captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. veteran diplomat richard holbrookeas remembered today by world leaders, friends, and colleagues after his death last night in washington. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, we look back on the diplomat's life and legacy with former ambassador john negroponte and susan glasser of "foreign policy" magazine. >> lehrer: then we interview drug czar gil kerlikowske about the jump in marijuana use by teenagers. >> ifill: john merrow reports on an ohio school district where teachers evaluate each other.

>> we like to think of it as a way to help people. but if they don't, the other option is, yes, they will be looked at for termination. >> lehrer: and judy woodruff has a book conversation about passing on life lessons, with co-authors andrew young and his godson, kabir sehgal. >> i would not listen to parents, but i found out that i absorbed. i never heard what they told me but i did what they did. >> people say you stand on the shoulders of giants. i've been swinging from his boot straps. i know he came up the hard way. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> opportunity can start anywhere and go everywhere. to help revitalize a neighborhood in massachusetts; restore a historic landmark in harlem; fund a local business in

chicago; expand green energy initiatives in seattle. because when you're giving, lending, and investing in more communities across the country, more opportunities happen. taking six million truck loads off the road every year, bnsf, the engine that connects us. chevron. investing in renewables, strengthening communities, and creating jobs. and by united health care. online at health in numbers dot-com. the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible

by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: ambassador richard holbrooke was praised today as "one of a kind." his death leaves the obama administration with a gap as it grapples with afghanistan and pakistan. margaret warner chronicles holbrook's long public service. >> warner: the psident's afghan war council gathered today at the white house at another crucial decision point in the decade-long war. but they met without one of the policy's main drivers. the president's special representative for afghanistan and pakistan, ambassador richard holbrook. holbrook's boss and long-time friend secretary of state hillary clinton remembereded him this afternoon. >> the words that keep being said over and over again is

statesman. it's a word we don't use much anymore, but richard embodied it. a man who loved our country and dedicated his life to serving not only our people but the cause of peace. a diplomat who used every tool in the tool box, and someone who accomplished so much on behalf of so many. >> warner: the hard-charging diplomat died last night in washington after suffering a torn aorta on friday. tens of hours of surgery over several days could not save him. his sudden death at age 69 brought tributes from around the globe. >> there wl be a lot of people in many different parts of the world who are going to miss him and look back on what he did with a lot of gratitude. >> a critical friend of europe and a close friend of mine. the word is a... the world is a lesser place without him. >> warner: just hours before holbrook died president obama ex-tolled him at a white house diplomatic reception. >> america is more secure and the world is a safer place

because of the work of ambassador richard holbrook. >> warner: hole rook's portfolio dealing with afghanistan and pakistan was perhaps the most difficult assignment of a near half century career that took him from vietnam's wide deltas in the 1960s to the bloody balkans in the 1990s. >> on paper we have peace. to make it work is our next and our greatest challenge. >> warner: and most recently to the mountains and deep divides of south asia. >> people who demand that the foreign troops leave afghanistan before they talk about peace are actually asking for surrender. >> warner: he was born in new york in 1941 to european jewish parents who had fled nazi-era germany. after graduating from brown, holbrook joined the foreign service, posted first to vietnam and then to the vietnam policy team in lyndon

johnson's white house and finally as a junior member of the u.s. delegation to the paris peace talks. he often said it was the defining experience of his public life. holbrook went on to serve in high posts in three democratic administrations, including assistant secretary of state for president carter and ambassador to germany, assistant secretary of state and united nations ambassador for president clinton. whether dealing overseas or in washington, holbrook used his intellect and his ego to bully, to charm, to cajole. his persona bore fruit when he pushed three warring nations to end the bosnia conflict. the 1995 dayton peace accord was the crowning achievement of his career. the day the deal was announced in one of his dozens of newshour appearances over the years, holbrook spoke to elizabeth farnsworth. >> those last few hours, the toughest thing you were negotiating about and how you resolved it. >> by the last few hours the

issues were very small in relationship to what had been achieved. 99%... more than 99% was finished. but there's a question at the end of a negotiation like this not of substance but of political will. you pick up the pen and put your initials on a piece of paper. or do you keep seeking more and more and more so you never get there. camp david in 1978, the war between israel and egypt, had been five years old. it still was difficult. here we're trying to do the same thing in the middle of a war with three countries instead of two. it was tough. >> warner: even when not in office working as an editor or investment banker, holbrook stayed engaged in all manner of global issues. his op eds and public appearances, here in 1985 he spoke with jim lehrer about vietnam's decision to release the remains of missing american servicemen. >> they are now isolated in an increasingly prosperous southeast asia. all they've got left among very few other chips are the remains of some americans who

