>> warner: there was no such fatalism on display amid the friday night crowd at the popular ice cream shop in central baghdad. banana splits and double dip cones were being served up with a smile from behind bullet-proof glass. taking in the scene with his new baby, this man says he feels safe... enough. >> the situation is good in general but sometimes it's really good. sometimes it's really, really bad. so it's a 50-50 chance. >> warner: he gets better odds on a brighter future for his country. god willing, he said, but iraqis will have to do the work. >> lehrer: tomorrow margaret will have a conversation with vice president biden who is in iraq. >> woodruff: now to another country right next to the united states that also is coping with violence. mexican officials have announced the arrest of a major target in

that country's drug wars. marched before the cameras this morning under heavy guard, edgar valdez villareal was a long way from his high school football days in texas. his coach had nicknamed him the barbie for his green eyes and fair skin. the moniker stuck. but now at 37 years old, he stands accused as one of mexico's top drug traffickers. the alleged king pin was arrested yesterday outside mexico city without incident. >> this arrest is the result of intelligence work in actions carried out by the federal police. throughout this investigation we exchanged information with various united states agencies as well as the national defense and navy secretary and the attorney general's office. >> woodruff: the arrest was a rare success for mexico's president felipe calderon.

his government has waged a war against drug cartels since 2006 and nearly 30,000 people have been killed. valdez had been locked in a vicious war of succession within the belltron-lava cartel. one of them died in a hail of gunfire last december as mexican authorities closed in on him. u.s. authorities had put a $2 million bounty on valdez. there was no word on whether he would be extradited. for more on the arrest, we're joined by national public radio's jason beaubien in mexico city. jason, thank you for talking with us. first of all, they caught him alive. how significant is that? >> it is very significant because obviously he can be important in terms of other investigations, in terms of digging in to the workings of these cartels. yes, it's very important that they caught him alive.

and the hope is that they will be able to get more information about the functioning of other cells, other parts of the organization that had splintered after the one man was gunned down by the mexican marines in december of 2009. >> woodruff: how big a victory is this for the mexican government? >> this is really huge in terms of the timing. for president calderon, he really needed a good-news story at the moment. last week you had the worst massacre in the entire drug car with 72 migrants killed by the zetas, one of the drug cartels that operates primarily just below brownsville, texas. they actually operate all over mexico. that's sort of their home base. they're accused of gunning down 72 migrants. that's obviously the worst massacre that has occurred in what is an incredibly bloody drug war here. just the same day that valdez was captured there was a 12-hour gun battle that went on just

below in veracruz in which the army was trying to catch these gunmen. this went on almost all day. there's a sense in mexico that things have really gotten out of control in terms of security. when you get out and talk to people it's the main concern that people have. this capture of valdez for calderon is a chance to say, look, we are making progress. we're bringing down some of these top leaders. and have faith in us. even though it's getting more and more violent, if we push forward, we can succeed. >> woodruff: valdez was an interesting background. he was born in texas. he played high school football. tell us more about that. >> yes. by all accounts he grew up in a very middle class environment in laredo, texas. he went on to become a small- time marijuana dealer on the northern side of the border in the u.s., in texas. then he got in with the mexican cartels and really took off from there. his ability to move between the two worlds was quite effective.

officials here say that when he was captured yesterday, he was moving a ton of cocaine into the united states. he moved very rapidly through the ranks. originally he was with one cartel and then when the belltran-lavas broke away he came with him and was one of their leaders of a group of hitmen that they had called loz negros. he's known as one of the most brutal men in this drug war in a drug war in which tens of thousands of people have been killed. he's accused of orchestrating the murders of hundreds of people through this group, those negros that worked for the belltran-lavas. when arturo was run down he was trying to split off and run his own cartel. >> woodruff: and trying to set up his own drug operation. i was reading that there were a number of people who were happy to turn in information about him.

