jerusalem last week. Yesterday, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a cafe, wounding 20 Israelis.

We have a report from Gabi Rato of Independent Television News. It is the display of the Palestinian flag which sparked off the worst of the fighting in East Jerusalem today, and Israeli authorities now regard any display of Palestinian national identity, even in the Arab part of the capital as unacceptable. The Palestinians have called a general strike to protest against the occupation of their buildings, and the police reacted with some force. Overnight in Hebron, gun battles broke out between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops. Such exchanges delay peace negotiations, as the Israelis are demanding a week-long period of non-violence as a precondition. An eight-year-old Palestinian girl killed in the Hebron, five fighters buried today, along

with her grandmother, who died of a heart attack on hearing of the girl's death. The Palestinian leadership say such tragedy is proved the need for talks. The Islamic Jihad militant movement has released its own video of Mohammed Mahood Nazar, the 28-year-old who blew himself up near Haifa yesterday evening. The cafe selected by the suicide bomber had few customers, and there were only minor injuries among the Israeli civilians he targeted. But local people now realize nowhere in Israel is completely safe without heavy security. The thing is very, very bad, because if I once to come after law, take my wife and take my children to this guard and we could be very near from here. I think twice. After the Jerusalem suicide bomb last Thursday, the Israeli government decided to punish the Palestinian leadership by signaling that their hopes of even sharing the capital of a futile is just one more tangible example of how over the past year possible avenues

of compromise have won by one been closing down. Speaking to reporters near his ranch in Texas today, President Bush said both sides should do more to achieve peace. In Israel, he said, should show more restraint, and Palestinian leaders should try to curb terrorism. There will be no peace unless we break this cycle of violence, and the United States is doing everything in our power to convince the party. But I want to remind people, there must be the will, the people in the area must make the conscious decision to stop terrorism. And we're going to continue, but can the Israelis continue to show moderate restraint? I appreciate the fact that they do show a moderate restraint. Sometimes they have it, and sometimes they have. But what's important is that we say to all the parties that if there's a desire for peace, or at least the discussion of peace, or the desire to get in Mitchell, the first thing

that must happen is, is that we must stop violence, and do you have confidence and error fact that we can stop terrorist attacks? I think he can do a lot more to be convincing the people on the street to stop these acts of terrorism and acts of violence. I've said in the Oval Office, it is very important for Mr. Arafat to show 100% effort to do everything he can to convince the different parties on the West Bank and in Gaza to stop the violence. And we recognize that there could be isolated incidents of terror, but these aren't isolated. This is a continuing terrorist campaign. And we've got to stop, and we've got to stop the violence. I will invite the respective parties to come and see me at the appropriate time. Justice Department report found no evidence when Haul Lee was targeted because he is ethnic Chinese, that's according to two chapters released today.

Those chapters were also critical of FBI and Energy Department investigations of the Taiwanese born nuclear scientist. He was fired from a government laboratory in New Mexico in 1999 amid allegations of a spying for China. Later he was arrested and charged with 59 counts of mishandling weapons secrets. He pleaded guilty to one count. The government dropped all the others, and released in from jail last September. Russia and the United States today each stood firm on their positions on national missile defense. Russian President Putin rejected President Bush's plans to abandon a 1972 treaty banning national missile defenses. Those plans linked to cuts in nuclear weapons were the subject of talks in Moscow between Putin and U.S. Secretary of Defense, Grumpsfeld. First word, Grumpsfeld said, the U.S. intends to move ahead with missile defense research. As we've indicated, the ABM treaty inhibits the kinds of research and development testing that the United States has engaged in and finds constraining, and as a result, we will continue

to discuss with them ways that we can move beyond the ABM treaty so that the kinds of defenses against ballistic missiles, which the President feels are desirable and necessary, in this world of extensive proliferation, can go forward. Ramasfeld is to return to Washington at midnight tonight. A faulty tire case against the Bridgestone fires against Bridgestone Firestone went to trial for the first time today in Texas. In opening statements, lawyers for the company denied that the tires caused a Texas family's Ford Explorer to roll over, injuring them. But the family's lawyers argued the company knew the tires were defective. Bridgestone Firestone has settled more than 150 similar cases out of court, but it says that the Ford explorers, not their tires, are the problem. Bridgestone Firestone tires have been linked to 203 U.S. traffic deaths and more than 700 injuries.

