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U.S. Military Relief Effort in Pakistan; Why Pakistan Matters; From Eyesore to Art; Teacher "Grades": Public or Private?; "L.A. Times" Reporter Discusses Grading L.A. Teachers; Pakistan's Devastating Floods; Wordplay: COBRA; XYZ: Religious Freedom and You

Aired August 18, 2010 - 13:59   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: We have a lot of news actually going on. Thousands of teachers are about to get a report card. It's one they don't want. If you have a child in school, you are sure to have an opinion on this. Part of our "Chalk Talk," which we do regularly on this show.

Plus, a reading -- leading international security analyst calls Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world. The ongoing floods are only bolstering his opinion of the situation. You are going to hear from him.

Also, check this out. From the rising island of Google buzz to the strait of Rick Roll, we're landing on a map of a very different kind of world. I thought this was fascinating. I'm going to share it with you.

But back to Pakistan. Gosh, we have been talking about Pakistan probably somewhere near the top of the show for several weeks, not just because of this flooding but because of Pakistan's pivotal role in the world as we know it right now. That country is on the edge of the abyss, overwhelmed by the worst flooding in 80 years. Now, it's very security is threatened by this natural and humanitarian disaster it's going through. This pictures of the suffering keep coming in.

Pakistani military officials quoted by "The Washington Post" warn that if much more international aid does not arrive soon, key operations against the Pakistani Taliban in cooperation with the U.S. and the war in Afghanistan could be affected.

Take a look at the map. It tells part of the story. The Pakistani military has three basic missions.

Number one, fighting the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. Now, the battlegrounds for that are the Swat Valley -- you can see that toward the top of your screen, just above where it says "Islamabad" -- and North and South Waziristan. We've highlighted that on the map as well.

Number two mission for the military there, aiding U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in part by preventing the Afghan Taliban from using areas on the Pakistani side of the border as operational bases. Number three -- and this is the one that gets a little dodgy -- look at the bottom right of that map, India. Pakistan has half a million troops on the border with India, with whom it is a rival, a nuclear armed rival, these two countries. That's part of the problem here. That's a different topic though.

Last year Pakistan claimed that its forces drove the Pakistani Taliban out of South Waziristan, but the flooding has put on hold the military's plan to escort some two million refugees back to their homes. As a result, the government faces a double-edged sword. It's got this restive refugee population demanding to return to their homes and a strong chance of the Taliban moving back in.

Now, these pictures of the flood damage in the Swat Valley underscore the problem. Heavy fighting between government forces and the Taliban took place here last year. Today, this valley is cut off from the rest of the country. The only way to get there now is by helicopter.

And these pictures show the military operation that was under way last year. These are pictures from last year, not current.

The next stage of the overall mission against the Taliban was to move into North Waziristan. Because of the flooding, that offensive has been put on hold. And this is all likely to play into the hands of the Taliban.

New reports indicate the Taliban might be taking advantage of this crisis in Pakistan. In the northwestern part of the country yesterday, militants reportedly attacked police outposts and yesterday killed two civilians who are active in the fight against them.

All of this is being played out. The suffering among these flood victims continue. Those most at risk to deadly disease are some 3.5 million children.

The U.N. says it's received less than half of the $460 million in donations that it needs for the relief efforts. Why? Why is it moving so slowly?

Millions of Pakistanis affected by the flooding desperate for just the basics: food, clean drinking water, tents, medicine. International aid has been very, very slow in coming to Pakistan, except from the United States, by the way.

So, before we go criticizing everybody, I want to remind you, many of you have been charitable and the government's been charitable. It's provided $87 million, more than any other country. That is often the case, by the way, in international incidents. As much as you hear about wanting to reach out and people not doing enough, Americans are very charitable. Much of that aid, by the way, is reaching flood victims by ship.

Our Sara Sidner is on one of those ships.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SARA SIDNER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're here off the shores of Karachi on the USS Peleliu with the Expeditionary Strike Group Number 5. It is their whole mission to make sure to be available when there is some sort of disaster.

