captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the top commander in afghanistan told a congressional committee today that the plan to hand over security to afghans remains on track, despite setbacks in recent weeks. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, we have the latest on the war strategy, and we update the case against army staff sergeant robert bales, who stands accused of killing 16 afghan civilians.

>> then we examine the supreme court arguments about life in prison without parole for teenagers with marcia coyle of the "national law journal." >> ifill: ray suarez reports on a proposed colorado law that would require welfare recipients to pass drug tests. >> woodruff: we ask what's behind the partisan stanoff in congress as house republicans offer a budget plan with steep cuts in taxes and spending. >> ifill: paul solman gets author charles murray's take on white working class americans, laid out in his new book, "coming apart." >> have you ever held a job that caused a body part to hurt at the end of the day? few can answer yes to that question. you are in big trouble in trying to understand the country you live in. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown talks with condoleezza rice and joel klein about the connection between troubled american schools and national security. >> when it comes to the very tangible assets that the united states needs to defend itself, the education of people who can be soldiers, too many people can't qualify for military service.

>> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with he 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. >> ifill: the american mission in afghanistan will stay on track and on schedule, despite serious blows. that was the message the commanding general brought to congress today. newshour congressional correspondent kwame holman has our report. >> reporter: thousands of afghans celebrated their new

year today at an ancient festival marking the first day of spring. but by western calendars there's been little for afghans or americans to celebrate in 2012. in washington marine general john allen, commanding nato and u.s. forces in afghanistan, acknowledged as much at a house armed services committee hearing. >> i wish i could tell you that this war was simple and that progress could easily be measured but that's not the way of counterinsurgencies. they are fraught with both successes and setbacks which can exist in the same space and in the same time. but each must be seen in the larger context of the overall campaign. and i believe the campaign is on track. >> reporter: allen conceded there had been setbacks. the burning of korans at a u.s. base that set off violent protests and killings. and now the massacre of afghan civilians alleged by an american soldier. the general called the incidents tragic but said the mission remains intact.

the current u.s. plan calls for a drawdown of 23,000 american troops by the end of september and a total withdrawal by december 2014 as afghan security forces, known as ansf, take over control. war-weary committee members asked for assurances that would actually happen. >> as we're spending $10 billion a month that we can't even pay for, the chinese, uncle chang is lended us to money to pay that with spending in afghanistan. when does the congress have the testimony that someone will say, we have done all we can do? >> i'll be honest with you now. i'll be honest with that next administration. it's my obligation, it's my moral obligation, to ensure that this force is resourced and that this force is committed into a strategy that i think will work. i believe this strategy will work. this campaign very clearly envisages that the ansf will move to the front and have the lead. the ansf will secure the

population of afghanistan. if i think that's coming off the rails, congressman, i will let you know that. >> reporter: opinion polls show a growing number of americans have lost faith in the afghanistan mission and want the 90,000 u.s. troops there brought home now. some armed services committee members shared that skepticism but general allen insisted the best course is to stick with the drawdown plan that's already being implemented. >> we will still have combat forces in afghanistan all the way to the end. they will be fewer in number, and the nature of the forces will be in many respects advisory in nature, but we can anticipate that the u.s. will be engaged in combat operations in support of the ansf in the lead right to the end of 2014. >> reporter: the general had little to say about robert bales, the u.s. army staff sergeant being investigated in the killings of 16 afghan civilians in two villages. bales now is being held at the u.s. military prison at fort leavenworth kansas where he met yesterday with his

civilian attorney, john henry browne. >> he has some memories of what happened that evening before the alleged incident. then he has some memories after that. the last incident. but he has no memories of what happened in between. i'm beginning to question a lot of the facts we've heard from the government. >> reporter:ore details also emerged about bales's business background. records show he was ordered to pay a $1.5 million judgment for securities fraud in 2003, a debt he still owes. >> woodruff: still to come on >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour, life in prison without parole for teenagers; drug tests for welfare recipients; partisan gamesmanship in washington; america's class structure; plus, condoleezza rice and joel klein on fixing our schools. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: insurgents in iraq killed at least 46 people today in a wave of attacks aimed at shiite pilgrims and police. there were bombings in baghdad, as well as the western city of fallujah, kirkuk in the north,

and karbala in the south, among other places. in kirkuk, a car bomb exploded outside a police station, leaving more than a dozen dead, while in karbala, two car bombs killed 13 iraqis in a busy shopping and dining area. in syria, rebel forces abandoned the eastern city of deir al-zour in the face of government tanks. it was the latest in a series of setbacks for the opposition. meanwhile, government shelling continued in sections of hama and homs. activists reported at least 31 people were killed in the assault. a powerful earthquake shook central and southern mexico today, but the country escaped major damage. the quake had a magnitude of 7.4, and was centered east of acapulco. but it shook buildings well to the north in mexico city. and residents in the capital filled streets, fearing their buildings would collapse. a pedestrian bridge did fall on a minibus, but there were no injuries. france mourned today for the victims of monday's attack on a jewish school in toulouse. we have a report from jonathan rugman of independent television news.

