captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: strong words on the campaign trail today as president obama pounded governor romney on his jobs record, and both camps jostled over what the supreme court said about the health care law. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> suarez: and i'm ray suarez. on the "newshour" tonight, we'll look at how the romney campaign is trying to synchronize its views with those of republican party leaders. >> woodruff: nuclear power returned to the japanese electrical grid today, while a scathing report blamed government ties with the industry for the fukushima meltdown. we'll have the latest. >> suarez: health correspondent betty anne bowser takes a closer look at the arguments brewing over medicaid expansion and the states that want to opt out

rather than take federal money. >> woodruff: we have the next in our daily download series. tonight, how politicians' use of social media can go awry. >> suarez: john merrow reports on a low income texas school district's approach to its drop-out crisis: a taste of college and hard work. >> so we're offering something that's more challenging to them, and telling them, "step up. you can have college now. it is free. it's your future. what do you want?" >> woodruff: plus, jeffrey brown talks to master storyteller jack hitt about his latest project and making his mark as a self- employed writer. >> the question i get every time i go see my mom and i still get it. she'll always ask me this question, "so when are you going to get a job?" and the answer is: "it's okay, mom. i'm never going to get a job. this is the job!" >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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>> woodruff: the debate over whether the health care mandate is a tax remained front and center in the campaign today, even as the president shifted his attention to economic issues at the start of a midwest bus tour. president obama was back on the stump today in ohio, touting his own economic policies and taking a shot at those of republican mitt romney. >> i don't think that mr. romney's plan to spend trillions of dollars more on tax cuts for folks who don't need them and aren't even asking for them is the right way to grow our economy, especially since they want to pay for it by cutting education spending, and cutting job-creating programs, and raising middle-class taxes. >> woodruff: the president's stop was part of a two day bus tour across ohio and western pennsylvania, to draw attention to economies in both states which have been buoyed by a stronger auto industry.

but in his first campaign event since last week's supreme court's decision to uphold his health care law. mr. obama also issued a firm defense of his overhaul of the system. >> i'll work with anybody who wants to work with me to continue to improve our health care system and our health care laws, but the law i passed is here to stay. >> woodruff: yesterday, in an interview with cbs, mitt romney said he disagreed with the court's decision, and for the first time, called the requirement that all americans buy health insurance-- the individual mandate-- a "tax". >> the supreme court has the final word, and their final word is that obamacare is a tax. so it's a tax. it's-- they decided it was constitutional, so it is a tax and it's constitutional. that-- that's the final word. that's what it is. >> there's no way around that. you can try and say you wish they had decided a different way, but they didn't. they concluded it was a tax, that's what it is, and the american people know that president obama has broken the

pledge he made. >> woodruff: but that comment signaled a shift in position. a similar requirement is part of the state health care law that romney fought for as governor of massachusetts. and his words yesterday contradicted how his senior advisor eric fehrnstrom characterized romney's view just two days earlier, on msnbc. >> the governor believes that what we put in place in massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court's ruling that the mandate was a tax. >> reporter: romney remained on vacation today, but his campaign issued a statement, turning the focus back on obama, for denying his own justice department argument that the mandate could be seen as a tax. but the back and forth over what to call the mandate also raised concerns among conservatives over the romney campaign's overall strategy. the "wall street journal," in a harshly worded editorial today

suggested that the romney camp's handling of the mandate and other issues could be putting his prospects in jeopardy. one quote: "the campaign looks confused in addition to being politically dumb." the editorial added that romney's staff is slowly squandering an historic opportunity. and with four months to go until election day, a new pew research center poll finds that voters believe the campaign is informative, but exhausting. we get more now on romney's response in the aftermath of the court's health care decision from major garrett, white house correspondent for national journal. good to see you again. >> great to be with you, judy. >> woodruff: thanks for coming. so, why the reluctance on the part of the romney camp originally to say "it's a tax"? >> romney camp was trapped between two conservative camps. there were the dissenters who

disagreed with the 5-4 majority ruling that the health care law was constitutional. in their dissent they said "you can't call this ha tax, you shouldn't call it a tax." so romney alied with that. then other campaigners said "we're campaigning against president obama and the health care law so the 5-4 majority said it is a tax." so romney said wait a minute, should by with the conservatives on the court or my political party. so he moved with the conservatives dissending, the four, to the political wing of his party to say it's a tax. >> woodruff: so the speculation in addition to all that was that what he was trying to do was not separate himself too much from what he had done in massachusetts. he wouldn't be perceived as flip-flopping. >> from the romney campaign's point of view-- and the voters who l decide who's right-- this is what they're going to say, massachusetts is a state experiment, it's not a federal mandate. states can do that, they have that authority as far as creating taxing policy and they did it as a penalty as an

