captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: a new blow to syrian refugees scarred by war and facing starvation, as the united nations makes drastic cuts to food aid. >> every month we feed 4 million people inside syria, in addition to approximately 2 million refugees in neighboring countries, and in order to resume the operation for the refugees, we need $64 million immediately. >> ifill: good evening, i'm gwen ifill. judy woodruff is away. also ahead this tuesday: the darker side of professional sports. lawmakers look at how the big leagues tackle domestic violence. plus, in philadelphia, as charter schools become more

popular, the city's public schools rethink how they can compete to attract students and improve education. >> everybody learns at their own pace. so if i'm quicker than chauncey, i'll be able to keep going instead of waiting for him to come to my level, or vice-versa. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs "newshour >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from electronics systems to intelligence analysis and cyber- operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. that's bae systems. that's inspired work.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: president obama may be ready to announce his nominee for secretary of defense, later this week. it was widely reported today that ashton carter will be the choice, after he's thoroughly vetted. he served as deputy defense secretary from october 2011 to december 2013. white house spokesman josh earnest

would not confirm the reports, but he spoke highly of carter. >> he's somebody that certainly deserves and has demonstrated strong bipartisan support for his previous service in government. he is somebody that does have a detailed understanding of the way the department of defense works. i think for all these reasons it's been widely reported mr. carter has been on the short list. >> ifill: chuck hagel resigned as defense secretary last week, highlighting ongoing tensions between the pentagon and the white house there's word today a woman who's married to islamic state leader abu bakr al-baghdadi is being held in lebanon. authorities in beirut say the woman and a boy who may be baghdadi's son were detained near a border crossing with syria. the officials suggested they may be swapped for more than 20 lebanese soldiers and police held by islamic state militants. in kenya, al-shabaab militants have carried out a new mass

killing of non-muslims. this time, the victims were 36 workers at a quarry. police loaded the bodies onto trucks after the massacre, near the border with somalia. al-shabaab said the attack was in retaliation for the presence of kenyan troops inside somalia. but, kenya's president insisted the troops will not be withdrawn. we will not flinch or relent in the war against terrorism in our country and our region. we shall continue to inflict painful casualties on these terrorists until we secure our country and region. our stability and prosperity depends on a secure neighbourhood. >> ifill: the president also fired the interior minister and accepted the resignation of his national police chief. longstanding tensions came to a canada today warned its citizens to leave afghanistan immediately for their own safety. in the last few weeks, afghan insurgents have increasingly targeted foreigners, killing four since last friday.

the canadian statement said the threat is "extremely high". israel's governing coalition crumbled today, as prime minister benjamin netanyahu fired two cabinet ministers and called for early elections. longstanding tensions came to a head over a bill defining israel as the jewish state. the two centrist ministers charged it would discriminate against israeli arabs. in a televised address, netanyahu rejected their criticism. >> ( translated ): in one word that is called putsch and that makes it impossible to run a government, that makes it impossible to lead a country. therefore, also due to the necessity to ensure a stable and proper conduct of government, i decided to push forward legislation to dissolve the knesset and go to election as soon as possible. >> ifill: the early elections put the israeli government in political limbo amid growing violence between israelis and palestinians. three founders of hong kong's pro-democracy movement called today for protesters to retreat. the leaders also said they're

turning themselves in. the protests demanding free elections in 2017 have paralyzed the city center for two months, and triggered violent clashes with police. back in this country: about 100 buildings in downtown detroit lost power for much of the day, after a major cable failure. the lights went out around 10:30 in the morning, forcing public schools to dismiss students at mid-day. the bankrupt city's mayor mike duggan said the power grid run by the public lighting department-- p.l.d. -- has not been modernized in decades. >> today is another reminder of how much work we still have to do to rebuild this city. and a bankruptcy order doesn't solve the decades of neglect in our infrastructure and that's what we saw today in the p.l.d. system. >> ifill: power was gradually being restored throughout the afternoon.