. >> reporter: in a school playground this afternoon, the coffins of three children and a rabbi were loaded to be taken away for burial in far off israel. their murders have shocked france. and sent europe's biggest jewish community reeling after the most deadly anti-smes tick attack france has seen in almost 30 years. jonathan sandler was age 30 and a teacher. his son gabriel was six. his daughter aria just three-and-a-half when they were shot with a colt .45 pistol. also among the dead, miriam, the eight-year-old daughter of the school's head master, and the police don't believe the mystery gunman has finished yet. this corner of southwest france is now under the country's highest state of terrorism alert which means that the authorities here believe that this cold-blooded killer, will strike again unless he's caught first.

the school's camera filmed the killer yesterday. he was using the same weapon as in his previous two attacks. he wore his motorcycle helmet throughout and apparently made his get-away on the same scooter as last week though we understand it's been painted from black to white. president sarkozy has sent his interior minister to toulouse to lead the manhunt. the minister told me he's looking for one man deranged enough to shoot children in the head and to post his motives on the internet. >> according to a witness, he had a video camera on his chest, and the film can be played on a computer and even broadcast on the net. >> reporter: police cars were on guard outside this muslim school this morning. neither the pupils nor their parents needed reminding that a racist killer is on the loose. >> sreenivasan: the victims in

the other attacks were french paratroopers of minority backgrounds. federal and state investigations began today in the death of a black teenager in sanford, florida. 17-year-old trayvon martin was shot and killed last month by george zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain. zimmerman has said he acted in self-defense. but a martin family lawyer said today the teen's girlfriend disputes that account. she says she talked to martin on his cell phone as zimmerman followed. >> he had no intention of getting back in his truck doing what the police instructed him to do. he kept pursuing tray von martin. how do we know? because this young lady connects the dots. she connects the dots. she completely blows zimmerman absurd self-defense claim out of the water. >> sreenivasan: zimmerman has not been charged. but a state grand jury will now review the case, as will the u.s. justice department. illinois was the prize of the day in the republican presidential race, with 54 delegates at stake. mitt romney poured television ad money into the state looking to add to his delegate lead. he already had more than twice as many delegates as rick

santorum, his closest challenger. wall street gave up some ground today, after two reports pointed to a possible slowdown in china. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 69 points to close at 13,170. the nasdaq fell four points to close at 3074. the hunt for amelia rhart ll begin anew this july. american scientists and historians announced today they will explore waters around a remote pacific island. in washington, team leader ric gillespie pointed to recent analysis of a photograph taken shortly after earhart disappeared in 1937. it showed what could be wreckage of her plane's landing gear. >> that was a very important piece of information because it gave us a point last seen. this is where the airplane went into the drink, washed over the edge by rising tides and surf. it gives us a point to start our search.

>> sreenivasan: earhart and her navigator, fred noonan, were trying to fly around the world when they vanished. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: should a 14-year-old convicted of murder be required to spend life in prison without parole? that was the key question at the heart of a pair of cases before the u.s. supreme court today. advocates on both sides spoke outside the courtroom following the arguments. >> i think children are uniquely... they have quintessential qualities and characteristics that a decent society, a maturing society, we believe is constitutionally obligated to recognize and protect. >> he committed a heinous act. he is unremorseful to this day and it's almost nine years later. it was very heinous. when you have sociopathic tendencies and you're not remorseful for your crime then he doesn't deserve to be out. >> ifill: for more on today's arguments case we are joined by marcia coyle of the "national law journal." marcia, let's start by describing evan miller and the two people who were before the urt today. >> these were two separate

cases. mr. miller actually was accused of beating a neighbor in the neighbor's trailer and then setting fire to the trailer and leaving the neighbor to die. he did die from smoke inhalation. the arkansas teenager was involved in a robbery of a video store.... >> ifill: mr. jackson. >> right. mr. jackson. he did not actually kill the salesperson in the video store, a young woman. but under arkansas law he was accused and convicted of felony murder so he received the same sentence. the issue before the court today was, is life in prison without parole for 14-year-old, is it a violation of the 8th amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment? but the lawyer for both teens made clear that that was the least he's asking for. he was arguing today for a categorical ban on that sentence for all juveniles who commit murders when they're

under the age of 18. >> ifill: this wasn't about mur, if this wasn't a capital crime we're talking about, would we be having this conversation? >> no. in fact, this is almost the third in a series of cases that the court has handleded recently involving juveniles in our criminal justice system. in 2005 the court struck down the death penalty for juveniles under the age of 18. just last term the court also found that life in prison without parole for juveniles who do not commit murders violated the 8th amendment of the constitution. so the lawyers for the two juveniles today were saying the reasoning that supported those earlier decisions also support taking life without parole off the table for juveniles who commit murders. >> ifill: do other states have these kinds of laws on the books. >> yes. 39 states have this sentence. this is important because the court, when it looks at the