They patrol these waters, and they were in the area to help those in the flood zones in Pakistan. They have been able to get about 5,000 people out of those flood zones, rescuing them with helicopters. They have also been able to drop about a half-million pounds of aid.

They say they will be here for as long as it takes. There are more helicopters coming in. There are more ships coming in.

The U.S. says that it has a humanitarian commitment that they're going to make to Pakistan. They've already given about $90 million in kind. But the U.N. continually saying that there is simply not enough aid being offered to this country, and so about $460 million so far, less than half of that has been pledged. There is still a great deal of need here in Pakistan.

The U.S. military says they'll be here. The United States itself says that it will keep providing lots of help, as much as it can. But much more is needed here.

Sara Sidner, CNN, off the coast of Karachi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And many of you have asked for information on how you can make a difference. To get more information on ways that you can make a difference and help provide relief for the flood victims in Pakistan, go to our Web site, visit "Impact Your World" at CNN.com/impact. And there are links there to charities doing work in Pakistan.

Also, more on how the flooding may be undermining Pakistan's security. And for that matter, world security. We're going to talk with international security analyst Jim Walsh -- he knows a lot about this -- in just a moment.

Well, it's all over but the shouting. Even after his client was convicted on just one of 24 corruption charges, Rod Blagojevich's lawyer found some stuff to yell about. His tirade against the prosecution caps what's been a circus of a trial, and that tirade makes its way into our "Sound Effect" today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM ADAM, ATTORNEY FOR ROD BLAGOJEVICH: This guy is going wild. This guy is nuts. He doesn't indict people for crimes and then prove it. He didn't prove it against Scooter Libby and he can't prove it against Rod Blagojevich.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody said not guilty. They just said --

ADAM: They said they couldn't prove it. The government said they would --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. That's not guilty.

ADAM: Well, you know, we don't have to prove our innocence. And don't forget, that's a good point.

Don't forget, we didn't put on any defense -- none, zero, zip, nothing. And they still couldn't get a conviction. And they couldn't get a conviction.

I could give you this as an absolute prediction with guaranteed certainty. Before the sun goes down tonight on the Chicago River, Ron Schaefer (ph) and Pat Cotter (ph) and the rest of those ex-U.S. attorneys will be saying, this was a great government win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All that the government has said publicly is, see you in court. It plans to retry the ousted Illinois governor ASAP.

The jurors split on the bulk of the charges, but found him guilty of lying to the FBI, a single charge. As for the bombshell charge, trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Obama, they hung, 11-1, in favor of convicting.

On his way out of court, Blagojevich said he'd been prosecuted and persecuted by the U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald. Patrick Fitzgerald is the guy his lawyer called nuts. The next chapter in this thing starts next week with a hearing on a details of the retrial.

All right. Come see some unrelenting misery in the Pakistani floods. Washington sees misery and opportunity. The trouble is, so does the Taliban.

We'll talk about it after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: The floods now swamping Pakistan would be a catastrophe anywhere in the world, but for many reasons and on many levels, Pakistan isn't just any country. My next guest actually says it's the most dangerous country in the world, and you do not need to be an expert in international security to know why. We talk about it a lot.

Jim Walsh is, by the way, an expert on international security. He's an international security analyst and a preeminent voice on geopolitics. He's a research associate at the Security Studies Program at MIT, joins me now from Massachusetts.

Jim, good to see you again. Let's get down to brass tacks here.

You may or may not be interested in the Pakistanis. You may or may not be moved by the pictures that you see on TV. You may even be tired of -- you may have donor fatigue, you may not be sure where Pakistan sits in the battle between good and bad and terrorism and world peace.

Why, then, do you need to care about this?

JIM WALSH, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, MIT: Well, if all you cared about was American interest and American security, you should want to care about this topic.

First of all, the U.S. has thousands -- tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan battling insurgents there, and those insurgents take refuge in Pakistan. And the ability of the Pakistani government to put pressure on those troops has a direct bearing on the success and the lives of those American troops in Afghanistan.