experiment within one state. and they believe strategically as far as the campaign is concerned romney's health care is not on the ballot. president obama's health care for the nation is. and to the degree that they can make this a debate about obama's law not romney's massachusetts experiment they will. >> woodruff: so they changed their mind. and what provoked the change of mind? what happened? >> because most of the conservatives on the ballot and raising money and contributing to romney want this to be a mandate election on health care and taxation. republicans believe that once you take the health care law and the mandate-- which was unpopular in the polls already-- and add a taxing provision to it as the supreme court said, you put two things together that benefit republicans generally. the mandate is unpopular and if it's called a tax, republicans on the political wing believe that's a double victory so romney has moved from "penalty" to "tax" largely to reflect that ideological perspective. >> woodruff: major, how does this criticism we're seeing, we saw the "wall street journal" lead editorial today and

otherings like rupert murdoch saying they're dissatisfied with the campaign. how does that play out? >> it hasn't been said but i do believe conservatives have a great fear that the romney campaign over time may reflect and look like tom dewey in 1948. a cautious republican who looks at a bad economy and a potentially weak sitting president and thinks he can't just rely on a bad economy and poll numbers for the existing president and skate to victory or coast to victory. that's not an indictment leveled yet against romney but the conservatives displeased with him are close to making that allegation. they don't see romney stepping up and making either an aggressive or necessarily consistently coherent conservative critique of this administration. now, there's a lot of time to go. there's a convention and the general campaign and debates to be held. there's plenty of time for that, but they're not seeing it to the level they think a conservative representing the republican party in its modern formation ought to sound or look like. >> woodruff: meantime today,

good news for the romney camp. they put out word they've raised over $100 million in the month of june. which is a record for this year. >> it's a record for this year. not as good as obama in 2008 but nobody's going to approach those general election numbers. candidate obama raised $160 in september of 2008. that's a huge number consistent with what the romney campaign has seen sincedvx

>> suarez: still to come on the "newshour": placing blame for the fukushima meltdown; opting out of medicaid expansion; the 2012 campaign and social media; college courses to keep high schoolers learning and, making it up with storyteller, jack hitt. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: there was an unusual move by china and the eurozone who cut their key interest rates today in both cases to try and boost economic growth. the european central bank cut the benchmark interest rate to its lowest level ever-- 0.75%, down from 1%. china's cut was the second in the last four weeks. but the rate cuts had little impact on wall street today...in a light day of trading after the july 4th holiday. the dow jones industrial average lost 47 points to close above 12,896. the nasdaq gained less than a point to close at 2,976. six days after violent storms ripped through the mid-atlantic, more than 500,000 people are still without power.

nearly half of those are in west virginia. but utility companies said they were working as quickly as possible to restore power as much of the region endures a heatwave. another batch of summer storms tore across michigan and ohio, cutting power to more than 200,000 customers. the strong storms flooded streets and knocked down trees and power lines. heavy artillery shelling pounded the syrian city of homs today. this amateur video shows a ball of fire and plumes of smoke rising above the skyline. rubble from damaged buildings and smashed cars littered the neighborhood streets. amid the violence, the head of the u.n. peace mission warned his 300 monitors cannot do their jobs without a cease-fire. they were forced to suspend their work nearly three weeks ago. norwegian major general robert mood voiced his frustration today in damascus. >> the escalation of violence, allow me to say, to an unprecedented level, obstructed our ability to observe, to verify, to report as well as assist in local dialogue.

basically, we were no longer able to carry out our mandated tasks. >> sreenivasan: activists maintain more than 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising against president bashar assad began in march 2011. pakistan reopened a crucial supply route for american and nato troops in afghanistan today. the first truck carrying supplies crossed over the border today. pakistan had closed it for seven months in retaliation for u.s. airstrikes last november that killed 24 pakistani troops. during the closure, the u.s. was forced to use more expensive and longer routes through neighboring countries. but on tuesday, secretary of state hillary clinton apologized for the border deaths and the route was reopened. british police carried out a pre-dawn raid against suspected terrorists near london's olympic park today and at other locations around the city. in all, six suspects were taken into custody. scotland yard officials said it was not linked to this month's olympic games. we have a report from keir simmons of "independent television news."