That's it for the news summary tonight. Now it's on to giving peace a chance in Macedonia. And school reform work in the U.S., Russia, through the eyes of an American-based American journalist based there, and picturing who we are from SAS Roger Rosenblatt. Making and keeping the peace in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, we begin with some background from Spencer Michaels. The peace agreement was signed in the Macedonian capital of Scopia today. Political representatives from the Macedonian Slav majority and the minority ethnic Albanian population put their signatures on the accord, which had been brokered by U.S. and European diplomats. It is aimed at heading off civil war in Macedonia, which up to six months ago had avoided the ethnic warfare that ravaged so much of the former Yugoslavia.

The apparent stability in Macedonia was shattered by Albanian guerrillas who took up arms in February to fight for what they say were greater political and cultural rights. The fighting has continued between government troops and the guerrillas. Numerous cease-fires didn't hold. The hostilities intensified late last week, with heavy shelling between the two sides and villages north of the capital, and there were warnings that if an accord were not reached soon, a full-scale civil war would break out. About 100 soldiers, rebels, and civilians have died since the conflict erupted nearly 30 just in the last week. Today's accord was aimed at meeting Albanian demands for more ethnic Albanians in the police, parliament, and education, and public use of the Albanian language. The Albanian minority is estimated to be between one-quarter and one-third of the republic's

two million people. The agreement also paves the way for NATO eventually to send 3,500 European soldiers to help enforce the peace, as NATO troops are already doing in Bosnia and Kosovo. American soldiers will support European forces. The mission of the British-led force will be to disarm the ethnic Albanian rebels. It is supposed to last 30 days. The Albanian rebels did not sign today's accord, though their leader has said he would abide by it. NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson spoke to reporters. This is a very proud day for this country and for the parties in the Grand Coalition Government because they have established an agreement, which is historic, and I believe will mark the entry of Macedonia into modern mainstream Europe. It's so much just to be done, to make the ceasefire durable, to get the disarmament,

to bring the NATO troops here, and that is what we will be discussing today. But nobody should underestimate the success that has involved in this political agreement. NATO already has troops in Macedonia, including about 500 U.S. soldiers, supporting the NATO-led peacekeepers in neighboring Kosovo. Since the fighting erupted earlier this year, some 100,000 Macedonian refugees, mostly ethnic Albanians, have either fled the country or have been displaced within the country. In New York, the UN Security Council called a meeting today to endorse the peace deal and colon all parties to abide by it. Macedonia's parliament must ratify the peace accord before it can take effect. The vote is set to take place within 45 days. For more on this situation in Macedonia, we get three views. Pazil Babamov is President of the Macedonian American Friendship Association. Elia Sherca is President of the National Albanian American Council, and Daniel Surwer is Director

of the Balkan Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, gentlemen, welcome. Daniel Surwer, will this agreement hold? Hard to tell, Glenn. I think it's an agreement that is difficult to implement. There are extremists on both sides who will try to undermine it, but it's better than not having an agreement, and there will be a real need for international support and implementing it. Now, in order for these NATO troops to come in and disarm the Albanian rebels, which is part of this agreement, there are a couple of hurdles which have to be crossed first, aren't there? Well, they're saying they want a durable ceasefire, and they're saying they want a clear indication of willingness to turn in arms. It seems to me that NATO will help make that ceasefire durable. So far as the willingness to turn in arms is concerned, I find it difficult to believe that a lot of arms are going to be turned in within 30 days. I think NATO presence of considerably longer duration is needed.

Not even after this agreement was initialed, but before it was formally signed, there was still violence going on. There were still attacks going on, even though there was kind of supposed to be kind of a ceasefire, and, at least, the hopes of one. What reason do we have to believe that this ceasefire can be made durable? We don't have a lot of reason. What we know is that there are people on both sides who want to make a durable. The question is whether they really control the situation, and there are certainly extremists who want to undermine the agreement. It's not at all guaranteed that this is going to work. Elia Ziraka, why did the Albania agree to this? What do they have to gain? Well, I think this offers the real chance for significant reforms in Macedonia, reforms that will make Macedonia a society of equal citizens. Up until now, Albanians have been second class citizens. They haven't enjoyed the same rights as Macedonia, so the Albanians for the last decade since the independence of Macedonia have been pressing for the reforms that represented

in this agreement greater local control, the use of the Albanian language as an official language, changes to the preamble that basically discriminated against Albanians, consensual democracy in the parliament, and a number of other changes that, if implemented, are significant. Or the people who signed on to this agreement, there were Albanian rebels who weren't president for the negotiations and didn't sign on, which seems to me might be kind of a hole in the logic. Well, the political leaders were at the negotiating table, and they signed the agreement, but they have been talking to the national liberation army as have internationals. So I think that the NLA has bought off during the negotiations, and on Friday, the political spokesperson endorsed the agreement, said that the rebels will disarm, and my understanding is they're now working on a disarmament, an agreement, and an amnesty agreement, and maybe within the next day or so, we might see it.

