captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: welcome back! >> woodruff: it's great to be back! >> ifill: on the newshour tonight: an historic visit. pope francis arrives in the u.s. to a presidential welcome. >> woodruff: also ahead this tuesday: >> totally screwed up. >> woodruff: volkswagen admits it rigged 11 million cars to pass emission tests. >> ifill: and, women in combat. ahead of a major decision by the military, the navy secretary on why he disagrees with some marines about opening up the ranks. >> set high standards. make sure those standards have something to do with the job. and then whoever meets those standards, gender is not

crucial. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> and by bnsf railway. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: pope francis is now in washington, after arriving to pomp, ceremony and cheering, chanting crowds. the start of his six-day stay

followed four days in cuba. william brangham reports on the days's events. >> brangham: : the pope began his first-ever visit to the united states late this afternoon, flying into a military facility just outside washington. president obama, vice president biden and their wives greeted pope francis on the tarmac while hundreds more awaited. presidential advisor valerie jarrett: >> there's so much excitement. i think the crowd reflects the diversity of our country. everyone who is coming is excited about the opportunity to be in his presence, and so i think that this visit means a great deal to america. security was tight across the nation's capital, with barriers erected at the white house for the pontiff's official welcome and meeting with the president tomorrow. workers at the national shrine of the immaculate conception also made final preparations. the pope celebrates mass there tomorrow afternoon. >> everybody is just collectively feeling the excitement of having the pope here, and all the many long days and long hours of work are

really coming together to bring just a wonderful event to fruition. >> brangham: : francis will address congress on thursday, before going on to new york and then philadelphia. the u.s. leg of his tour began after he wrapped up a four-day visit to cuba. >> ( translated ): we're very proud that he chose our province, to come bless us, to give us all his joy here in santiago. >> reporter: the pope used his final mass on the communist island to urge cubans to rediscover their catholic heritage. >> ( translated ): our revolution comes about through tenderness, the joy which always becomes closeness and compassion-- which is not pity. it is to suffer in order to be free. and it leads us to get involved, to serve others. >> brangham: : and, he met with families at the cathedral of santiago and offered a good-bye from its balcony to the crowds massed outside. >> ( translated ): adios et gracias! >> brangham: : the pope avoided directly addressing political

issues in cuba. but in the u.s., many anticipate he'll address immigration reform, climate change and other issues. >> woodruff: on the flight from cuba to washington, the pontiff dismissed claims that he is a political liberal. he told reporters, "that would be a mistake of interpretation." and he added that he follows the social doctrine of the church. >> ifill: chinese president xi jinping has also arrived in the u.s., ahead of his meetings with president obama this week. xi's "air china" plane touched down in seattle this morning, and he was greeted by state and local officials. he'll attend a forum with tech leaders tomorrow. before his arrival, xi told "the wall street journal" that china will go ahead with economic reforms, despite sluggish growth. >> ifill: there's no break yet in the abortion fight that's tied up the u.s. congress-- and could force a government shutdown. senate democrats blocked a bill today to ban late-term abortions. now, republicans say they'll seek to fund the government into december but de-fund planned

parenthood. democrats say they will block that too. >> woodruff: european interior ministers pushed through a crisis plan today to relocate 120,000 migrants and refugees. as they did, throngs of people continued pouring across croatia, hungary and austria by rail, road and on foot. jonathan miller of independent television news followed their journey today. >> reporter: we drove from croatia into hungary by remote border crossing early this morning and you would have thought they were preparing for war. overnight hungary's parliament passed a law ordering troops to handle what the prime minister is calling a "muslim invasion." the humvees arrived, the border bristling with military hardware and soldiers. this country's rights-wing leader had pledged to crack down to end the influx and to defend

what he called "christian culture," but he's being forced by croatia, in less than a week has dumped 30,000 asylum seekers on his doorstep to facilitate their transit to the richer uct. member states to the north. at a hungarian station this afternoon, way up in the northwestern austrian border, 1,300 people disgorminged from a train that had come from the croatian frontier. from the station, they're shepherded toward austria. as rather friendlier austrian soldiers received the new arrival, reports from brusselss that the bickering between e.u. member states on where to put people who have arrived in recent weeks had reached fever pitch. for all the exasperation in brussels, for all the political feuding, the bashed comments and the bad blood, even if they do decide on how and where to resettle 120,000 people, it

