captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. the latest from haiti, one week after the earthquake, as the u.s. military steps up its presence. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, the pace picks up on the delivery of food and medical aid. >> lehrer: we get an update on the bottlenecks and the security concerns. >> ifill: and we look at the mission for u.s. forces, now numbering 11,000 on and offshore. >> lehrer: then, today marks the deadline for states to apply for federal stimulus dollars for

their schools. john merrow reports. >> the states, we're hoping that they show the way for the rest of the country for what could and should happen out there. >> ifill: and a look back at president obama's first year-- reality collides with expectation. that's all ahead on tonight's "pbs newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? every day, chevron invests $62 million in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron.

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by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> lehrer: the pleas for quick action grew ever more urgent today in haiti's earthquake zone. but relief agencies reported lack of security is holding up distribution of aid. the u.n. security council voted to send another 3,500 peacekeepers and police, even as hundreds of u.s. troops began arriving. we begin with a pair of reports from independent television news. first, jon snow in port-au- prince. >> reporter: american infantry on the ground, weighed down by their own survival packs, let alone anyone else's, deployed this afternoon to protect what's left of the city hospital-- boots on the ground that people on the ground in their masses, too-- no one wants to stay indoors, if there is still one. the americans are in the

disintegrated palace grounds, too, the people on the lawns outside. people and president may share homelessness, but when i ask about, "had anyone seen the president, a minister, an official, a politician?" no one had. >> no one sends any ministers, nothing, because we need more attention. like, we talk about the people who's dead, but we do not talk about the people who are alive. >> reporter: a week on from the earthquake, there is no leadership and the aid on the ground is still a trickle. the search and rescue teams are still active, but they're only waiting now for the official order that their phase is over, and then they will leave. these men are from the fire brigades from all over britain, veterans of the tsunami, the pakistan earthquakes. but today they muster in vain-- no escort from the u.n. is forthcoming.

>> what's has happened was there's been an urgent request for the security, so that security has now been assigned to somebody else. so of course we've got to wait here. so, yeah, it is frustrating. >> reporter: driving through port-au-prince, we come up behind u.s. and jamaican rescue teams en route to the u.n. police compound, where officers drawn from benin and guinea perished. a woman was pulled alive from here two days ago. now, pistol fire had been heard from inside, together with a text message that had been sent by someone else inside. the american/jamaican team is meticulous in its planning, surveying and assessing. fellow beninoirs and guinean peacekeepers tell us the pistol shots were as recent as yesterday. tapping, too. they are convinced their friends are still alive

but seven days on, it feels more than daunting. the americans and the jamaicans are still determined to try. the dog search finds nothing. they'll spend all day here. when we left, they'd still found nothing. by tomorrow, such searches will have ended, and the effort will focus instead on trying to preserve those who survived and still have neither food nor shelter. >> lehrer: meanwhile, hundreds of people are still in desperate need of help at makeshift hospitals across the haitian capital. jonathan rugman of independent television news has that part of the story. >> reporter: sheltering in the grounds of an industrial park is what passes for a hospital. the patients are of all ages. the most critical have open fractures, internal bleeding, and limbs in need of amputation. but there's no operating table here, and if you need a drip,

either a relative holds it or it hangs from the branch of a tree. this doctor from the dominican republic said they don't have enough dressings or antibiotics and, above all, surgeons to save lives. but what's astonishing is that the five people who died here last night passed away just across the road from the capital's airport, where thousands of tons of aid are pouring in. how many people have you treated here since the earthquake? >> i would have to say probably 2,000 to 3,000 at minimum, and its probably more and... >> reporter: how many casualties, how many fatalities have you had? >> i would say we're getting five to ten a day, unfortunately, and its due to lack of supplies, due to lack of doctors. and everything's just 100 meters away, and we're right next to the airport. >> reporter: a newcomer pulled from the rubble is this 23-year- old who was trapped beneath a

university for six days. "jesus can do miracles," her astonished sister says, but the girl can't go to a proper hospital, because those which are still standing are full. look at how they're moving one guy. it takes five people to move one patient on a board. you go to the u.n., they tell you, "come back tomorrow at 4:00. we'll talk to you then." >> reporter: across the road, at the airport, america's military might is on display, what president obama has called the biggest aid efforts ever. but who's in charge of prioritizing who needs what? the u.n. says it is in charge of distributing relief, while the americans say the haitian government is taking the lead. >> i've heard some people say it was like chaos, and it is, but the thing is the more effort that the international community provides, the better off the haitian people will be. >> reporter: i understand the chaos, but what i don't understand is why the aid can't

get from here to the other side of the road. >> right, i can't really hone in on one specific instance of why that location is not receiving the medicine, as you would say, fast enough. the priorities are all prioritized by the haitian government. i want to underscore that. >> reporter: back at the emergency medical center, u.n. troops were trying to stop an angry crowd from storming inside. they showed the soldiers their wounds in the hope of gaining admission. "we're hungry and they give us nothing," the people told us. this crowd is desperate for food and water, so its been trying all morning to break into this makeshift field hospital behind me. this morning, some surgeons from jamaica arrived with news that they would take some of the patients away. the earthquake was a week ago, but aid workers say lives are still being lost here with a lack of leadership to blame.