Mr. Sir, we're very pessimistic about the chance that this agreement can hold. What do you think? Well, I think if there's the will, it'll hold. What we've seen on the Macedonian government side is not necessarily the will in terms of the government, the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister. Just a few days ago, said that the answer to the conflict is a stronger military response, which is not what the president of Macedonian has been saying, and certainly not what the international folks on the ground have been saying. Well, let's turn to Mr. Babamov, and maybe ask you to respond to that. Where is the Macedonian government in this? What do they have to gain by this peace agreement holding and can it hold? Well, the Macedonian government can gain stability and peace in Macedonia, which have not been existing for six months. And the Macedonian government has a record of supporting democracy since its formation. The democratic rights of the citizens in Macedonia have been developing pretty well for the last 10 years, and the Albanians have already had quite advanced minority rights

in Macedonia by Balkans standards, probably by far the best minority rights, and by Europeans standards are very highly rated minority rights. The Macedonian government will go along with this. I'm pretty confident that as long as there is a good indication of respect for the ceasefire and a meaningful disarmament, however, I'm not very hopeful that either of those will happen every ceasefire in the past have been broken immediately by the Albanian rebels or terrorist, depending on which side of defense you sit. And I don't expect anything different, and we have seen disarmament like this in Kosovo, and they have been essentially a first, a few non-working Kalashnikovs get turned in, and the armies just get shifted across the completely polarized border into Kosovo, and everything goes on as before.

Mr. Jericho just said that Albanians are treated as second-class citizens. You just said they have rights which are a lot of proportion to their percentage as a minority in Macedonia, which is so. Well I said that they do have minority rights, which are very advanced by any standards. Their minority rights are far greater than those of the minorities in the US. They have card quotas for entering the universities, five out of the 15 cabinet members in the government are Albanian, five out of the 15 deputy cabinet members in the Albanian are in the cabinet are Albanian, the percentage of Albanian deputies in the parliament is almost the same as that of the general population, and no minority in the surrounding countries or in the US has that kind of record of participation that close to their

percentage in the population in the government or in the parliament. So the minority rights have been quite advanced, every minority wants more rights, and they have been just developing in the last 10 years since the formation of Macedonia, they have been gaining more and more rights, and there is willingness among the population to grant more rights as long as they don't lead to break up of the country and to get the cleansing in the areas that are predominantly Albanian, which we have seen lately in every village that has been taken over by the national, by the NLA. Okay, Daniel Surer, let me, we just saw two people talk about the same set of facts and totally opposite ways. What is driving this violence? Is it ethnic? Is it political?

What is driving this? I think the violence is actually driven by some very nasty people who are criminals, and they came into Macedonia from Kosovo. Some of them had their origins in Macedonia, but it's being driven by a band of gorillas, but it's found large political resonance inside Macedonia among the Albanians because they've been fighting for things for years without success, and they've found that this violence has helped to get them the kind of hearing they had looked for in the past through purely political means. Mr. Jericho, you've heard that, but he just said that this is what's driving, what's your opinion about what's driving the violence? Well, I think Vasil's comments are inconsistent with President Traculci's comments who has in the past acknowledged that Albanians are discriminated against in Macedonia. The State Department has consistently documented systematic discrimination against Albanians. Macedonians have a bare majority in the country, but they have over 95 percent in some industries, over 98 percent of the jobs there, in a country where there's high unemployment.

Government job is the only job that's out there, and the discrimination goes way beyond just a workplace. Assuming that NATO does have a role and will be sending 3,500 troops in, does the United States have a special discreet role in driving for peace in this? I think so. You know, this peace negotiations was really going nowhere over the last few months, and it took U.S. special envoy, Jim Pardew, to shake things up and bring the parties to the agreement. And this agreement really represents the U.S.'s role there. The U.S. after the agreement has a very important role to play in terms of implementation, ensuring that the agreement is actually implemented, which won't be easy. Mr. Obama, after the U.S. have a role? Well, the U.S. has a role, the decisive role, and the U.S. can make or break every agreement. First of all, I would like to correct Mr. Jericho on his statement that 98 percent of the

government employees are at the Macedonia, or non-obanias. The percentage of Benian in the government sector has gone from 3 percent during the formation at the time of the formation of the Macedonia, state 2 over 10 percent now, and it keeps rising. The problem there is finding of Benian that are qualified to do the work that needs to be done. On the other hand, the key to the problem is in the United States. The problem to Macedonia has come from Kosovo, where we have enormous amounts of arms and a surplus of highly trained fighters who have really nothing to do there, and they have been coming over the border to Macedonia and causing unrest, and they have recruited some of the local population, much of that is essentially mercenary, they can pay the people, and so on. I want to say time for a final question for Mr. Serber. Do you think that Albanians and Macedonia's will ever be able to live peacefully together?