won't make the blindest bit of difference on not only the exodus from the middle east but on where these people end up. they're pouring into europe at such a rate that in 20 days' time, it will be another 120,000 people. an austrian soldier, a second-generation immigrant himself, offered reassurance and instructions in arabic. as they stood waiting, european interior ministers finally voted for their plan for mandatory quotas to farm out the 120,000 refugees. four former soviet bloc e.u. member states were overruled. the u.n. refugee agency has already branded the plan irrelevant to the worst humanitarian crisis in decades. the aim was to allow e.u. leaders to prevent a united front at their emergency summit tomorrow. instead deep risks rifts have been exposed as the human surge

continues to build. >> woodruff: the four nations opposing the resettlement plan are the czech republic, hungary, romania and slovakia. >> ifill: the exiled president of yemen has returned to his country for the first time since shiite rebels forced him to flee. president abed rabbuh mansur hadi spent the last six months in saudi arabia. he arrived back in the port city of aden today, after his forces recaptured it with saudi support. >> woodruff: separate attacks in afghanistan left 15 government troops dead today. in one, an afghan soldier let militants into a checkpoint to shoot his fellow soldiers. meanwhile, the u.s. commander in afghanistan, general john campbell, said the sexual abuse of young boys by afghan forces will not be ignored. he denied that u.s. troops have been told to look the other way. >> ifill: the former u.s. commander in iraq and afghanistan apologized to congress today. retired army general david petraeus is serving two years' probation for giving classified information to his former

biographer and mistress. his testimony at a senate hearing was his first since he resigned as c.i.a. director in 2012. >> i made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me and pain to those closest to me. it was a violation of the trust placed in me and a breach of the values to which i'd been committed throughout my life. there's nothing i can do to undo what i did. >> ifill: the focus of the hearing was u.s. strategy against islamic state forces. petraeus called for beefing up efforts in iraq and syria. >> woodruff: meanwhile, there's word the obama administration is shifting more attention to syria, and may arm a wider array of rebels. a "washington post" report says the change is a recognition that efforts in iraq have stalled, whereas kurdish forces are gaining ground in syria. >> ifill: in saudi arabia, more than two million muslims observed the opening rites today

in the annual hajj pilgrimage to mecca. vast crowds of worshippers circled the kaaba, a cube-shaped structure in the city's grand mosque. the main ceremonies come tomorrow in a valley outside mecca. >> woodruff: back in this country, democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton said she will opposed building the keystone pipeline across the nation's mid-section. she'd previously declined to state a position publicly. appearing in des moines, iowa, clinton also called for capping prescription drug costs and cutting tax breaks for drug advertising. >> too often, so-called new drugs are really old drugs that have just been tweaked a little bit. but then they're marketed as breakthrough drugs and they're sold for high prices. drug companies should have to explain why their new drugs are different and better than treatments on the market. >> meanwhile, repuican presidential candidate jeb bush

was also in iowa. he promised he'll place a freeze on new federal government regulations, if he's elected. >> ifill: if you are like most americans, you are going to have at least one mistaken, or delayed, medical diagnosis sometime during your life. the prestigious "institute of medicine" reported that finding today. it said the causes range from poor communication to misread lab tests. and, it called for urgent changes to address the problem. >> woodruff: wall street had a down day, driven by falling oil and copper prices. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 180 points to close at 16,330. the nasdaq fell more than 70 points. and the s&p 500 slipped 24. >> ifill: and, the interior department announced it will not list the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. instead, it wants to conserve 67 million acres of habitat. the unusual bird, usually found in the west, has seen its numbers dwindle from millions,

to just a few hundred thousand. its fate has been a longstanding issue across 11 states. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour: volkswagen admits to rigging 11 million cars. the painful legacy of sexual abuse in the catholic church. the navy secretary on women in combat. and why girls struggle to get an education in india. >> woodruff: the scandal, and the fallout, over volkswagen's cheating of emissions standards grew today. just last week, the e.p.a. alleged there was deceitful software in a half million cars. today, volkswagen raised that number significantly and tried to restore customer trust. >> woodruff: volkswagen revealed that as many as 11 million diesel-powered cars worldwide could be affected by software