8th amendment and whether a punishment is cruel and unusual, looks to see if there's a national consensus that such a punishment is cruel and unusual. justice scalia today said, you know, 39 states have it. why should i impose, you know, my judgment on them as to whether it's wrong? >> ifill: if it's not life without parole. what is the other option? life with the option of parole. >> if a state has parole. in fact, that came up. justice scalia asked the lawyers for the juveniles, well, you know, what about 50 years or 60 years? and if we said 60 years would he be back next year arguing that it violates the 8th amendment? mr. stevenson, representing the juveniles said, "well, you know, it would be rather cynical to say... to take the death penalty off the table and then impose a sentence that gets you close to death." >> ifill: and the difference is that you mentioned juveniles. let's define that. are we talking about 14-year-olds or 15-year-olds?

16-year-olds? does it matter. >> it did. in this case it did, in the arguments today the age mattered. as i said, mr. steven senate a minimum wants it off the table for juveniles under the age of 14. and the court seemed to be struggling with a number of scenarios. it explored them. they didn't struggle. first of all there didn't seem to be a lot of interest in a categorical ban for juveniles under the age of 18. when they started quizzing about the age, justice alito said, well, what is the age... where do you draw the line for the constitutional purposes? and mr. stevenson would say under 14. the lawyers for arkansas and alabama said, well, maybe 12. >> ifill: is the argument that younger children or younger teenagers shouldn't be held as accountable as older ones? >> mr. stevenson would say based on the cours earlier decisions in this area that the deficits juveniles have in judgment and maturity are not

crime-specific. it doesn't matter if it's murder or a non-murder crime. those characteristics apply to all juveniles under the age of 18. he said you cannot equate kids with adults. >> ifill: we're talking once again about justice kennedy as being the pivot point but not just because he's the random guy in the middle but because he's actually had a lot to say about these kinds of cases. >> he has. in fact, he wrotehe lt tw decisions involving the juvenile death penalty and life without prison... life in prison without parole for juveniles who do not commit murder. so, yes, he's going to be very pivotal here. the one thing that he seemed concerned about and several other justices as well, justice kagan, justice breyer, many of the laws now that impose life in prison without parole on juvenile murders are mandatory sentences. some of the justices, like justice kennedy, were wondering, well, what is the

justification for this, for saying that a juvenile defendant can't bring up mitigating circumstances? and so they seem to be concerned about that and bothered by that. it may eventually be one of the ways they deal with the case. >> ifill: there is room to say, well, we don't like this idea but we're not going to role it all the way back. we're going to take the mandatory guidelines. >> it is absolutely one of the options. mr. steefernson pointed out that there are about 2300 juveniles serving life in prison without parole. for murders they committed when they were under 18. but there were only 79 who were under age 14. he argued that that was evidence that states, even with these laws, do not want to impose it at least on the youngest of juveniles. >> ifill: fascinating. marcia coyle, as always, thank you so much. >> my pleasure.

>> woodruff: utah passed a law this month requiring those on public assistance to take drug tests. half of the states are considering similar measures. ray suarez reports on the effort in colorado. >> suarez: the day begins early for mimi ortiz. >> what's going on at school today? >> suarez: a mother of three, ortiz has known the hectic life of a single parent since she dropped out of school at 17. >> then i'll be here about 4:30. >> suarez: with no high school diploma, ortiz has worked low- paying jobs and struggled to make ends meet. in january, she decided to apply for welfare benefits known as temporary assistance for needy families. >> i use the cash to pay for my rent, for my lights, my phone. for gas. and that's pretty much it. >> suarez: since the recession

hit and jobs have become more scarce, welfare applications have soared in colorado where mimi ortiz lives. the number of recipients has nearly doubled since 2008. now some states have proposed tightening welfare eligibility, in part to deal with limited state budgets. one emerging favorite: requiring welfare recipients to pass a drug test. at least 25 states put forth proposals this year to require some form of drug testing or drug screening according to the national conference of state legislatures. the bill's sponsor in colorado is representative jerry sonnenberg. >> this population is the population we're trying to get back to work and trying to get them to be productive so they can produce for their family and be better advocates for their family. you can't do that if you're on drugs. it can't get a job if you're on drugs. >> suarez: the issue gained