>> when he broke away from the belltran-lavas-- they were falling apart-- it became incredibly bloody in the areas where they were working particularly just below mexico city. this is known as a sort of vacation resort for a lot of people from mexico, from mexico city. it's a place that has a reputation for being very peaceful. well, valdez turned this into basically a war zone. he was fighting for control of these roots that the belltran- lavas had had. they were stringing up bodies off highway overpasses and decapitating their enemies. it really did become incredibly violent. there's even a suggestion that maybe he was involved in turning in arturo and giving over information to the mexican navy so that they were actually able to take down belltran-lava, at this point his boss. it does appear that there's a lot of in-fighting going on.

this is part of what president calderon is trying to do. he's trying to disrupt the structures of these caels, knock themff athe p and break them into smaller groups that are easier for the government to contain and to control. >> woodruff: jason finally, quickly, we understand they're now planning to have him tried in the u.s. on... what would the charges be and why? >> well, he was facing charges in the u.s. for moving tons of cocaine into the eastern seaboard between 2004 and 2006, so there was a standing indictment for him in the united states for drug smuggling. that would probably be the main charge obviously that he would face. and there is a desire here to move him out of mexico so that he's not inside the prison system, not able to keep trying to gain power inside these cartels. >> woodruff: jason beaubien, we thank you for your reporting joining us from mexico city. >> you're welcome.

>> lehrer: next, reforming the washington, d.c., public schools, a story john merrow, our special correspondent for education, haseen llinover the last three years. here is his final report, which is about the d.c. teachers and how their work is being evaluated. >> reporter: cynthia rivers and 42 other professional evaluators are putting washington, d.c.'s, teachers to the test. >> teachers are worried. there's a general feeling of anxiety about being evaluated. i write down everything that i hear and see the teacher doing. >> reporter: rivers and her colleagues, called maste educators, are observing classrooms as part of chancellor michelle rhee's new way of evaluating teacher performance. she calls it impact. there's nothing quite like

impact in public education anywhere in the united states. nowhere else can a teacher, even one who has tenure, lose his job immediately after receiving an ineffective rating. >> the wheels are in motion for action, and the time for dramatic change begins today. >> reporter: from the moment newly elected mayor adrian centy appointed michelle rhee chancellor in june 2007 she began making controversial changes to a system that's been failing for years. when she arrived just 12% of the district's 8th graders were reading at a proficient level. math scores were even worse. only 8% proficient. families were leaving the public schools in droves with enrollment down by nearly one third over ten years. the mayor vowed to fix the schools and counted on rhee, a former nonprofit leader and classroom teacher, to get the job done. >> i am going to run this

district in a way that is constantly looking out for the best interests of the children and of the school. >> reporter: though rhee had no experience running a school district, she promised to bring business-style accountability to washington schools. >> in any other sector, employees are expected to meet certain outcomes or deliverables. everybody knows that if you don't meet those numbers, you go. >> reporter: in her first ye alone, rhee fired more than 15% of her central office staff and replaced nearly one quarter of the city's principals. >> i'm terminating your principalship now. >> reporter: in a move that angered many in the community, rhee shuttered 23 underenrolled schools for good. >> i'm telling you that you are not being serious about taking parent and community input into account. >> my commitment to the children

of this city was regardless of all that noise that might come up, i'm going to continue to forge ahead. >> reporter: rhee then set her sights on a new teachers' contract, stressing the need to remove ineffective teachers. her bold stance earned praise and attention from the national media, but at home rhee's image suffered. this cover of "time" magazine left many of her teachers upset and angered d.c. teacher union leader george parker. >> this one shot gave the picture of sweep them all out. get rid of them. you can't fire your way to a great school system. >> reporter: parker and rhee spent almost three years negotiating the new contract. they finally reached a deal in spring 2010. teachers voted overwhelmingly in favor of the contract, which guaranteed a 20% raise in salary that was retroactive with three years of back pay. another perk: teachers rated

highly effective would be eligible for bonuses of up to $20,000. >> what would you like to do with it? >> reporter: what teachers gave up was traditional job security based on tenure and seniority. now if school budgets are cut, the teachers hired last won't necessarily be the first to lose their jobs. >> it doesn't matter whether you have tenure or not. it doesn't matter if you taught her for 30 years or not. if you are not serving children well, we're going to let you go from the system. >> reporter: but it's something that michelle rhee did not have to negotiate with the union that's affecting teachers the most: her new evaluation system, impact. in most places unions and school boards negotiate how teachers will be assessed. but not in washington, d.c. in 1997 the city council gave the chancellor full control over evaluations with no oversight from the union. >> this evaluation instrument has created the highest level of fear i've ever seen among teachers anywhere.