35 u.s. hospitals have been officially designated ebola treatment centers, should the need arise. the department of health and human services released the list today. most of the hospitals are in major cities, and have the best trained staff and essential equipment. the announcement came as president obama visited the national institutes of health to highlight progress toward an ebola vaccine. a federal report card out today finds u.s. hospitals are making fewer serious mistakes. errors dropped 17% between 2010 and 2013. as a result, 50,0000 fewer patients died and $12 billion in health care costs was saved. in economic news, chicago's city council voted to increase the city's minimum wage nearly $5 to $13 an hour by 2019. it affects some 400,000 workers. and auto makers reported surging sales in november. chrysler led the way, with a gain of 20%. the upbeat news on auto sales and on construction helped wall street.

the dow jones industrial average gained more than 102 points to close at 17,879. the nasdaq rose 28 points to close at 4,755. and the s&p 500 added 13, to finish at 2,066. still to come on the newshour: syrian refugees poised to lose food assistance, after u.n. funds run dry. what congress needs to get done before the end of the year. how professional sports tackle domestic violence. philadelphia's public schools fight to win back students. preparing cities to withstand disasters. and the cozy relationship between the fed and big banks. >> ifill: now, to a funding crisis at the unted nations' world food program. yesterday, the organization announced that it can no longer provide food vouchers to more than a million and-a-half syrian refugees as winter approaches.

>> ifill: at a makeshift camp in lebanon's bekaa valley last week, a syrian refugee-- one of 1,000 at this location-- grimly assessed conditions after winter storms hammered the place where she's lived for a year. >> ( translated ): these tents don't keep us warm. even when lit the heaters don't keep us warm. i survive only thanks to the u.n. food vouchers. i don't get anything else. >> ifill: but now, those vouchers, a vital lifeline to so many, have been suspended by the u.n.'s world food program because of a severe cash shortage. that means 1.7 million syrians living in turkey, lebanon, egypt, jordan and iraq face an immediate food shortage. they're part of an estimated 3.2 million syrians spread across the middle east. the w.f.p. says donor countries failed to meet financial commitments, and it warned today of potentially dire consequences.

>> we are expecting that people will maybe have to send their children out to work, they'll have to skip meals, they'll have to do without food, and what we are worried about is that some may even feel that they are forced to go back to syria, even though their towns and villages are not necessarily safe. >> ifill: the u.n. agency got a cash infusion from the u.s. last week to cover november's voucher operation. but it needs another $64 million dollars for december. it's the latest hard blow to refugees like this woman from syria's northwestern idlib province. >> ( translated ): this is unfair, the syrians do not deserve this. we fled our country from the ongoing war and hunger, and became refugees here. i have patience for one day without food but my son cannot. >> ifill: the world food program also assists four million people inside syria, and that program will run out of money in february. i spoke earlier today with

muhannad hadi, the world food program's regional emergency coordinator, from amman, jordan. muhannad hadi, thank you so much for joining us. i want to start by asking about the suspension of the voucher program how did we get to suspension? >> basically the suspension is the decision the world food program has to take for the lack of funding. it's a decision we were forced to take and unfortunately, as a result, we have more than 1.7 million people, refugees, lacking food this month and the months after if the situation doesn't change. >> ifill: what is the value of food vouchers or this debit card system as opposed to just handing out food directly to the recipients? >> the most important thing about this voucher program is that it keeps the dignity, it retains the dignity of the refugees and puts the decisions in their hands.

they're the ones who decide from where to do their shopping, what do buy. it gives the mothers the right to decide what do they want to feed their children on any night for dinner, and it also resolves issues of protection and a lot of tension between local communities and the refugees. so it's a preferred option, and this is the best way to serve the refugees in such circumstances. >> ifill: so explain the shovel t -- the shortfall to me. is it because not must have nonny is pledged or enough pledges not being fulfilled? >> not enough pledges being bull filled. in the kuwait pledging conference, $2 billion were pledged but only 40% committed. we are running a big program in syria. in syria and the neighboring countries, every month, we feed 4 million people inside syria in addition to approximately 2 million refugees in

neighboring countries. that's a big program. we're talking about 6 million people the world food program feeds every month and on that we need approximately $35 million a week to do this operation. this month only and in order to resume the operation for the refugees, we need $64 million immediately, but the the beauty of the program that we have, if we get the money tonight, by tomorrow morning, we can charge and load the cars of the refugees and they can start the grocery shopping as of tomorrow so they will not miss a meal, if we get funds immediately. >> ifill: who are you counting on to fill the gap? donations, corporations, individuals? >> well, we're counting on everybody. we're countering on the united states, we're counting on the big donors and we're also counting on the regional