national attention recently when republican presidential canned... candidate mitt romney endorsed the concept. >> it's a great idea. people who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they're not using those benefits to pay for drugs. i think it's an excellent idea. >> reporter: mimi ortiz replies don't assume i'm a criminal because i'm poor. >> i feel offended because i'm getting welfare. you know, they want to assume that i do drugs. or i drink. and i don't do that at all. i don't have time in my daily life to to do this. >> what's the appropriate way to dress for an interview. >> suarez: like hundreds of welfare recipients ortiz comes to this job training center: center for work, education and employment as part of her welfare-to-work requirement. now after two months ortiz is one test away from her ged. annually more than half these

recipients move on to jobs. the executive director, lori harvey, has worked with single mothers for 30 years. >> they are really putting together an amazing time management and incredible motivation. such an interest in moving forward. so the idea of drug testing just doesn't seem to make any sense to me. >> suarez: the drug testing proposals vary from state to state. in colorado welfare recipients would need to pay for the drug test. if it proves they're clean, they would be reimbursed. but national studies show welfare recipients are actually less likely to abuse drugs than the general population. a fact welfare recipient alexis martinez says is overlooked. >> i can understand they want to know that their tax money dollars are going to something worth it.

but they are labeling us to be people that are drug addicts. i mean we're asking for assistance not judgment. >> suarez: that's exactly the argument made by the american civil liberties union which is challenging the proposals. denise mays is director of public policy for aclu-colorado. >> we find the measure to be unconstitutional search on an individual for no reason, no basis whatsoever. >> it's no different as far as an invasion of privacy as it is is in the private sector or in government as a condition of employment. we have to do drug tests for that. i don't see any difference in having to do drug tests for a condition of your welfare payments. >> suarez: that message has hit a popular note with some in the general public. >> i think they should take a drug test. i think that if, you know, if a drug test is required i think they should take it because, you know, then for

the help they're receiving or whatever will be for the betterment of the child. >> when the economy gets bad, we loofor, you know, the spooky person, and it's always, you know, we're more anti-immigrant. we're more anti-welfare recipients. we're just more anti-poor people generally in times of hard economic times or recessionary periods. that's what we do. it's unfortunate. >> suarez: colorado's proposal, now under review by the appropriations committee, is likely to face an uphill battle in a state with a democratic senate and governor. >> woodruff: we turn now to the on-going gridlock in congress, where house republicans today rolled out their budget and democrats immediately objected. a new election year battle took shape at the u.s. capitol today, this one over the budget. house republicans laid out

their counterproposal to the blueprint that president obama put forward last month. budget committee chairman paul ryan. >> this is the path that we believe reignites and renews the american idea. it reclaims the opportunities for society with a safety net which we do believe must exist for people who cannot help themselves, for people who are done on their luck so they can get back on their feet. but we don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency. >> woodruff: the g.o.p. proposal would slash the deficit by 3.3 trillion dollars over the next decade. that would be on top of the four trillion dollars in savings in the obama budget. among other things, the republicans make substantial reductions in medicaid spending and repeal the president's health care law. they also seek cost savings in medicare, imposing changes for future recipients. those now under age 55.

the full house is expected to vote on the plan next week, but that's as far as it will go. in the senate, the democratic majority leader harry reid made clear today that the house plan faces certain defeat in his chamber. >> we all recognize all that does is make the rich richer and have bigger hits to the middle class. it ruins medicare as we know it. >> woodruff: the obama administration also objected to the republican proposal saying it lacked fairness. white house press secretary jay carney. >> what the ryan plan fails to do is in any way meet the test of balance that every credible person in this debate has said must be met if we are going to deal with our fiscal challenges in the future. >> woodruff: congressman ryan argued that if the republicanli plurns tsenate passed a

two-year bill costing $109 billion with broad bipartisan support. on the house side, speaker john boehner has been unable to line up republican backing for a larger five-year bill. with no agreement in sight, house republican leaders today said they would offer another short-term extension of transportation funding. for for more on what's behind the standoff over the budget and the fight over the transportation bill, we are joined by norman ornstein of the american enterprise institute, co-author of the forthcoming book, "it's even worse than it looks." that's a grim title.