>> reporter: fear of? >> fear of being targeted for elimination unjustly. >> reporter: across the country most public school teachers are observed by their principal or assistant principal once or twice a year. nearly every teacher receives at least a satisfactory rating. but in rhee's system every teacher is observed five times a year, three times by an administrator, twice by a master educator. those evaluations combined with student test scores result in a final rating. >> we've added more objectivity to this process not only than we had before but i would argue that exists anywhere across the country. >> i think we are all.... >> reporter: special education teacher matt nagy that impact's unannounced observations have improved his classroom performance. >> every day i had to make sure that my objective was clear,

that my kids knew it, not just the days i got observed. i think that made my classroom a little bit more consistent and they learned a little bit more this year than last year. my only issue is it's marketed as a growth tool for teachers. there wasn't as much resources to help that growth as i would have liked to see. >> reporter: although rhee says impact is designed to protect teache from school polics, ben claims it hasn't. >> a principal at the middle school that i was working at this last year came up with a fictitious evaluation date, a fictitious conference date and entered in fraudulent scores for me. >> reporter: phantom evaluation. he petitioned rhee's office. y vaent event ally the phony evaluation was removed. >> there's never going to be a perfect tool. if the bar is that if it has bugs in it, we can't implement it. then you will literally never

implement. >> reporter: in late july final evaluation scores were released. rhee fired 75 teachers for poor performance. 671 more were deemed minimally effective and given one year to improve or lose their jobs. that's nearly 20% of rhee's teaching force that could be out of work one year from now. does it surprise you that those numbers are so high? >> i didn't proffer any guesses at the front end to say it will be this percentage or that percentage. but when we took control of this school district in 2007, 8% of the 8th graders were operating on grade level in mathematics. 8%. and if you would have looked at the performance evaluations of the adults in the system at the same time, you would have seen that 95% of them were being rated as doing a good job. how can you possibly have a system where the vast majority of adults are running around thinking i'm doing an excellent job when what we're producing for kids is 8% success.

>> reporter: success is still a long way off. today just 12% of 8th graders are proficient in math. improvement in reading has also been slow in coming from 12% to 14%. however, enrollment has stabilized, thanks largely to increases in pre-k and kindergarten classes. rhee is banking on her teacher evaluation system to produce larger gains. she's hoping that impact will become a national model. >> assuming that our success continues, then i think that people can put pressure on their state legislatures to say, maybe you need to move teacher evaluations off the bargaining table. >> reporter: rhee recently earned a national stamp of approval when d.c. became one of 12 winners of the federal education grant "race to the top." but national teachers' union

president randy weingarten warns against following rhee's lead. >> chancellor rhee's leadership style is "my way or the highway." but i've never actually seen a school succeed over the long term where a school system succeed over a long term with that approach. it gets a lot of ink, but the approach that actually succeeds is one where people work together. >> reporter: rhee has made concerted effort to improve her relationship with d.c.'s teachers. but mistrust and fear linger. >> you know, she really gives the perception that she cares. but there's a disconnect between what she's saying to us locally or individually and what she's saying, you know, nationally and then to the media. >> reporter: some say it's not a culture of accouability. it's a culture of fear. >> i think that if there is fear it's amongst the people who are saying, oh, gosh, i've gotten away with not doing such a good job for such a long time. now i can't do that anymore. those people should be feeling that way. >> reporter: ben earned impact's highest rating.

>> i'm the kind of person michelle rhee wants working in d.c. p.s., yet the reality is i was fearful because principals i think are working in a culture of fear and that translates into a very hostile work environment for the majority of teachers in d.c. p.s. >> reporter: it's too early to tell where michelle rhee's new evaluation system will result in better schools. in fact, she might not be around long enough to find out. her boss, mayor adrian fenty, is facing a tough primary challenge in september. if fenty loses, rhee may be out of a job. a new mayor and a new chancellor could alter or even abandon many of her initiatives including impact. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the story of a new orleans musician and his efforts to keep a musical tradition strong, five years after katrina.

