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American Morning

Latinos Protest Immigration Reform Bill; SAT Scoring Mix-Up

Aired March 24, 2006 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We'll get the forecast coming up in a few moments.
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O'BRIEN: In the last couple of days, as we've been reporting, 12 Americans killed in a bus accident in Chile. Another American dying in a fire on board a Jamaican-bound cruise ship. The tragic incidents are raising new concerns about safe travel in foreign country.

Pauline Frommer is with Frommer's Travel Guide. She's in Vegas this morning.

Nice to see you, Pauline. Nice to have you back.

PAULINE FROMMER, FROMMER'S TRAVEL GUIDE: Good to be here. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: Of course, we're talking about two really just unfortunate incidents in the last couple of days that we've been reporting. As a traveler, is there really any way to protect yourself?

FROMMER: Well, you know, you look at the -- who is behind these incidents and these are the largest cruise companies in the world. So it's not like they've gone to fly by night operations. With the Chilean incident, they did go to an outside operator and that is a risk, because there is no international organization that oversees these types of organizations and there are going to be different standards in each country you go to.

So if you're worried about the risks going with an outside operator, the cruise lines do often offer their own shore excursions. They're usually four times more expensive, which is why people do go to these outside firms. And most of the outside firms will be perfectly fine but unfortunately, we do sometimes have incidents like the Chilean one.

O'BRIEN: What's the best way, then, if you want to go the cheaper route or the more reasonable route and sort of pick your own outside excursion group? What's the best way to make sure that, in fact, they are reputable? I mean, how do you know?

FROMMER: Sure, well, many guide books cover cruising and they do cover these shore excursion companies, so they've be vetted in that way. Or you can call the local tourist board. Sometimes they will have information on what are the most reliable, largest local companies that have the best safety records.

O'BRIEN: Sometimes I know on cruise ships they'll hand you the sheet that's sort of gives the list of things that you can do, activities. Do you want to go paragliding, you want to do this, you want to do that. Sightseeing. Should I assume that if it's on their list that it's been checked out and vetted?

FROMMER: Yes, absolutely. They do use outside contractors, but, hopefully, that they've done their homework and they have vetted those companies. I mean, this whole situation is a very interesting chicken and egg situation. Because we now have 11 million Americans going on cruises, which is more than ever before. These ships are going out at 104 capacity. They're bigger than they ever were.

In the case of the fire, you have to wonder, is it because there are more people on board that we're seeing more incidents, the fire and the man missing? Or are the cruise lines overwhelmed? Can they handle this increasing capacity? Are the ships getting too big? These are questions that Congress wants to answer and that perhaps tourists should be thinking about when they're looking at this type of travel.

O'BRIEN: They sell insurance. Do you recommend that people buy insurance for their trip?

FROMMER: Absolutely. You should always get travel insurance for cruises. If something goes wrong and you miss that cruise, if you have a death in the family or some kind of problem in work, your travel insurance should cover you. If you're going on an exotic cruise, you want to get evacuation insurance. This way, if you get sick and you have to be medevacked out, you won't end up paying that $10 to $40,000 it could ask cost for you that type of extreme medical care.

O'BRIEN: Pauline Frommer with some great advice. Thanks for being with us, Pauline. Appreciate it.

FROMMER: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Soledad.

Latinos in America are showing their anger at an immigration reform bill. Protests are planned for today in Atlanta and tomorrow in Los Angeles. Chicago has already had one. And this demonstration in Milwaukee on Thursday was called "A Day Without Latinos." It's a play on the satirical comedy "A Day Without a Mexican."

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a real serious disaster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this one may have a greater impact than anything that has ever happened before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Its severity cannot be underestimated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have lost our pride.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a state of emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have lost our dignity.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's the beginning of the Apocalypse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have lost our Mexicans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): A day without a Mexican!

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ROBERTS: Of course, that film was a comedy, but the issue is a very serious one.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz helped organize the Milwaukee protest. She's the head of Voces de la Frontera, or the Voices on the Border.

"A Day without Latinos." What was the message you were trying to get across?

CHRISTINE NEUMANN-ORTIZ, RALLY ORGANIZER: Well, we picked a work day and when we knew that it would really have an economic impact, and even if it was for part of the day. So the 30,000 people that marched that day, many of them were low-wage working class families.