>> ifill: a week into the disaster, we take a closer look at what's working, and what's not. the pan american health organization, which is part of the world health organization, is providing assistance on the ground. and its deputy director, dr. jon andrus, joins me now. welcome dr. andrus, thank you for joining us. one week later, what can you tell us about the level of coordination on the ground? we saw a lot of confusion in those pieces. >> we sure did. the level of coordination is something that started with immediately after the disaster the world came crash being down on haiti, a country that had very fragile infrastructure. so really no capacity to respond. we've gone from that picture to a picture today where there's better coordination. we're far from achieving the levels of effective coordination where we need to be. but there is some progress. that's the situation. there's incredible challenges . when roads were completely

blocked, bodies and debris blocking roads, no communication on the ground . i have a dear friend and colleague working for our office whose husband works for a non-governmental organization. he happened to be in haiti the evening of the quake. she didn't hear from him for two days until he was finally discovered and found to be alive. that's just an example even in our own organization. we've had a number of deaths among the volunteers there. i think the security has made it very, very difficult. >> ifill: for sovereignty reasons it makes sense that the u.s. would cede control to the haitian government but the way that the haitian government has been as a result of this quake is much the way your workers have been. can they effectively manage this? >> i think in the case of the poor and entry of supplies and medical teams, the u.s. needed

to step to the plate and take charge there. in the case of the response, the united nations has divided their work among several what are called clusters. the health cluster is what the pan american health organization is currently in charge of. there are other clusters for water and sanitation, logistics which handles the security, nutrition. a number of others. each of those clusters must begin and have begun to work very hard on bringing in the key partners that are involved in those areas of work. >> ifill: one of those key partners, doctors without borders, we've had them on this program, they're saying today they've had medical planes again for the fifth time turned away from the airport that were carrying needed supplies. who do they speak to? how does that happen? >> well, i would think in that situation that we need to take that information and then feed it to our contacts. we have daily meetings with

our partners and agencies within the u.s. government so that's happening. we have global meetings with all our partners beyond that involve other countries. we have hourly meetings with our staff on the ground and so on. that information needs to be made available. the log jam that existed at the beginning is gradually being freed up. we know of teams arriving to certain hospitals, as was reported. we know of some services and supplies getting out with these enormous challenges in place. the ministry of health, the government needs to be involved to that end i'm pleased that two days ago they met, they formed a national health commission. with that commission, they're beginning to prioritize activities that we all can then support. >> ifill: you took the words right out of my mouth. prioritizing. how and who gets to prioritize who got medical concerns,

you've got security concerns, you've got distribution concerns. how do you decide what comes first? >> well, the... in the area of health, the priorities are water and sanitation. and then providing immediate medical emergency care to those that were injured. after this initial response, building a primary health care system that can deal with problems that already existed in haiti. tuberculosis, the highest incidence in the region. a level of h.i.v. infection . infectious disease was a real problem. with little infrastructure. bridging from this immediate response to handling those other issues that will be sustainable, making sure government is involved to the extent possible. >> ifill: what health concerns have... has this earthquake exacerbated that existed before and new ones as a result of the triage which you have to do immediately but which sets up consequences for what you have next.

>> well, immediately with the injured patients, we're worried about secondary infections . that needs to be taken care of. the water issue can lead to outbreaks of contaminated water. it becomes a vehicle of a spread of bacteria and viruses to others. i think the conditions that existed before need to be addressed as the long range plan gets implemented so we've, you know, malaria is a concern. during this immediate period though we're focused on the response to injury and trauma. >> ifill: are you satisfied during this immediate period that you're getting the kind of coordination and support that you need not only from the u.s. government but also other governments, the united nations, others who are all on the ground and perhaps not all quite yet talking to each other? >> we're never satisfied. there's always room for improvement. i think there's been some

progress. but we're far from being where we want to be . so we need to challenge ourselves. we need to... each agency, each one that has a role in this needs to challenge ourselves how we can do better. we need to be thinking about the government and the future of this country . many times agencies come in prioritizing their own interests rather than the interests of the whole. and so we have to come back to the table and say, this is about haiti. this is about the future. to the extent that you represent a certain n.g.o. agency or so, that has to be secondary. this is about stepping to the plate in the long run. >> ifill: dr. jon andrus of the pan american health organization, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> lehrer: the u.s. military's effort to move more aid into haiti kept growing today. some 800 u.s. marines arrived onshore, in addition to members of the army's 82nd airborne division.