>> we're getting more evidence every day, judy. >> woodruff: norm ornstein, thank you for being with us again. peel the layers back for us. what's behind what has led congress yet again to be at this state. >> well, we're facing as close to real gridlock as we've seen in a very long period of time. a good part of it is an overall sense we have parties acting like parliamentary parties. what paul ryan's budget put out was a partisan attempt to put a marker out there. we don't have a parliamentary system. when you have divided government, it means that you come to a stop. at the same time if we look at the transportation issue, we've got some of the old things we've seen which is the house and senate differ often as much as the two parties do. here we have a different vision of what to do with transportation. a broad bipartisan majority, 74 votes in the senate, passing the bill to do highways and mass transit. and the house republicans disagree with their own senate republican counterparts as much as they do with the

democrats. >> woodruff: is this any different from what we've seen over the last few years where they haven't been able to agree on much of anything? >> what we had in the first two years of the obama administration was a parliamentary system working in a sense where democrats without republican votes passed a major share of legislative accomplishments. >> woodruff: when the democrats were in charge. >> the democrats were in charge of everything. in a parliamentary culture everybody accepts the legitimacy of it. if it's not done in a broad bipartisan way half the country still believes it's legitimate. we've gone from a spate of accomplishments to no accomplishments at all. >> woodruff: talk about what's going on in reverse order. the transportation bill which we mentioned. as i understand it, there has not been a transportation bill passed by congress that's been funded except in a temporary manner for the last five years. what's going on there? >> reporter: you know, we simply have different party visions of what to do with

transportation. that means infrastructure more broadly. how are we going to fund it? we fund it through a highway trust fund that is gasoline taxes. an unwillingness to raise those taxes, even to take into account inflation, has put that into jeopardy. we have questions about whether we're going to fund mass transit in that fashion and an attempt to cut back dramatically overall but with the party differences, we have not been able to get anything done. remember, the federal aviation administration dead lock that resulted in a partial shutdown was a similar ten onnone. what this means is that any attempt to do long-term planning out in the local areas is foiled. now we're going to get yet another short-term extension and very little likelihood that we'll come to an agreement next month. >> woodruff: what's happening in the house though? as we mentioned speaker boehner trying to get some agreement here. he's having difficulty even with his own republicans who have a 50-seat majority there. >> the house republicans have put out a transportation bill that basically cuts mass transit funding off from a

steady stream of revenue from the highway trust fund. even conservatives from urban areas are not terribly happy with that. at the same time, even though the house bill has about a third less funding for these highway measures than the senate bill does, many conservatives think it's still too much money being t there. he can't keep his own party together on this one. he's unwilling to do a bill. that includes the senate bill that if it came to the floor might 218 votes. it will probably have more democrats supporting it than republicans. >> woodruff: is there a similar dynamic at work with the paul ryan proposals which the democrats have already said no. >> one element of the ryan budget reflects some of the distinction we haven't talked about. at the insistence of conservatives, fresh menace well as some of the more conservative senior members, they've cut spending in the discretionary areas the non-into it. ment programs below the deal that was reached on the debt limit last year. that's going to cause another

potential shutdown in the government its breaking a bargain that all the leaders agreed to. house republicans said we only set a ceiling. we didn't set a floor. but even mitch mcconnell has said that that was the deal. to mollify his own base, boehner and paul ryan have had to go along with something that will probably get the 218 votes in the house but is not going to get anywhere. >> woodruff: what's at the bottom of this? is one party more at fault here than the other one? >> we have both parties that have acted in this fashion but the fact is it's asymmetric polarization, judy. right now what we've seen is an unwillingness by a minority party to find us a party that doesn't hold the white house, the republicans, to provide any votes for anything that president obama would support. and an attempt to repeal what was done in the first couple of years of the administration. so at this point, the balance has clearly tilted more in one direction than the other. >> woodruff: and you were saying earlier today, yes, this always happens in an election yea

you'reaying this year it's even worse. >> we always get an attenuated process. in a presidential elect year there's a natural tendency to tread water and wait. but there are things that need to be done. with the weak economy you want to do something in infrastructure and make sure we can keep things going. real gridlock in this case shouldn't be the rule of the day. but it is right now. and the unwillingness of the parties to try and figure out how you can reach any common ground, even to lay out markers that are so far apart is a sign of a different time. >> woodruff: and the prospect for anything changing. >> well, in december at the end of december after the election but before a president is inaugurated we have a perfect storm. we have all the bush tax cuts expiring. the deal that we reached on the payroll tax cut and is expiring. we have the sequesters taking effect and possibly another debt limit vote. all hell could break loose in december and maybe that results in a jar and people do