that was designed to cheat on emissions tests. most of those cars are thought to be in europe, the automaker's primary market. the revelation caused volkswagen stock to plummet for a second day. the company lost almost 19% of its stock value, or $17 billion, monday. the price plunged another 20% during trading in frankfurt today. the c.e.o. of volkswagen america, michael horn, gave a frank apology last night at an event in brooklyn. >> let's be clear about this, our company was dishonest. we have totally screwed up. >> woodruff: a year-long investigation by the u.s. environmental protection agency uncovered the software. it switches on a car's emissions controls when a smog test is taking place. but the controls turn off again when the test is over-- leaving cars emitting up to 40 times the legal pollution limits.

the software is installed in volkswagen jettas, beetles, golfs and passats-- and audi a3's sold in the u.s. since 2008. the justice department has reportedly opened a criminal investigation of the automaker. investigations are also being launched in france, germany and south korea. >> woodruff: for more, we turn to john stoll,he is detroit bureau chief and global automotive editor for the wall street journal. he has been following developments in this story closely. john stoll, welcome. you have been covering this story closely. you've covered other auto industry problems. where does this one rank? >> it's up there. i mean, this is one because of the volume of vehicles we're talking about and the sort of transatlantic implications, 11 million is not a maul number when you talk about the u.s. car park. about 85 million vehicles are sold a year. that's spread over several years of production, but that's a

large sum of cars. volkswagen right now is the biggest automaker in the world as of the first half of 2015. huge aspiration and obviously in germany they're big. >> woodruff: explain exactly what volkswagen did to these cars to make them game this emissions test. >> reporter: a lot of this was explained in the story you have. the software is known as a masking device. it works when the compliance testing is undergone, when that's ongoing. the emissions information says what the test needed to say. so it passes regulatory tests, and then in real-world condition, it emits far more of the harmful admissions into the air than is legally allowed. so it's pretty sophisticated software that can detect when it's being tested and, you know, i'm sure there's going to be forensics of who exactly

designed the software and authorized it and whether or not this is more widespread, but at the moment the e.p.a. is explicit on how this things works. >> woodruff: you raise a question. this was something deliberately done by someone. i mean, who had to know? how high up in the company is it thought that this went? >> you know, i talked to a lot of people about that. it's hard to believe that... well, i would say that in order to pull this off, the circle could be relatively tight. you know, the pressure is high when it comes to meeting engineering standards. diesel is a very important part of volkswagen's play, not only in europe but in the united states. and they needed to get these cars back on the market about six or seven years ago in order to keep its momentum going. in order to meet that objective, one can imagine that the circle would remain pretty tight and need-to-know basis. executives who were at the company at the time who have since left said they knew nothing about this and would imagine this originated in germany, but that's speculation.

the silver lineing -- investigateers will probably be able to answer more as far as who, what, when, where, why, but that's in the coming weeks. >> woodruff: but we're hearing 40 times the pollution level is what these cars were emitting. >> that's right. as much as that. this is a very harmful emission. there's in doubt. i think particularly the people who buy volkswagen diesel, and this is a generalization, but they are not only looking for a fuel economy bump, they're not only looking for a way to save fuel consumption and money, they are buying into the promise that

they are reducing emission, that these are safer for the environment, that the promise of "clean diesel emissions" is actually what they advertise it to be. that's what makes this so egregious at least on the surface. a lot of people are saying, this ranks up there with some of the most egregious corporate scandals in recent history because of the length of time that the deception went on, and they went up very far in terms of regulatessors in terms of saying they didn't know it was going on. they didn't know why there was a disparity between real-world emissions and testing. only about a month ago, within the last month, they've come mean on this issue. >> woodruff: john stoll, any evidence? what are people saying about whether this could have extended to other diesel manufacturers? >> thus far we haven't heard from everyone in the diesel market, but thus far a lot of automakers have come out and said they've done their forensics. they've asked the questions of the engineers internally and