Number two, Pakistan is one of the countries in the world that owns nuclear weapons, that has nuclear material on its territory. If that government has problems, is overrun by the Pakistani Taliban, has other sorts of issues, the government collapses, some of that nuclear material could be at risk, could be passed on to a terrorist and then end up in a city somewhere in the United States.

So, even if you only care about the U.S., you should be caring about what happens in Pakistan right now.

VELSHI: All right. And just because this is such a passionate discussion, I want to be clear that I fall into the camp of people who think that you should provide humanitarian aid for people, not getting too involved in the politics.

But you actually have said that Pakistan might be the most dangerous country in the world.

WALSH: Yes. And that's because it's got a lot of different things going on all at the same time.

And so I think, first of all, you've got three different sets of broad categories of extremists. You've got the Pakistani Taliban. They're trying to overthrow the Pakistani government.

You've got the Afghanistan Taliban and their brothers in al Qaeda who are holed up in North Waziristan and crossing the border over into Afghanistan. But they're a problem.

Then you've got a whole different set of extremists who have focused on Kashmir and on India, and have in the past worked with the government. But now the government is trying to wean themselves away from that and could turn on the government. In any case, could recruit more extremists.

Then you've got the nuclear weapons, you've got a rivalry with India, its long-time foe. And so all of this together add a weak government and a natural disaster, and that's not a very good mix.

VELSHI: You have actually -- you just mentioned India. You think India should be more active in the relief efforts.

WALSH: Well, I think it may be politically difficult for India to take an active role. I welcome the fact that they've made a modest pledge of aid, but India can be helpful, and China should be more helpful. We should talk about China as well. But India can be helpful by backing off and not putting any pressure on Pakistan at a time when Pakistan is under great duress.

Now, I can tell you, there's some retired general somewhere in India who's saying, ah, Pakistan is having problems, here's a chance for us to take advantage of it. That would be a real mistake, and it is not in India's security self-interest to do that sort of thing. So, I think India should give Pakistan wide berth here and not add to its problems.

And as for China, if China wants to be a global power, then it should step up to the plate here. It borders Pakistan. It's got tons of cash. And it has been slow to the game here. So, I would like to see China really get involved and live up to its responsibilities.

VELSHI: Talk to me about what Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said on "Charlie Rose" last week. "If we do the right thing, it will not only be good for the people whose lives we save, but for the U.S. image in Pakistan. The people of Pakistan will see that when the crisis hits, it's not the Chinese, it's not the Iranians, it's not other countries, it's not the EU. It's the U.S. that always leads."

Is he right?

WALSH: He is right, but it's going to be a very, very difficult task.

You know, the U.S. isn't particularly popular in different parts of Pakistan. And if we are able to come in and really help with the situation, that's got to help. It helped in Indonesia when Indonesia had its problems and we were able to take the lead and really provide help to people. But it is not going to be an easy task.

It's not only marshaling the aid, it's also delivering it. And it's how you go about it.

You know, there have been studies in the U.S. in the past comparing the way different relief organizations do work. Some were very efficient, but the people receiving the help didn't like them as much as others who handled it with a different style.

We have to be careful when we go in there. We can't trample over local customs or upset the apple cart of local traditions. We have to work with Pakistanis and really work with the NGOs, the nonprofit groups on the ground who have been there for years and know what they're doing.

VELSHI: All right. Just to paraphrase some of the comments that I've seen on my Facebook page, some people are sort of saying, look, these guys don't want to make a decision about whether they're with us or against us. Maybe this is a good opportunity for them to see that if you hedge with the U.S., if you hedge where you are in the battle against terrorism, maybe everybody in the world is not in such a hurry to help you out when times are tough. Why is that a bad argument?

WALSH: Well, I think that's a really bad argument.

Listen, Pakistan is on the edge here. Pakistan is Ground Zero for a lot of the extremism that's taking place in the world. If we let Pakistan tip over into the abyss, again, what's going to happen to their nuclear weapons, what's going to happen to their nuclear material, what's going to happen if there's a new hotbed for civil conflict, what's going to happen to our troops in Afghanistan? On and on and on.