Yes, I do, citizens in Macedonia have not started in fighting with each other. This has largely been a war of the Macedonian police and army against the guerrillas, and I believe that with a lot of international support, a lot of hard work, Macedonia can be put back together again. Okay, thank you all very much for joining me. Still to come on the news hour tonight, education reform, a foreign correspondence, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay. Kwame Holman begins our coverage of education reform with this update of where things stand now with Congress in recess. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Akaka. When Congress overwhelmingly endorsed President Bush's education reforms this spring, it was hailed as proof that Democrats and Republicans could put aside their differences

when it came to education. I believe that this bill creates a framework through which we can reach every student, be it an inner city student, a rural student, a physically challenged student, a low-income student, a suburban student, or a learning impaired student. The bills passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives mirrored the major reforms President Bush called for, including the centerpiece student testing. We need to know whether children are learning. If you do not love children, you will just socially promote them and allow it to go forward and not confront the difficult problem that they're falling behind. Both the House and Senate bills would require annual state-designed reading and math tests for children in grades three through eight. Schools that don't show improvement in scores after one year would get extra federal aid to improve curriculums and train teachers.

Schools that don't improve after two years must allow students to transfer to another public school and schools that don't show improvement in test scores after three years must allow students to use Title I funds, money directed to schools and low-income areas for tutoring or for transportation to another public school. But despite agreement on those basic principles of reform, the House and Senate remain a part on a few key issues. The biggest is cost. The House called for spending $23 billion on education during the fiscal year that starts in October, but the Senate passed bill would spend nearly twice that much. And there are other differences. The House wants tougher standards for measuring a school's progress toward improvement than does the Senate. The two bills also differ on the level of flexibility school districts would have in spending federal dollars. Negotiations between a handful of members from each chamber dragged on for weeks. Last month, President Bush prodded them.

This Congress needs to get an education reform bill on my desk before the summer recess. We had a bill pass out of the House by broad margin. A bill pass out of the Senate by broad margin. There is no need for further delay. It is time to get a good reform bill. Nonetheless, Congress was unable to bridge differences over the education bill before leaving town for the month-long August recess. The committee staff is going to work the entire month of August on some of the thornier questions between the two bills. Congress will try again on education reform after Labor Day. Ray Suarez recently asked for leading educators for their reaction to Washington's efforts. Now the education reform debate has seen from the trenches joining us a Roy Romer, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and three state education superintendents, Elizabeth Burmaster of Wisconsin, Jaime Molera of Arizona, and Linda Shrenko of Georgia.

Well, guests, I'd like to start with your general impressions of the bill, assuming that the broad outlines can be seen in the House and Senate versions. Let's start with you, Superintendent Molera. Well, I think it's very heartening as to what's happening. For the first time in a long, long time, if ever, the president and Congress are starting to make education at the forefront of a national policy, and we need a good, strong national policy, but that's balance between what states need and what states are should be doing, and what states are doing versus what the federal rules should be, which is, I think, to set a broad policy about why it's important to have standards-based reform. And I think that's what's happening, and I think President Bush is doing an excellent job keeping it in the public forefront. Superintendent Burmaster? Well, I believe that the best part of the plan is that it has bipartisan support, but the problem is that both parties have agreed on a plan that is less about leaving no child behind and more about leaving no child untested.

The White House made it clear that the testing provision was really the heart and soul of the plan. And here in Wisconsin, where we have a great educational system and are at the top of the class in testing. We really feel it's more an issue about how we invest our time, resources, and energy and best-serving children, and we believe it's best to invest in small class sizes and quality teachers and strong reading programs, really emphasizing early learning opportunities and parental in community involvement. That's the heart and the soul of the plan in Wisconsin. Superintendent Shrenko? Well, Georgia is not at the top of the nation, and we definitely need the testing to be able to disaggregate the information and find out what we need to do to help our children. I think the thing that concerns me the most right now is that there is a plan, there are