died in indo-china. with the greatest-cynicism they have been doling these remains out for years. >> warner: he was asked if he believed that living americans were still being held prisoner there? >> i think that it is a grave disservice to americans to be led to believe that americans who fought in indo-china are still alive today and will return to the united states. >> lehrer: you just don't believe that. >> i'm sorry. i wish i could say otherwise but i've seen so many people have too many false hopes. the recent spate of movies in this regard only exacerbate the problem. >> warner: as u.n. ambassador in 2000 holbrook looked at the aids crisis. >> the level of the aids crisis, its potential to destroy economic achievement, undermine social stability, and create more political uncertainty, and the inability of the rest of the world to contain it only on one continent because it can't be

sealed off in africa, it's already spreading elsewhere in the world particularly the sub continent of india and pakistan is so enormous. >> warner: just two weeks after september 11, holbrook predicted the struggle against the perpetrators and their ideology would be a long one. >> some of these states are sheltering the terrorists without actively organizing the terrorism. that would appear to be the case with the taliban in afghanistan. they're giving osama bin laden and his network shelter, but osama bin laden is running his own network. if and when osama bin laden and the taliban are removed the problem will not disappear. >> warner: it had not. by early 2009, holbrook now appointed to have the diplomatic effort in afghanistan and pakistan spoke of the challenges facing the obama administration as it tried to chart a new way forward there. you're saying it's too early at this point for the obama administration to define how it sees victory in

afghanistan? >> well, first of all, the victory is is defined in purely military terms is not achievable. i cannot stress that too highly. i think it will more difficult than iraq. it's already longer than iraq. it's the second longest military engagement in american history. no one should expect a quick success here. >> warner: five weeks later holbrook and general david petraeus explained the president's new dual focus on afghanistan and pakistan. >> the critical issue here is to integrate our afghan policy and our pakistan policy which have essentially been stove piped to recognize that success in afghanistan is not possible unless western pakistan, which is the current heart of the crisis, is brought under control. >> warner: in his last interview with the newshour in late october, holbrook was asked whether it was time to get tougher with pakistan's

unwillingness to attack terrorist havens in its territory. >> we have to work with the pakistanis. it's very difficult at times. but one has to understand that it's a sovereign country. i know because i run into this when i go out on the street. the people come up to me and say, we ought to tell the pakistanis that they have to do x or else. the correct answer is or else what? we're working with them to find the strategic overlap between our interests which involve the defense of the homeland and elimination of people like al qaeda, pakistani interests in afghan interests it's a very complicated equation. but the pakistanis are not being cut out and we're making progress. >> warner: as the obama team now struggles to make enough progress, they'll have to do it without with... the energy and passion of richard holbrook. >> ifill: we have more on the life and times of richard holbrooke coming up, plus drug czar gil kerlikowske; evaluating teachers in toledo; and lessons from a civil rights legend.

but first, with the other news of the day, here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: a judge in britain today granted bail to wikileaks founder julian assange, but prosecutors are challenging that decision on behalf of sweden. assange has spent the past week in jail after surrendering in a swedish sex crimes investigation, although he denies the charges. we have a report from paul davies of independent television news. >> reporter: the photographers re waiting outside court for a glimpse of the man who is embarrassed the most powerful governments in the world. in the back of his prison van, julian assange seemed to be giving them a signal, that he wouldn't be silent or locked away for long. once again it seemed the eyes of the world were watching as the legal team representing the wikileaks founder arrived along with a string of celebrity supporters like this man who had agreed to put up part of 240,000 pounds in guarantees and suretys to achieve his release on bail. at first it seemed those who

turned out to support him would be celebrating as the court reversed its original decision and agreed to grant him bail on a string of conditions. on top of the surety put out his friends and supporters, mr. assange had agreed to wear an electronic tag and to report daily to a police station. to live at the home of his supporters and observe a curfew. his celebrity backers were delighted. >> indeed it's a better future of british justice. as a british citizen, i look forward to it. a just and fair trial where due process is respected. >> reporter: but as time passed it wasn't assange who appeared outside court but his lawyer explaining that it was proving difficult at short notice to provide the court with so much money. >> there is a problem because he's been granted bail on condition that 200,000 pounds cash is paid into this court here.

