captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: president obama pushed back against republican criticism of his health care reform law, insisting that it's working and cutting costs for consumers. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the "newshour" tonight, we dive into the numbers and ask: is the affordable care act driving premiums up or down? >> woodruff: then, at least 23 children are dead in india after eating school lunches that may have been tainted with insecticide. we examine what went wrong. >> brown: a prominent russian

opposition leader is behind bars tonight. we look at how the conviction of alexei navalny is reverberating in russia and here in the u.s. >> woodruff: a connecticut school district is wrestling with the best way to teach spanish-speaking students. special correspondent john tulenko reports on their debate. >> a basic truth in teaching is that you start with what your students know, whether that's spanish, german, polish, and you build on that. >> ♪ happy birthday, tata! happy birthday, tata! ♪ >> brown: and former south african president nelson mandela turned 95 years old today. we have the story of celebrations and tributes in his homeland and around the world. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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>> brown: much of the public remains skeptical or unaware, an important component has been delayed, and republicans continue their attempts to derail it. but president obama again today offered a strong defense of his signature healthcare reform law. his remarks came as deadlines approach for its implementation. president obama ratcheted up his campaign to sell the healthcare law today, in a speech in the east room of the white house. >> the affordable care act is doing what it's designed to do: deliver more choices, better benefits, a check on rising costs and higher-quality health care. >> brown: the president highlighted a relatively obscure part of the law, which he himself now regularly refers to as obamacare, that requires insurers to spend 80% of premium dollars on medical care or send rebates to their customers. >> i bet if you took a poll,

most folks wouldn't know when that check comes in that this was because of obamacare. ( laughter ) that they got this extra money in their pockets. but that's what's happening. >> brown: today's speech was part of a broader effort to sell the law. that comes amid continuing criticism from republicans and worry from some supporters about its implementation. one of the law's central components-- health insurance exchanges-- begin to open october 1. >> new online marketplaces will allow consumers to go online and compare private health care insurance plans, just like you'd compare over the internet the best deal on flat-screen tvs or cars or any other product that is important to your lives. and you're going to see competition in ways that we haven't seen before. >> brown: the president chose not to address the decision earlier this month to delay the insurance employer mandate until

2015. other major parts of the law-- such as an individual mandate and new subsidized insurance exchanges-- will still take effect as scheduled. but opponents have seized on the delay as a sign of greater problems with the law. yesterday, the republican-led house voted to delay the individual mandate that requires americans to get coverage next year or pay a penalty. house speaker john boehner spoke yesterday. >> this is about basic fairness. to say that, well, we're going to... we're going to relax this mandate for a year on american business, but we're going to continue to stick it to individuals and families is strictly, and simply, unfair to the american people. >> all those in favor... >> brown: the house vote marked at least the 38th time republicans have tried to eliminate or scale back the affordable care act. republican representative luke messer of indiana: >> obamacare is not working.

the american people know that. now it seems that president obama knows that, too. the presidents unilateral decision to violate the law and delay the employer mandate, postpone some of he laws worst damages for business, fundamental fairness dictates that individuals get the same reprieve. >> brown: yesterday's vote came on the same day new york state announced its insurance premiums on the individual market are expected to drop 50%. today, the obama administration put out its own report on the expected cost of premiums once the new exchanges take effect. it concluded that ten states, plus the district of columbia, would be able to offer monthly premiums that will be 18% lower than initially projected by the congressional budget office. those estimates were for a lower cost plan that would run about $320 a month for an individual.

but other states have come up with very different and higher numbers. last week, ohio issued its own estimate: it reported the average individual market health insurance plan would jump 88% next year. the question of how much insurance will cost is a crucial one for the success of the law. we explore the issue further with jonathan gruber, an economist at the massachusetts institute of technology. he worked with the administration on the health reform law and is a key architect of the massachusetts law. and avik roy, senior fellow at the manhattan institute. he served as mitt romney's health care adviser, during the 2012 presidential campaign. >> welcome to both of you. jonathan gruber, starting as a sort of general starting point is there a simple answer as to whether the health reform law will lower or raise premiums? >> there's never a simple answer with something as complicated as health care but there's a three-part answer. for the first part is most

americans who have private health insurance who get it from their large employers nothing changes. the second part of the answer is from the second largest groups, those who get insurance from small providers. they won't see the preesms jump 50% in the year because somebody gets sick. on average they will say rates stay the same, some will go up some will come down but basically stay the same. the third group is individuals. the effect of individuals will vary largely across states. it will depend on the individual market. what we will see on average the premiums in individual states will go up but that will be offset by the fact that the affordable care act includes tax credits to cover the cost of health insurance. after you factor in tax credits premiums will go down on average. >>brown: i want to ask avik roy.