good parts to this plan, but we need for it to be passed. We do need for it to be on the president's desk to be signed because for every delay, in education, if we don't start at the beginning of the school year, we get another year's delay, so we desperately need for them to act. And finally, Superintendent Romer? You know, first, they've got to put enough money in here to make it work. The House and Senate needs to reconcile it, need enough money. But secondly, testing is a good thing. I think that we need to be very careful about it being authentic testing, but the consequences are, I think, of the thing we need to really focus upon in this bill. They could over-micromanage it from Washington, and I think that, let me guess, one concrete illustration, in both bills, they expect states to reach a state of proficiency for 100% of students when they need their 10 years or 12 years, and then they'll measure annual

yearly progress toward that mark. The problem is, you're never going to get 100% of students to proficient. If you look at the NAEP, which is a national test now, we do well if we get 30% to 40% proficient. What I'm saying, if you set a standard that is unrealistic ever to reach, then people will simply dumb down the definition of proficient, and you will have lost something that's very valuable in summary. We need to have testing, and we need to reach for really high stakes, but we ought not have the consequences so severe that you force people to dumb down the definition of what proficient is. Superintendent Mulayna, what do you think of Governor Romer's suggestions? I mean, it's hard to know when you have a diagnostic tool like a test, what you're supposed to do with the data once you've gone it? Well, and that's why I think it is important for every state to craft comprehensive test policy around what their state standards are. There's no question about that.

I think it'd be in an appropriate role for the federal government to come in and say, okay, this is how you're going to do it in each and every state. But I think there's a balance there because if you're committed to standards-based reform, everything that goes along with that, teacher preparation, curriculum design, and assessment has to be a part of that, and you have to have a way of measuring student progress. And it's not penalizing the school because they have a lot of kids that might be limited in English proficient and they might be at a very low level versus a more affluent school. It's measuring how they gain on the yearly basis. And I think that- To themselves, in effect. Absolutely. And so you're not penalizing them for having students that might have more socioeconomic problems, more societal problems, and the things that teachers have to deal with every day. But it's really showing how you can get kids to move up. Not penalizing for where they come in, but how much they progress. And I think from a policy perspective, that has changed a lot of mindsets out there. And at least in Arizona, folks are starting to work towards that. Republicans and Democrats alike. They see that as a starting point for real reforms.

Superintendent Burmaster, do you agree with your colleague from Arizona that the testing regime would allow that, or has the government put some requirements on what to do with that information once you've got it that doesn't allow you to treat different schools in different parts of the state differently? Exactly. I think I want to go back to- How much testing is too much? Now in Wisconsin, we currently test at the third, fourth, eight, 10th, and we're looking to a high school graduation test. And the plan would require every child, every year, in grades three through eight, to be tested through a standardized state testing. I think that where we see, and testing is important. And we do have to have a measure of accountability to know that we are reaching our state standards. But the standardized testing shouldn't ever replace that every day ongoing assessment and evaluation

that goes on between teacher and student in the classroom. And really prepares our students to be productive and contributing citizens in their community. We're not trying to raise a generation of good test takers. We want our children to take their knowledge and apply it in the real world. So I believe that we have to go back to even to the basic question of how much standardized testing is appropriate, how is that standardized testing being used to drive good instruction? And those, to me, are the very basic questions. Superintendent Shrenko of those questions been answered to your satisfaction by the proposals now before the House and Senate? Well, I think in the original proposal, there was a lot of flexibility for the states to be able to design their own assessment system and even further to be able to determine what adequate yearly progress is.

But I agree with Governor Romer that saying that everybody's got to reach that 100 percent is a difficult thing to do. But I also know that when I look a mom in the eyes kind of like taking kids on a field trip and saying to the parents, we'll bring back 95 percent. I don't think we can say that. I think we do have to set the high goal with the understanding that we might not get everybody there, but it's worthwhile saying that it's a goal that we do so. Well, I think you've anticipated what I wanted to ask you about next. What to do with the lowest performing schools? In the education community, have proposed something that's a little less punitive. Others want to just break up those schools. What do you see coming out of the House and Senate conference that gives you guidance about what happens to those schools that after five years, after 10 years, just aren't performing?

Well, again, I think we are our children's advocates, and I don't know how the rest feel. I think public schools do a great job to help kids learn. But when a public school fails, I'm for doing what's best for the child. And I think this formula that's in the bill says that first we provide additional monies, we provide resources, a school improvement team to go in and help them if they don't improve. Then we have some options we can let the parents choose another public school. We can close down the school and open it under new management. I think in Georgia, we're going to have to use every school building we've got. So we want the option to open under new management. But we know that our first goal has to be that every child learns, and if they're not learning, we need to do something. Superintendent Romer? Yes. I think that the first step of putting more resources in to try to help that school raise at skill levels is correct.