>> reporter: in the shadow of the olympic park a police raid that would very likely have been heard from the stratford stadium itself. police explosives used to remove the door of this apparently ordinary house at 4:00 a.m. >> i heard a mighty bang, looked out the window and i could just see the police entering the actual building. it blew that door off, ripped it off. then it was followed by a round of shots from a smaller gun. so i knew there was some sort of activity going on outside. >> reporter: the men inside were not suspected of targeting the games police say, but the opening ceremony now looms over every threat, every arrest. armed police moved in the early hours of this morning. a 24-year-old man was tasered during his arrest in stratford. and an 18 and 26-year-old were also held at the same address. the three are believed to be brothers. surprisingly one of them is a former police community support officer. a 29-year-old man was arrested in the street in west london.

pull out to show both east and a 21-year-old man and a 30-year- old woman were held at separate residential addresses also west london. it's reported those arrested include a married couple. last month the director general of m.i.-5 said terrorist plots continue and not to assume that they all relate to the olympics, but these are anxious weeks, on the m-6 this morning a fake cigarette triggered a security alert that saw passengers evacuated on to the motorway. it turned out to be an entirely false alarm. >> sreenivasan: london hosts the olympic summer games starting on july 27. a french investigation into air france flight 447 found both pilot error and faulty sensors were at the heart of the crash that killed all 228 people onboard. the jet went down in the middle of the atlantic ocean during a thunderstorm in 2009, en route from rio de janeiro to paris. investigators found the pilots were inadequately trained to fly manually at high altitudes. they also found fault with the speed sensors that iced up,

setting off the plane's troubles. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to ray. >> suarez: the fukushima nuclear accident is often seen as the consequence of a rare natural disaster. but a tough new report from japan concludes that the accident was man made in more ways than one. the traditional narrative of what went wrong in japan in early 2011 had gone like this. after withstanding a powerful 9.0 magnitude earthquake on march 11, the fukushima dai-chi nuclear plant lost all power to three of its six units when a tsunami destroyed its emergency generators and cooling pumps. with those off-line and severe flood damage to structures and equipment, meltdowns soon followed and seemed unavoidable. but a new report released today says otherwise. >> in this report, we have concluded that the fukushima nuclear accident is a man-made disaster. in our process of investigating

the background of the accident, we found that there were organizational problems, systemic problems, and human- related problems, as well as crisis management and governance problems. >> suarez: produced by an independent parliamentary panel, the 641-page study blames government and industry collusion and a conformist japanese culture for the crisis. it specifically goes after tepco-- tokyo electric power company-- which owns the fukushima plant and nisa, japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency. "there were many opportunities for taking preventive measures prior to march 11," the report reads, "the accident occurred because tepco did not take these measures, and nisa and the nuclear safety commission, went along. they either intentionally postponed putting safety measures in place, or made decisions based on their organizations self interest, and not in the interest of public safety." it also finds fault with the

response from tepco, regulators, the government and the prime minister, known as the kantei, who visited the plant the day after the tsunami. among other questions, the report raises this key one: did the tsunami inevitably lead to the disaster? both the findings and the report's criticism of a conformist culture suggests there could be bigger problems with some of the 50 other reactors in japan. only hours before the report was issued, the ohi reactor in western japan came back online-- the first to be restarted since last year's disaster. japan has been running without nuclear power since early may. before the fukushima accident it comprised about 30% of japan's energy mix.

combined with the report, ohi's resumption will likely inflame those in the anti-nuclear movement in japan. over the last month, there have been holding weekly demonstrations outside the prime minister's office. for more, i am joined by matthew bunn, an associate professor at harvard university's belfer center for science and international affairs, where he heads the school's main research group on nuclear policy. professor bunn, by taking natural disaster off the table and calling this "profoundly man made," what did the commission conclude that people did wrong? >> well, fundamentally, the issue was not being well enough prepared for the kind of natural disaster that did occur. certainly the earthquake and tsunami ultimately caused the health downs that happened but if they had been well enough prepared, if they had had, for example, the diesel generators protected from being flooded, if they had had water pumping into the cores of the reactors, if

they had had a better emergency plan, these reactors might have survived. >> suarez: was there sufficient oversight to those plans? i mean, tsunamis often follow earthquakes, yet there was some surprise that the plants were destroyed by tsunamis. >> yes, unfortunately, both the company and the regulators had known years before that there was a substantial risk of large tsunamis at this sight. there had been one hundreds of years ago in this general area that was of a similar size and yeted they they did nothing about it. one of the fundamental issues that the report criticizes is japan was one of the few countries in the world that had its nuclear regulators as part of an organization that was also responsible for pro molting nuclear energy. so the nuclear regulator wasn't really independent and there were constant movements of staff from the utilities to the