Actually, you know, Pakistan, it doesn't have a perfect record. I can understand the lack of patience that the writer has in making this comment.

VELSHI: Right.

WALSH: But Pakistan has changed and it is changing. Not as fast as a lot of us would like, but just recently they finally admitted that its internal problems, not India, but internal problems that are the real threat here.

So, I think they are starting to move away, they are moving in the right direction, and they have helped the U.S. And I think it would be a mistake, obviously a humanitarian disaster, but also a political mistake to turn our back on them when we really need them.

VELSHI: Jim, good to see you again. Thanks very much.

Jim Walsh is an international security expert from MIT.

Well, from an eyesore to art deep in the heart of Texas, after the break we're going to head to Austin to check out how they are "Building Up America."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Austin, Texas, is a city that helped launch the careers of music legends like Janis Joplin and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

CNN's Tom Foreman, a musician himself, says it's also the city that turned an eyesore into art. And he shows us how in today's "Building Up America."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is impossible to address the economy of Austin without noting the symphony of arts that flows through this town, and the Long Center downtown is evidence how a vibrant arts community can be good for residents and business, too. For 40 years, the multipurpose aging Palmer Auditorium sat here. When the city decided to replace it in the '90s, the town was flush with dot-com money, a $125 million plan was developed.

By 2002, however, many dot-comes were dot-gone, and the plan was, too.

REYNOLDS "CLIFF" B. REDD, JR, EXECUTIVE DIR., LONG CENTER: People were accustomed to coming here. They knew what it was. It was so odd, but such a symbol for the city.

FOREMAN: Cliff Redd runs the center and Stan Haas was a key architect of its revival.

REDD: So to give it a new life and a new place of people's hearts. It was a really seductive project for us.

FOREMAN: Unable to afford an entirely new facility, the city like many homeowners remodeled.

STAN HAAS, ARCHITECT, NELSEN PARTNERS: We began to investigate what's the idea of taking the great bones of this building and making it even more than it was. The eureka moment for us was finding a construction photo of this building in 1958. And what it showed was this beautiful concrete perimeter ring beam.

FOREMAN: Stripping the old building down to its bones, they reused every piece they could to create a state-of-the-art new performance center. A hidden concrete ring beam came into the light as a sweeping architectural element.

Old weather-beaten roof tiles were converted into stylish hip siding. Windows were made into decorative panels. Old light fixtures were rewired, reworked and re-hung for a retro splash. Five tons of steel were melted down and returned for reuse.

In all, 45 million pounds of debris recycled and used again. The results are staggering. Not only did the Long Center open on time and on budget, but listen to how much they saved by using the old to build up the new.

REDD: Typically when we research these across the country, the mind-numbing figure that stopped us, they are running about $1,100 a foot to build what we have. We were able to build this project for $278 a foot. It becomes one of the most studied projects. An iconic example of Austin ingenuity, at best.

FOREMAN: Now, that's a finale.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Austin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Now that guy can tell a story.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: So there's flooding in D.C. this morning and a whole lot of rain across the country.

Chad Myers is in our Severe Weather Center with an update on what is going on exactly.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: OK. I want to go "Off the Radar" with you. I love this story.

This guy, Ethan Bloch, a Web site called Flowtown, made this map. The original one in 2007. He based it off an original map by a guy named Randall Munroe for a Web site called XKCD. I love it.

First of all, let's look at the 2007 map. This is the map of the social media world.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And how many people were using the world? How many people were using Facebook, let's say, right there?

VELSHI: That was a small country at the time.

MYERS: Yes. It's almost like Belgium.

VELSHI: MySpace was the biggest.

MYERS: MySpace was the biggest -- France. It's kind of that big pentagon there.

How many people were using MySpace at that point in time? And then you have your AOL and you have your -- you have all kinds of other things along here that basically I never use. That's why they're very small. And they're all islands -- the Bay of Angst and the Ocean of Subculture. And it was a great map at the time and people were looking at it and clicking on it and going, well, how could it get any better than this?

