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Schools Equals Testing Centers; Mom Opt Out of State Tests; Civil War Looms in West Africa; Storm Threat in the South; New Air Traffic Control Rules; Libyan Woman Says She was Raped; NATO Taking Over Libya Ops; No Time for Grief; 2010 Census Changes; Rare Look at U.S. Nuke Plant; Schools As Testing Centers

Aired March 26, 2011 - 15:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now top of the hour and a look at some of the stories that we're following for you.

Political trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro has died. She battled a type of blood cancer for a dozen years and in 1984 the former congresswoman was the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party. Ferraro was 75.

And rebel forces in Libya say they now completely control an important city close to the country's oilfields. People celebrated on burned out tanks and damage left by several days of coalition air strikes. Libya's deputy foreign minister told reporters why government troops pulled back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHALED KAIM, LIBYAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER: The last two days the, with the so-called coalition -- call it the crusader -- they were heavily at fault for the attack on the Libyan armed forces and on the civilians in Libya and nearby. And the employment (ph) of the coalition forces was very direct and they were heavily in faulted (ph). And that's why the Libyan armed forces decided to leave Libya early this morning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: President Barack Obama plans to talk about Libya in a televised address Monday night. CNN's live coverage begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time.

On to Japan now where concern over radiation levels are in the sea water. Tests shows levels have spiked in waters off the coast of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It's not clear where the radioactive iodine is coming from. Investigators are trying to figure out if there is a leak at one of the reactors at the plant damaged by that earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago now.

And the FAA in this country has ordered a review of the nation's Air Traffic Control System after a controller fell asleep at Reagan Washington National Airport. In the meantime, it has an interim plan to prevent similar incidents in the future. It requires a regional controller to contact the airport control tower to assure that it is able to handle an incoming flight.

The controller who admitted to falling asleep has been suspended. One expert says it is dangerous not to have at least two controllers on duty at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB RICHARDS, "SECRETS FROM THE TOWER" AUTHOR: Something can happen at any moment. Things go wrong in a second and you have to be able to react to it. And having one people there -- one person there to do that is not -- is not what you want ideally to be efficient in working in that situation. I've seen it way too many -- hundreds of times in my 20 years something happens at the last second. And having just one person there is not the way to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And on to London now. Scattered violence broke out today as tens of thousands of demonstrators marched against government spending cuts. Several businesses were vandalized and at least four police officers were actually injured. Organizers say nearly a half million people took part in those protests.

All right. If you have a debit card rewards program with your bank, experts suggest that you shouldn't get too attached to it. Several national banks are actually doing away with the incentive for customers as banks battle the Federal Reserve over proposed caps on swipe fees. That's the post passed on to retailers when customers pay by debit cards.

All right. Reporters in Libya, including our own, believe that a woman's life just might be in danger. That's after a surreal and frightening scene that played out today. Shouting, guns out, smashing cameras and a frantic injured woman who said she was brutalized by Muammar Gadhafi's militia. Our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson was there and explains what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the only hotel in Tripoli that is full of international journalists. And this woman had come here to tell her story. She has told us she was picked up at a government checkpoint, held for two days, her wrists and ankles bound. She was beaten she said. She was repeatedly raped by government -- by people from the -- people from the government armed militia on the streets here. Repeatedly raped.

And she had come to tell her story. But as she started to tell it, government officials in the hotel immediately moved in to close her down. Even one of the kitchen staff in the hotel pulled a knife on her and told her that she was a traitor to the country.

Not only did the government officials try and close her down, shut her down, bundling her out of the way, putting a bag over her head, they literally threw journalists to the ground, kicking the journalists, beating the journalists. Our own cameraman Khalil Abdallah was shooting this. They grabbed his camera. They forced it out of his hands. They took the camera at the other side of the room and systematically smashed it in the corner of the room taking away the video that he had recorded from the camera and then continued to beat other journalists.