regulator and from the regulator back to the utility. >> suarez: does the commission suggest moving those entities further apart? busting the revolving door? >> absolutely. that's one of the fundamental recommendations that they make and there's been an effort to japan to set up a fully independent regulatory body. japan has already decided to do that but it's actually very difficult to fundamentally change the culture of an organization, whether an operating organization or a regulatory organization. of course the organizations that benefited from the way things were are pushing back and so they have not yet more than a year after the accident manage to make this fully independent regulator a reality. >> suarez: along with the scathing criticism of that closeness between the regulators and the industry was a critique of japanese culture overall

saying there was too much deference to authority and while you may be able to change a safety procedure in statute, it would seem to be pretty hard to change a culture. >> well, i think the report is correct in saying there are aspects of japanese culture there were a problem here but i think they may be in a sense hitting themselves too hard in the sense that while there are aspects unique to japan that probably made the collusion between the regulators and the operators worse, the reality is all over the world-- and not just in the nuclear industry, but in many industries-- you have often a cozy relationship develop between regulators who get much of their information, maybe their future job opportunities and so on from the industries they're regulating and the industry itself. so figuring out how to build in a new safety culture and a new level of independence and

toughness for the regulators is a hard problem not just for japan but for countries all over the world. one of the things that this accident tells us is that global our system for finding and fixing the safety problems is not as strong as it ought to be. the japanese plants and the japanese regulators had had international reviews from the international atomic energy agency, from industry bodies and no one had raised a ruckus. no one said this is unacceptable the way this is being managed. you're not implementing this international standard and that international standard. so it meat it clear that we really need a stronger system for bringing the worst performers up to the level of the best performers. >> suarez: before the earthquake japan was getting about a third of its electricity through nuclear power. did the report push off the day further into the future when japan's plants will be up and

running and operational? >> well, i think it will be up to the japanese people to decide what the future of nuclear power in japan is going to be. certainly this report highlights some of the key concerns and some of the key issues that will have to be addressed to ensure that nuclear power can be managed safely in japan in the future. it remains very unclear and controversial where japan is going to go on nuclear energy. they were fairly dependent, they are an island which makes it more difficult to import electricity from somewhere else. if they shifted toward a heavy use of natural gas, that would have implications for climate and it's costly as well to import the liquefied natural gas they would have to use. if they could shift toward renewables, but not on the pace that would be required to replace 20% or 30% of their

electricity rapidly. so my guess is some of these plants will probably get turned back on but ten, 20 years from now you'll probably have less reliance on nuclear energy than you have today in japan. >> suarez: professor matthew bunn, thanks for joining us. >> woodruff: and we turn to our continuing coverage of the impact of the supreme court's decision on the health reform law. the court did uphold the law, but the limits of the decision may affect just how many uninsured american citizens are able to get new coverage. health correspondent betty ann reports on that part of the story. >> reporter: it was the decision on the individual mandate to buy health insurance that sparked the protests. but the supreme court also ruled on another part of the federal health care reform law that hasn't drawn as much attention-- the expansion of the current medicaid program to cover

millions of other people who currently have no health insurance. medicaid is a joint federal and state program that provides health care for children, the elderly and disabled, people whose income is so low they can't afford to buy coverage. but kaiser family foundation vice president diane rowland explains under the affordable care act millions of people who are currently ineligible will be covered. >> what happens under the affordable care act is that large numbers of childless adults who are very poor and have previously be uninsured would qualify for coverage under the medicaid programs in their >> reporter: that could be up to 17 million people, most of them with incomes below $15,000 a year. the supreme court left it up to the states to decide if they want to buy into the expanded program. and, it said, if states choose to opt out, they can't be

financially penalized by washington. the expansion is aimed at people like 29-year-old miriam aguila, a part time accountant, who suffers from chronic rheumatoid arthritis. aguila is caught in a catch 22 like situation-- unable to work full time but making too much money to qualify for medicaid in virginia. >> it's the worst, because i can't work. i don't have the resources to get treated for what i have and i can't work full time because i'm sick, so it's a downward spiral if you will and sometimes it just looks like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. >> reporter: for now aguila gets care at a suburban washington health clinic that takes all comers-- insurance or no insurance. but under the expansion she could qualify for coverage. aqula's doctor basim khan says 80% of his patients are like her with no health insurance. >> by and large, these patients