I think if it fails, the second option of public school choice works in most places, but it's done in LA. We don't have any space. We simply can't use it, but I think as a substitute, reorganize the school. Put total new management new teachers in there if you have a consistent pattern of failure. You got to use the building, clean it out, start it over, and also put a strategy at work which really improves classroom practice. I think that there needs to be real consequences because, hey, if you don't perform, we ought not be fooling people about it. Superintendent Muletta? Well, I would agree with that. I'm a little bit reticent to allow the federal government to dictate what kinds of remedies that would put in place. I think that has to be done at a state level. But is it in there now? Federal government dictate over what you do with those schools? Well, as you know right now, it's an ever-evolving process. And those were hits at right now. And I think some of the things, and I was part of a number of superintendents who met

with the president about this, and we urged that that would be taken into consideration. And he agreed. I'm confident that a lot of members of Congress, at least from Arizona, that I've talked to, that they agree that you can have a good federal broad policy, but ultimately the states have to take that responsibility. And Superintendent Burmaster, what do you do about the low performers? Well, all of my colleagues have pointed out that we must be the chief advocates for our children and their education, and that it is critical that we hold our schools to high standards. The problem that I have with the Bush Plan is that we are not holding our politicians accountable to the kind of investment and commitment in the things that we know truly make effective schools. And we talked about those, the class sizes and quality teachers. I'd like to see the Bush Plan take more of the funding that would be going to testing

and invest that in the quality teachers initiative, which is very good in the Bush Plan. And the reading initiatives, let's put our money where we know it will be effective. But that flexibility isn't allowed under the current proposals, is it? No it is not. And that's what I believe the conference committee is going to have to grapple with. And it's important that we do send the message as state superintendents and leaders wear the ones who see what is effective in our schools. And we have to ensure and speak for the children and for our public schools so that we don't end up with federally mandated run public schools. Well superintendents and Shrenko, your state is one that's facing some pretty severe teacher shortages. What do you think about your colleagues' idea?

Well I think it is critical that we have a good quality teacher initiative. I like the one in the Bush proposal, but I think that paired with that, we've got to recognize that Title I money is for student reading and there's a 10% increase in Title I. That money will be used for reading, will be used for math. And so I think it's essential that the American public understand that they are getting their money's worth and they'll only know that if children's scores improve. So I think the testing is a critical component of accountability for results. Well superintendents and Moleta, how long is it going to take for these kinds of things to bear fruit? When will we be able to visit Phoenix or Tucson and say, well here I can see what these programs did. Well we're no gallests. We're from. I think it's going to take a while, it's going to take a long time because the key element I think of this legislation and things that many people are doing across the states and

I know what we're doing is really taking a long hard look at reading because if kids do not read by the end of the third grade, you can pretty much predict their academic achievement and we have to put more of an emphasis on that. And that's something that's frustrating because folks want to see a big bang for their buck in a year, two years or actually they want to see it in like six months. But it's a long, long process and you have to prepare teachers, you have to really analyze the curriculum, you have to make the kinds of investments in order to ensure that all children, no matter where they live, are going to have access to equality education. Superintendents, thank you all for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, a foreign correspondence, our conversations with reporters stationed overseas for American news organizations. Terrence Smith has tonight's. And our correspondent is John Danashevsky, Moscow Bureau Chief for the Los Angeles Times. John, welcome, welcome home.

Thank you. Just a little about the Russia of Vladimir Putin, what's it like and what's he like? Well, it's a much different country than it was a year and a half ago when he took over. It's a more orderly country. The oligarchs, we've been brought under control. The regions are becoming more in mind with Kremlin policies. The Duma is no longer going off in its own direction, but it's following the script written in the Kremlin. So he has introduced a modicum of order, and in that way he's delivered something that the Russian people seem to have wanted, that he's a counterweight to the chaos that they were seeing earlier in the 1990s. You mentioned he's been in office for 18 months now. Is he popular with the Russian people? By all accounts, he's highly popular, 60, 70% approval ratings. People are just so happy to have a president who seems to know what he's doing, who's not stumbling, he's not saying foolish things, who seems to control, and seems to have a game plan.

Is it clear to you where he wants to take Russia? No. That's really the question mark. He clearly is a person who comes out of the KGB, the FSB. He has, to me, the demeanor, and sometimes the insuitability of a hard-nosed policeman. It's clear he wants order. It's clear he wants economic liberalization, but I'm not sure how he really feels about political liberalization, human rights, freedom of the press, and things like that. For the last couple of months, we've been treated to this sort of love fest between President Putin and President George W. Bush. What do you make of that? Well, it's really striking. I think it was a surprise to all of us. These two men seem like they were on a collision course, and after only terms of their policies. In terms of their policies, in terms of especially Bush's plans for national missile defense, but also the criticisms of Russia for proliferation and so on. But when they got together, they seemed to have hit it off.