something or maybe it gets even worse than it looks. >> woodruff: a lot to look forward to. norman ornstein, thank you very much. >> thank you, udy. >> ifill: next, the author of a new bestseller talks with newshour economics correspondent paul solman about the economic plight and social values of working-class americans. the book is already receiving a heated reception. the discussion is part of paul's ongoing reporting, "making sense of financial news." >> it's not when you say this. we're losing a lot of what has made america exceptional as we become increasingly a class society in which a big chunk of the people on the bottom no longer behave in the ways that are essential for a self governing free society. >> reporter: conservative lightning rod charles murray who wrote "losing ground" in 1984, blasting welfare

programs for making poverty worse. he co-wrote the bell curve in 1994, arguing that economic success comes increasingly from genetic differences in i.q. both books offended blacks in particular. he returns to these themes in his latest best seller "coming apart," which restricts its scrutiny to white people to emphasize the issue of class not race. >> we have developed classes in this country that are different in kind from anything we have known before. >> reporter: the new super smart, super educated upper class is out of touch, says murray. tough to weigh in exclusive zip codes he calls the super zips but murray reserves his actual anxiety for the 30% at the bottom. >> we have a new lower class that's large and growing that has fallen away from a lot of the basic core behaviors and institutions that made america work. >> reporter: that's because,

he argues, they're less honest, less religious, less responsible than white working class people were half a century ago. violent crime, for example, way up. at least as measured by arrest rates. >> in 1960, it was still no nostalg heran age when you could leave your door unlocked even in urban neighborhoods, even after the reductions in crime that we've seen since the 1990s, you're still at about four to five times the level of violent crime in these neighborhoods that you had before. >> reporter: regular worship meanwhile way down. >> if you define sort of the core religious population as being people who go to church regularly and say they have a strong affiliation with their faith, you're down to 12%. in the white working class who have that kind of relationship to religion. >> reporter: but perhaps the widest gap over the past 50 years, says murray, is in marriage rates.

>> is collapse too strong a word? i'm not sure but it's really close to that. 1960 you have about 94% of the upper mid. class whites who are married compared to 83% of the white working class. it's the norm. in both groups. you turn to 2010. you're still at 84% for the upper middle class. >> reporter: 84% married. >> right. for the white working class you're down to 48%. >> reporter: according to murray, nearly half of all white working class kids are now born to single moms. who look at the dads and say, why should i marry these losers? you know, the guy who impregnated me was a nice guy but he can't hold on to a job. >> reporter: that's because of a final piece of murray's dreary data. over the past 50 years, lower- rung white males have left the labor force. >> 1960, guys are supposed to work.

that is as universal a social norm as there is. you don't work, you're a bum. and just about everybody either did work or was looking for work. turned to 2008, before the recession, you're up to about one out of eight white working class males, ages 30 to 49 is not even looking for work. >> reporter: as with murray's previous books, the coverage has often been withering, and the main critique is that he's left out the most important factor in working class decline. economics. on the left, joan walsh mocked murray's insistence on culture overeconomics claiming her next book will be called "coming together: how the white working class woke up and realized the right thinks they're dumb and lazy too." on the right, david fromm asked how can you tell a story about the moral decay of the working class with the work part left out?

>> what murray is saying coming apart, you know, these people are dissole out. >> as opposed to rich people. >> reporter: the deputy chief of staff at the afl-cio. >> go to any private school in washington d.c., you know, take the level of drug use, you know at private high schools. look at bernie madoff. i'm just trying to get my head around this idea of morality being the purview of the wealthy, the elite and the intellectually accomplished. >> reporter: besides, says lee.... >> if you look at the big economic picture in the united states, it's one of a weak labor market, wage stagnation, and growing inequality. the u.s. economy is in a dead end right now because there's been too much focus on cutting costs, cutting labor costs, laying people off, making due with less. in the end what you see is an economy that's shrinking, that's failing, that's not providing a middle class lifestyle.

>> reporter: you really think it has nothing to do with all the jobs that have been shipped overseas and more importantly perhaps the technology that has made so many jobs obsolete? >> i don't see the relationship between the changing nature of the distribution of working class jobs and the increased dropout from labor force. it's not as if assembly line jobs were so much fun and the jobs that are available now are so much less fun that you are discouraged from taking those jobs. >> reporter: they paid more. they paid way more. >> you aren't going to fix it. by bringing back unionized assembly line jobs. >> reporter: instead, murray advocates cultural changes, encouraging the lower class to emulate the more virtuous behavior of those above. who might as well living on another planet. so clueless have they become about what's going on in the rest of the culture. >> you have a quiz in the book. how thick is your bubble. >> reporter: a quiz which you can take on our making sense