are the working poor. they work low-wage jobs, long hours, and they just, for small businesses, and don't happen to get health insurance with it. >> reporter: and dr. khan says that's just the people he knows about in northern virginia. >> there are about 150,000 people that are uninsured. the safety net can only accommodate a limited amount of these people. so the rest of them actually go without even basic primary care and a lot of us-- as doctors, not just me but people-- working in emergency rooms, see the effects of that. >> reporter: for the states that decide to opt into the medicaid expansion, here's how it will work: starting in 2014, the federal government will pick up 100% of the cost. in 2017, the government's share starts to ramp down, so that by 2020 moving forward, washington will pay 90% of the tab with states picking up the other 10%. but a number of republican

governors are balking at that, saying even 10% could bust their already troubled budgets. virginia's bob mcdonnell hasn't made up his mind about the expansion yet, but like a number of other republican governors, he doesn't like it. >> all the things it was sold on: that it is going to save money-- false. that it is going to create more choice and opportunities for people-- false. it is a pig in a poke. >> reporter: mcdonnell has plenty of company. medicaid is the single biggest expenditure in most state budgets already, so some republican governors are just saying a firm no. louisiana's bobby jindal is one of them. >> look, federal dollars aren't free. those dollars are coming from us, from our children, our grandchildren; we're borrowing money from china to spend on government programs we can't afford. >> reporter: if governors like jindal stick to their guns, it's it's estimated that more than four million people will remain uninsured and unable to qualify for medicaid.

and critics like george washington university economist and law professor neil buchanan thinks the governors are short sighted. >> to me that just sounds like scare mongering. because what they're doing is they're using what everybody understands as a very unfortunate and severe but temporary budget crunch to justify not spending money in the future after the budget crunch is over. >> it's a money issue. they don't have the cash. >> reporter: health policy analyst joe antos of the conservative american enterprise institute says the states are going broke. >> this is a real issue for state governors to decide on. do they expand, do they take advantage of the generous terms that medicaid is being offered to them for the first three years, only to pay potentially billions of dollars more over the next ten years. that's a tough question to answer. >> reporter: dr. khan thinks opponents of the expansion are

missing the point. >> i think the question here, and frankly the question with health reform in general, is whether states like ours, or whether we as a society, find it acceptable for people in our communities to not be able to see a doctor just because they recently lost their job. just because they have a pre- existing condition, or just because they happen to work in a job where, that doesn't provide health insurance. >> reporter: kaiser's diane rowland thinks when the politics of the moment settle down the governors will take the money and buy in. >> i think at the end of the day, states will have to take their political concerns and balance them against their fiscal imperatives and balance them against the goal of this program which is to provide broad coverage to millions of uninsured individuals in their states. it's a political calculus versus and fiscal and human calculus of do you, how many people do you

>> reporter: obama administration officials agree. they say even governors who don't like the medicaid expansion will find it hard to walk away from billions of federal dollars. but with or without all of the states, the program begins in january of 2014. >> woodruff: on our website, check out an interactive map to find out how many people could be affected by the medicaid expansion in your state. >> suarez: we continue our regular look at the campaign as it plays out in social media and on the web. for that we're joined again by two journalists from the new web site www.daily download.com. lauren ashe burn is the site's editor-in-chief, formerly "u.s.a. today" live and howard kurtz is host of cnn's reliable sources. and howe wi, this week we'll

look at fresh reporting from pro-publica. >> the award winning investigative web site that asks its readers to send in examples of fund-raising e-mails they got from the presidential campaign. turns out campaigns now know so much about you from the use of technology. president obama's campaign is particularly good at this. they can come up with five, six, seven different versions of it targeted to specific types of donors or potential do donors. >> for example, if you go to pro-publica's web site, you can go the messages machine which is is in beta testing but will be u.n. veiled. you can go to "before midnight tonight" which was an e-mail sent out by michelle obama. >> i got that one! >> did he say to you "hey, friends"? >> we're very tight! >> this one says barack is so grateful to everyone's who has his back, he'd like to sit down with each of you and personally thank you. if you go to the next one, take a look, the red is what's

deleted and here it is, the green is the new piece here. so it now says sarah jessica parker is a loving mom, incredibly hard worker, great role model. so they tailor each of these, mails to different segments of the population. >> there are some versions that mention mariah carey is giving a concert. there's others that mention a tour, the fashion editor and mogul that will be attending the dinner. >> there's video from sarah jessica parker as well. so this so they are tweaking this constantly. >> there have long been tailored messages that go out to individual donors. but it seems like this is a refinement that is doing using computer analysis of language. it's... it takes it another step further. it's robot generated >> it's a very complicated cal gohr richl. they used to use all the information they would get from to do or ins and supporters who sent direct mail. well, now you can know your zip