there was also word canada dispatched 2,000 troops, including two warships, to towns southwest of port-au-prince. u.s. army major general daniel allyn announced plans for more air drops of aid, and he defended the pace of operations. >> the fact is that it takes forces on the ground to secure the areas where these drops must go in, and to organize the people to avoid a chaotic distribution when those supplies come in. and we needed to wait until we had adequate forces to enable that to happen. >> lehrer: for more on the u.s. military's role in haiti, we turn to two men with extensive experience in responding to disasters. retired army lt. general jay garner commanded the task force that provided humanitarian aid to the kurds in northern iraq after the first gulf war. he also was the director of the office for reconstruction and humanitarian assistance following the u.s. invasion of

iraq in 2003. andrew natsios was the administrator of u.s.a.i.d. during the bush administration. two decades earlier, he served as that agency's first director of the office of foreign disaster assistance. general garner, specifically what is the job of the u.s. military in disasters like haiti? >> well, i think, jim, that the military is really the only people that can immediately respond because you have an organization that has a chain of command at every level, that has leadership at every level. they have resources. they have the skill set. they have the ability to move things around. they have everything that you need. they can bring security immediately. you can't do anything until you have security. the military is the one that has all the tools so i think it's necessary to get them in there immediately. they have to somewhat be in charge. of course you have to work with the host nation and have

a partnership with them. the way that you bring stability immediately is bring the military in there. like i said they have the entire tool set to do what they need to do. they have doctors, military police, they have security. they have grown transportation, air transportation. they have construction battalions, et cetera. i think that's how you bring stability as fast as you can. >> lehrer: do you agree with that, mr. natsios? >> i agree in major disasters like haiti. having the military there is very important but the international disaster assistance system is not based on military leadership. it's based on civilian leadership. it's u.s.a.i.d. under federal law that has that leadership role. we work very closely with the general in the kurdish emergency. that was very effectively. i think the two of us working together because he and i worked together in that emergency but there are 60 of these disasters a year that u.s.a.i.d. responds to and no one ever hears about them because they don't get in the news. they're very effectively run.

most of them the military doesn't get involved. it's the non-governmental organizations, the u.n. agencies particularly unicef and the world food program which coordinates response and the red cross movement with the aid agencies like the european union and the canadian a.i.d., they do most of these responses. when there's a major emergency of this scale or like ache, then you get the.... >> lehrer: ache is what? >> the tsunami that took place in indonesia the end of 2004. >> lehrer: okay. when it's so massive, you need the logistic capacity and the number of troops that the u.s. military brings. but the n.g.o.s have thousands of workers on the ground. they were there in haiti along with a.i.d., for several decades before. i mean they've been there's a long time. >> lehrer: there were 10,000 agencies in fact according to most reports, n.g.o.s that have been working in haiti all this time. general garner, how do you follow that?

>> i agree with andrew. i was responding to your question about haiti specifically. >> lehrer: right. >> and something of that magnitude. i would agree with andrew. i think probably the most skilled agency we have for dealing with this is u.s.a.i.d. but there's a point when you begin these things when you have to bring all the resources to bear and you have to have an organization to do that. the military has that. i think as soon as you can you want to hand that off to civilian leadership in this type of thing. >> lehrer: i know it's an impossible to pinpoint it correct, you know, right on the money here but what would you suggest based on what you've read and heard, what's the problem down this? who should be in charge right now? not yesterday, not tomorrow but right now, who should be running things, general? >> well, i think they've turned it over to the u.n., but if the u.n. isn't doing that, i think it's in the family of americas, i think we should step in and take charge until we can sort all this out. i think they need to establish humanitarian operation center and bring everyone into it. bring the governmental

agencies into it, bring the non-governmental agencies into it, the other nations, the u.n. and get everything in, sort it out, get it prioritize and start tasking missions and executing things. >> lehrer: who needs to do that. >> that's the u.n. responsibility. we've done this, general garner did this with us. >> lehrer: i'm talking about haiti now. >> the united nations has a structure for doing this. they've done this all over the world. they should be in charge for doing it. they didn't get there as fast. there's a reason for that. this is a very unusual disaster. it was in the capital city. doug koots was a very old friend of mine. for 15 years, they found his body in the u.n., he's a u.n. senior u.n. official. the person in charge of the u.n. i worked with in darfur, his body was found. so the u.n. leadership was killed in the disaster. this very unusual. i don't remember a disaster in 20 years where you've had an earthquake right in the capital city. the ministries have collapsed. the n.g.o.s' headquarters many