countries, approaching the gcc countries and arabia and everybody else. the crisis in syria is not only about syria or the region. it's becoming an international crisis. it has taken so long and the suffering of the people has also increased. we are counting on the international community standing by the syrian people. the syrian conflict is a political conflict. we are doing a humanitarian solution in absence of a political solution and that's why the humanitarian solution must be supported by the international community until the syrian problem is resolved. >> ifill: is there a connection to be made between food an security and political stability in syria and beyond? >> right now, people have no choice. the people of whom we are feeding are totally dependent on the world food program to feed them simply because they have no job opportunity, their livelihoods have been destroyed,

they're either displaced within their own countries or refugees living in camps or in makeshift shelters or informal settlements in neighboring countries. they have no access to the labor market. their lives have been destroyed, and until that situation is rectified somehow, the humanitarian operations must remain to support the syrian people. >> ifill: muhannad hadi, the regional emergency coordinator for the world food program in syria, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: the house and senate are back in washington for the final weeks of the 113th congress. big ticket items, from financing government to tax breaks for corporations and classroom teachers, remain up in the air. lisa desjardins reports on the high-stakes to-do list, as republicans and democrats alike debate deadlines.

>> reporter: crowded halls, a crowded agenda and a bit of frenzy have taken over the capitol. >> i'm late for something. >> reporter: late and not much time left. house republicans like paul ryan are trying to leverage their election momentum in the final weeks of this congress. with a big and critical to -do list: reauthorizing defense department spending. funding the fights against ebola and islamic state militants. and extending dozens of tax breaks which expired last year. those include billions of dollars for corporations to promote research. but the package also adds tax breaks for teachers to buy supplies, as well as special provisions for nascar and incentives for mass transit. that's the relatively easy stuff. both house and senate are poised to extend the tax breaks for one year. the white house is thinking about it. but things get dicier when the federal government runs out of funds next week. republicans insist they will fund almost all of government at

current levels, but they are hotly debating a way to limit one thing-- the president's executive orders protecting more illegal immigrants from deportation. >> this is a serious breach of our constitution. it's a serious threat to our system of government. and frankly we have limited options and limited abilities to deal with it directly. but that's why we're continuing to talk to our members. >> reporter: house republicans, led by speaker boehner are fuming, and considering a creative option: fund most of government for the next year. but fund the department of homeland security, which oversees immigration, only until march. and, potentially try to cut funds for that program. the man who oversees those funds, secretary of homeland security jeh johnson, objected to the plan today at a house hearing today.

>> i need congress to act on border security, so i'm encouraging you act on current appropriations request for the sake of border security. >> reporter: for now, house republicans are debating the plan. the president is debating a veto, and all of congress is wondering if the to-do list can be done in the two weeks officially left on the calendar. lisa desjardins. pbs newshour. >> ifill: this was a day when questions about how professional sports leagues handle domestic violence were back on center stage. representatives from the major leagues appeared during a hearing on capitol hill. lawmakers said they must do a better job of cracking down. senator claire mccaskill, a democrat from missouri, admonished the record up to now.

professional sports, with very few exceptions, have done little to hold those who commit this crime accountable. and perpetrators know that if they can only get their victims to recant, refuse to cooperate, threaten their financial future, if they can accomplish those things, then nothing will happen. >> ifill: earlier in the day, former baltimore ravens running vincent told lawmakers that as a child he and his brother saw his mother get beaten up repeatedly acted knocked unconscious. >> i've committed my life's work for the last 20 years as an advocate against domestic violence in an effort to keep others from experiencing this lifetime pain. i relate to the 20 million

victims, survivors of domestic violence, abuse in every community across our great nation. >> ifill: ray >> ifill: earlier in the day, former baltimore ravens running back ray rice asked for a second chance to play in the n.f.l. rice was suspended from the league this fall after knocking his then-fiancee unconscious in an elevator. an arbitrator ruled last week the suspension was illegal. rice and his now-wife, janay, appeared on the "today show" along with her parents. he was asked about whether he had ever hurt her before. >> had arguments. when you talk about abuse, you know, that's something that, you know, we know we've never crossed that path, but then did we say things to each other that we want to take back at times? yeah, we've crossed that line before, but it never got to an altercation where it went that far. you know, that was just very uncharacteristic of, you know, myself. i take responsibility.