they're pretty confident they are not employing the same software. i'll give you a quick for instance. i called general motors today. they have a lot of diaz ls on the market in europe. they wanted to popularize a smaller car diesel in the united states. they are 100% confident what they've displayed to regulators is the truth is actually the truth. i think we'll see more of this roll on, but you better believe there are a lot of automakers, regulators and outside researchers looking into that exact question. i think this isn't the last of that story we've heard, but maybe the worst case of it. >> woodruff: sounds like there's certainly more to be reported on here. john stoll with the "wall street journal." thank you. >> ifill: it's not yet clear what issues pope francis will directly address during his visit here.

but one problem casts a long shadow for the church -- sexual abuse scandals. this pope has pressured top church officials to end abuse involving priests. just this year, the bishops of st. paul-minneapolis and kansas city have resigned in the wake of new revelations. as part of our special coverage of the pope's visit this week, special correspondent chris bury reports on how sex abuse by clergy still haunts american catholics. >> reporter: for the archdiocese of st. paul and minneapolis, with more than 800,000 catholics, the sex abuse scandal still resonates in a raw and immediate way. >> i think by anyone's definition of a crisis, we're in it. i mean, there doesn't seem to be any way out. >> reporter: for nearly five years, jennifer hassleburger served as the cannon lawyer and expert in church law for the archdiocese, but in 2013, she

resigned in protest after, she says, top church officials ignored her cautions about a priest's behavior. hassleburger then tipped off authorities and reporters to a sex abuse scandal. >> i was personally devastated when i learned of the abuse that had taken place on my watch. and if i had been able to do anything about that, then i would have done everything i could, but there's so much opposition to doing anything that would keep people safe that i couldn't be part of it any longer. >> reporter: in june, her former boss, and another bishop abruptly resigned less than two weeks after the ramsey county prosecutor dropped this bombshell. >> and what justice requires is that we file criminal charges against the archdiocese of st. paul-minneapolis for its role in failing to protect children. >> reporter: what startled many catholics here is the abuse

took place not decades ago but within the last five years. former priest curtis waymeyer plead guilty to molesting three boys between 2010 and 2012, two of them in this camping trailer in the parking lot of his church. he's now serving a five-year sentence in this minnesota prison and faces more prison time in wisconsin for abuses there. waymeyer had been promoted to pastor of blessed sacrament church in st. paul despite warnings about him at the time. >> he had been caught cruising in places people go for sex. he had propositioned some very young men. and all of this was clearly documented. >> reporter: did this archdiocese willfully ignore signs of a pedophile priest? >> i don't think that any person willfully ignored signs of a pedophile priest. even if we can say that perhaps mistakes were made. >> reporter: bishop andrew

cousins is among the officials newly appointed to cope with the crisis and carry out reforms. a former top state law enforcement official tim o'malley was hired to oversee compliance. >> it's not enough to do what's right. you have to follow through on that. that didn't happen as well as it should have. >> reporter: but now they say a review board of ten lay people and two priests level wait every allegation of improper behavior and any cases involving children to law enforcement. >> so you told the police right away? >> absolutely. yes, and i mean right away, that day. >> reporter: that did not happen in the case of jim keenan. he filed a lawsuit against a former minnesota priest who admitted abusing him when he was 13. >> had the truth -- church followed the societal rules of turning criminals over to the priest, i never would have met him, nor would most of his victims. >> reporter: keenan was an

altar boy when a priest molested him. >> he was a professional pedophile. he knew how the groom the young people he wanted to molest, and he was good at it. >> reporter: did you abuse those kids? >> yes. >> reporter: adamson was removed from the priesthood and this church but was not punished for what he did to jim keenan. >> we went all the way to the minnesota supreme court, and we lost on a technicality of statute of limitations. >> reporter: in a videotape deposition for other civil case, adamson admitted sexual acts with at least ten boys. >> have you ever spent a day in jail? >> no. don't you think you should have? >> no. >> what was your reaction? >> i almost threw my one-liter bottle of soda through the tv set. to hear and look at his face, there was a smugness to it. no, i shouldn't have gone to prison, it's not criminal. >> reporter: first alarm bells for american church officials sounded 30 years ago just 80