that's an awful lot of money. it's a pity that he can't use master card or visa in order to assist him to arrange that. >> reporter: this prison van taking him back to the prison. the site julian assange's supporters did not want to see. the swedish authorities who still want to talk to him' about the alleged sex offenses have appealed against the decision to give him bail. it means another date in court. at least one more night in a cell. >> sreenivasan: britain's high court will hear sweden's appeal, but there was no immediate word on when that will happen. a fire ripped through a garment factory in bangladesh today, killing at least 27eople and wounding more than 100. the blaze started in the top two floors of the ten-story factory. workers were trapped because a gate on a stairwell was locked. many of the dead were killed after they jumped to escape. the factory is owned by the hameem group, which makes clothing for western shops, including gap. italian prime minister silvio berlusconi survived a vote of confidence from parliament--

barely. he won back-to-back confidence votes, but only by three votes in the lower house. as lawmakers cast their votes, anti-berlusconi protesters clashed with riot police in the streets of rome. they smashed shop windows and set cars on fire. more than 100 people were injured. the u.s. senate neared final approval today on an $858 billion tax cut package. the deal was negotiated by president obama and congressional republicans. it will renew bush-era income tax breaks for another two years, and extend unemployment benefits through 2011. once approved, the bill goes to the house, where democrats are weighing possible changes, especially to the estate tax. g.o.p. chairman michael steele will seek a second term as head of the republican national committee. he made the announcement last night during a conference call to committee members. during his first term, steele has faced allegations of financial mismanagement. five other candidates are running for the post, and all have vowed to put the committee's finances back in order.

the r.n.c. will select its new chairman next month. a blast of arctic air invaded the eastern u.s. today and pushed bitter cold temperatures as far south as florida. the storm system moved over the great lakes into canada, then dumped more snow in ohio, pennsylvania, and new york. residents across the south bundled up against the cold. and florida's citrus groves were also under a hard freeze warning. farmers sprayed the crops for protection. at least 16 deaths have been attributed to the storm. policymakers at the federal reserve announced they will stick with a plan to buy $600 billion of treasury bonds to spur economic growth. that decision sent stocks on wall street higher. the dow jones industrial average gained 48 points to close at 11,476. the nasdaq rose nearly 3 points to close above 2627. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jim. >> lehrer: and now a few thoughts about richard holbrooke, the late diplomat president obama called a "unique figure," a "giant of american

foreign policy." john negroponte knew holbrooke since 1964, when they worked together as foreign service officers during the vietnam war. he went on to hold several major ambassador positions, including to the united nations. he was also the first director of national intelligence, and is now with an international consulting firm. susan glasser is the editor-in- chief of "foreign policy," a web site and magazinehich holbrooke also edited in the early 1970s. she had lunch with him on thursday, the day before he was struck by the aortic tear that led to his death last night. mr. ambassador, what were his qualities that made him so unique? >> well, the word relentless has been used very often. boundless energy. drive. we've heard all those terms. i would add one. focus. dick was able to take this tremendous amount of energy which, as a young man,

starteded out in soort of a rambunctious way but it refined itself over the years. as his career progressed i think he learned how to focus this tremendous intelligent and energy on achieving specific purposes and objectives. >> lehrer: was this evident to you in those early days in vietnam? >> absolutely. >> lehrer: like what? what did he do? >> we worked in the embassy together. we were in our mid 20s but dick already had a real proprietary interest in our policy toward vietnam. i recall when he went back to to washington and worked as an aide, dick was right in the middle of things. he leveraged his position as a well positioned staff assistant to optimize, to maximize the influence of that job towards affecting our vietnam policy. >> lehrer: what would you add to that, susan glasser, in the unique one of a kind description? is that your experience as well? >> well, certainly ambassador

negroponte has many decades more experience than i do. but i think i would add generosity to that too. what i'm struck by is the real genuine outpouring which is very unusual and almost very unwashington. this was the original, the prototypical networked guy. you know he has nothing on silicon valley, right? this is one of the only people i can think of who knows everyone that you know and then thousands more people. he seemed to have touched all of them in some way. for all the detractors who talked of his ambition and so forth, what i've been struck most by is this real outpouring... here was a guy who managed to get himself in everybody's network and managed to touch them in some way. >> lehrer: i also read today that he... i don't know how to put this gently, but that he fought... he loved down rather than up. in other words, the younger people who worked for him he treated them a lot better than he did the people he was... that were technically over him or were his peers.

is that correct? >> i certainly read that. i certainly saw his incredible generosity. this is a man who was so proud of his staff. he said to me and also to many other people i know and i work with, come see my operation. he was very proud of what he had built. very unconventional, right, for a state department. this is an entrepreneur almost, right? he had i think one of... one of aides is quoted as saying this has a feeling of a start-up which is very unusual inside the state department. he's academic. he has a journalistic sensibility. he wants more inputs and outputs than the standard conservative bureaucrat. >> i think in part this was a reflection of his view as a young man that his own views should be taken into account. as he ascended.... >> lehrer: he said listen to me. >> so when he got where he was in a position to do so, he wanted to listen to others. he knew that younger officers and younger people had inputs to make and views to be heard.