you are still going to see insurance rates go up because insurance rates go up every year. something the affordable care act doesn't do that much to dent. in the individual market he's right that certain states will do okay because they are highly regulated already, they are regulated much like the affordable care act regulates the entire country. but in lightly regulated states such as california, where today an individual say 40 years old can buy an insurance plan that is relatively good, for $94 a year, there will be a certain slice of low income individuals who will benefit, but there's the majority will not even if you get a partial subsidy your rates will still go up and if you're not eligible for subsidy you get hit twice. not only does your insurance rate goes up but you are funding the subsidies to other people. >>brown: jontd gruber, you were

starting to talk about differences in other states. >> look, the idea of insurance is that the healthy contribute more than they expect to get at the end of the year. the sick collect more than they contributed and over time we are both healthy and sick so it all evens out. the problem is you can't get insurance to work that way in the private market. because if you just leave the private market alone what happens is insurance companies don't want the sick guys right? they just want the healthy guys. they seclude the sick from coverage and the healthy gets very skimpy coverage. the plan that avik mentioned is not good coverage. what happens states that are not regulated end up with insurance that the sick can't get it and healthy get very skimpy plans. the result will be the sick and healthy will pay same price. some will pay more. i think it's a minority of

people. from my estimates once you factor in tax credits, individuals will pay more and two-thirds will pay less. >>brown: avik row, you said $94 a month i think as opposed to a year? >> $94 a month, a 44-year-old, single and childless. >>brown: let me ask you about the impact of tax credits that jonathan gruber was talking about. to what degree does it offset any rise of premiums? >> yes two actuaries looked into this in the magazine, they estimated that if you are between 20 and 30 years of age, 80% of people even despite the impact of subsidies will see increases and for people who are 30 to 40 it's about 30 to 40% of people will still see increases despite subsidies. the subsidies will have impacts for some people but other people will have substantial rises. here is the thing. jonathan has this framework, the

deal with insurance, healthy people pay more, sick people pay less. that's another way to think of insurance, but as car insurance, i want to protect myself if i get into a collision or my car gets stolen but i don't want to subsidize, i don't want my rairtsz to go higher because drunk drivers are crashing their cars all the time. if insurance is a bad deal for me i have more of an incentive to drop out of the market, despite the factors in the law that try to dragoon people in. >>brown: jonathan gruber feel free to respond to that but i do want to clarify to both of you just so the audience understands, the population we're talking about in all of this right? do we agree on that of the size of the population and who is affected? >> yes. i mean the population is first of all it's those who buy individual insurance now who's really affected, that is currently about 7% of the u.s.

population. second of all of the nonelderly population, second of all it's the young healthyy group of the individuals that are not poor about a third of that group. we're talking about something like 2.5% of people, may go up on the order of that. >> i would add something. brown: go ahead. which if you look at the congressional budget office's estimates and you add up all the people that the budget office projects will be shopping for insurance on their own it adds up to about 77 million people by 2016. so it is a substantial number of people. not just those who buy insurance today on the individual market it's the people who are uninsured who should be buying insurance on the market, because they think it's a raw deal or for some other reason. >>brown: and jonathan things are starting to kick in and we are getting closer to fuller implementation. what are the key uncertainties here as we try to figure out

what's going to happen? what are you looking for? >> well i think there's really two big source of uncertainty. the biggest source of uncertainty is the issue of the medicaid expansion. state policy makers are making absolutely short sighted, really stupid decisions, leaving millions of americans without health insurance coverage and adding confusion in implementation because if i go to an exchange tomorrow or in january and my income is 99% of the poverty line, they say sorry you're out of luck. if i'm 100% of the poverty line i get great subsidies. i think that's a source of uncertainty. second sense of uncertainty, understanding the benefits of the law, the misinformation passed out that's going to confuse people, unless people could understand what's in store for them. >>brown: and avik row, what uncertainty would you see?