that was very uncharacteristic. >> ifill: domestic violence may also be connected with another major problem in football: concussions and brain injury. our colleagues at "hbo real sports" have a report this month exploring those possible links. here's an excerpt, beginning with the case of an n.f.l. player who died last year. his name was paul oliver, a five year veteran in the league. his wife, chelsea, told correspondent jon frankel how her husband changed from a gentle giant with no history of any kind of violence, to a man who terrorized his own family after suffering three concussions. >> his behavior started to change, and one example was we got in an argument, he shattered both our phones so i couldn't call the police and locked all the doors and he told me that if i get up off the couch that he would slam my head into the floor. >> reporter: did you think that it was a direct relation to his playing football? >> i started to suspect that. he's never been like that, and

every time after, he would always say, i don't know what's wrong with me, something's wrong with me. he's, like, i can't control myself anymore. >> as his behavior deteriorated did you tell anybody? >> no. how come? i was trying to protect him, and if i was to tell somebody, he would lose control. >> on september 24, 2013, paul oliver lost control for the last time, after yet another domestic dispute, he did the unimaginable. he went up to his bedroom, loaded a gun and walked down the stairs towards chelsea and their two young sons. >> he just looked at me and he said, this is how miserable i am. and he -- tilted his head and smiled. and that's when he shot himself in the head. >> what's the location of your emergency? >> he killed himself! he shot himself in the head!

in front of both me and the kids! please! he's not breathing! oh, god! >> paul oliver became the ninth former player to shoot himself in just a three-year span. it had become a familiar tale. another suicide for the n.f.l., another autopsy revealing c.t.e., the brain disease that can cause sudden and dark personality changes. but as much attention as these men's suicides were getting, something else was being ignored, a different pattern of impulsive violence many showed before their deaths, a pattern of domestic abuse, a pattern scientists at boston university had already begun to notice when, last fall, they received from chelsea oliver the remnants of her husband's brain. >> there were areas of abnormality in the anterior

temporal lobe and those areas are parts of the brain concerned with emotion that and the ability to control ourselves. >> are you telling me that as the disease progressed he lost the ability to control himself? >> yeah, that's a pattern we've seen over and over. >> these doctors are part of the team at boston in fact what helped bring n.f.l.'s head injury crisis to light. now they're seeing evidence the n.f.l.'s new crisis, domestic violence, may be linked. >> we're not saying what they're doing is not wrong, and they shouldn't be punished like anybody else, but what we are saying is we have to acknowledge the fact that the root of some of the behavior might be the damage we're doing to their brains. >> it's very hard to comprehend domestic violence specifically. how do you hurt somebody you love? now you want us to believe that because a guy suffered head trauma, this may lead to his actions. t why shouldn't i look at all

the other factors and variables in life? >> well, there are plenty of variables that can lead to it, but we know that with c.t.e. it leads to a short fuse. these guys used to be fine. they were entirely reasonable at all times of day, but now these guys are assaulting, overreacting, paranoid, jealous -- >> in a 2013 study, the boston team analyzed the case histories of 33 victims of c.t.e., nearly all of them football players. 17 of the man, more than 50%, reportedly never engaged in any violence until after suffering head injury, then changed drastically. b.u.'s dr. robert stern authored the study after speaking with the families of the men to learn about their pasts. when you heard of these stories of domestic violence, were there any that really struck a chord with you, hit you raw? >> they all were so painful to hear, and their loved ones,

their spouses couldn't make sense of what happened to this guy. he was sweet, he was kind, he was a big teddy bear. and then something changed. >> ifill: the number of students fleeing philadelphia's troubled neighborhood schools has almost tripled in the past decade. this year, 70,000 students are choosing charter schools instead. tonight, special correspondent for education john merrow looks at what the city schools are doing to fight back. >> reporter: philadelphia can't force students to attend their neighborhood schools, so the system is trying to make them more appealing, by copying other successful schools. >> reporter: this school relies on project-based learning. students work in teams doing real world research.