of them collapsed. many n.g.o. workers were killed. the u.n. leadership was killed. this is different than what we've seen before. so the order that the u.s. military brings is very important at this point. but as soon as the people from u.n. ocha come in, they should take over. the world food program typically runs airports all over the world in emergencies like this. the u.s. military is running it because i don't think the other ministry has arrived with their air traffic controllers yet to run it. and there are some very kpe tept haitians too. all of this is a matter of time. it takes a few days to put a vast structure of this complexity in place. there are thousands of aid workers working on this right now. >> lehrer: general garner, just back to the military. based on your experience, does the military mind doing this kind of work? >> oh, i think you'll get an argument at the very highest levels of the defense department that this is interrupting the deployments and other things. but when you get down to the working level you get down to

the troops and the soldiers and the marines doing that, they have great amount of compassion for this type of thing. they like doing this type of thing. we should be doing this. this is what we do. we do it well. we do it better than anybody else. >> lehrer: why should we do it? >> because it's the right thing to do here. we have the proximity to haiti. haiti is in the family of americas and they're human beings. if we can reach out with our military might and solve a problem like this we ought to do that. it's good for the nation and it's good for our image and it's the right thing to do. >> lehrer: based on your experience in the military, have you had any pushback from the military in these kinds of enterprises? >> i was a civil affairs officer for 23 years and lieutenant colonel in the united states military. doing this sort of work myself in uniform. so i participated in the reconstruction of kuwait after the first gulf war as executive officer of the unit. so the military, the officers at the working level, they all cooperate.

none of them complain. i think they have a sense of accomplishment in this. >> lehrer: did you feel any frustration on the piece of tape where the u.s. navy officer at the airport was asked by the reporter from i.t.n., hey, you've got all these supplies. there's a hospital down across the road and you can't get those supplies to them. why not? he said, i'm sorry. somebody else is is deciding all of that. >> there is a system for deciding that. it's called the incident response system. u.s.a.i.d. has used it for 30 years. the u.s. military uses it. that system has been set up. it will function but it takes a few days for all that system to be put in place. >> lehrer: has that been explained well to people? i mean i'm talking about american people as well as the haitian people. >> i don't think the american people have, you know, this has been explained to them. i understood it because i ran a.i.d., and general garner understands it because we worked on this stuff together. the incident response is from

the u.s. forest service. they use it to fight forest fires. we found 30 years ago it was very useful in other disasters in the natural world and i think fema has adopted it for domestic disasters as well. >> lehrer: do you think, general, that some of these military commanders might take a little more leeway than they would otherwise as this thing continues to deteriorate and nobody is coordinating it? >> i think, jim, that you don't wait on leadership. in the absence of leadership, you take charge and you make things happen. and then it's a pick-up game. it's an ad hoc situation and you get it sorted out. as soon as you can establish the right agency you do that. but until then, you make things happen. >> lehrer: there are 11,000 u.s. troops there now, general. is that going to make a difference? is that enough to make a difference? do more have to come? what's your reading of it? >> well, the more you put in there, the faster you can make a difference. 11,000 troops is a lot if you

need the right thing. what you need to do first is establish security. >> lehrer: u.s. troops can be used to do that without offending the haitian government. >> i would assume we're working in coordination with the haitian government. >> lehrer: do you agree with that? >> i do. i think the critical element here that was to focus on the four clusters that the entire inrnational disaster system works on: food and nutrition, emergency medical care, water and sanitation, and shelter. the two most important of which are emergency medical care and water and sanitation. they are the things that could, if they're not done properly, kill a lot more people in the future. we could have a cholera epidemic or a diarrhea epidemic if we do not focus on the most invisible part of this which is water and sanitation. the second most important thing after the clusters is jobs. the thing that was destroyed in that earthquake beyond the buildings and people's... the loss of people's lives was the economy has been devastated. in the capital city businesses have been destroyed. people... there's probably 80-