>> whether or not a healthy and young people would sign up for the insurance under the aca exchanges. you heard the president give the speech not for, not like the new york insurance market today where insurance cost $800, $900 a month for people, it's unaffordable for people and drop out of the market. young and healthy people will see this as a raw deal and i think correctly, and not sign up for the subsidy where they are spending a lot more for the insurance to subsidize people who don't benefit directly. >>brown: jonathan gruber just one more word on the young and healthy people. >> it's critical that the young and healthy sign up. i think they will and i think many of them will get tax credits. >>brown: jonathan gruber and

avik roy thank you very much. >> woodruff: you can watch all of president obama's remarks and speaker boehner's on our "newshour" you-tube channel. and still to come on the "newshour": contaminated school lunches in india; a jail sentence for an opposition leader in russia; a debate over teaching in english or spanish and a birthday celebration for nelson mandela. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: detroit declared bankruptcy today, the largest american city ever to do so. the city's state-appointed emergency manager made the filing with a federal judge. it would let him liquidate assets in a bid to pay off creditors and city pensioners. those parties have rejected a fiscal restructuring plan that would have paid them pennies on the dollar. a new, bi-partisan has deal surfaced in the senate, on student loans. it's the latest attempt to rescind a doubling of interest rates on federally subsidized stafford loans. the compromise would tie rates to financial markets, as republicans wanted.

for now, the rates for under- graduate loans would fall back below 4%. maine independent angus king praised the agreement today. >> people signing up for loans in the next month for college this year are going to pay about half of what they would have paid if the law had stayed as it was. we were able to come together, talk to each other, listen to each other, and find not only a compromise solution, but a good compromise solution. >> holman: the rates could rise over time. undergraduate rates would be capped at 8.25%-- something democrats demanded. the bipartisan deal is expected to reach the senate floor in the coming days. the house already has passed student loan legislation that also ties loan rates to the markets. the senate confirmed two more members of president obama's second term cabinet today. a party-line vote cleared thomas perez to be the new secretary of labor. he's currently head of the justice department's civil rights division.

later, gina mccarthy won confirmation as administrator of the environmental protection agency. the votes followed this week's agreement between democrats and republicans to end delays on nominees for top administration posts. in jordan, secretary of state john kerry heard the sharp criticism of angry syrian refugees who demanded stronger action against the syrian regime. kerry sat down with six refugees living in the zaatari camp, where 115,000 syrians have taken shelter. they insisted the u.s. and the international community establish a no-fly zone and safe havens inside syria. the meeting lasted 40 minutes, and kerry said he promised to relay the complaints to washington. >> i think they are frustrated and angry at the world for not stepping in and helping. i think there are and i explained to them i don't think it's as cut and dry and as simple as some of them look at it.

but if i were in their shoes i would be looking for help from wherever i could find it. in washington today, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, army general martin dempsey, said he's laid out options for president obama on using u.s. military power in syria. republican senator john mccain pressed dempsey to say what he would do, but the general declined. >> the decision to use force is the decision of our elected officials. >> you know, i just ask the chairman-- just asked you if you would give your personal opinion to the committee if asked. you said yes. i' m asking for your opinion. >> about the use of kinetic strikes? that issue is under deliberation inside of the-- our agencies of government, and it would be inappropriate for me to try to influence the decision with me rendering an opinion in public about what kind of force we should use. >> holman: afterward, mccain said dempsey must share his recommendations with the committee and he'll block dempsey's nomination for a

second term as chairman of the joint chiefs, until he gets an answer. a military judge refused today to dismiss a charge of aiding the enemy, against army private first class bradley manning. it's the most serious of 21 charges in manning's court- martial, for leaking of reams of classified documents to wikileaks. if he's found guilty on that count, manning could serve life in prison without parole. a southern california wildfire still is growing, after forcing 6000 people from their homes. the fire has burned across 35 square miles southeast of los angeles. residents from the town of idyllwild packed up yesterday, as the blaze threatened more than 4,100 homes, cabins and hotels. by today, it was only 15% contained. the u.s. credit rating got a boost today. moody's investors service upgraded the outlook for federal debt from negative to stable. it cited data showing the government is on track to record its lowest deficit in five years. on wall street today, the dow