miles from the twin cities at st. johns abbey, one of the country's oldest catholic institutions. in june 1958, bishops from all over the country gathered here at st. johns abbey. they were give an 892-page report warning of trouble ahead. it cautioned that sexual molestation of children by priests and clericses could "pose extremely serious financial consequences and significant injury to the church." that report turned out to be uncannily prophetic. 17 years later, the scandal exploded after "the boston globe" exposed the cover-up of sexual abuse by parish priests. >> when you have poor kids from a poor family and a priest visit you, it's a big deal. how do you say no to god? >> reporter: the story is depicted in the few movie "spotted height" starring michael keaton. >> this is not just boston. it's the whole country, the whole world. >> reporter: as similar cases erupted across the country, the

consequences have been enormous. ing just as the bishops were worned. the st. paul and minneapolis archdiocese, facing more than 400 claims of sexual abuse of minors and adult, is now selling off millions of property after filing for bankruptcy earlier this year. in all 12 american diocese and two religious orders have sought bankruptcy protection since the scandal first broke in 2002. for pope francis the lingering impact of those cases and others worldwide has led him to establish a new tribunal for any bishop accused of failing to protect children. >> "this is my anguish and pain, the fact that some priests and bishops violated the innocence of minors." >> almighty god have mercy on us, forgive us all of our sins and bring us to life everlasting. >> reporter: in the pope's first major american appointment, he chose bishop blaze soupage to head the huge

chicago archdiocese. he's an outspoken critic of church leaders who he says have failed to put children first. in chicago, soupage says the archdiocese has set the gold standard for preventing sex abuse after enduring painful scandals of its own. now safe guards include background checks and fingerprinting for all employees and sex abuse training for priests, clerics, volunteers, teachers, students and children. >> we make sure that people who work for us and are working with children are never with a child alone, that they always have more than one adult, that there's certain good touches and bad touches that are taught so that they recognize how a child might feel uncomfortable, that they also are alerted to any improper activity that would be immediately reported. >>

>> reporter: in downtown chicago, the diocese has built a public garden in the name of healing. at the entrance, a profound apology is inscribed on this plaque. >> come on, walter. >> reporter: now even a survivor of childhood sex abuse tells us he's putting his children in catholic schools here. as a teenager, michael hoffman was molested by his parish priest, who was eventually sent the prison. >> i know the safe environment initiative that my kids had to go through, and i know that each and every volunteer, myself included, we had to go through the protecting god's children class. i am sure of the protection of my children and all of the children in our parish. >> reporter: but in the twin cities where the scars are so fresh, the cannon lawyer who blew the whistle notes that the archdiocese is contesting the criminal case against him. >> if that case goes the trial, it will be incredibly ugly. the catholics and the

non-catholics of this archdiocese are going to have to hear things about their church that i don't know they're prepared to hear. and there aren't a lot of people that are going to come out of it with their reputations intact. >> other critics contend that even with new reforms, the vatican has yet to punish a single bishop for enabling the abuse of children. so 40 years after american bishops were first warned here in minnesota of an impending scandal, catholics are still coping with the bitter consequences. i'm chris bury for pbs "newshour" in st. paul, minnesota. >> woodruff: follow all our coverage of the pope's visit. plus, our guest columnists' reflections on faith at pbs.org/newshour

>> ifill: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: checking in on the global challenge to educate all children. >> ifill: but first, the a battle brewing at the pentagon over the future of women in america's armed forces. early next year, defense secretary ashton carter is expected to announce whether previously closed positions to women in the military will open. the army, air force and navy are expected to allow women to serve in all combat roles. but marine corps commandant general joseph dunford, soon to be chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has asked that the marines be excluded from the new rule. joining me now to explain why he disagrees with that assessment is navy secretary ray mabus, who is also the civilian head of the marine corps. welcome and thank you for joining us, secretary mabus. >> thank you. >> ifill: there is a report that has come out that shows women in intergrated combat units were slower, there were more injuries, they were less accurate and firing weapons.