90% unemployment now. until you get the economy going, people can't start taking charge of their own lives again. one of the things u.s.a.i.d. has been commissioned to do as i understand it by the president and dr. shaw who is the administrator, is to put a mass employment program rapidly together, $100 million program to get as many haitians employed in ... these are temporary jobs to clean up the rubble, repair the roads and that sort of thing. >> lehrer: meanwhile, general, back to you finally, there has to be security even to do that, correct? >> you have to have security for everything. if you don't have that, then it disrupts into riots and thiefry and things like that. you can't get started until you have security. >> lehrer: gentlemen, thank you both very much. >> thank you, jim. >> thank you. >> ifill: and still to come on the newshour: the race for federal education dollars; and a look back at year one for president obama. >> lehrer: that follows the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: the stakes were high today in a special u.s.

senate election in massachusetts. the seat was held by democrat edward kennedy for 47 years, until he died last august. republican scott brown faced democrat martha coakley. he vowed to deny democrats the 60th vote they need to pass health care reform. the candidates voted this morning, as a light snow fell across much of the state. but election officials said turnout appeared to be strong. democratic leaders insisted today their push to pass health care reform will stay on course, regardless. the election in massachusetts sent wall street sharply higher. it was driven by speculation that the outcome will undercut health care reform. the dow jones industrial average gained more than 115 points to close at 10,725. the nasdaq rose 32 points to close at 2,320. the federal reserve has asked for a full review of its role in rescuing insurance giant a.i.g. fed chairman ben bernanke made the request to the government accountability office. the a.i.g. rescue cost more than $180 billion.

the bailout has drawn fire over disclosures about bonuses, and payments made to goldman sachs and other big banks. a congressional probe is already underway. in afghanistan, two u.s. troops were killed today by a roadside bomb in the south, pushing january's total to 18 so far. and the security grip tightened in kabul, one day after a taliban attack killed five afghans in the heart of the city. the assault left a shopping center in ruins. today, people there called for action to stop the attacks. >> ( translated ): we are not scared of any explosion, suicide bombing, rockets and bullets. we support our government and we will continue to live in kabul. >> ( translated ): we want the government to stop those people entering our country, and the government should keep security tight at kabul's four main entrances and not allow the suicide attackers to come to our land to kill our innocent people. we want the government to make the country safe and eliminate the terrorists. >> sreenivasan: in response,

afghan president hamid karzai ordered a review of security, but he also praised afghan troops for preventing an even larger disaster. there was word today the f.b.i. illegally collected some 2,000 u.s. telephone records during the bush administration. "the washington post" reported it took place between 2002 and 2006. it said the f.b.i. sometimes invoked emergencies that did not exist. the agency said again today the practice involved records of incoming and outgoing calls, and not their actual content. the u.s. supreme court has refused to close two shipping locks near chicago to keep asian carp out of the great lakes. the state of michigan asked for an injunction. it warned the carp will wipe out native fish if they reach the lakes from the mississippi river watershed. illinois and the federal government warned an injunction would damage the shipping business. the u.s. army corps of engineers is considering long-term action, and the case may yet return to the high court. the los angeles city council gave initial approval today to

close hundreds of dispensaries for medical marijuana. there are now more than 1,000 places where marijuana is available in los angeles. that is more than all the starbucks coffee shops and public schools in the city. the ordinance voted on today would limit the marijuana shops to 70. a final vote comes next week. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's web site. but for now, back to gwen. >> ifill: now, billions of dollars are about to come available in new federal education spending, and states are competing for a piece of the pie. the money, part of the government stimulus package, is designed to give public school systems a leg up. but there's a catch. john merrow, the newshour's special correspondent for education, explains. major education initiative known as "race to the top." the program offers a shot at new funding, but the president was quick to remind the states

that not all of them would win the money. >> it's the competitive nature of this initiative that we believe helps make it so effective. we laid out a few key criteria and said if you meet these tests we'll reward you by helping you reform your schools. >> reporter: most states have accepted the challenge. representatives flocked to workshops held in december, eager to learn the rules of a competition that offers a share of $4.35 billion. >> most of the department of education's funding is... is formulaic funding. it's funding that congress gives the department, and we have to give it out on a formula basis. >> reporter: joanne weiss is the director of the race to the top. >> this program is a competitive program. the states that win race to the top, we're hoping that what they do is show the way to the rest of the country for what could and should happen out there. >> why should colorado win? well, because i think well have the best plan. >> i think that if california

were being judged based on its growth, since july, we would certainly get extra points. >> oh, we believe louisiana is one of the top candidates for this. i mean, we have such exciting reform going on in louisiana. >> so you set these criteria... >> reporter: states will be judged on how ready, willing and able they are to enact four core areas of reform laid out by secretary of education, arne duncan, standards that are on par with those of other nations. better data, so that states can keep track of student growth. putting the best teachers in the worst schools. that means tying teacher pay to student performance. and radical restructuring of the worst schools. >> if we have the best and brightest teachers where we need them, if we have great principals, if we have common high standards and great assessments, and then great data systems behind that-- if we do these things well, we can make a huge difference in our students' lives. that's what i want to incent.