jones industrial average gained 78 points to close at 15,548. the nasdaq rose one point to close at 3,611. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: the reverberations continued today in northeastern india from yesterday's news of the sudden deaths of young schoolchildren from eating contaminated food. angry protesters today demanded the resignation of the chief minister of india's bihar state. crowds burned an effigy in their rage over the deaths of 23 children who'd eaten a contaminated free lunch at school. while relatives of one victim gathered around a fresh grave. >> ( translated ): we are angry with the school authorities because they fed my child such food that he died, that is why we buried him in front of the school. >> woodruff: families rushed children to the hospital tuesday, within hours after they'd had a meal of rice, potatoes and soy.

today, a top state official said the rice might have been tainted with insecticide, and investigators found an insecticide container in the cooking area. one of the cooks fell ill, as well, and one told authorities the cooking oil had looked odd, but the principal ordered her to use it anyway. the principal fled after children began getting sick, and police are still looking for her. india's national education minister also promised a thorough investigation of the free school lunch program, which feeds almost 120 million children. >> i think the focus should be to see that it does not occur again and of course responsibility will be pinned on what has gone wrong and who is responsible for it but that apart, it is an important and integral part of the schooling system, which gives those minimum nutrients to our

minimum nutrients to our children. >> woodruff: the incident has already become a political issue. opposition leaders visited one hospital today, and complained about the emergency response. >> ( translated ): the doctors have been saying that had the children been evacuated to patna, which is about 80 possibly many lives could have been saved. >> woodruff: dozens of children remain hospitalized, most now in stable condition. for more on how this could have happened, i'm joined by arvind subramanian of the peterson institute, where he's an expert on indian economic growth, trade and development. arvind subramanian welcome back to the newshour. 23 children dead. how could this have happened? >> well, judy, you know the irony is this is one of the more successful programs in india, the midday meal scheme and because it was so successful the supreme court in 2001 actually named it mandatory for all states to do that. but that being said you know this kind of thing requires good

administration to deliver. so what's obviously happened is some combination of negligence, incompetence and also corruption, frankly. >>woodruff: who's in charge of this program? we said it's a national program, 120 million program. who runs it? >> but it's actually administered not just by the state but in this case it's actually administered at the school level. the local government provides the food. and the schools in fact hire people to cook it. and it turns out in this case that the oil was contaminated. now, that was in part negligence. it also turns out that actually the groceries were bought from the store which was owned by the principal's husband. and they both disappeared. so there's also something there fishy going on. so maybe the supplies were not very good either. >>woodruff: tell us about regulations. how much in india or in this region, this behar state are

there regulations how food should be handled in schools and other public institutions? >> in all this it depends very much on how good the local administration is. and what kind of accountability there is of these officials, and the school who are implementing this. now behar is a state where regulation is not -- this is not a byword for good regulation in the state. it has better than traditionally lawless. there has been a lot of corruption but the last eight, nine years it turned around. irony is it turned around, the chief executive, natish kumar has actually been very able and his government is showing good governance but in this case things go wrong. >>woodruff: and yet we saw people marching in the street calling for him to be removed from office. >> the question is you know this will disappear in a few years. but do we have stronger accountability mechanisms to

ensure this won't happen again. that is weak in a state like behar. >>woodruff: we heard complaints that the children died in their parents' arms on the way to the hospital to get medical care. what kind of system are we talking about? >> very weak, very weak judy because even finding a place with a hospital with enough doctors and enough supplies is a big problem. many of these children were transported in motorcycles by their parents trying to scramble to find some kind of facility where three would have some basic care and that wasn't easy. so you know one part of the story is also about how weak the indian medical system is and how weak health delivery is in places like behar. >>woodruff: let me understand again. the preparation of food is purely handled at the local level, there is no set of rules and regulations that say that food have to be inspected, the containers have to be inspected?