>> lehrer: the other thing that people have overlooked until his death was he was quite a writer in addition to being a diplomat. was he not? >> absolutely. in fact i was thinking about, you know, let the young people be heard. when he was 29 years old he wrote a very critical piece in the ver first issue of foreign policy magazine in the winter of 1970. >> lehrer: you got there. >> i have it. this is the very first issue. it's called the machine that fails. again this is a sitting foreign service officer. how many people inside the state department today would publish a piece like that on our website or in a magazine or come on your show and say, you know, i have some plans for massive reorganization of this state department. i've got, you know, it starts out with a very sweeping quote from then president nixon that says the age of, you know, world war ii diplomacy, the post world war ii age is over. then he goes on from there and outlines his critique of how

there has failed to be a new machinery, a state built for the challenges of the 1970s. it's a very ambitious piece. prescient in many ways and it was written by a 29-year-old. >> a related issue, if i might. >> lehrer: sure. >> it was his compassion. i saw that so well when he was assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs and the extraordinary effort he went to to assure the maximum number of refugee admissions from indochina. you remember the boat people, the great waves of people who came out of vietnam and the rest of southeast asia. it was dick. i was his deputy at the time. he sent me up to the hill. he said neg negroponte you have to get them to admit 140,000 refugees a year, 12,000 a month. we should settle for no less than that. we got it. it was thanks to dick's drive and energy. i think there are people from southeast asia who are livig

he was showing me, you know, i didn't have a copy at home but i wanted to hear what he had to say. he said this section on the creation of the national security state after world war ii, that's the part that's most relevant. >> he was sort of an op-ed machine too when he was out of office. and he had incredible curiosity. he went to a lot of places that he had had nothing to do with of before. i recall him taking a trip to afghanistan prior to taking this job at his own expense.

and at considerable risk. when i was serving in central america, he came to visit honduras. he had no reason or interest any central america except he wanted to learn what all the fuss was about back at that time. that was the kind of intellectual curiosity that dick had. >> lehrer: now how is his absence likely to affect the afghanistan situation? of course the review process is underway this week. holbrook will not be there. what is going to be missing? >> well, the timing really is extraordinary, isn't it, that they're in the midst of this major sort of mid course review at just the moment that this should occur. i think there will be some real talk about, are they just going to appoint a replacement for him or are they going to reorganize? and i could imagine both outcomes coming to be. clearly this was not only a really difficult assignment for ambassador holbrook but it wasn't one that there was a clear path for him through to victory. it's not like he was in the middle of some negotiations.

first of all, what does that mean? second of all looking towards this july... they've been working to put more time on the clock in a way and to take some of the political pressure out of next summer as being the key moment. but i think there was a real sense that for all of his accomplish manys, he was not the most favored prson, shall we say, in afghanistan. you had a very tense relationship by all accounts with president karzai. also with ambassador eikenberry and so, you know, the question is what kind of a person are they going to put in to replace him? it could be a very different model. >> lehrer: ambassador holbrook was also very pessimistic about... we saw some of that also in margaret's piece... about outcomes for afghanistan. did you share his pessimism about this? >> i think was it pessimism or just "this is hard"? the times that i talked to dick he just said this is

hard. this is the hardest situation i've ever had to deal with. by that i think he meant he saw no clear way forward. i understand he harbored his doubts but he was supportive of the policy. i think ultimately he wanted to try to help maneuver the situation towards the negotiated outcome, but i think we all recognize that the pieces don't yet seem to be in place. he was having a hard time getting them into place. but i can't think of a better man to have been doing that job even if occasionally he did bruise a few feelings. i think even those people whose feelings might have been bruised respected the enormous talents and intelligence that he brought to his work. >> lehrer: mr. ambassador, susan glasser, thank you both very much. >> ifill: now, teens and drugs. a new report out today from the national institute on drug abuse shows teenage drug use is up,