code, you know what people buy, you know what people like, you know where they live, you know their stub division and it's much easier to target. >> i'm sure the campaigns would object to the fact that robots are doing this because somebody has to make this decision and the fact that they know in the age of google about your purchasing habits, male, female, demographic information. and mitt romney's, they don't have as many examples on mitt romney's fund-raising but while team obama is using sarah jessica parker and george clooney dinners as fund-raising tools, romney has just sent out an e-mail, or his campaign has, inviting people win a day on the road with mitt if you contribute a few dollars. >> and they have done that with president obama. you could have dinner with both the president and michelle. that was something done a few months ago. that was copy cat exercise. >> suarez: and it doesn't really cost much more. unlike campaigns that really is to watch the mailing costs and the production costs... >> you have to have actual people who lick envelopes and

put on stamps. now there's a button and you can message millions of people. >> what i find interesting about this is that president obama that campaigned to people, the attacks surrounding this, are doing this than president romney and folks supporting him. >> yes because obama has had more time to get ready for the general election because romney had to win the nomination first. >> suarez: also making interesting news, what to do once you've sent out a message that you've now had second thoughts out. >> (laughs) before you go like this, you should probably hit "delete." that's happening for even people who are in congress the one t site poii... politwhoops have tweets that were deleted. dennis ross, republican, this is after the supreme court

decision. "individual mandate ruled unconstitutional, let freedom ring." >> and he had plenty of company if you go to the next one >> he had company from tom rooney. breaking, supreme court strikes individual mandate. great news victory for constitution hashtag obamacare. >> suarez: you can understand that in part because at first the story was reported incorrect and they're ha n realtime responding to an incorrectly reported story. >> cnn and fox news got the story wrong so people on their behalf tweeting victory because the supreme court struck down... of course it did not. and then on one of these it says "deleted two minutes later "so they are sensitive to realtime events and back to fund-raising, both the romney and obama campaign sending out fund-raising letters around the supreme court decision arguing different points almost in realtime. >> but now there are so many people who are associated but not officially part of campaigns.

all furiously sending out opinions, ideas, impressions, repeating jokes that they heard off color or otherwise. the idea of a pipeline with just a crude messaging going through it seems to be dead. >> it does. people are very quick to make decisions, especially about news that is that important and that timely. and politicians fall for it. they want to be first in support of it. they want to get the news to their constituents. >> just like journalists, we're drowning in this information so we have web sites like politwhoops or pro-publica to trap the way messages change. >> when you decide something you've sent out was kind of a bad idea it lives on no matter what you try to do, doesn't it? >> that's what's interesting. i mean, my mother used to say don't write anything down you don't want to see on the front page of the requested reading

eagle." you often think you're typing it into a big black hole. if you delete it, it's gone. >> so think about it before you it this send button. >> suarez: howard, lauren, good to see you both. >> woodruff: next, the "newshour's" special correspondent for education, john merrow, looks at a program that offers high school dropouts college courses to make learning more challenging. last night he focused on how that idea works in small, specialized schools. tonight, he takes a broader view. this story is part of the american graduate project. >> reporter: here in this low income school district on the texas/mexico border, superintendent daniel king is trying something that's never been done. >> we're going to be setting a benchmark so we have 66 given the degree. >> reporter: he is redesigning his school system so every one of the

31,600 students in the district will be able to graduate from high school with college credits under their belt. >> what we're looking at doing is doing education in a different way where the colleges come together with us and start working with these young people while they're still in high school. >> reporter: but it won't be easy. when he came to town just five years ago, barely half of the students were completing high school. he thinks he knows why. >> many young people don't see the connection between high school and the rest of their life. and so there's a lot of time in high school that they spend killing time. high school now is more challenging and this is more real. >> you only have five days to complete this program. that's going to be a whole lot of work. >> reporter: king believes if you give students real challenges and opportunities they will meet them. free college and industry certification classes are the incentives that he believes will not only entice opportunities on to work hard in high school but

also get them on the path to college. it's working for 18-year-old senior viviana hernandez. viviana spends half the day at a local college taking dual enrollment classes, getting both high school and college credit for the same class. >> there is a big difference between high school classes and college-level courses. first the instructors over there require a lot more for you. they expect you to be a college student, college ready. so you need to meet their standards. when i started taking college classes, my parents didn't understand my tight schedule, that i needed to study. they want med to help out around the house, to look after my sister, my little brother. >> reporter: 89% of the students live in low income households. viviana and her parents are migrant field workers. >> neither of them get a high school education so they really