And then we also had, by the time we actually had the event, we had over 200 small and medium-sized businesses from the kind of Latino part of Milwaukee and in some of the -- you know, about 15 in some of the outlying cities that closed for part or all of the day so that the workers could go and they, the owners themselves, to make that point, that this is -- that we contribute economically, despite the rhetoric.

ROBERTS: Now, a lot of people might be wondering across America, why Milwaukee? It's because of the Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner, whose bill passed the House the other day. What is about that bill that you're opposed to?

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: Well, that's -- it is very significant. I think that was part of the significance. But we're -- the fact that this bill originated in Wisconsin, we felt it was important that we, as people from Wisconsin, stand up against the kind of politics of hate.

ROBERTS: Right. Well...

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: And that's really what it is.

ROBERTS: Well, what is it about the bill that you disagree with?

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: Two major things. First of all, that it turns any -- all 12 million undocumented people, including the three million children, into aggravated felons, which is equivalent as if you had murdered somebody. Also, any individual or organization that provides any kind of assistance to an undocumented person would also be treated as a felon, because they change the legal definition of smuggler.

ROBERTS: Right. This is the bill that Senator Hillary Clinton was talking about that said that under this bill, Jesus Christ probably would have been determined a felon.

Here's what Congressman James Sensenbrenner said yesterday when he issued a statement in response to your protest. He said, "Illegal immigration is an expensive problem for law-abiding citizens. Americans and legal citizens have to pay more for police protection, for classrooms to educate our children and for hospital and health care costs. The burden on the taxpayer is wrong." What's your response?

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: Well, I think that Congressman Sensenbrenner is trying to blame every social problem on low-wage working class families. This group of low-wage working class families, basically it's a scapegoating. And it's not only that. I think it's justifying the exploitation of, you know, these working class families. And what's disturbing, and should be disturbing for everybody, is how far- reaching and how extremist this proposal is.

ROBERTS: Do you agree or disagree that America's borders are broken, that illegal immigration is a huge problem, and something needs to be done about it.

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: I definitely agree that the immigration system is broken. What has been counter-posed to 4437 as a humane and realistic solution is a proposal, the McCain-Kennedy Bill for Secure Orderly Immigration Act, which would actually in a humane special realistic fashion fix our broken immigration system.

ROBERTS: Well, we're certainly going to be hearing a lot more about this, not only in Congress, but as we said, there were protests that are staged for Atlanta today, Los Angeles tomorrow. It certainly looks like the Voces De La Frontera are making their voice heard.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, thanks for joining us this morning. Appreciate it -- Soledad.

NEUMANN-ORTIZ: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: A company is sued over what may be the biggest deliberate breach of Internet privacy ever. We'll tell you who it is. That's coming up as we mind your business.

ROBERTS: Also ahead, from designer pillows to luxury beds. How much is a good night's sleep worth to you? We'll take a look at how much some folks are willing to pay to catch those all-important z's.

O'BRIEN: And even more trouble, believe it or not, with the SATs, more mistakes with students scores than originally thought. We'll check in the folks who administer the test and ask them how they plan on fixing this problem. That's ahead. Stay with us.

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ROBERTS: A lot more problems with the SAT test. It turns out that hundreds more kids received lower scores than previously thought. We're going to ask to the group that administers the test how they plan to fix the problem, and how they plan to get those scores out to colleges in time for admissions.

And later on, in "AM Pop," our spring movie preview. Sharon Stone is back on the big screen as the murderous temptress again, but is "Basic Instinct 2" worth seeing? We'll take a look ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

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ROBERTS: Well, it may be a high school student's biggest fear -- blowing the SAT test. Well, more than 4,400 students now have received incorrect test scores. That's hundreds more than was previously thought. It was originally thought about 4,000 had received those incorrect scores.

Jim Montoya with the College Board, the organization that administers the SAT exam. He joins us now.

Good morning to you, Jim.

Are you pretty confident now that the problem is taken care of it? Because just recently, you found 27,000 more tests that hadn't been regraded after this first problem cropped up.

JIM MONTOYA, THE COLLEGE BOARD: That 27,000, in fact, translated to 395 or so score changes. We feel very confident at this point. In fact, Pearson has certified that all of the answer sheets have, in fact, been evaluated.

ROBERTS: Pearson Education Management, which is the company that you hired and contracted to read the scores on the SAT tests. And it may be fewer than 400 students, but for those 400 students, even though it's a small percentage of 27,000, it's a pretty big deal, is it not?