VELSHI: Is there Twitter on that first one? I didn't see.

MYERS: I don't see it at all.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: OK. But the one to keep an eye on -- there's Wikipedia. Bottom right, just near where your color bars are there at the bottom, there's Wikipedia.

MYERS: Yes, look at that. Look how big it is right there.

VELSHI: OK. And then Facebook. Keep an eye on where Facebook is. You pointed that out.

MYERS: This tiny little map.

VELSHI: Tiny little map.

Now let's go to the 2010 version of the world of social media. Very different.

MYERS: It's the end of the world as we know it, so to speak, for some of them.

VELSHI: End of the world as we know it.

MYERS: Because, I mean -- OK, Friendster is still here, at 115 million. But look at what happened to Facebook.

Facebook, 500 million. And they're expecting to get to one billion different users over the next couple of years.

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: Look at Flickr down here. Up on Facebook, you have some funny things, too. You have the Mountains of Naked Pictures, of pictures you wish you didn't post on Facebook. And then you have Bebo.

And then Twitter is still down here, but it didn't really get too much bigger. Right? And then YouTube is over to the right.

The former Kingdom of MySpace kind of broken up, almost like a Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary problem.

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: You know, the former Kingdom of MySpace still existing there, but a couple of little breaks in the borders and things like that. Certainly not the powerhouse that it was back in 2007.

VELSHI: I find that fascinating, Chad. I really enjoyed looking at that one. It makes you really think about things.

Chad, great to see you, as always.

MYERS: A lot of funny stuff in there. A lot of little humorous things. You have to read it on the site.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: It's funny, yes. It's like, oh, I didn't know. I forgot about that one.

MYERS: Yes.

VELSHI: Good to see you, my friend.

MYERS: Good to see you.

VELSHI: All right. One newspaper is about to name names and release data on thousands of teachers, and that is not sitting well with thousands of teachers.

I'm going to talk to both sides. "Chalk Talk" straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK, interesting development in Los Angeles. The "Los Angeles Times" is going to be naming names, a database on 6,000 teachers which rates them based on the students' progress on standardized tests from year to year. Now it would be the first such disclosure in the nation. Union leaders are calling for teachers to boycott the newspaper, and others to boycott the paper.

I'm joined now by A.J. Duffy, who is the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles. I believe he's in Los Angeles joining us via Skype.

A.J., can you hear me?

A.J. DUFFY, PRESIDENT, UNITED TEACHERS LOS ANGELES (via Skype): Yes, just make it Duffy, please.

VELSHI: All right, very good.

Tell me what your overview of this whole issue is?

DUFFY: Well, I want to make it clear. We are asking our members to stop purchasing and cancel their subscriptions to the "Times" to protest the idea that they are going to -- they're going to do things to individuals that's not right.

Every teacher wants to know the test scores, every parent and student should know them. But to plaster them out in the public and to use it to lambaste teachers -- in two cases, two very excellent teachers by multiple measures -- is a terrible, terrible thing. It's almost -- it's almost McCarthyism.

But I want to be clear, we have been attempting to work with our district because we recognize that we do need a new evaluation system. No one's arguing that. But what we're saying is that value-added is a flawed system. Even Diane Ravich (ph) and Linda Darling-Hammond (ph), two very, very prominent and well-respected educators, feel the same way. We believe that teachers should be evaluated using multiple measures.

VELSHI: OK, fair enough, Duffy, I hear that.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: But why is it wrong -- you said McCarthyism. It's absolutely not McCarthyism. It's not going after somebody for something that they're doing that they're hiding or keeping in their private lives. This is just a compilation of information that should be public anyway.

DUFFY: It should be public between the teacher and the administration and the parent and the student at the school. Absolutely, we have no problem with that. As a matter of fact, we do that right now.

But to make it public to millions and millions of people and draw the inference that because of a standardized test score, which is a one shot snapshot, drive-by evaluation of a teacher when in fact the standardized test scores in California only test 15 percent of what a teacher teaches, that's wrong.