especially among eighth-graders. the primary culprits: marijuana, ecstasy, and prescription drugs. teenagers are also now less likely to believe that marijuana use is dangerous. at the same time, previously reported declines in cigarette smoking have stalled. there was some good news. the rate of binge drinking-- consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in a row-- is down. here to discuss the findings is gil kerlikowske, the director of the white house office of national drug control policy. welcome, mr. kerlikowske. very bad numbers there. why? >> it's almost a perfect storm. it shows that 8th, 10th and 12th graders showed an increase in drug use particularly troubling the 8th graders showed this increase in marijuana use. but also troubling is that across the board they really perceive the risk or the harms of drugs, marijuana less. i think that is a perfect bad

storm. >> ifill: is it correct to say that marijuana use has exceeded cigarette smoking among children of this age? teenagers? >> we're seeing that we've continued to show a decrease in the nicotine use by young people, but the marijuana use is really picked up particularly in the last year. >> ifill: the lines crossed. >> just about. there are probably several reasons for it. >> ifill: they are? >> well, first of all, we continue to talk about legalization of marijuana as if it's some benign substance. we continue to talk about the medicalization of marijuana. of course smoked marijuana is not medicine. it hasn't been through any of the fda approvals. when i meet with high school students all over this country, you know, it's a very clear message that they tell me. that is, we're getting the wrong message from adults. >> ifill: let's draw... make a distinction between the legalization of marijuana and the medicalization, the term

you used, of marijuana. are they the same thing? >> no, they're very different. legalizing drugs-- and marijuana is against federal law but as we know from proposition 19 which thankfully the voters of california listened to a lot of the leadership there and voted that down. that would have been making a small amount of marijuana legal. the medicalization, and i think the "time" magazine piece just recently highlighted it, we keep talking about it as if its medicine. we keep talking about patients and we keep talking about dispensers as caregivers. in fact, smoked marijuana is just not medicine. >> ifill: proponents of medical marijuana, these initiatives, say the real problem isn't the idea of using marijuana to relieve symptoms. the problem is is that the government is not enforcing the illegal use of marijuana and make it too easy for the young people to get ahold of it. >> i think we have to look at and president obama released his national drug control strategy in may of this year

in a much more balanced way frankly for the last number of decades we've talked about a war on drugs. we've looked at using the criminal justice system as the end-all and be-all. what we're talking about here is also a public health problem. it's an education problem. oh, and it's also a public safety probm. if we combine a lot of those resources, we get parents to be much more involved, we look at prevention as working and we look at treatment as being effective, we can make a big difference in these trends which are disturbing. >> your background in seattle was in public safety. i don't hear the term war on drugs at all anymore. is there still a war on drugs in. >> no, what i tried to do and when i took this job in may of last year was to say we shouldn't talk about it as a war on drugs. frankly my colleagues from all of those years, sheriffs and police chiefs, they really never talked about it as a war on drugs. >> ifill: shouldn't it be though if the numbers are this

bad? >> no. i'll tell you what it should be and they talked about it often. that is, we are not going to arrest our way out of this situation. we need to be not soft on drugs or soft on crime, but we need to be smart on drugs. if we use education, we use prevention, we combine some of those resources. if you look at how we've done it in reducing crime in this country, we have never used those same tactics or strategies to go after the drug problem. >> ifill: the use of marijuana or over-the-counter prescription drugs that maybe they get from their parents' medicine cabinet or leftover prescriptions or the use of ecstasy, what evidence are we seeing that this has an effect on young people's physical or intellectual... what effect does this have? what is the fallout. >> when the national institute of drug abuse released this information this morning, dr. nora ballkoff the director

very clearly stated that the use of marijuana particularly by young people, particularly with their developing brains impacts their memory, impacts their ability to learn. i've listened to people particularly those that run the los angeles unified school system talk about the correlation of young people dropping out of school and their use of marijuana. so if we want to be concerned about keeping kids in school, getting kids into college and graduating, making sure we have a productive educated work force, the drug issue is kind of front and center with all of this. >> ifill: let's talk about the good news. one little piece of good news. binge drinking is down. why is that? >> well, and again the survey doesn't really go into the reasons why. but we can kind of assume a couple things. one is there's been a great focus on alcohol particularly when you think about these young people wanting or just being at the age of having a driver's license. the sanctions against any

alcohol use by a young person and getting a driver's license or keeping a driver's license are pretty high. so i think that has a chilling effect. frankly too i think that parents are more comfortable about talking to their children about alcohol use. they're not particularly comfortable about talking to their children about drug use. >> ifill: what do you as drug czar, director of the office of national drug control policy, what do you do to turn this around, to make this something that they're more likely to talk about, to bring the numbers which were going down back down? >> well, i think that the strategy that the president signed and released from the oval office not that long ago is a particularly good one. it really talks about looking at this problem through a variety of new ways. he has asked for over $200 million for an increase in prevention money. he's also asked for an increase in treatment. you know, one of the things.... >> ifill: yet we hear more