these seniors are exploring how a baby's brain develops by designing toys for them. >> you'll need to research what's going on in the month of an 8-12 month old. >> reporter: test scores at this public school are among the highest in the city, but it is not open to everyone. it sets admission standards and rejects nine out of every ten applicants. philadelphia's challenge: can an innovative curriculum be successful in schools that accept all-comers, and all skill levels? >> we believe it can, and we believe it can because it has. >> reporter: william hite, philadelphia's superintendent, acknowledges the obstacles and challenges, including finding teachers and principals who are willing to try something new. and, he says, that's not all. >> one additional obstacle is a true belief that all children can succeed. >> reporter: who does not believe these kids can learn? >> i think some of the adults who are working with them, many some of the community

members who are in, some of the individuals who are leading special admit schools. >> reporter: the superintendent said there are people in philadelphia who do not believe that kids like this, kids who go to the u school, are capable of learning. >> exactly right. and that's exactly the belief. these young people themselves don't believe that they can do it. and so something is happening, where young people aren't being given opportunities and being trusted to demonstrate success. >> reporter: i told some of principal geyette's students what the adults were saying about them. how does that make you feel, that statement? >> i feel offended. i feel like they're belittling me as a person. they say "kids like you" don't have the ability to learn. and that's basically discouraging me instead of encouraging me to want to fight and go to college, and do things that kids like us don't do.

>> reporter: these ninth graders have an opportunity to prove the naysayers wrong, because they're now attending the u school, a neighborhood-- no admission test-- high school that's following an innovative path. the u school is one of three innovative public schools that opened this fall. here everything is project- based. in english class students wrote poems about themselves and their world. now they are turning their poems into video presentations. >> you have to decide who's going to be the producer. >> reporter: teacher sam reed has high hopes and big plans for his students. >> like what are the problems here at our school, what are problems in the community at large, how do we highlight those, those problems through creating blogs, through creating podcasts, through creating visual infographics. >> reporter: these students weren't exactly beating down the doors to try project based learning.

>> this was kind of my backup plan to come here. >> i could have went to my neighborhood school, but my mom wanted me to come here. >> reporter: once they got here, students found something else that made u school different. >> everybody learns at their own pace. so if i'm quicker than chauncey, i'll be able to keep going instead of waiting for him to come to my level, or vice-versa. >> my friends, they want to come. they want to join this school. >> reporter: why? >> because they like how we learn. they like that we get to learn at our own pace. >> reporter: class projects are divided into a series of goals, entered on the school's computer network. each time a student achieves a goal, the teacher grades the work, and the student moves on to the next. programs like this one track student progress. >> you have to make a goal plan, so you'll say, "i want to get task one through three done in this time span, and you have to keep up with it." >> reporter: principal neil geyette and his teachers

strive to make u school a nurturing environment. when kids misbehave, instead of punishments being handed out, teachers and students come together to explore what went wrong and what can be done to prevent future occurrences. >> so let's say i had a bad day. we can talk, and they can help me out with that. so it's like a caring community. >> reporter: a caring community. >> yeah, like we all care. we don't leave anybody behind. >> reporter: contrast that approach with the message that greets students at this neighborhood school every morning: "unexcused absences are unlawful" punishable by a "ride to the truancy center." principal geyette knows from experience that threats alienate students >> they're removed. they come back. the teacher and the student never have a conversation about it and everybody pretends like it doesn't happen, right? and so the first step for us was to get young people to own-- try to get-- start to get young people to own what they're doing.

>> reporter: to "own" and take responsibility for what they're doing. principal geyette's second step: give students a chance to show who they are and what they can do. in their video presentations for example. >> we are from mouth-watering cheese stakes, creamy milk shakes, and salty fries. we are from strong single mothers. we are from the u school where my fellow classmates want to become something great. >> reporter: superintendent hite is giving his innovative schools five years to make a go of it, and he wants to open more every year. however, keeping up with charter schools will be a challenge. more than 40 organizations have applied to open new charter schools in philadelphia next year. >> ifill: whether it's hurricanes, a health scare, or a cyberattack, communities and institutions survive only if they can prepare for the unpredictable.