what is your take on that report? >> well, first, the commandant and i share the overall goal of making sure we maximize the combat effectiveness of the united states marines. that's first principle. second, this study, that marine study that had marines doing very valuable work, and it came out with some great findings. the main one of which was that before then there had been no standards set for being in the infantry. so this study set those high standards. were then it was assumed that if men went through boot camp, they could become marine infantry. turned out that the specific jobs in the infantry, which the study went through, deconstructed all the jobs, here's what you need to do to be

a success in this, to do the job, but then the marines took averages from the study. it wasn't the individuals. they set the high standards. but then they looked across averages, and the marines have never been about average. the marines are about exceptionalism. now what my view is, set high standards. make sure those standards have something to do with the job. and then whoever meets those standards, gender is not crucial. if you can meet the standards, you should be able to serve. >> ifill: should those standards include other ways that women excel, like lower mental health problems? >> i think the standards themselves in terms of what you

have to do, because if you're a marine in come president, in infantry combat, you want to know the marine on either side of you, has met the same high standards. and that's what this study has brought forth, that here are now the standards to be a marine in marine infantry. but once you do that, the notion of somehow saying even if you meet the standards, you can't serve because of your gender, that doesn't follow to me. >> ifill: general dunford aside, there has been pushback from marines about whether this is a good idea. is this a legitimate concern on the part of these marines, or does this speak to the culture of the marine corps itself? >> well, i think the marines, and i've talked to thousands of marines out around the world in my years in this job, the

marines that i've talked to, the one concern they have is that standards not be lowered, is that they know if they go into combat that people have met these high standards. now, before this, there were surprising number of men who couldn't do the infantry job just because they had come through boot camp. and so now those marines are going to have the certainty that the marines on either side of them have met those standards. and that shouldn't depend on gender. >> ifill: what do you say to those in the corps who say this will prove to be a challenge to the alchemy, to the chemistry of the corps and unit cohesion? >> well, that's not one of the arguments that the marines have made in terms of whether an exemption should be given. number two, i've seen the

marines enough. once they're give an task, they move out. they execute. they do it better than anybody. and there were similar concerns, gwen, at the repeal of "don't ask don't tell." there were all sorts of concerns out as people talked about it, that if you allowed gay service members there, it would harm the unit cohesion. there were similar concerns, you know, in the late 40s when the marines integrated. and each time the marines have shown that once a decision was made, once the decision was made to make sure that whether it was african americans, whether it was gay service members or now women, whatever decision secretary carter finally makes, integrated into their force, they're really good at making it right. >> ifill: one more concern

that has been expressed is this is an example of politically correct social engineering. >> the thing that i want to point out is that these are marine standards. these are standards that the marines set up. and if somebody can meet marine standards, they should be able to be a marine. >> ifill: no matter the gender. >> no matter the gender. i think that's almost the opposite of political correctness. that's setting a very high standard but saying,we've set the standard. >> ifill: how unusual is it for this kind of disagreement to be aired so publicly? >> well, the one thing i want to make certain that is understood, general dunford and i have a them doubts respect for each other. question have a tremendous working relationship, and i admire and respect him just

without cease. and he's going to be a great chairman, the president and the secretary of defense are very fortunate that they will have him to give them advice. we give each other our very candid opinions. and sometimes they diverge, but the underlying notion that we want to maintain and maximize effective the combat effective of the united states marine corps are what we want. >> ifill: and the final decision rest with defense secretary ashton carter. >> that's correct. the services put their recommendations in by october 1st, and, you know, the navy, i will point out, they are not asking for an exception.

>> ifill: so if there can be women navy seals, there can be women marines. >> again, set the standards, do not deviate, and whoever meets those standards, they ought to get to perform the job. >> ifill: secretary of the navy, ray may bugs, thank you. >> woodruff: 15 years ago, the united nations set a goal: by this year, every child in every nation should be able to obtain free basic education. while the number children out- of-school has been cut almost in half, there are still 57 million who have never set foot in a classroom. hundreds of millions more have dropped out. pbs has been reporting on the global education crisis by following six children from different countries over 12 years, part of the wnet documentary series "time for school."

tonight, we travel to india, where nearly 100% of children start primary school. but especially for girls in rural areas, staying in school remains a challenge, and literacy rates have not improved. >> reporter: neeraj gujar is nine years old and lives with her tightly knit family of herders in a small village in rajasthan, a desert region in the north west of india. it's a deeply traditional community where women rarely have the chance to go to school. >> ( translated ): my name is neeraj. i'm about nine or ten and i've been studying for the past year, math, multiplication, addition so i'm learning.