don't understand they don't know like, the stress of going through it or anything like that. all they know is that i get good grades and i'm going to graduate high school. >> and maybe college, too. >> i stress out a lot with my college work but it's... i would rather stay in my college class and take a billion finals than work a day in the fields. >> reporter: though some students like viviana go to college to take classes, for most college comes to them. >> remember that this is a transferable credit so make sure you identify that. >> reporter: here at memorial college high school, four college professors travel to the campus to teach dual enrollment classes to juniors and seniors. qualified high school seniors are also getting approved to teach college classes at the high school. the principal has noticed a difference. >> i see the kids taking college classes because it's the cool

thing to do and it makes them very proud and competitive amongst their classmates. >> reporter: the new district-wide focus on college is evident. once a week students can opt out of the school uniform and wear college t-shirts. solis feels king's plan solves a bigger problem than making college cool. >> i think a lot of kids are bored. i think there's kids that are bored and they're going to find different ways to meet their needs and times the choices aren't very good. so we're offering something that's more challenging to them and telling them, step up, you can have college now, it is free it's your future, what do you want? >> reporter: the reliable numbers are hard to come by. we know that at least 10% of high school students nationwide are taking dual-enrollment classes. traditionally early college and dual-enrollment programs have served honors students and high aachievers. things could be changing.

king's approach-- get all high school students to take college classes-- could be a new paradigm. >> it is our final for 202301. >> reporter: in south texas, early college looks to be a win-win-win-win situation. >> you may begin. starting at:25. >> reporter: dual enrollment classes provide the state with a better-educated work force. colleges receive state funding and incentives to help with their bottom line. schools get additional state money, too. but students are the real winners, says economics professor lauraly elle, i asked her if high school students were emotionally ready for college classes. >> i think in this case they are because they don't have the cultural shock of being in a dorm because they're here still at home. they don't have the culture shock of having mom not there being able to cook their meals and wash their clothes and

students are not really experimenting with life yet. so emotionally they should be focused and even self-assured that they'll do a much better job when they go out there with all those challenges that face a typical college freshman. >> high school is the right time to get young people excited about college work. >> how i like to define it is like the experience that adam and eve had before the apple. high school students see every challenge as possible. they have their whole future ahead of them. >> reporter: her students seem to find benefits beyond the college credits. i caught up with them after they took their final exam in first year college economics. show me your hand if you think your aced the test. the guys always... (laughter) why did you sign up? >> it was, of course, to save money also but i wanted to challenge myself. >> it's an experience that we have to get used to >> i'm glad i took the classes

because if not when i do go to a university i would have, like, been in for a shock. >> as they attempt to transition into a community college to earn a social degree or certificate and earn employment so they can have a future and support their family. >> reporter: career and technical certification is a large part of king's plan to prepare students for life after high school. >> college is probably not for everyone but we want to give them the tools necessary to succeed at the college level or career field. >> reporter: so hernandez is teaching a network cabling class. >> these are career-ready classes. these are technical classes to prepare students for careers in information technology. they walk out with not only their high school diploma but industry-level certification so they can it this job market right after high school if college is not for them. if college is for them, then they have an advantage because they're used the rigor of industry so they can certainly survive the post-secondary

education. >> reporter: since suspect king came to town five years ago his plan has shown significant signs of success. in late may, 40% of the district's graduating seniors finished high school with at least three college credits. across the district, 60 seniors actually received their two-year college degrees a week before they got their high school diplomas. >> i never thought i would get this far during high school. i will be earning 77 college hours and i'm going to be graduating with an associate's in biology. >> reporter: suspect keng is confident in that students who start going to college while they're in high school are more likely to continue their education and eventually earn college degrees. contradicting the nation's 46% college dropout rate. for students like viviana hernandez, the odds are good.