>> no there are regulations, there's wung thing in the law how well it's respected how well it's implemented. depends on local administration officials. >>woodruff: tell me about india's food supply. is it a matter of food being scarce and difficulty of getting it into the schools and the school system or is it a matter of distribution? >> right. you know, the irony now, of course that india is sitting on something like 70 to 80 million tons of stocks of unused food. >>woodruff: unused food? yeah, it's just piling up you know. often the rats are eating it up and it's a lot of food, the food scarcity is not the issue. the issue is you know when this gets supplied to schools here how well they're kind of used in cooking, the quality of the food, often the quality is not great because they've been lying around for such a long time. so it's all about how good governance is, how good the capacity is at the local level

to actually do the things that the law requires them to do. >> you said a few minutes ago that in a few days this may be forgotten. why do you say this? is not something like this -- couldn't it provide an impetus for the state for the country to tighten up these regulations and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again? >> you know this program had a record of lots of things going wrong in the past in different states. and i just think that this is not seen as a big enough kind of calamity to gall vannize action. this is kind -- galvanize action. this is yet another kind of incidence of poor mismanagement, corruption, in parts of issue that never had a good reputation for good governance. >>woodruff: losing 23 young children and dozens in the hospital that's not seen as a clament? >> i wish i could say honestly this could be seen as a clament

enough to -- calamity enough to spur action. i'm not so sure judy, to be honest. >>woodruff: why? because it all finally boils down to what are the pressures on these politician he and officials to be accountable. what pressure is there on them? you know because we have had much worse, you know, cases of calamities in india, flood, famines, chronic malnutrition. we did stories of power shortages in india. in the scale of things it seems odd to say that this doesn't rise up to the level of something that i think politicians would really respond to with the kind of vigor that this requires. >>woodruff: sobering, arvind subramanian, thank you very much. >> brown: in russia today, a court convicted and gave a five year sentence to a leading

member of the opposition movement. ray suarez has the story. >> suarez: the guilty verdict for alexei navalny and his co- defendant, pyotr ofitserov, was all but certain this morning. >> ( translated ): the court concludes that the guilt of navalny and ofitserov in this circumstances is proven in full. and the court and sentences him to five years of prison. >> suarez: and with that russia's most prominent voice challenging president vladmir putin was transformed into a convicted criminal. navalny was convicted of embezzling $500,000 worth of timber from a state-owned firm in kirov, in 2009. but the lawyer-turned-muckraker claimed the case was really reprisal for his crusade against corruption and for organizing against putin and his united russia party. navalny had famously dubbed it "the party of crooks and thieves." the judge rejected any claim of political bias. >> ( translated ): navalny's defense has not given a single

piece of evidence that people involved in investigation of this criminal case or people providing expert opinions were biased in any way. >> suarez: but outside the entire proceeding was a set-up. >> ( translated ): the verdict was copied from the prosecution statement word for word in some places, everything created in the depths of the investigative committee was voiced today by the court. >> suarez: navalny became a leader of mass protests when it became clear in late 2011 putin would once more become president, following the term of his handpicked successor, dmitry medvedev. just before the march 2012 presidential election, margaret warner interviewed navalyny about putin. they spoke at his office in moscow, where he later found an eavesdropping device. >> do you think that he could institute reforms and also weed out corruption from within his system? >> ( translated ): unfortunately, this is impossible because corruption

has become the core on which he built his political power. in his opinion, corruption is a very efficient way of management. >> suarez: today, navalny spent much of the three-hour court session tweeting defiant commentary, despite orders from the judge to shut off his smart phone. one final tweet read in part: then, he was led from court in shackles, and driven to jail pending transfer to a prison camp. thousands of protesters gathered near the kremlin after the verdict and sentencing. dozens of arrests were reported. >> ( translated ): this is total lawlessness, this is absolutely a result of the political order from above. we all here understand that if we don't come to protest then it could happen to any of us. >> suarez: the u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul also denounced the verdict in a

tweet, saying: late today, perhaps in a bid to cool public sentiment, prosecutors asked that navalny be released pending appeal. for more on alexei navalny and the broader significance of his conviction we turn to fiona hill, director of the center on the united states and europe at the brookings institution. her latest book is "mr putin: operative in the kremlin." fiona, is this just another trial of a pesky opposition figure or is it something more significant than that? >> for putin it might be just another trial of a pesky opposition figure but if you look at this in the broader opposition movement, the piece we have seen tracked beginning with the falings fiction of the december 2011 parliamentary elections in russia then the protests of putin essentially