>> ( translated ): did you ever go to school? >> ( translated ): what's so great about being educated? even if you study, these educated people have nothing to do. anyway, the everyday chores will take over. >> ( translated ): i work during the day, i do so much. i have to sweep, i have to bring water, i have to make dung cakes, i have to graze the cows. >> reporter: like many girls here, neeraj can only go to school if she does so at night. in rajashtan, 56% of the population is illiterate. schools like hers started in india to educate the country's

legions of girls who must work all day. the goal was that students would eventually transfer into mainstream day schools. >> ( translated ): this is our earth. it's round. this map is flat, but otherwise our earth is round. if i keep four this side and four this side, it will equal up to eight. >> this education's going to help them. an illiterate person doesn't know these things. these girls are more confident about expressing themselves. and they're beginning to express themselves. >> ( translated ): by the time i come back, everyone's asleep. when i grow up, i want to go to

a big school to study. by then, i'll know more. and then maybe i can become a teacher. it's been a long time since i last studied. >> reporter: over the years, droughts have forced neeraj to leave school for months at a time to graze the cattle far from home. meanwhile, many of her friends had advanced to the day school and without enough students, the night school closed. >> ( translated ): i liked everything about night school. everyone would study and talk. all the friends would sit together.

i really miss that a lot. >> reporter: after neeraj's school was closed, her teacher tried to help her transition into government-run day school. but for all her effort, neeraj had only qualified for second grade, so she was placed in a class with much younger children. >> ( translated ): when i was made to sit with the younger children they'd tease me saying, "oh, she's so big." sitting with the little ones, i felt embarrassed, that's why i dropped out. >> ( translated ): see, we let her study until first and second grade. she has to learn how to cook now. what i want is that she makes a good match. and really enjoys life. what else? that's what parents want.

>> ( translated ): we'll look for an educated boy. happy she will be. >> ( translated ): i met him on our wedding day. honestly, i'm telling you the truth. >> ( translated ): i first saw her by the well in tilonia. >> ( translated ): a boy marries whom his parents want him to. he has no choice in the matter. they'll make sure that she's beautiful and knows how to do all the housework. i'm a farmer so an uneducated wife is a suitable match for me. >> reporter: neeraj is now 21 years old and has been married for a year.

her husband jagdish, supports them delivering milk with his new truck. as is traditional, neeraj lives with her in-laws, but today she is traveling home to give birth to her first child. >> ( translated ): i feel happy as i approach my village. my daughter's name is anita. she'll grow up to be a smart woman. i'd like her to be a doctor in a big hospital. but who knows what will happen? i'm a mother now. no more playing around for me. we must focus on the girl's

education. >> ( translated ): my wife and i talk when we have time. we have to work and we have to educate her. >> reporter: in india today, 96% of children attend primary schools compared to 70% ten years ago. while the statistics in rajasthan are not as good, the chances for neeraj's daughter anita, are much better than they were for her mother. >> ( translated ): now i'm filled with regret. i wish i had contiunued my studies. i could've held my own with educated folks.

now i'm confined to the farming and housework. >> ( translated ): education not only helps the individual but it elevates the entire family. >> ifill: finally tonight, on this the last day of summer, we put away our white shoes, straw bags and sunglasses to say goodbye. jeffrey brown caught up with composer and musician rob kapilow recently at the signature theater in arlington, virginia to deconstruct the iconic gershwin song, "summertime." >> brown: summertime and the living is easy ♪ except we know it isn't somehow, right? >> one of the things that's

great is aaron copland, when he talked about martha graham, who did the choreography for "appalachian spring," he said about her that she is seemingly- - but only seemingly-- simple. and the same thing's true with gershwin. it is seemingly but only seemingly simple. this is supposed to be just a simple lullaby, but, in fact, there's craft everywhere. take even the beginning of this piece. i mean, everybody knows this piece as just starting with just one bar of introduction because normally we just sing it as a song. ♪ and the voice already comes in, and you barely even notice that there was an introduction. but in the opera, there's eight fantastic measures before this that transition us into the world of catfish row in a fantastic way, and one note makes all the difference. >> brown: musically, but one note is the key. >> one note is the key. you hear this little figure that starts on the beginning, you hear it one more time down low. everyone expects this.