website measures upper class familiarity with working class america. >> have you ever held a job that caused a body part to hurt at the end of the day? because my feeling is if you because my feeling is if you can't answer yes to that question, you are in big trouble in trying to understand the country you live in. >> reporter:hough murray, harvard grad, m.i.t. ph.d., qualifies as what he calls an o.e.s., an overeducated elitist snob, he grew up solidly in the middle in small town iowa, nothing whiter he's called it. and he stayed close to mainstream america. since 1989 he has lived in tiny burkettsville, maryland, way outside the washington beltway. the nearest town of any size, brunswick, where murray and his wife sent their kids to public school. i told him i had one final line of questioning. he suggested we stop in at

mommer's diner to discuss it. to use so many of the rewards in our society come from talent, which is to a large extent inate, right? >> right in the second half. the first half, which says so many of the rewards in our society come from talent, you're talking about money, yeah. but if you're talking about rewards in life meaning deep satisfactions in life-- vocation, that is, having a job that you find satisfying and marriage and religiosity and community, which are as accessible to people on the bottom of society as the top-- those are still there as potential rewards. >> reporter: since murray denies that the lack of economic rewards are the cause of cultural decline, he is not pushing any government economics solutions. >> it's a very well verified social science finding that government programs don't do a good job at solving the human problems that i'm discussing. >> reporter: so murray says the upper crust should try to share

their-- or perhaps i should say our-- superior virtues with those who have lost them. >> we have right now an upper class that will not say out loud-- as elites really need to do in any society-- this is a good way to live. this doesn't mean they're passing laws. it doesn't mean they're forcing people. they are setting a standard. >> how do we do that exactly? do the people just wander into a poor neighborhood and start instructing people in how to not have sex before marriage or.... >> reporter: again, the afl-cio representative. >> i'm trying to imagine the picture of the wealthy elite sharing the benefit of their knowledge and superior situation with the less fortunate. that just not be that much fun. >> the way that social norms become social norms is not through any systematic process.

it is through a flowering of an understanding within a culture. here's the good news, paul. i think these are ideas whose time has come. >> reporter: with the coming of "coming apart," ideas that charles murray is doing everything he can to propagate. >> ifill: find out if you're living in a bubble by taking the quiz on our web site's home page. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the tie between educating our children and national security. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: it's by now a familiar warning. our public schools are not adequately educating our children. a new report put out by the council on foreign relations frames the risk in a global context. impacting both our economic and military might. among its recommendations, expanding a core curriculum in

school districts across the country beyond an emphasis on reading and math to include more science, technology, history and foreign languages. offer students more choice and competition to public schools and launch a tional secury readiness audit to raise awareness and hold schools accountable. the 30-member task force was headed by former secretary of state condoleezza rice and former new york city schools chancellor joel klein. condoleezza rice, welcome. >> thank you. >> brown: secretary rice, why as a national security issue. make it con sdplet what's the specific impact you see in education? >> it's broader than what you can do with your military forces obviously, but even there when it comes to the very tangible assets that the united states needs to defend itself, the education of people who can be soldiers, too many people can't qualify for military service.

>> brown: simply can't qualify? >> simply can't qualify when it comes to foreign service or intelligence agent seize or to the ability to have people who can think about the problems of cyber warfare and cyber security and critical infrastructure protection. then, of course, there's the matter of the competitiveness of our economy. people who can fill the jobs and be the innovators of the future so the united states maintains its economic edge. and then finally the matter of our social cohesion. the united states, we've always been held together by the belief that it doesn't matter where you came from. it matters where you're going. that is absolutely without education we cannot maintain that cohesion. >> brown: i heard you talk about that this morning. the social cohesion part. we're sitting here, your report comes out at a time where there's a lot of sense that the game is a little rigged, that the public life is unfair. in education as well. >> absolutely. that's what i think while the secretary made a number of key points, i think both of us feel

very strongly that one of the great threats to our national security is social cohesion. if people believe the game is rigged, if people no longer believe that you can start out anywhere and end up at the top successfully, in america, that the american dream is part of the past, i think that erodes sense of belief and confidence in our nation. it makes us inward looking. it makes us envious of other people. all the kinds of things that we have avoided as a people. if that turns against us, then i think our national security will be affected. >> today thed sad fact is that for the children who have the fewest options, the educational system is not delivering. if i can look at your zip code and i can tell whether you're going to get a good education, we've got a real problem. >> brown: you feel you can do that? >> i think increasingly if you

are a child in difficult circumstances, the neighborhood school may simply not be the answer any longer. >> brown: there have been many reports. are you seeing something that has happened that has raised the bar here or raised the alarm level? what's the level of risk that you want us to hear? >> i think we should raise the alarm level. i think the level of risk is such that when a secretary of state calls this out as a national security issue, as a major national security issue, i think we need to stop thinking this is somehow a narrow education problem and we'll be fine. when you ask about social cohesion, these are big, big issues. for the first time more parents think their lives are better than their kids. that's not a winning formula when the secretary talks, boast of us feel deeply about this because it's our own life experience. i grew up in public housing to a family where nobody went to college. it's because of a teacher in queens who changed my entire life. >> brown: if you say there's a crisis, what do we do? you go and you've offered a series of things, most of which have been much discussed, more emphasis on core curriculum, common standards across the u.s., more choice for students. what is new beyond putting it into a national security rubric?