telling the country he was going to come back as prime minister, making sure that happened during the presidential elections, what we have seen this last year was the concentrated pressure of putin, and alexei navalny was being diss. ed with from the kremlin's point of view. in a humiliating fashion, what they have turned around on navalny is the accusations he has been throwing on the system, you are no better than we are, you while you have a five year jail sentence to contemplate your role in this movement. >>suarez: if we were to walk on russian urban streets tonight and talk to people about the verdict, would what they say reflect whether or not they support president putin himself? >> to some degree. i think there's a great deal of

cynicism across the board now, with this political game many are being seen played out in moscow. there is one apology group in russia that has shown about 44% of the population think that at least those that have been polled think that this is pretty much a setup of navalny. another 13 or so percent think it was definitely targeted against him because of his political cam activism. but there are many who feel there is malfeasance. they thil that the whole system is full of corruption that the opposition people are also in the game of enriching themselves too. frankly there's nobody here who is clean and that everybody is out there for personal gain. so the situation is quite complicated. a lot of people clearly see this for what it is. but as an attempt to get rid of the oirption but there's still that feeling of well this whole

system that we're in now, there's always something going on. >>suarez: does this pace the plausibility test that a blogger could be involved in a potential timber swindling scheme? >> there is a whole number of cases, another situation where a prominent mayor has been arrested and being put upon trial, there is a whole host of trials across the country for people involved in corruption. what's significant about this particular case however is as we saw in the segment, that the case has been pretty much lifted from the prosecution's indictments of navalny himself. there wasn't a jury in this case, it was a judge trial where the level of the evidence that has to be presented is not particularly high and what's also significant is the defense were not able to call their own witnesses. each one of their attempts to put the case in navalny's favor was rejected so there were no witnesses for the defense that were called.

there was very little of the evidence that they had gathered to refute the prosecution's case that was put on the table. so this in itself is a pretty glaring example of one of the kinds of show trials that we've seen in the past. and if there had been a jury presence or there had been much more evidence put forward and the defense had been able to present their case we might have been having a different review of this matter. >>suarez: do you expect a chilling effect? if you had been working with navalny's movement are you likely to go to ground now? >> there is very much a chilling effect. this case has been going on for three months. protesters who took part of the demonstrations, ordinary people who were not leaders of the opposition but in some of whom had just taken part in protest for the very first time, they're also standing trial some of them for organizing the protest, some of them taking part, some of them more ominously taking

active against the police, about 12 people are under trial too collectively for their part in these demonstrations so definitely a chilling effect for people thinking whether they want to protest in the future some political act. >>suarez: does this intertwine with the current track of u.s. russian relations? we've got the american ambassador tweeting about his opposition to the verdict, the continued presence of edward snowden in the russian airport and the possibility of the president's meeting with vladimir putin. looking very shaky. >> we have had many discussions going on and how we can re-set the reset. the attempt to put the osh resurrect the relationship or the substance of the rich on a different footing after many of the difficulties we've had over the last several years. the intended meeting between

obama and putin in september which was going to take place against the back trop of the g-20 summit in moscow and st. petersberg, the last meeting that just took place in northern ireland against the backdrop of the g-8 meeting, people remember the image of very poor body language between obama and putin, there wasn't much substance in the meeting. now we have a question about whether or not obama should have a big summit meeting with putin in september. i think a lot of things are pointing in the direction is this a real question for the white house to address, is it worth, edward snowden still present in moscow, is it worth the white house to have that meeting? we have no progress in syria for example and the meeting that secretary kerry is trying to

have and the russian involvement. there's nor on the negative balance sheet than the positive. >>suarez: fiona hill, thank you. thank you ray. you can watch more about her visit last year on our world page. >> woodruff: there's long been debate about bilingual education and what's the most effective way to make sure students are proficient in academics in english. special correspondent john tulenko reports on a connecticut school district that's taking a different road. one that may yield results, but is sparking a battle over its approach. >> reporter: from kindergarten to third grade, these are the reading years. but when students exit them, national tests show, only 35% read proficiently. here in new britain, connecticut, the figure is just 20%-- the lowest in the state.

but this urban, mostly latino school district, is trying to turn that around. the effort began with home visits, to address chronic absenteeism among kindergartners. >> chronic absenteeism in new britain last year was 30%. we had approximately 1,000 kindergartners last year so that means 30% were missing at least 18 days of school. >> reporter: attendance officers joe vaverchek and jarrell williams have made some 400 home visits this year. >> we're not here to put a hammer to the parents because there's lots of things that cause truancy. >> the good thing is the school is helping potty train him, that's why he's missing school. >> poverty plays a key piece, clothing associated with poverty, hygiene. each case you need to really sit down with them, find out what you can do to help.