about nutrition than we hear about drug use. >> the two are very closely tied. i've heard this repeatedly. when we talk about how do you educate a young person, do you give them a two-hour anti-drug message or do you talk about letting them make good decisions about nutrition, exercise, good... nicotine, alcohol. let them have that information from a trusteded messenger-- parent, coach, faith-based-- you know what? aate lot of kids will make the right decision and they actually do listen to their parents. >> ifill: the director of the office of national drug control policy, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> lehrer: now, keeping good teachers and letting go of bad ones. nearly four out of five americans think it should be easier to fire weak teachers. but more than half think teachers are not paid enough. that's according to a new poll by the associated press and stanford university.

the newshour's special correspondent for education, john merrow, profiles an ohio school system with a unique way of reviewing teachers. >> reporter: in most public schools it's extremely difficult to fire a bad teacher. unions are often blamed for this. but here in toledo, things seem to be different. to protect the privacy of some individuals, we've concealed their names voo the next person i will present is (beep) >> reporter: mike johnson and a handful of experienced educators have been mentoring rookie teachers for the past year and now must present their recommendations to this panel. should toledo renew their contracts or let them go? >> she does not engage with students when teaching the lesson. uncooperative behavior was prevalent. >> reporter: the panel comprised of five teachers and four administrators will vote on mike's recommendation. >> does she have support from

the administration when she refers a student out of class? >> she does. >> reporter: the process is part of a larger program called par, peer assistance and review. a system in which teachers have the power to evaluate each other. >> the recommendation is non-renewal of contract and no further employment with toledo public schools. all those in favor of the recommendation, please raise your hand. >> reporter: a first-year teacher has just lost her job. >> thank you. >> reporter: the process that leads up to this final vote begins in the fall. that's when veteran teachers like peg mcmcafee begin mentoring as many as a dozen first-year teachers. one of her assignments this year is william, a science teacher. >> does anyone know one of those characteristics? how about egg-laying? most reptiles lay what kind of eggs? >> i make it clear from the beginning i'm the support

system for him. i am his evaluator but my job especially for my career technology people is to teach them how to be teachers. >> reporter: she will work with william and her other teachers once a week and then present her recommendations to the panel in the spring. so it's not gotcha. >> no. it's not a gotcha, walking in and caught you doing something bad. for my personality it's more i caught you doing something good. we are building upon the good things that you're doing and then working on the things that i think you can strengthen. >> reporter: husband-and-wife team d off w and francine lawrence who have been leading the local teachers union for almost half a century are strong supporters of the program. back in the 1970s when dow was union president he felt the traditional system in which principals evaluated teachers was flawed. >> the old system the top down i'm the boss and you're not kind of stuff that produces natural by-products like distrust, lack of responsibility, and lack of accountability.

>> reporter: he proposed peer assistance and review as an alternative. all first-year teachers would be coached. those who were ineffective would be fired. the toledo plan, a radical departure from the norm, was approved by the toledo school board in 1981. >> i was just trying to look at medicine, how you become a doctor and how you become a teacher and realizing that we were just so casual about the process. no wonder we wblt respected. >> reporter: the plan does seem to be working. on average for nearly 30 years about 8% of first-year teachers have been weeded out. moreover those who stay have had the benefit of a year of coaching. >> looks good. >> reporter: sarah kirk went through the mentorship program four years ago. >> it was nice to have my own person sort of to come in and answer my questions. i could spend time with me. >> reporter: in most school systems first-year teachers are simply left on their own. sink or swim.

but not in toledo. do you now, if you're in trouble, would you ask another teacher for... how do i do this? >> oh, yeah. i believe is not reinventing the wheel. if somebody else did it really well, help me figure out how to do it well too. >> reporter: francine lawrence thinks peer assistance and review hells not only their teachers but also the profession as a whole. >> it's teachers taking ownership fon standards and inforcement and feeling that sense of community which is what a real profession is all about. when teachers are excluded from that or excluded from real influence over curriculum and instruction and school policy, then it's so easy to say, well, you know, it's the principal's problem. >> reporter: par clearly benefits brand new teachers but the program is also supposed to retrain or remove ineffective veterans. >> we're going to do evaluation. >> reporter: here, pg&e and the principal larry black are meeting to discuss a tenured

teacher who has been reported to be ineffective. >> in the one class that i've observed the students were kind of left on their own. they weren't given any direction. there didn't seem to be a lot of student engagement from the teachers' side. >> reporter: mecca fee will be working with this veteran teacher for a year. he's been placed in what's called intervention. intervention is a kind of training? rehab? >> we like to think of it as a way to help people step back up their game. but if they don't, the other option is, yes, they will be looked at for termination. >> reporter: sounds good. but very few tenured teachers actually get looked at and even fewer get fired. toledo has about 2,000 teachers. over the last six years just 22 veterans have been placed in intervention. only 15 have been fired. that's not even three a year. just two tenths of one percent.