he changes only the last note. that one note brings us into the world of catfish row. it's amazing the power of a single note. >> brown: the music changes, the landscape changes, the lighting changes and the mood changes. one of the central requirements for any great broadway composer is the ability to create atmosphere in an instant. and here he does it not only in an instant, but in a note. becomes-- we're in catfish row. >> brown: and then the song begins and becomes a what, a kind of well, it's a song of a place, it's a lullaby. >> it's just a lullaby. but it is a lullaby in a place, and the way he establishes that place is so beautiful and economical. we've got catfish row. then she's supposed to be rocking her baby back and forth. so he does it with two notes. rock left, rock right. rock left, right, right.

we've been going rock left, rock right, now we put chords around it. those two notes become part of rocking chords. >> brown: of course this is the, this is what the song is about too, right, summertime, the living is easy, but we're watching people for whom it's not easy. >> the living is anything but easy. but in gershwin's imagination, somehow it wasn't easy but it was filled with all the things that make community great. >> now he could easily have written a short note on time, and there would have been no summertime. it could have sounded like this- summertime and the living is easy. but watch that one long note on time totally takes you into the world of it. summer-time that one long note slows everything down. and then here... >> brown: that's the languor you were talking about. >> that's the languor. in one note. he could have done and the living is easy, but it's easy. the lengthening of those few notes totally makes catfish row come alive for us.

>> brown: these are, it's in a sense it's the trick of the composer, right? i mean not trick in the pejorative sense. >> it's art that hides it's art, so you barely-- it just sounds like a simple lullaby, but there's so much art going on. in fact, everywhere you look, take what comes next. then he has fish are jumping. how do you make fish jump? now, this has been a simple lullaby. and then even the accompaniment, he could have just written this- but listen to these wonderful slithery chords in between. only gershwin would have done that. it's also amazing how much he took from those black spirituals he heard down in south carolina.

the music critic virgil thompson of the times said in a very provocative way, who is george gershwin to speak to this community that could be speaking for themselves. it's certainly a valid point, but what's wonderful is he took the world he went and saw there and translated it to the best of his abilities into his own language. ♪ it ain't necessarily home it ain't necessarily home ♪ the pains that you're liable to read in this bible ♪ it ain't necessarily so

♪. >> reporter: he used some of the music from there >> he didn't want the use anyone else's spiritual. he wanted to invent his own. even the street vendor cries he used, he wanted to write his own. he was very particular saying that even though he was influenced by it, he wanted nothing in there to be a quotation. even when he uses blues' notes like, believe me, that cord is not a cord that you ever heard in the blues down there. >> that's his version. >> his version. i think that's what great artists do. he takes what's out there in front of him and translates it ultimately into his own language. that's the difference between influence and imitation. and i think gershwin was influenced by this world, but he

belief in the power of the imagination to recreate. >> brown: all right. summertime. a great song to get us through the winter, right. rob kapilow, thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, viola davis made a historic win at the emmy awards, when she became the first african-american woman to win best actress in a drama. but data suggests that hollywood could do far more to improve diversity on screen. learn more about the findings on the rundown. plus, regular newshour columnist wendy thomas russell offers a cheat sheet to yom kippur, the jewish day of atonement. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour >> ifill: tune in tonight on charlie rose: ian bremmer of eurasia group on america's changing relationships with china, russia and the vatican. and that's the newshour for tonight.

i'm gwen ifill... >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

♪ >> this is "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by -- the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation -- giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation -- pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs, and mufg. >> it is a global truth. we can do more when we work together. at mufg, our banking relationships span cultures and support almost every institute across the globe, because