>> reporter: a recent study found that among chronically absent kindergartners, more than 80% were behind in reading by the time they finished third grade. >> we want the little guys in school, because that's really where they need to be. >> reporter: home visits are making a difference, reducing chronic absenteeism among kindergartners from 30% last year, to just under 18%. along with getting more students in the door, new britain changed reading instruction, especially for its sizable population of students arriving at school speaking only spanish. nearly all of them were sent here, to diloreto-- a k-8 school where, by-design, half the students spoke spanish and the other half, english. diloreto's selling-point was its dual language approach: teachers here taught in spanish one week, english the next, with the goal

that all students would graduate fully bilingual. but test scores over several years showed the approach wasn't working. 70% of all students and 85% of those learning to speak english- were failing to read at grade level. so last fall, new britain replaced diloreto's original dual language approach with something very different. deirdre falla's class of spanish speaking second graders has been taught entirely in english. like this lesson on conjugating irregular verbs, each day her students get two hours of intensive english grammar instruction. >> the idea is teach the foundation of english. the syntax rules. the way that sentences form, so they can write correctly, and

writing is really a springboard to reading. >> when it comes to english language learners, i make it very clear. our job is to get them to acquire english as rapidly as possible, so they can be in the mainstream. >> reporter: ending instruction delivered in both spanish and english was the first major policy change by new britain's new superintendent, kelt cooper. he had extensive experience with spanish speaking students, having just come from texas where ran school along the u.s./mexico boarder. >> all those years that they're struggling through language blocks, they're getting a fraction of what's instructed. our english development program is to teach them english, as rapidly as possible, so that they can get math, science, and social studies content as early as possible to 100%. >> reporter: but not everyone favors new britain's emphasis on english only. >> the message of course is that you don't value the first

language or the culture that goes with that. >> reporter: aram ayalon is a professor of education who serves on new britain's school board. >> he argued for strengthening diloreto's original dual language approach, which a recent state audit found had been implemented incorrectly, hampered by increases in class size, limited resources, and frequent changes in leadership- not by any problem with dual language instruction itself. >> the best way to learn english is to tie it to the first language. for example you do a comparison of grammar so, in spanish, the adjective comes after the noun, for example, you say man handsome, not handsome man in spanish. so you learn through comparison how english and spanish are connected and how they're different. a basic truth in teaching is that you start with what your

students know, whether that's spanish, german, polish, and you build on that. >> reporter: the debate isn't confined to new britain. with five million students in the united states learning english for the first time-- and most struggling-- it matters tremendously which approach works better. >> when you look at the research, it strongly suggests that a better approach is to teach students first in their native language, what do you say? >> well, there are a lot of different academics, you can make anything fit whatever you want. i'm doing things different, because if we continue to do the things we've always done here, were doing to get the same results, and the results are why i'm here. >> reporter: while sink or swim english immersion has been shown to be less effective, new britain's version comes with supports: planned daily lessons for teaching the language itself. >> we're teaching english like a foreign language. and we have all kinds of fun activities, sentence surgery, the classic term is sentence

diagramming. >> what was with the writing on the desks? >> shhh, darn it, you're not supposed to tell people about that! they had to write a 14 word sentence, using several adjectives to describe the noun, it's a great tool. >> reporter: but others see a fundamental flaw in the grammer based approach. aram ayalom: >> grammar isn't meaningful to kids. adults are better at that. kids want stories, kids want to interact with each other, with language, and this takes the meaning out of instruction. >> reporter: something else we noticed. nearly every inch of classroom wall space was devoted to grammar: very little social studies, very little science, very little math. >> it's deliberate. we're less concentrating on the content of math, science and social studies, whereas other methods try to blend these together. >> well, to a lot of observers,

you're shortchanging the kids. >> that's where we put our priority. if you don't acquire english you're effectively barred from all sorts of opportunities. >> reporter: though it had been less than a year, was the approach working? >> boys and girls, i'm going to write some sentences on the board. i asked these third grade language learners to fix them. next, a little harder. brown needs to go before dog.