>> we're not telling people in the race to the top program how to accomplish these things. we're just saying, great teachers matter, so how are you going to get more great teachers in front of kids? >> reporter: the application process is complicated. for example, the federal government wants teacher pay tied to student performance. in three states, that requires changing the law. in fact, some states are changing laws and policies just to be more competitive. here's another challenge-- washington wants proof that a state plan has local support. easier said than done. many local districts and teacher unions do not welcome either federal or state intervention. >> colorado is a very big state. i have been to every corner. >> reporter: in colorado, lieutenant governor barbara o'brien is leading the race to the top team. >> we are a local-control state. so, you cant just mandate, you have to persuade other districts that they want to be involved. we're only given 60 days to do this.

so, the outreach to 178 school districts to explain why we hope they will want to participate is just, for us, a very labor- intensive effort. do most people at least know what the race to the top refers to? >> reporter: o'brien has met with students, principals, superintendents, politicians, union representatives and teachers, seeking buy-in for the state's plan, which includes new ways to evaluate teachers based on student performance data. some, like these teachers in rural pueblo, remain skeptical. >> i understand it better than i did before today, but there are some definite concerns for me, still. making performance pay, or alternative compensation, strictly tied to test scores such a big part of that is a concern. it's a huge concern. >> reporter: for teachers in maryland, performance pay was just one of a number of stumbling blocks. their union is also resisting efforts to rewrite a law that

allows for tenure in just two years. this law could jeopardize maryland's chances of winning. >> we're a union state in maryland, and so the tenure law is... you know, it is a law, it... it is not a regulation. and so, there needs to be a lot of buy-in from a lot of folks to change a tenure law. >> reporter: some see the race to the top as a continuation of the no child left behind law, and are critical of federal involvement in local education. >> they now are saying that states must adopt new federal standards that are lower that virginia's. >> reporter: only one state, texas, is not participating. but in some states, it's reported that 40% of districts may not sign on, largely because of the opposition of the local teachers' union. despite pushback, many states, like california, have made changes. >> we want to be ready when they ask for this application. >> reporter: after a long battle in the legislature, california

reworked its state law that prohibited using student performance data to evaluate teachers. >> there are other states that are already out there. they've filled out the application, they are already competing for this money, so we want to be out there and be competitive. >> reporter: some believe that california's new legislation may be too watered down to assure them a shot at winning. a common concern is that many states are just chasing the money and making promises they may not be able to keep. but director weiss is confident that the department will be able to recognize empty promises. she believes that the race to the top is already motivating real change. >> the money obviously matters, and the money is part of how we got people to come to the table and have the conversations. win or lose, once those conversations have happened, you hopefully are setting in motion a chain of events and a level of sort of commitment and buy-in that's going to persist, whether or not you get the funding. >> reporter: weiss has recruited independent judges to review applications. secretary duncan will announce

the winners in april. a second and final round of competition will take place over the summer. >> ifill: president obama wants to expand funding. he said he would seek an additional $1.3 billion in next year's budget. >> lehrer: the obama presidency- - expectations versus realities, one year in. and to jeffrey brown. >> brown: history was in the air a year ago as barack obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the united states. an economic crisis was at hand, the country was involved in two wars, and the first african- american had been elected to the white house, heading a sweeping victory for his party. so, where is he, and where are we now? we talk with: cynthia tucker, political columnist for the "atlanta journal-constitution;" riehan salam, who writes "the agenda" blog for the "national review" online, and is

a fellow at the new america foundation; and historian and newshour regular richard norton smith of george mason university. cynthia, i'll start with you. how has reality matched up with expectations a year later? >> well, the expectations of the president were impossibley high. many people were absolutely euphoric, if you the inauguration a year ago. the honeymoon was very, very brief because the president had a very tough set of problems. the economy especially still dogs him. he has not been able to solve those problems as quickly as many people had hoped. some disappointment has set in, in some segments of the population. >> brown: we'll come back to some of the specifics. riehan salam how do you see it in a general sense, the expectations versus reality. >> i think the president has some things to be proud of. he was faced with a number of very daunting challenges on the foreign policy front and on the domestic front. in areas like education reform,