jeffrey brown has our profile. >> so you can see where the water line was at the top of the door. >> brown: you mean the line right there. >> that's the highest point. that was at least nine feet high. >> brown: we first met michael white soon after hurricane katrina had destroyed his home in new orleans. as both musician and scholar, white had long been one of the best-known champions of the new orleans jazz tradition. now he was living temporarily in houston and had returned to sift through his belongings to see if anything could be saved. >> this was my piano. i used to have rehearsals in here. >> reporter: 30 years of collected photos, books and pees of musical history all destroyed. saddest of all, white's collection of clarinets. >> eh instrument is like a person in here.

its own sound, its own personality and moods almost. i couldn't bear to open those cases because to me.... >> brown: at that point five years ago white was unsure about his own future and that of his city. >> it's very difficult. everyone is trying to deal with just basic survival, you know, finding money to eat, places to stay, dealing with whatever illnesses or emotional trauma that remains. it's tough. ♪ >> brown: three months later, michael white had decided to at least try to live in new orleans. he was eager to reunite with the other displaced musicians from his liberty brass band and resume teaching at xavier university. still he faced numerous hurdles. >> they're sort of what i call the after-flow of the hurricane, which is pretty much almost as bad as the hurricane itself. it's what happens after. you know, what happens after is... you have to face a lot of real problems like you're homeless.

number two, that you have to figure out what's going to happen with your home. >> brown: his neighborhood was still a ghost town. there were doubts about whether enough students and faculty would return to xavier to make it a viable university again. now five years later, xavier university is rebuilt and thriving. but white's old neighborhood is still mostly empty. earlier this month he sold his house to the state for a modest sum of money. it's slated for demolition. he's disheartened at just how little of new orleans has been rebuilt. >>o look at the state of much of the city, if you go into a lot of neighborhoods off the big streets five years after katrina in an american city, i think it is a great tragedy. i think it is a disgrace for the city to be in this condition now. i think that new orleans should be two or three times more along.

>> brown: still, white says he's glad he's back in new orleans and moving on with his life. >> for a long time, like many people, i went through a serious period of depression, of anger, of many different kinds of emotions. and then i came to realize the most valuable thing that i have i never lost. it's inside. it's that music tradition. it's the memory of all of those parades, of all of those older musicians who brought the spirit of new orleans' music and passed it on to me that i could help to pass it on to others. and the spirit of that music is with me every day. every time i play my instrument, everything i ever knew and felt about new orleans is still alive. ♪ >> brown: white says that in the years since katrina, he's experienced a personal and musical rebirth, another new orleans tradition. last year he spent time at an artists' retreat.

in a space of three weeks he wrote three dozen songs, more than he had written in his entire life. he's now recorded a number of them for a new cd titled "blue crescent." >> in the beginning all of the songs sounded sad, in the minor key. just horrible. and now i realize that was just letting go of a lot of that pain. but many of the songs became upbeat and optimistic. you know, there's a great metaphor in our jazz funeral tradition for recovery from katrina. we have slow and sad music when the body is coming out of the church. when it moves towards the cemetery or it's buried there's joyous uptempo music and dancing. the lesson from that is mourn the losses of katrina. don't forget them. but at the same time you're moving and transitioning to a greater state or existence-- hopefully greater. >> brown: for michael white that greater existence means

composing and performing new work while continuing to play and teach the old musical traditions of new orleans. >> lehrer: again the major developments of this day. president obama formally declared an end to the u.s. combat mission in iraq. he said it's time to turn the page and focus on restoring the american economy. the number of americans killed in afghanistan this month reached 56 . and hurricane earl advanced on the outer banks of north carolina. forecasters said it would swipe the coast, then turn north. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: on art beat, watch a performance by michael white, and more of his interview with jeff. we've asked foreign policy and political experts to weigh in on president obama's speech. find that in a special annotated version of the text, along with

full video of the address. and more from our team in baghdad on how ordinary iraqis feel about security in their country. plus a follow-up to our story on the art of negotiating. harvard law professor robert mnookin answered your questions. find that on paul solman's making sense page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll have a newsmaker interview with vice president biden in iraq. i'm judy woodruff. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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 macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

ow! of course. thank you. i'd call her honeydew goodbody, not lisa. the very fact that she is called lisa proves that she exists.