we got together with a group of parents who gave us their thoughts on the toledo plan. >> i love our teachers but at the same time there's a few that need to be re-evaluated. that's where the school district, a, doesn't have the means or the time. and the teachers' plan does not affect that. >> reporter: most said the plan wasn't working not when it came to dealing with bad teachers who have tenure. >> all of us have had experiences where there has been a teacher identified in a school that even other teachers know need to be removed but they continue to serve in the school system. >> reporter: others felt the toledo plan has given teachers and the union too much power. >> it seems like we have a system that's built on self-policing. >> reporter: that doesn't work? >> no, i don't think that works. i don't think that works in any system. >> we now have intervention. >> reporter: the lawrences disagree. they maintain that most bad teachers are fired after their first year. those who struggle later on are given help. >> plus we have robust

professional development. we have peer aches. in classrooms throughout the district. so there's a lot of support to advance teachers practice. >> reporter: these supports and mentoring the new teachers can be expensive. anywhere between a few hundred thousand dollars to over a million dollars a year depending on how many new teachers have been hired. although peer assistance and review has a 30-year track record here, fewer than 100 other school districts out of 14,000 nationwide have followed toledo's lead. dow lawrence believes that the two big national union, the nea, and the aft, would rather fight with management than collaborate. >> there are people who don't want this stuff to succeed. they're afraid of the new workplace culture that's evolving. they're scared to death about it. >> reporter: why? >> they're afraid that the union won't be strong if we're working together with management. >> reporter: does the toledo

plan which nurtures teachers improve the academic performance of students? after all, that's the bottom line. here again results are mixed. toledo's test scores are generally better than those in ohio's seven other large cities, but they lag behind the rest of the state in all subjects and all grades. >> ifill: finally tonight, a civil rights leader's words for a new generation. judy woodruff has our conversation. >> woodruff: the book is "walk in my shoes: conversations between a civil rights legend and his god son on the journey ahead." author andrew young has served as a top aide to martin luther king, jr., ambassador to the united nations and mayor of atlanta. his co-author and god son kabir is an investment banker in new york. thank you both for being here.

so your backgrounds are so different i think there's 50 years in age between you. >> exactly. >> woodruff: exactly. so what was it, ambassador young, that made it possible for these conversations between you to become a book? >> well the picture on the front of the book was him in second grade. calling up the mayor's office and asking to interview the mayor. well, i was fascinated by the idea. we started talking. i had known his family. it just took off from there. but we've been talking back and forth since he was in second grade. >> woodruff: how easy is it for you, kabir, to talk to your godfather? >> very easy. it was tough at first. now it's actually become the first call on most of the problems in my life whether it's what's happening in the financial world or what's going on in my personal life. it's really a great cross- generational, inter-generational conversation. we don't always agree. we often disagree but it's

pretty easy. >> woodruff: that comes through. there's so many things i would like to ask you. one that struck me was how important you say it for young people, ambassador young, not to let their parents, the older generation, dictate what they do. i guess my question is, how do they know what to listen to and whatnot to listen to? >> you don't listen to anything. they don't. i would not listen to my parents. but i found out that i absorbed. i never heard what they told me. but i did what they did. my children, my son and i have had a... even a more cantankerous relationship but more and more now at 37, i find i'm really impressed with how much he knows and how much he thinks like me but he would never agree with me and he never would listen to me on anything. >> you really can't, you know, take a carbon copy of someone's life and apply it to your life. that's the whole example in this book.