for example, he's made a good deal of progress. but on his central domestic policy initiative, the health reform effort, i think there were very serious political missteps that are going to prove very politically costly. i think that a lot of time was lost and i think that there are a lot of democrats who were anxious and a lot of republicans were very angry. >> brown: richard, a year ago i know we sat here and we all were trying to do the analogies of history, right? >> a dangerous.... >> brown: we were talking about roosevelt and lincoln. those were the big names. a year later? >> well, you know, the problem is actually you could look at the last year as each party had its own idea of what history was being repeated. on the left for all those reasons that you cited at the beginning of the segment there was a sense that the country had gone overnight from being center right to center left. and was therefore at least receptive to a much more, if you will, activist federal government in a number of areas. the difference between 1933

and today is franklin roosevelt took off as essentially conservative country that had been radicalized by three-and-a-half years of despair. i mean when you had people in american cities searching for their next meal in garbage piles, guess what, survival trumps ideology. ironically in part because the outgoing and incoming administrations cooperated, because they were the opposite of what roosevelt and hoover failed to do, because there was this consensus , you have a great recession instead of a great depression. one consequence of that, i mean one of the really remarkable things is because barack obama who didn't run to bail out a.i.g.or g.m. did what he thought was the responsible thing, the candidate of change became the president of continuity. that is a very politically perilous position to be in. >> brown: cynthia, what about the... i mean one thing we talk about a lottery sently is the hyper partisanship.

that has not changed in a year. >> that has not changed at all in fact it's gotten worse. i have been surprised that republicans have been united in their opposition to every single thing that the president proposed. i think that the president may have been surprised by that as well. i think he was expecting a loyal opposition when, in fact, he got a party just absolutely committed to his failure even if it dragged the country down as well. let me say something else about what richard just said about the obama's actions having helped to avert a very catastrophic set of circumstances. we didn't have the great depression repeated because of policies started under president bush that obama continued. but you don't get much credit in politics for the things you prevented from happening. people don't see that. so i think that the president

has done better than the poll numbers show. >> brown: riehan salam, i can see you want to jump in here. >> i have a somewhat different interpretation of what's happened with regard to partisan polarization. a lot of conservative independents were very alienated at the tail end of the bush administration. a lot of those folks are still alienated and they've gotten very active in politics through the tea party movement and other initiatives. what's really happened is that these folks are very distrustful of centralized power. they see some tendencies in this administration that they didn't like the last time around. there are a lot of non-college educated white voters who voted republican who absolutely didn't like social security reform. so when health reform was pitched to kind of center right policy wonks as a entitlement reform as a way to trim medicare spending to fund coverage expansion a lot of these voters were very suspicious of this. you see them getting mobilized in a way that's very unpredictable at the time. i think this was the political mistake.

rather than looking to conservative policy elites in the capital, barack obama should have looked to who were those older white republican voters who didn't necessarily love bush, who were willing to give him a chance but who had a very different set of concerns from again those inside the belt way policy wons. i think not getting that visceral sense of concern that particularly a lot of older voters who didn't vote for him in the 2008 election or who stayed home, et cetera that was a big mistake he's still paying for and has exacted some costs in the form of those from the left being disillusioned as well as those on the right. it's a much more confusing landscape. >> i think there's a lot to that. i also think that something that the president said in his inaugural address that hasn't been widely quoted but i thought was extraordinarily shrewd, he said the question isn't whether our government is too large or too small but whether it works. and the fact is the stimulus program, whatever you think of it, and i think you can make an argument that it has helped to cushion the blow in a number of ways, is not perceived to have been

a crowning example of a government that works. it is widely seen as stuffed with pork. and that's a very significant.... >> brown: even though cynthia says he's not getting enough credit for having prevented.... >> well, it is true. it could have been worse is not a rallying cry. you know, that won't excite folks particularly in this hyper partisan era. but i think there were a number of republicans who were attracted to obama. they thought obama in the campaign as a different kind of democrat. as this almost post partisan figure. they saw him as a reformer. quite frankly the mantra of change was vague enough that you could read into it almost anything that you wanted. and i think they beginning with the stimulus plan were to some degree disillusioned. the sense that the president rather than crafting an economic policy of his own or a stimulus plan on his own in effect subcontracted that to

democrats on capitol hill and then when it was repeated with the health care plan, it's very difficult to charge the hill, any hill, on behalf of a plan that changes every week. >> brown: you're seeing a much more oppositional just not allowing anything to happen which defines.... >> it is absolutely true that the president ran as someone who would change the tone of politics in washington. and many voters certainly expected that he would be able to do so. but there were also many washington insiders who thought it was a mistake for the president to claim that he could change the tone in washington because he certainly couldn't do it by himself. he would have to have republican committed to reaching across the aisle. and he hasn't found that at all. in fact, i would argue that the president would be in less political trouble if he had spent less time trying to reach across the aisle to republicans.