MONTOYA: There is no question that, in fact, it is an issue for these students. I was on the phone with students last night sharing with them their new scores. Most were actually pleased that their scores had gone up. But we want to make absolutely certain that we are doing everything we can to ensure that they have not been hurt in the admissions process.

ROBERTS: So we -- you don't -- you're pretty confident that there's not another batch of tests out there that haven't been gone through? Because you had asked Pearson a couple of times, are you sure that you rescored all the tests? And they said yes and it came back, and I think it was 1,600 or 1,700 hadn't been rescored, then came back, oh well there's another, 27,000 out there. So you're pretty confident now that they've got it all?

MONTOYA: We were very pleased to receive their certification on this, indicating that they had evaluated all 495,000.

ROBERTS: Here's the big problem for the 395, I think, students you had that just found out this week that some of their scores had been regraded to some degree is five days from now is when the college admissions go out. Is there enough time to get to the colleges that these kids might have applied to say whoa, there was a problem here, we're encouraging you to reevaluate the application of these students, make sure you take into account the fact that the tests weren't scored properly?

MONTOYA: Students have to come first. The very first thing we did was to notify the colleges to which all of these students had applied. I know, as a former dean of admissions at Stanford, how important it is to have correct information. And with the students I had a chance to speak with last night, they were reassured, knowing that those scores had reached those colleges, not only through overnight mail, but also through follow-up phone calls. Because it's absolutely essential that colleges and universities have these scores as soon as possible.

ROBERTS: And you're sure that these colleges still have time to reconsider these applications? They haven't filled up all of their slots and these kids who maybe were just on the bubble, who didn't make it, might not get in?

MONTOYA: What I know from having been an admissions officer, I know my former colleagues will do everything they can to minimize the impact on students. They understand that students had no control over this situation. This was beyond their control. And I know they will handle these situations in a really fair manner.

ROBERTS: The College Board likes to see itself as the gold standard of admissions testing. Do you have a credibility problem now going forward?

MONTOYA: Well, we have 106-year history of outstanding service to students and colleges. And, in fact, colleges and universities understand that mistakes happen. But what's really important is the fact that we've been responsible, we've been straightforward and we have provided this information as quickly as possible. And I know that admissions offices and students and families appreciate that.

ROBERTS: Well, we certainly hope it doesn't happen again. Jim Montoya from the College Board.

MONTOYA: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Thank you for joining us this morning.

MONTOYA: My pleasure.

ROBERTS: Soledad.

O'BRIEN: A look at the top stories are ahead this morning.

Police question the wife of a pastor found shot to death.

No leads in the case of those two boys missing in Milwaukee.

Authorities investigate a massive fire on a cruise ship.

Protesters try to stop a Catholic Church from closing one of America's oldest churches.

And in sleepless in America, the high price that some people will pay to sleep in luxury.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING.

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O'BRIEN: From photography to firearms, CNN's Jennifer Westhoven reports on one couple's change of scenery in this addition of "Life After Work."

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JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This husband and wife team took aim at a second career. Gil and Vicki (ph) Ash own and teach shooting at the Optimum Shotgun Performance School in Houston.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pull.

GIL ASH, SHOOTING INSTRUCTOR: Each year we teach 1,500 to 2,000 people how to shoot moving targets with a shotgun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As soon as you see that bird, everything is going to the break point.

ASH: We were among the first group of traveling competition shooters in this country. Everywhere we went, we either won or placed in the top five. People are always asking us, how you to this? Our reputation as teachers began to grow.

Nice shot. Nice shot. Good lateral move.

WESTHOVEN: While competing, the Ashs were also involved in a different type of shooting. They ran a commercial photography business, but after 18 years, the couple traded in their cameras for shotguns.

ASH: Photography was getting ready to go through the digital phase, and I didn't want to spend a quarter of a million dollars every year keeping up with the new digital trinkets. And the other part of it was, as a photographer, you're really not in control of your own time.

WESTHOVEN: These days the Ashs manage their own time. They wrote a book, produced three DVDs and are the shooting editors for "Sporting Clay" magazine.

ASH: We're passionate not only about teaching people to shoot but we teach them how to learn from failure. Sporting clays is very a difficult game and it has got a lot of built-in failure. It's whether or not you're able to take responsibility for the failure, learn from it, and move on, that determines how successful you're going to be.

Jennifer Westhoven, CNN.

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