And publicly now millions of people are looking at a couple of teachers who, as I said, by some standards, multiple measures are excellent teachers --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Duffy, let me ask you, the reason this is such an interesting conversation is because this is something we see repeated across the country. The idea that teachers are saying it is unfair to judge us, to judge our tenure, to judge our income on test scores alone.

So would you be happy if the "L.A. Times" went ahead with this but somehow incorporated other measures? And very specifically, what would those other measures be that would be fair to publicly rate teachers on?

DUFFY: I believe that standardized test scores as well as periodic assessments and work that students do in the classroom should be shared with students and parents and administrators. I do not believe that they should be made public.

I think that clearly we do have to change the evaluation system. But where is the student accountability? Where is the parent accountability?

And where is the accountability of the system to set up an environment at any given school with proper supports for teachers? Where is that accountability?

Are we simply going to use a standardized test score to determine whether somebody is good or bad in the classroom and we're not going to address any of the other issues?

VELSHI: So you would support --

DUFFY: In California, we are the eighth largest economy in the world and we are 47th in per-pupil spending. That is a tragedy.

VELSHI: Just to be clear, I'm going to be speaking with the --

(CROSSTALK)

DUFFY: -- I don't know what to say.

VELSHI: Duffy, it's hard because we're on Skype, so you're not necessarily hearing me. But I'm going to be talking to the "L.A. Times" in a minute about this. Would you -- because I think the public wants accountability and I think you hit the nail on the head, whether it's students or parents or the administration or the system, and teachers who are probably the single largest part of the whole thing.

Would you support -- teachers are public employees -- I don't know why every public employee shouldn't be reviewed and that shouldn't be out in the public when taxpayers pay for it.

But would you support a very comprehensive public rating system that encompasses everything that you just said?

DUFFY: Look, when you start naming names publicly and using one flawed methodology of determining the quality of that teacher, then you are doing that human being a disservice.

Yes, there should be accountability. And if you look at the API, the Academic Performance Index of Los Angeles schools, which is based on the standardized test, it keeps going up year after year after year. That's public information.

Our test scores keep going up year after year. That's public information. Our graduation rates are going up dramatically, our dropout rates are going down dramatically. That should be public.

But to brand a teacher as not good because of a snapshot standardized test and then publish their name in the newspaper and make the inference that they are a bad teacher is a terrible thing.

We are for accountability, absolutely. But this is a witch hunt and it doesn't serve the kids and it doesn't serve to help public education.

If we want to help the kids, we have to change public education from top to bottom from the moment somebody goes into an education program in college to the moment they go into a classroom and the supports that we give them to help them be better, that's what they need.

VELSHI: I want to get the other side of this conversation in. Thanks for joining us.

A.J. Duffy is the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

Coming up next, I'm going to talk live with one of the "L.A. Times" reporters who's covering the story. He says some of the teachers welcome this public database of how teachers perform.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I want to talk about the other side of this issue. We just talked to A.J. Duffy of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, I want to talk to Jason Song now, he is an "L.A. Times" reporter and he is joining me now from Los Angeles.

Jason, you're involved in the reporting of this story of the names of the teachers as it connects to test scores?

JASON SONG, EDUCATION REPORTER, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Yes, I was one of several reporters that was assigned to this story and we have been working on it for about a year now.

VELSHI: Tell me the rationale. Why are you doing this? SONG: Well, the rationale was teacher effectiveness is a source of great debate right now throughout the nation. It's been debated in Congress, local school districts are looking at it. Here in Los Angeles, the unified school district, the second biggest in the nation, they've formed a task force to look at it.

And we noticed that there wasn't a lot of objective information being used in teacher evaluations. Right now, most of them are based on subjective measures, for the most part.

So we decided we'd heard about value-added analysis and we thought it was something we should look into. So we decided to ask the school district for seven years' worth of student test scores to see if we could do our own value-added analysis and what that would tell us.