They seemed to see each other as being cohorts of the same generation, both grappling with big international problems. I think Putin really likes to be seen as being on the same plane as Bush, because that means that Russia is still a superpower. I know that there was a news conference not too long ago in Moscow, and that President Putin was asked about President Bush. What does he give an opinion of President Bush? Well, he said. It was sort of remarkable. He said he found him very sentimental. He said, I don't know if I should be saying that, but this is a man who is not afraid to show his emotions, which to me, it was funny that he said that, because Putin's the opposite. He's really sort of a tough guy, and I don't know if he thinks that Bush is a softie that can be pushed around or what that really meant. The sentimental? What does that mean? Well, I think he was referring that they were talking about their families. They were talking about who they named their children, where they live, and he seems to be looking forward to his visit to Texas, to the ranch.

At the same time, in terms of substance, President Putin seems to have come around to George Harvey Bush's idea of reviewing and perhaps amending or even replacing the 1972 ABM treaty. So are we to take that as something that's going to happen or is the jury still out? I think that I think the policy that's developing in Russia is that they want to be able to reduce their offensive nuclear weapons force in lockstep with the United States. In other words, that they don't want to be forced by their lack of finances to unilaterally lower their level of weapons. And this is a big lever that the Bush administration has, and tit for tit, if President Bush really wants national missile defense, there's probably a deal that can be made there. And so he's come around to that, and then it might well emerge. And I think it might well emerge, and it was a real surprise.

What is it like for you as an American correspondent to cover the Kremlin these days? To try to cover President Putin, I assume your access to him, is limited to say the least. It's somewhat limited, it's a lot of times. You can always reach someone in the Kremlin who can tell you what the president is up to or what he's thinking, but it's, of course, very hard to get to see him yourself. But he does seem to be on a charm offense of these days, and meeting with reporters more often. We have a meanwhile, the war in Chechnya continues as a festering state. What is going on there, and what is it like to try to cover that? Well, they're parallels to Vietnam, I think, are enormous. It's just a tragic situation. Going to Chechnya is one of the scariest things I've done in a long time. You don't know where the enemy is, you don't know where the landmines are, you don't know whether you should be afraid of the Russian soldiers.

Or the Islamic militants. And the people there live, you wouldn't believe it. They're just huddled up, trying, scratching to survive, no light, no limited food, limited water, no consumer goods, no ways to earn income. And they're just struggling to live, and they have almost no place they can go. They can't go to Russia, they can go as refugees, but that's a miserable life. And they're stuck there between these two foes who are just doing terribly brutal things to each other. And when you're there as a correspondent, an American western correspondent, do you get any protection from either side? No. You're hiding too, in a way, you're hiding from the Russians and you're hiding from the extremists. I think you were in a building, weren't you, when there was shooting nearby? Right. I was staying with his family, the very kindly took us in and fed us, and they had a house that was behind high walls, so it was low profile. In Grosney?

In Grosney, you know. I felt safe there, but one day when we were heading back to the house, there was a shooting between some, a shootout, really between a car, a jeep full of Russians, and a car filled with a, with a church in rebels, and after that, the Russian army just poured in there, and going house to house, arresting people, and it just seemed like there, it might be wiser at that point, to leave town, and fortunately in Grosney, there was a network of back roads that somehow avoided the tech points that we could, we could. But it remains a political, great political problem, does it not for President Putin? And it's one, I mentioned at the news conference, he was very adroit in answering questions and seemed very calm on most issues, but when he talks about Chechnya, it's a whole different matter, it's, he came to office as the man who was going to fix up Chechnya, and his voice gets higher, he moves his hand, he gets angry whenever the topic comes up, his belief is that we in the West, or particularly we in the Western press, don't understand the

threat that Russia is facing there. Finally and briefly, let me ask you about one other headline that we've seen repeatedly, which is about the strain relationship between President Putin and the Russian media. He, he and others move to, to take over MTV, the independent television, what's going on there and what does it say? Well, I think it all has to do with the falling out between Putin and the owner of MTV, Gusinski, and after that, the prosecutors started investigating the accountants came in, they searched their records, they found financials, malfeasance, which is not surprising because I think it exists in almost every Russian business. I don't know if it was because they were afraid of a free press, or if it was for political reasons, but it's hard to think that it was simply a legal matter the way they went about it.