that's the topic of a new book called, "the resilience dividend" by judith rodin, who's also the president of the rockefeller foundation. i sat down with her recently at the miami book fair. what is resilience? >> well, somewhere in the world, at least once a week, there is a storm or a new epidemic people haven't heard about six months before, civil unrest, a cyberattack, and in this age of so much unpredictability and so much turmoil, we need to shift our paradigm and, so, we are very much focused now in the united states and around the world on relief and recovery and not enough on preparedness and readiness. let me tell you just one short story, and i think it will make the point about preparedness. boston, for at least six or seven years, had been rehearsing

for something to go wrong, whether it was a terrorist attack or a violent storm or flooding. they didn't know what it would be. of course, none of us know what it will be. so this is about readiness for any kind of disruption makes you better ready for every disruption. >> ifill: in boston's case, it was about the boston marathon bombing. >> right. even though you say they were preparing, for some reason, that kind of disrumtion, you're still completely unprepared. >> but they brought together all the elements of government, they brought together communication, companies, water companies, transit companies and all of the medical responders precisely because they didn't know what it was, and they had a plan so they really knew who was on first. >> ifill: think about the world resiliency. i think about it as bouncing back. does this mean there always has to be a disaster involved?

>> no, because obviously this is about planning in case something goes wrong. the idea here is that not every disruption has to become a disaster. the dividend that i talk about is really the investment in preparedness that pays off whether or not something going s wrong and that's the ambition. >> ifill: so much of the disasters or disruption you write about in the book have to do with water, and i think of katrina. that's a case where we would be hard put to say that the gulf coast was terribly resilient or prepared. >> it is very clear that new orleans was completely unprepared. think about all the elements that made them dysfunctional -- a greatly of poverty, having housing in areas that were totally vulnerable to flood plains even if the levies had not broken, a very dysfunctional

city government and very high rates of crime. it will be ten years next year since katrina, and i was in new orleans a couple of weeks ago, and they used their recovery to revitalize in the most profound and really elegant way. they took over all their public schools and the school children's performance now is truly extraordinary. they completely diversified their economy. diversity is such an important component of resilience because it gives you strength. >> ifill: when you talk about diversity, you have a different definition that would leap to mind when they talk about diversity. >> it is both, actually. one of the elements of resiliency is diversity and typically we think about that as redundancy and redundancy is critical. i'll give you another example from the book and that is many people will remember the debacle

of lula lemons' yoga pants in 2011 when they were so unbelievably sheer. they lost $2 billion of market caps and had many, many lawsuits and lost consumer confidence. what was wrong is they were relying on a single manufacturer for a single source of that fabric from a single kind of fiber. so redundancy in that sense is really very critical. >> ifill: well, here's another example. in japan the faceboo -- the fuka disaster was ultimately a disaster said to be made in japan. >> i talk about fukushima and analyze it deeply in the book because they had for the first time a post-situation commission. it's the first time in the history of modern japan that they have ever been willing to publicly analyze what went wrong. so there's a wealth of data.

part of it they absolutely attribute to their culture, the culture of acquiescing, the culture of not being willing to call out something that goes wrong, the culture of not being able to be adaptable and flexible. but there's a positive example from japan, toyota. toyota lost almost 700 plants and 370,000 cars, so they slipped from number one car producer in the world to number four. but toyota has this amazing culture. they rebounded very quickly, and they revitalized, and two years later, while japan is still reeling economically, toyota is again the number one car producer. >> ifill: but isn't ate natural human instinct to not to want to acknowledge risk let alone plan for it? >> i'm a psychologist and i would argue that we need to acknowledge potential risk or

potential failure in order to cope better, and if that's something we need to teach our children do do more effectively. it's really easy to learn how to succeed. it's harder to learn how to fail. and part of resilience building is learning how to fail-safely and not catastrophically, whether you're a person or a city or a business. that's, in a way i, what this is really all about. so we are building core elements of strength when we are building resilience in people, in institutions and in our cities. >> ifill: judith rodin, thank you very much. and thank you all. (applause) >> ifill: we'll be back with a look at the federal reserve's cosy relationship with big banks. but first, it's pledge week on p.b.s. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep

programs like ours on the air. >> ifill: for those stations not taking a pledge break, we take a second look at a growing trend in higher education: the rise of adjunct professors, and the financial struggles they face. newshour economics correspondent paul solman has the story. >> reporter: life in academia turns out to be different than what french professor professor and single mother nicole beth wallenbrock had in mind. >> ive been on food stamps for, i think, about 6 months. >> reporter: arik greenberg teaches theology at loyola marymount university. >> we are not given any kind of benefits; no medical; no dental; no vision; no retirement; no family leave; no sick leave; nothing. >> reporter: to support his family, rob balla drives to