why is that? >> that's exactly right. >> the proof is in the pudding. it's very clear that the ones who have gone through this program have a better articulation of the english language, understand the rules better, and are much more proficient in english than their native english counterparts in the mainstream. >> reporter: cooper bases that on his own experience. he used this approach for four years in his former district in texas and in terms of english language learners who reached english proficiency, his district rose from nearly the bottom statewide to nearly the top. but, in math and science, scores for english language learners fell by as much as 15% to levels below state targets leading the district to abandon the program after cooper left. >> when you spend so much time on grammar. it reduces education and it

reduces kids motivation to learn. the bottom line is that it's doomed from the beginning. >> yeah, i could go to the same people who say do it the same way but i don't want to do it the same way. i could still have kids not acquiring english and not knowing how to write a simple sentence when they're seniors in high school, and things could go on their merry way, just the way it is. but my job is to fix this and get this place out of the ditch. >> reporter: new britain will soon get an early look at whether its attendance and reading policies are making a difference. results from the latest state test will be released this july. >> brown: finally tonight, a milestone in the life of former south african leader nelson mandela. he turned 95 today. we go again to kwame for the story. >> ♪ happy birthday, tata

♪ happy tata hip hip, hooray! >> holman: school children joined the chorus of south africans in celebrations of mandela's long life. >> happy birthday, tata nelson mandela. we are all praying for you to get better soon. >> holman: across the country, people marked the occasion by volunteering 67 minutes to charitable work. that's one minute for each of the years mandela spent fighting apartheid, and then serving as the nation's first black president. the current president, jacob zuma, welcomed families into newly-built, low-income housing outside pretoria. and he spoke of the man known to all by his tribal name. >> what is being done by everybody today, is to take some time and do something for people in honor of madiba. that's why we came today to do our own here. >> holman: elsewhere, hundreds flooded into a johannesburg convention center to pack meals for the poor.

>> it's important for me, because i am doing something, like for example i sleep everyday with a meal, there are people out there who don't have any meal to eat, so for me it's like wow, it's something that i do for someone who doesn't have anything. ( singing ) >> holman: and in capetown, archbishop desmond tutu helped paint walls in a local orphanage. >> and today, people are thinking about madiba because it is international madiba day. he makes us walk tall as south africans and reminds us that we have the capacity to be this fantastic nation. >> holman: tributes also poured in from around the globe. >> i would like to express my, firstly my admiration about the

great man nelson mandela. >> holman: leading figures, including the dalai lama and former president bill clinton, spoke in a nelson mandela centre of memory video. >> we have all equally been awed by his dedication to others and by his inspiration to serve as he did, working to build a more just and peaceful world. >> holman: leaders of the u.s. house also weighed in, praising the legacy of the nobel peace prize laureate. >> scarcely a week or day goes by without us pointing to mandela as an example. an example of standing on principle, of loving your neighbor, and of extending the reach of freedom. >> he had the courage to turn not to hatred but to love, not to vengeance but to compassion, not to resentment but to

reconciliation. >> holman: the patriarch himself remained in a pretoria heart clinic, where he was admitted june 8 with a recurring lung infection. there've been conflicting reports about his condition, but today, hospital visitors generally gave upbeat reports. mandela's daughter said he's making remarkable progress. >> but over the past three weeks or so i have just seen a huge turnaround. of course i am not a medical doctor, they are the ones who will decide, determine when he goes back home, but i am confident it will be sometime soon. >> holman: one grandson was more cautious, saying mandela is still critical but a lot more alert. >> brown: there's more about mandela online. we look at how he survived his years in jail, while fighting for democracy. plus, we have a slide show of images documenting his time in prison and the struggle for equality. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: president obama pushed back against republican criticism of his health care reform law, insisting that it's working and cutting costs for consumers. detroit became the largest

american city ever to file for bankruptcy. and a bi-partisan senate group announced a compromise deal on student loans, tying interest rates to financial markets. it's the latest attempt to rescind a doubling of interest rates on federally subsidized stafford loans. >> brown: and another "newshour story" online: on making sense, economics correspondent paul solman reacts to a viewer's comment about the american dream in the face of today's economic reality. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. and i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: i'm judy woodruff. and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks, among others. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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