one of his... both successes and failures is health care reform. the president is very close to passing historic health care reform that will ensure about 30 million more americans will make it much cheaper for many families to afford coverage, will get rid of those infuriating things for those of us who have insurance like insurance companies trying not to cover you once you get sick. but it hasn't passed yet. it's very close but it hasn't passed yet. and if the president had spent less time trying to reach out to republicans who wouldn't cooperate with him no matter how he extended himself, health care reform might already have passed. >> brown: what about that? if it passes it's going to pass with zero votes from republicans. cynthia suggesting a kind of opposition that is not a loyal opposition but just set up as a roadblock on everything. >> well, leaving aside policy substance i think that cynthia

makes a good point. i think that the key for president obama was not so much reaching out to republican legislators in congress but rather reaching out to rank-and-file conservative independents and some republicans who had a set of concerns that i think the white house miscalculated about. i think that, you know, those concerns were concerns about what happened to medicare. you don't think that republicans would be the defenders of medicare but that's exactly what happened because that's what their constituents wanted them to be. politicians are followers. they're not leaders by and large. very early on when it looked like president obama with absolutely ironclad strong when he had 70% approval rating you saw folks like eric cantor saying we don't like reed and pelosi but we like president obama. that tone shifted when the conservative grass roots shifted. that was a basic political miscalculation. cynthia makes a reasonable point. had the president focused for example on some kind of medicaid reform on expanding access to medicare that would have been a shrewd incremental strategy that democrats could have built on.

instead it was something that was very, very hard to sell to the rank-and-file voteres in the middle and some on the central right. >> brown: i have to ask you in our last time because we're in the journalistic time of looking at one year. but history tells us that a lot can change after one year. >> oh, yeah. you know where franklin roosevelt stood in the polls one year before he carried 46 out of 48 states. he was at 50% in the gallup poll. remember, bill clinton who, of course, in many ways, the republicans their history that is repeating is not 1933 but 1993. they think barack obama is bill clinton. of course, bill clinton was rewarded with a republican congress the first in 40 years. what they failed to extend the analogy is because they overreached as a result of that clear and stinging setback, bill clinton won a landslide in 1996. ronald reagan lost significant support in the mid-terms in '82.

and i think the history books suggest he didn't have much trouble two years later. things can change. beware of historical analogies. >> brown: all right. fair enough. riehan salam, sipt i can't tucker, richard norton smith, thank you all very much. >> thanks for having us. >> ifill: finally, looking at president obama's first year in office from farther away. the view from kenya, where the president's father was born, and also a nation coping with ethnic conflict and corruption. tristan mcconnell, of the international news website global post, gathered these voices. >> reporter: when barack obama took office, kenyans celebrated that a black man with roots in their country had become president of the united states. he was a source of both pride and inspiration. a year on, i went to find out what kenyans think of the obama presidency. >> so far, no disappointments, i would say. we're happy to have him as our president on the other side, and were happy to have him as part

of our kenyan lineage. >> so far, obama has not helped kenya in any way. >> i'd like barack obama to check on the economy of kenya, because kenyans are so poor, our economy is so low, and its because of our leaders. and then, ask kenyan leaders to stop corruption so that he may help us in our economy. >> if there is a desire of most africans-- and to be particular, kenyans-- its that president barack obama may be tougher, so that his policies can help this country come out of intensive care unit so that it can be able to stand on its own. >> i don't think that people should put so much expectations, because this is just like any other president. we should not expect so much. but, as for kenya, we also expected that he should also

come and also build our economy a little. >> barack obama is pushing our president and other officials to clear corruption in kenya, so that we can get a peaceful country. >> our leaders could learn much more from obama. and the first one is the determination when he was campaigning-- yes, we can! and that faith that we can... because, in any case, what's troubling africa, these problems are problems that can be solved by ourselves. if you want, we can say the way he said-- "yes, we can solve these problems." >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day: pleas for quick action grew ever more urgent in haiti, one week after the earthquake hit. more u.s. soldiers and marines arrived in port-au-prince, but relief agencies reported lack of security is holding up distribution of aid. and two more american troops were killed in afghanistan.

the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari. >> sreenivasan: we'll be tracking the massachusetts senate race tonight. you'll find updates, links to coverage from local pbs stations, and more. you can browse all of the newshour's recent haiti coverage on a special page devoted to both our on-air and online reporting, plus photos of port-au-prince before the quake. on "art beat," jeffrey brown talks to a teacher at haiti's only film school, and you can watch videos of the destruction shot by its students. and we have a link to john merrow's "learning matters" web site, where there is an inside look at the strategies different states used to garner federal stimulus dollars for education programs. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by:

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