three different ohio universities to teach six english classes, and tutors on the side. he had pneumonia last fall, worked anyway. >> we go to school under any circumstances, really, because you cant afford to have your pay docked. >> reporter: these are adjuncts, part-time professors paid an average of 2-$3,000 per class with few to no benefits who now make up half of college faculties, a drastic change from just a few decades ago. >> in 1970, about 80% of the faculty were on the tenure track. >> reporter: but non-tenured faculty have become the rule, says education professor adrianna kezar. >> this trajectory started in community colleges, it spread across 4-year institutions and research universities, and its public and private. >> reporter: nicole beth wallenbrock got a p.h.d. in french lit to become a fulltime professor. anywhere. >> i had this idea that i could

get a job so that i could have a good income to support my son. and it didn't work out that way. >> reporter: since graduating in 2012, she's worked part-time and is now teaching just two courses at the city university of new york, making $2,800 a class, though she's more highly rated than almost all of her peers. she's moved to the cheapest place she could find on the outskirts of the city, a three- hour a day commute. but she can't make it without public assistance and help from her family. >> it has gone in the direction of big business; of hiring more and more part timers to do the work of full timers. >> reporter: arik greenberg has been an adjunct for more than a decade. he brings in $20,000 a year. >> if i'm not teaching during the summer, i go on unemployment. it keeps us going for a while. it puts food on the table. >> reporter: and these are just a few examples of the adjunctivitis epidemic. adding these part-timers, who

are half of all faculty-- to full-time professors without tenure (and much lower pay), more than 70% of america's college teachers are so-called contingent. many are unavailable to their myriad students, given their necessarily shorter office hours, says longtime adjunct joe fruscione. less energy in the classroom, fewer comments when grading papers or tests. >> you can race through them, but to give meaningful, concrete, detailed feedback that a lot of these students need-- its virtually impossible. >> reporter: but are students really getting short shrift? terry hartle is with the american council on education. >> in some disciplines, particularly occupationally oriented fields, you may be ahead by having an adjunct faculty member who's got extraordinary levels of real world experience. >> reporter: but don't adjuncts teach in all disciplines? look, says hartle, bottom line, schools have no choice. >> the pressure is on colleges and universities to maintain tuition, to prevent tuition

hikes, are extraordinarily high. does the use of contingent faculty like adjuncts provide more flexibility to colleges and universities as economic enterprises that need to stay in business, yes it certainly does that. >> reporter: would you be happy if your members were paying a little more to adjuncts? >> nobody forces someone to become an adjunct. it is a very difficult way to make a full-time living. >> reporter: peter brown, professor emeritus at the state university of new york, new paltz, believes colleges are exploiting adjuncts so they can spend more on non-academic niceties. >> a lot of money is spent not just on coaches, but on athletics, on stadiums, on fancy facilities, on climbing walls. the tuition dollars ought to go towards the instruction in the classroom not what happens outside.

>> reporter: brown, and others throughout academia, were galvanized by the death last fall of 83 year-old duquesne university adjunct margaret mary vojtko. >> she had been teaching there for over 20 years and getting good evaluations. she was suddenly non-renewed. she was impoverished, and basically died so poor that she had to be buried in a cardboard box. >> reporter: duquesnes response? they tried to help with shelter and other assistance in the months before her death. but if poverty is what half of college faculty might be facing, why do schools continue to offer graduate degrees to the likes of nicole beth wallenbrock? >> they keep accepting more and more phd students at american universities, because they need to keep their own classes full. >> reporter: i put the question to college spokesman terry hartle. >> reporter: are universities arguably being irresponsible by turning out as many phd's into a job market where some people wind up going on food stamps?

>> people who get phd's owe it to themselves to think long and hard about the labor market that they're entering. >> reporter: former george washington university president stephen trachtenberg goes further. >> i have counseled adjunct faculty at some point if they are not earning enough to support themselves to not do that and go do something else with their lives. merely because you've earned a phd does not oblige you to take on a life of tenure. >> reporter: nicole beth wallenbrock says she cant give up teaching, and doesn't want to. >> i don't know what other place in society there is for me. i love teaching, and i love researching and writing, so i haven't given up on this dream yet. >> reporter: and considering all the resources she and our society have put into her education, there is arguably an economic reason to keep on dreaming.