VELSHI: By doing this, are you not implying that a teacher connected to a student with low test scores is responsible for that student's low test scores?

SONG: What we are saying is that teachers matter. That is the most important finding that we have discovered so far, that effective teachers can have a great pact on a child's education in just one year.

We discovered that students that were assigned to teachers in the top 10 percent of value-added scores are going to perform dramatically better than teachers in the lower percent.

And so, we thought that it's something the public would have a great interest in knowing. It's something that we debated whether we should release this data from the minute we asked the school district for this information. And ultimately, we decided that it would be in the public's best interest to know.

VELSHI: What do you say -- you may have heard this before, but A.J. Duffy just said to me he thought it was McCarthyism, he thought it was a witch hunt because you're naming individual teachers.

What's your response to that?

SONG: We disagree with that. Like I said, this was a decision that we weighed very carefully here at the paper, talked about it for hours and hours.

And we've decided -- and we make it clear in the story that no one who uses value-added analysis believes it should be the sole basis of a teacher's evaluation.

And we make that very clear in the story, we say this is only one measure. As a matter of fact, districts that do use this generally lean on it for about 50 percent or less of the evaluation.

And we've also given teachers about a week to comment on their own scores before we make the database public so they can tell us about any extenuating circumstances or if they would like to comment on the database. We're giving them first shot before we take it live.

VELSHI: Obviously, what you are trying to do is probably what we are all trying to do, including A.J. Duffy and the teachers, create a better education system.

And as a reporter, what do you say to what A.J. Duffy just said to me and that is, why not take into account the role not just that teachers play, but that the student play, that the student's parent plays, the administrator plays and the school plays in terms of the resources allocated to students and whether that's done so fairly?

SONG: Well experts say those are all factors that should be folded into a teacher's evaluation. But one reason why we thought a value-added analysis would be promising is that it largely mitigates for factors outside the classroom.

The way it does that is that it compares a child against himself and then ranks that child in comparison with peers in his or her same grade. And by doing that, you can largely control for outside factors that a school has no control over.

VELSHI: Jason, thanks very much for joining us and giving us some insight into this.

Jason Song is the "Los Angeles Times" reporter, one of the reporters for involved in this report of teachers and their links to test scores. A.J. Duffy joined me before that, he's the president of United Teachers of Los Angeles.

We'll, of course, stay on top of this story and all sorts of public education stories as we do here on this show.

The United Nations calls it one of the worst humanitarian disasters in memory, the deadly and devastating flooding in Pakistan. So why aren't the 20 million people affected by this getting more of the international aid they desperately need? We'll tackle the question when we go "Globe Trekking" after this.

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VELSHI: Time now for "Globe Trekking."

First, to Pakistan and that country's devastating and deadly floodings. Some 20 million people are affected, more than 1,400 are dead and no end in sight.

Adding to the desperation, the slow response of the international community. CNN's Reza Sayah looks into this perplexing problem.

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REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The U.N. calls Pakistan's floods the worst natural disaster in recent memory, but despite urgent appeals for the world to help the 20 million victims, relief groups say aid has been painfully slow. Aid workers and analysts say it's impossible to figure out why government and individual donors are not giving to Pakistan the way they've done with other disasters, but they say there could be at least four reasons and they say none is a good excuse.

Reason one, the death toll is relatively low for a natural disaster. That creates the impression that Pakistan's floods may not be such a big deal.

NEVA KHAN, OXFARM: It is misleading when we're not able to quantify it in our heads.

MARCUS PRIOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: The needs here are quite clear enough, that there are many millions of people relying on the international community to step forward.

SAYAH: Reason two, donor fatigue. For years now, Pakistan has been on a seemingly constant campaign to ask for money to save its economy, to fight the Taliban, for the 2005 earthquake, the 2009 refugee crisis and now the floods.

KHAN: A donor never gets fatigued. Giving, just as an idea, is not about sort of, I'm fresh and so I'll give. You don't give because you're fresh or because you're flush with cash, you give because of the sense of humanity.