>> by connecting these young people, we help them and we help all of us. the better educated this society is, the less individuals that we have that are dependent on the rest of us, the better it is for all of us. >> reporter: king's plan is attracting national attention. if it catches on, high school and college could start to look a whole lot different. >> ifill: to watch part one of john's report, go to our web site, newshour dot pbs.org. it funded by the corporation for public broadcasting. >> suarez: finally tonight, telling true stories, even while you're making up the truth. jeffrey brown explains. >> we all learn it somehow, right? i was ten-- sitting on a swing set in my friend parker coleman's backyard in

charleston. parker turned to me with that confidence of his and he said, "know what you have got to do to have babies?" >> reporter: as it happens, jack hitt learned a lot of things growing in charleston. most of all, well, yes. the art of spinning stories from the mundane and sometimes bizarre reality around him. he's done it successfully in books, magazines and on the radio as a regular contributor to "this american life." all leading the "atlantic" magazine to dub him "one of america's best storytellers." >> when i was 15 i was sent away to a small rural town in tennessee, a reform school, actually. but that's another story. >> reporter: and now he's doing it in a one-man show that not only tells true and sometimes astonishing tales but also examines the latest brain science that tries to explain what makes him and each of us a story-telling animal. it's called "making up the truth." "making up the truth." now you don't mean literally, you don't mean it like lying,

right? >> it's more like pre-lying. what i discovered when i was doing some research a few fear years ago about storytelling and how the brain narrates stories in our head, is that a great deal of sort of pre-editing happens even before ideas arrive in our mouths and we speak them. >> reporter: subconsciously. >> subconsciously, it's not your fault! the brain is sort of slightly tweaking the edges of what we see and hear all the time, almost customizing reality into the truth is being conjured, almost conversationally, inside your head, all the time. >> reporter: in other words, the brain is asking itself: did that really happen? do i want it to have happened? how do i tell this? >> behold what we really are: self-narrating beasts. what separates us from the other animals? the existence of our stories.

>> reporter: "making up the truth" was part of charleston's famed spoleto festival this year. 17 days of music, theater, arts of all kinds that take over what is certainly one of the nation's most charming towns and one where the ability to tell a good story has always been highly prized. >> storytelling is the engine of all social life. there were really no restaurants here, in those days. everybody ate at, you know, at people's houses. so backyard, you know, sort of the thing that ran through it all was storytelling, sitting on porches like this or hanging out at people's houses. it almost became a kind of competitive sport. >> reporter: the first story hitt encountered as a boy in charleston was a blockbuster: a neighbor who underwent one of the first sex-change operations, then married a black man in what became the test case of inter- racial marriage in south carolina. >> this was international news. this was on television and

newspapers al the time. so charleston, like any town so a lot of people down here resented that. me? i'm ten years old, i'm 11 years old, i'm 12. i'm loving this! you know, i'm running up and down the street. i just think it's the greatest thing that's ever happened. >> reporter: if you listen to enough of hitt's stories, you begin to think that the greatest things that ever happened only happen to him. in fact, he says, great material is all around. it's just that most of us don't pick up on it. >> one of the things that these scientists find is that we're, one of the glories of being homo sapiens is that we have an amazing ability to blind ourselves to things that are happening right in front of us. and we see this all the time, right? events happen and people say, i didn't even see it. you know, it turns out we're very good at not seeing things. the upside is that means we're >> reporter: hitt's latest project is a new book titled "bunch of amateurs" in which he teases out a particularly american trait through the stories of famous tinkerers from ben franklin to computer nerds in garages and lesser-knowns among us: bird-watchers, biologists and backyard

astronomers, all who started and many ended as amateurs. >> the word has many meanings in american english, right? it can mean everything from a dilettante to a green horn to a fool to almost an expert. one of the things i realized is that there's just something very american about this idea that you can walk off into your backyard, into your garage, into your cellar, and invent a new future. that is a crazy idea. i'm not sure it exists elsewhere in the kind of florid way it does here. i think it's part of our d.n.a. >> reporter: a self-employed writer who's taken his tales to the airwaves and the stage, hitt admits to being himself a kind of amateur-- one who still has some explaining to do when he comes home to charleston. >> the question i get every time i go see my mom and i still get it. she'll always ask me this question, "so when are you going to get a job?" i've been a freelance writer all my life. an amateur, right. and this whole sense of inventing this life, i think in

some ways everything i do is an attempt to answer that question for her. and the answer is, "it's okay, mom. i'm never going to get a job. this is the job!" "bunch of amateurs" on the page. jack hitt, nice to talk to you. >> nice to talk to you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: president obama attacked both camps jostled over the supreme court's recent ruling on health care. the european central bank and china cut separate key interest rates in a move to boost economic growth. and a parliamentary inquiry found japan's fukushima nuclear disaster was man-made and rooted in government collusion with the industry.

and to hari sreenivasan for what's on the "newshour" online. hari? >> sreenivasan: from our business desk, economics correspondent paul solman answers the question: compared to europe, does the u.s. really have its act together? and on our world page, libya votes saturday in its first free elections in more than 40 years and expectations are running high. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm ray suarez. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with david brooks and e.j. dionne among others. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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