ifill: finally, new questions about how the federal reserve supervises big banks. "propublica" and public radio's "this american life" have produced reports focusing on the role of a former supervisor from the new york fed, carmen segarra, who was monitoring goldman sachs. segarra was placed inside the bank as required by law, but she also made secret audio recordings that seemed to show other fed officials were going too soft on goldman, including over a deal one regulator called legal, but shady. segarra was fired a few months later. the fed has denied any connection, but said it will conduct its own review. those issues were the subject of a recent senate hearing with new york fed president william dudley. jake bernstein helped break the initial story for propublica. judy spoke with him recently.. >> woodruff: jake bernstein, welcome. so tell us more about what has

sparked interest in the fed all over again and how it does its job. >> sure. the genesis of this is really a bank examiner who was at the fed in 2011 and 2012. she was fired after about seven months on the job. but before she was fired, she secretly recorded hours -- approximately 46 hours of meetings of her on the job with her colleagues and at the bank that she was supervising which happened to be goldman sachs. we got access to those recordings and have written some stories based on them. >> woodruff: and how does the fedex plain it? as we -- and how does the fed explain it? they seemed to go soft on goldman sachs, is that a fair interpretation? and how does the fedex plain it? >> well, it's interesting.

it's not our interpretation. in 2009, the fed brought in an outside consultant to do a top-to-bottom review of their supervisory practices involving big banks and the outside consultant found the new york fed was too deferential of the banks it was supervising and there was a climate of fear. he basically said the culture of the new york fed was the biggest obstacle to completing its mission. so we sort of viewed that as a baseline to then look at what these recordings showed and what they seemed to demonstrate is not a lot had changed since the consultant's report in 2009. >> woodruff: how does the fed defend its actions. >> william dudley said in a hearing that you should judge us on the fact the banking system is stronger since the financial crisis, that there hasn't been another crisis since 2008 and that is evidence we are doing a

better job. but there have been a number of incidents, not just our reporting, but others' reporting and a senate report that have pointed to problems still existing. >> woodruff: now, as we also mentioned, we know now the fed has announced it's conducting its own internal investigation of how it deals with the big banks, how its own examiners deal. what is the genesis of that? what's expected to come out of that? >> that's a very good question. they will not say what the genesis of it is, but it seems clear that it is the result of these media reports, ours in particular, that sort of prompted this. there are going to be two investigations, one internal by the federal reserve board in washington, d.c., and one by the inspector general. they will be parallel but overlapping. they're going to be looking at the feds, the regional banks, not just the new york fed but the other regional fed banks that supervisor big banks --

ricrichmond fed, the san francio fed, others -- and look how they do their supervision of these big banks and particularly they're going to be looking at whether, when examiners find things, they are able to communicate that to the higher-ups and the higher-ups actually act on it. >> woodruff: does it appear, jake bernstein, that the fed may be headed toward some reforms in the way its bank examiners operate and how they view their conflicts of-potential conflicts of interest? >> there seems to be gathering steam in that direction. time will only tell if it actually happens, but there has been a bill introduced in the senate which would make the president of the new york fed a nominated position by the president and confirmed by the senate. that seems to have a little bit of energy behind it. then you have these two investigations. so i think there is sort of a gathering movement for, you know, recognizing there's the

need for some reform, and that reform could very well happen. >> woodruff: and what about the roll the u.s. congress is playing in all this? >> yes. i think the federal reserve board is one of the things that unites the left and the right. they sort of approach it from different places. you know, the republicans are a little bit more concerned about monetary policy. the democrats are a little bit more concerned about supervision. but i think they're both concerned about transparency and whether there is sufficient oversight over the fed's operations, and i think there could be a meeting of the mind in the next congress about that. >> woodruff: jake bernstein who did this reporting for "propublica," we thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. president obama prepared to announce a nominee for secretary of defense. it was widely reported that former pentagon official ashton carter will be the choice.

and islamist militants killed 36 non-muslim workers in kenya, the second such massacre in recent days. and much of downtown detroit was blacked out by a power outage after a major cable failed in the city's aging electrical grid. power was fully restored by late afternoon on the newshour online right now, we revisit past interviews with ashton carter. watch our conversations with the man many say will be picked to lead the pentagon on how we should be using our defense dollars. that's on the rundown. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and again to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are two more.

and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, nasa tests an ambitious new spacecraft to shuttle humans to mars. i'm gwen ifill, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160

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