>> putting it into a national security rubric shouldn't be underestimated because it's very easy if it's just about my child. and my child can get a good education because i can either put that child in private school or i can move to a community where the schools are good. then i don't have to worry so much about that child in east oakland or in south central l.a. or in anacostia for that matter who won't get a good education. when you say this is a national security problem, then it is a common problem for all of us. >> brown: of course that wades into debates you've been having for a long time, right? i noted that one of the task force members, randy wine garthen, head of one of the largest teacher unions, she says on the one hand you say a major public crisis. then you're taking steps, in her view, that undermine the public school system. >> i don't think so. i think this is both the power of the report, in other words, you're used to seeing these reports that have 50 different

recommendations. pretty much you know game over. it just doesn't work that way. so this report focuses on a couple of core levers. the whole nationalization of the standards through the common core. what it means to be an educated american is a powerful idea. countries that succeed have that. but this thing of choice which you're right has been a big debate, there are two things i think that are significant about this report. one is a wide range of people from a wide range of backgrounds. they have come together. with a very few krepgss they have put a lot of emphasis on this choice notion. second of all, i actually think the public schools get better when they face competition. most people get better when they face competition. one of the things that the secretary said from the beginning, which i really think

is so powerful, is we're not every other country. and models that work elsewhere may not have the same impact here. but in america, what makes us so successful is the innovation, the competition, the focus on merit. all of those things have been absent from the k-12 system. so every viewer you have watching this show wants choice for his or her kid. i don't know anyone who didn't want a choice for his or her kid. >> brown: one of the things that i don't see emphasized is at least explicitly is money. resources you talk about, but money. one wonders where does that all fit in at a time like this where we're a little scrunched for it? >> the interesting thing is if you look at some of the aspects of the report we've actually increased dramatically over the last several decades the amount of money that is going into the public school system. it's quite dramatic, in fact. yet some of the poorest performing districts are the ones that have the highest per capita per child spending. i believe very strongly in adequately resourcing our educational system. i would never want to underresource it. but we have to spend the money wisely.

you are not going to get americans to think about additional funding even for the k-12 system when we have the kinds of results that we do in the school districts that spend the most money. it doesn't make sense. so one thing that we say is let's really look at problems of misallocation. >> brown: let me ask you finally. you've both spent time here in washington. we're in a political season. if you could wave your magic wand-- and i must say you don't hear a lot of talk about education so far in the campgn. if you could wave a magic wand and joel klein i'll start with you, what would you want to hear? what would you want to have done? >> one thing i would want to hear, for example, in the debates that are now going on, i would want to hear reporters asking questions about what are you going to do to address the issues of cohesion in this country? what are you going to do to make sure that a kid regardless of where she grows up gets an equal shot at the american dream. how are you going to fix a broken education system. in the report we point out that on global tests americans out of

the industrial countries, come in 27th or so forth. why aren't ou presidential candidates and our national leaders talking about those issues and saying we have a lot of short-term issues to deal with, but there's no more important issue to the long-term future of this country than education. we have got to get a populace that sustains its interest long enough to get through the sound bite into the substance. >> it can't be the case that we are so undereducating our children that large numbers of them cannot-- maybe 75%-- cannot be capable of serving in our military. what are we doing? and what are you going to do about it? i would like to hear... i would like to hear the common core endorsed and the governors continuing to work on it. whatever the specifics, i want to know that those who lead us know that this may indeed be our greatest national security challenge. >> brown: condoleezza rice, joel

klein. thank you. >> woodruff: online, we've posted all of the commission's report. plus, watch what rice and klein have to say about funding for arts programs in schools. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. the top commander in afghanistan told a congressional committee that the plan to hand over security to afghans remains on track, despite serious setbacks. a powerful earthquake shook central and southern mexico. officials reported hundreds of homes were damaged. you can follow today's illinois republican primary results online all night. hari sreenivasan takes you there. >> sreenivasan: we'll post up- to-the-minute results in our map center later tonight. plus, patchwork nation explores how voters in cities and suburbs may shape tod's vote. on our politics page, kwame profiles two governors in neighboring states, a democrat in maryland and a republican in virginia. 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 talk with retiring u.s. senators olympia snowe and jeff bingaman.

i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org