SAYAH: Reason three, the perception that Pakistan is run by corrupt politicians and the aid won't get to those who need it.

This week, Prime Minister Gilani insisted all aid would be transparent. And relief groups say, if you don't want to give to the government, then give to an aid agency that you trust.

MOSHARRAF ZAIDI, POLITICAL ANALYST: There are different ways people can actually give that doesn't have to be rooted through the government if that's a concern that people are really feeling.

SAYAH: Finally, reason four, what aid groups call the worst excuse of all, the perception in the West that Pakistan is just not a good place, a country filled with extremists and militants.

ZAIDI: Yes, there is militancy within the country, but when you take into proportion, it's very small.

KHAN: If the only time you see the word Pakistan is sandwiched between two evil words, words that make you feel bad, make you feel insecure, make you worry about your children and their future, how are people supposed to feel energetic about wanting to help this country?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: That was Reza Sayah reporting from Islamabad.

Today's "Wordplay" is something that will normally bite you, but in our context it can take a bite out of your bills. Stay tuned.

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VELSHI: Time now for "Wordplay." This is five words in one -- Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. You know it as COBRA. We're not talking about a venomous snake, but a lifeline to the newly unemployed.

For 24 years now it's allowed most people who lose their jobs to keep the health insurance they got through their employers for as long as 18 months. It's never been cheap.

Ex-employees have had to cover all the costs of a premium as opposed to the small percentage that they had paid while working. In the last couple of years, though, the government's given people a break. It came up today during President Obama's visit to Ohio when he met with a family able to maintain their health coverage through COBRA.

Only problem, a lot of folks' premiums have spiked, on average nearly tripling because that subsidy approved by Congress last year has run out. And in this climate ahead of midterm elections, an extension is widely considered political poison on Capitol Hill.

All right, you've been sharing some very strong opinions with me about that planned Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero. Well, I have some strong thoughts of my own and I'm going to share them with you in my "XYZ."

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VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it. It's a controversial topic, the Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero. It's an emotional topic and one I wasn't sure I should bring up in these last few minutes with you, but you've talked about it with me on Facebook and Twitter, so here goes.

Did you know that as an American citizen you have two freedoms granted by the First Amendment of the Constitution when it comes to religion? The first part is known as the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause essentially says the government can't pass laws that will establish an official religion. This is commonly interpreted as the separation of church and state.

The second one is the Free Exercise Clause, and it prevents the government from interfering with or controlling a person's practice of his or her religion. Religious freedom is an absolute right in this country and it includes the right to practice any religion or no religion at all for all Americans.

The founders of this country crossed the ocean in the early 1600s seeking freedom of religion from an oppressive church and government. I don't know how the situation in downtown New York will play out, but I know these are potentially dangerous times for our freedoms.

Suppose our government leaders or New York state leaders do step in in some capacity, whether official or nonofficial, and assist in moving the mosque elsewhere. Then what? What kind of precedent does that set?

Timothy McVeigh was raised Catholic. Do we then entertain petitions of moving Catholic churches away from the Oklahoma bombing site? I'm sure you're probably thinking it sounds ridiculous, but ask yourself, is it ridiculous because Catholicism is familiar to you?

Or, is your argument that what he did was different? Or is your argument that Timothy McVeigh didn't kill in the name in Allah?

For every religion under the heavens there will always be extremists. The key is to understand that the extremist do not make up the masses.

Linda Lee on Facebook wrote to me today, "Islam and terrorism are not synonymous. By fighting for the mosque for those reasons, you are supporting bin Laden's idea that the West is at war with Islam. Please don't be the cause of what you are so desperately trying to fight," end quote.

If you're an American citizen and choose to remain in this country, then whether you are against or you are for the Islamic center and mosque should be irrelevant. I say "should be" in an ideal world because as an American citizen, we should all be for the Constitution that so many have fought, lived and died for, including the 2,976 souls who died on September 11th at Ground Zero, at the Pentagon and in a field in western Pennsylvania.

That's my "XYZ." Time now for "RICK'S LIST."

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Ali. Appreciate it.