For instance, when the journalist left MTV and went to another station, TV6, suddenly that station started developing legal problems. And does it have chilling effect, either on the Russian media or the Western or both? I think so, not on the Western media. But in fact, there are no longer any national television stations that are not controlled by the state, and although the new MTV says it's independent, it's simply not as aggressive in pursuing stories, particularly about Chechnya. John Dada, Chefsky, thank you very much. Thank you. Finally tonight, S.A.S. Roger Rosenblatt looks at a collection of photographs that say something about who we are. The great family of man photo exhibit is nearly 50 years old and one winces to realize that the children in those remarkable photographs are old today, and the old, long gone. That's the beauty of pictures, of course, they hold life in place.

On the power of the family of man collection implied that, too, that the fundamental significant and more beautiful moments of living remain in place, even as people find ways to tear themselves apart. Now comes a trio of photographic books from William Morrow called Family, Love, and Friendship, each book carrying the subtitle, A Celebration of Humanity. Some of these pictures are simply too easy, and because of their ready sentimentality one does not really get into them, the little girls playing together, for example, or the woman in the soldier parting in a train station. But others are very good indeed. The old gentlemen with dogs and flowers, the burial of the family dog, the toothy smiles, the reckless hugs. All illustrate how hard one are those occasions when one's poses for the outside world are dropped, protections dropped like veils, and we see not how easy it is to be intimate

with one another, but rather how unusual it is, the accidental conspiracies we enter into. The way we fall upon one another, the way a civilization comes into existence, the ways we learn. The first thing one thinks of to say when seeing these pictures of some banality like, this is real life, the life of who we are. But the fact that one stares at the photos generally in pleased wonders suggests how rare a thing intimacy is, as if people to be displayed at their most endearing need to be caught off guard. There's a suggestion underlying these photos that were more like ourselves in these intimate moments. But there's a counter-subposition equally possible that were more like ourselves when we're private or distant from one another, or whatever the opposite of intimacy may be, and it's just as unusual to be off guard as on.

My favorite of these photographs seems to catch these polarities. A mother plays the piano while her baby sits under it, staring up at the source of the music. They are together, mother and child, but they are also lost in their separate endeavors. This is who we are, and this, too, old friends stand or sit together. We kiss or rub faces. We take affectionate interest in one another. We play at love. We rejoice in the ruins. We worry. This is who we are, but it is just part of who we are. At our other moments, we do not get along in groups and are not intimate. If it's the opposite of intimacy you're looking for, try that mob of men in central park a few years ago who were groping women for support. Try a riot at a soccer game in Europe.

Try a war. When those instances of violent separateness are over or when intermissions occur, among them, only then do we seem to find the time to get close. We must love one another or die, wrote W. H. Auden. I think that these are photographs of people making a choice. I'm Roger Rosenblatt. Again, the major stories of this Monday, Macedonia's rival political leaders signed a Peace Accord, Palestinians protested the Israeli takeover of at PLO offices in Jerusalem, but a Justice Department report found no evidence when Holy was targeted because he is ethnic Chinese. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Eiffel. Thank you and good night. Major funding for the news hour with Jim Lehrer has been provided by.

Imagine a world where no child bakes for food. While some will look on that as a dream, others will look long and hard and get to work. ADM, the nature of what's to come. Helping people with a state planning so that those they care about get more than a simple will can provide. See how we earn it. Salomon Smith-Barti. And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, this program was also made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Thank you.

Video cassettes of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer are available from PBS Video. 1-800-328-PBS-1. 1-800-

1-800- 1-800- 1-800- 1-800-

1-800- 1-800- 1-800- 1-800-

1-800- Good evening, I'm Gwen Eiffel, Jim Lehrer is on vacation. We talk with school superintendents from around the country, a foreign correspondence with an American journalist based in Russia, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay on photographs that tell us who we are. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. Major funding for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer has been provided by

the surrounding particles. And by the corporation for public broadcasting, this program was also made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Macedonia's rival political leader signed a piece of court today. It's intended to stop a six-month rebellion by minority ethnic Albanians. Among other things, the deal gives them a greater say in the government and allows for NATO troops, including Americans, to disarm the rebels. Palestinians today protested the Israeli takeover of PLO offices in Jerusalem last week.

Yesterday, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a cafe, wounding 20 Israelis. We have a report from Gabirado of Independent Television News. It is the display of the Palestinian flag, which sparked off the worst of the fighting in East Jerusalem today. And Israeli authorities now regard any display of Palestinian national identity, even in the Arab part of the capital as unacceptable. The Palestinians have called a general strike to protest against the occupation of their buildings and the police reacted with some force. Overnight in Hebron, gun battles broke out between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops, not exchanges delayed peace negotiations.