you can learn from people who come before you but i'm not a preacher. i hope i don't run for politics. it doesn't really excite me. hearing his story just helps me understand what can go wrong in someone's life and how to avoid people, you know, you stand on the shoulders of giants. well, we've been swinging from his boot straps. i know he came up the hard way. i don't have to repeat those same mistakes. >> i don't think it was the hard way. i think it was an easy way. i think i've been most fortunate and blessed. but i always quoted my parents from khalil gibran the prophet. your children are not your children. they come through you but from you. you can give them your love but not your thoughts for they come from a land that you cannot enter not even in your wildest dreams. that was because my daddy was determined to make me a dentist. and a baseball player. i loved my daddy, but i always... but i wasted four

years of college trying to do what he wanted me to do. and not what i felt i wanted to do. >> woodruff: one of the things you obviously talk a lot in here about the civil rights movement. lessons learned. you worked so closely with dr. martin luther king, jr. you talk about his view of economics. it's very relevant right now because of what this country is going through. what stays most with you about that. >> the challenge of our generation whether it's young lawyers or young investment bankers is to make capitalism work for people not just around the corper but around the world. capitalism is an anti-poverty reduction tool. uncle andy has told me that it's very important to use that message. >> woodruff: that's... i mean i here kabir saying this. this is not something one normally thinks about. >> martin said one time and he said it often, i admire the good samaritan but i don't want to be one. i don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side

of the road after they've been beaten up and robbed. i want to change the jericho road. so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health. he was... he had a macro economic vision even though... in fact, the whole civil rights movement was a macro economic effort to change the.... >> woodruff: is that relevant today? >> it's extremely relevant because he was talking about racism, war and poverty. i think we've made progress in... enormous progress in raceism and war but we've made little or no progress in poverty. it's because the economy has gotten more and more complex as we globalize. everybody is looking for a simple solution. what i get from kabir is he's wrestling every day on wall street. and i think that's where the battle is.

the battle for a global economy is going to be run by economists. >> woodruff: do you hear your godfather saying the solutions for global poverty are on wall street. is that what you're hearing? >> not entirely. the money isn wall street. wall street allocates capital. plooik row finance or financial literacy programs, wash street can be the engine that makes capital get to the people who need it. we're seeing that right now in many emerging markets. >> woodruff: i want to ask you both about president obama. ambassador young you didn't support him in 2008. you were a hillary clinton supporter. you said at the time you thought he was too inexperienced. he wasn't ready. in fact you say in the book that you still have your doubts. do you this think that explains inpart the difficulty he's having right now? >> i think the difficulty he's having right now is the deliberate obstructionism of the other party. i think that they are trying

to take the presidency back in 2012. they're not trying to deal with america's problems. i think he is. i think right now because i think those problems only have global solutions, his background is uniquely preparing him and us to pull the world together and have an economy that works for everybody. presently this economy is only working for the very, very rich. >> woodruff: as a young person and you watch president obama and what's going on in washington, what do you see? >> more of the same. i don't know a time in american history where there hasn't been people bickering with each other back to the revolutionary times. i'm so glad we have a democracy where the tea party is engaged in the system and they're actually getting voted in and now they have to govern. i'm excited by this. it doesn't disheart enemy at all. i do thinkthat i disagree with uncle andy. i don't think it's really about obstructionist.

i think it's about president obama coming up with an agenda about creating jobs, exporting more, helping americans save more. we need to have financial literacy in our country. not just complaining about obstructionism. we need solutions. i think the solutions are using high finance to make capitalism work for people around the world. >> woodruff: you're saying that's not being done? >> i don't think so. >> but it's not the president's job alone. my solutions are to include africa in the global economy and not african charity aids research but african infrastructure development. i think that africa can import and needs everything the whole world can manufacture. they've got enough money to pay for it. it's just that the money is in the ground. we built atlanta, the airport, the olympics, were all capital... private money. but we defined the public

purpose and then we let the private sector manage and direct it and make money on it. >> woodruff: there's a lot to chew over in this book, a lot to think about and a lot to talk about generation to generation. ambassador andrew young, kabir, thank you very much for being with us. >> thank you. >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day. veteran diplomat richard holbrooke was remembered by leaders, friends and colleagues around the world. he died last night at the age of 69. a new report from the national institute on drug abuse shows teenage drug use is up, especially among eighth-graders. and a judge in britain agreed to release the founder of the wikileaks web site on bail. but prosecutors are challenging that decision on behalf of sweden, which wants him extradited on sex crime charges. and to hari sreenivasan in our newsroom, for what's on the newshour online. hari?

>> sreenivasan: there's more on the life and work of richard holbrooke, including video of some of his many newshour appearances. miles o'brien filed a blog post on what it was like to travel to indonesia's mount merapi for his recent science story on volacanos. plus it's "tools tuesday" on paul solman's making sense page. every week, paul and his team highlight useful financial resources online. tonight, use an interactive graphic to find out what extending the tax cuts means for you. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the house debate and vote on repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'lsee you onne, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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