And eventually, they took this woman kicking and screaming out of the hotel, bundling her in a car. Journalists could do nothing to stop it. She was asked where she was going. She said she didn't know and as officials were saying she was being taken to hospital, she said, "They're taking me to prison. Taking me to prison."

This was an example of one person here trying to speak out against the regime to all the reporters here. The first time we've had an opportunity to hear all these things on camera. Government officials brutally shutting her down and bundling her into a car, taking her off. We know not where. We know not what is happening to her right now.

We have demanded to government officials that they assure us and prove to us that she is safe and secure. They've thrown their hands up in the air. They say they'll do their best. But it's -- she -- right now, her life is very probably in danger.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. More on that story as we get information. Meantime, NATO is about to leave the military operations taking place in Libya. Let's check in with Pentagon correspondent Chris Lawrence for more on this. The transition about to take place possibly as early as tomorrow? Is that right?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: That's right. When we first heard about this yesterday, Fredricka, a coalition official told me that it would basically take within 48 hours for the coalition senior commanders to sort of brief their NATO counterparts, to get the new orders drawn up, and that the actual pilots flying these no-fly missions wouldn't see much of a difference at all at their level.

So even though the U.S. has pretty much already handed over the no-fly mission to its coalition partners and now about to hand it over to NATO, its missions in terms of -- in its responsibility in terms of conducting strikes on Gadhafi forces and armament on the ground continues.

A Pentagon spokesman confirms that overnight there were several strikes in the areas around Misrata, Adjabiya, Tripoli, all of them hitting ground target.

We spoke with an official who said even though a lot of the fighting is moving closer to these major cities where you have a greater danger of civilian casualties, that is not going to stop some of the -- some of the strikes outside of the cities on Gadhafi forces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VICE ADM. BILL GORTNEY, U.S. JOINT CHIEFS STAFF DIRECTOR: You cut off their supply lines. You cut -- if they're at the forward edge (ph) of the fight and you cut off their ability to sustain that fight, you've significantly impacted not only their ability to fight but the will to fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: One big difference, the Tomahawk missiles have, for the most part, stopped flying. There were no Tomahawks fired overnight. But the U.S. has already shut off about 160 of them, mostly in the first few days and that the cost of those Tomahawks it's probably well over $200 million in cost.

Also, the F-15 fighter jet that went down, that's tens of millions of dollars. And the cost to keep refueling a lot of these planes, you know, in the air is also an added cost.

These are some of the things that officials, not only Pentagon officials, but the Obama administration as well -- these are some of the things -- some of the answers they'll have to provide Congress. We've heard a lot in the last few days Congress wanting some accounting done on just how expensive this mission is and could be.

WHITFIELD: All right. So, unclear too, Chris, whether the president will address any of those things before Congress is able to ask some of those questions to the president and that could be as early as Monday when the president addresses the nation on this operation.

Thanks so much, Chris Lawrence at the Pentagon.

LAWRENCE: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right. We're turning now to the ongoing disaster in Japan where survivors are struggling to move forward. The only resource that there seems to be no shortage of right now is Japan's fighting spirit. Here now is our Kyung Lah.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the new normal of Japan's tsunami zone there is no time to grieve. Sixteen- year-old Huroki Sukuwara (ph) is underneath this blanket. His parents and two brothers drove his body to the emergency shelter for the best farewell they could offer in the wake of the tsunami.

"Don't give up hope." Huroki's father tells his friends. "Keep living for my son."

This car side tribute to a life stolen young ends in minutes. His father covers his teenage son and says goodbye.

The disaster's toll is measured not just in damage but in human suffering. Ninety-three year old Matsio Iriohana (ph) barely escaped the tsunami but is sick and getting worse by the day in the evacuation center. "I don't know what to do," says her granddaughter, Emiko Sato. "I'm just trying to take this day by day."

"That's all any victim can do." says Keiko Naganuma.

Seven or eight of my family is missing, she says, including her oldest son, eight-year-old Koto (ph), presumed dead, his body washed away from his school by the tsunami.

Of 100 students at Ishinomaki Okawa (ph) Elementary, 77 are dead or missing. The school gutted by the tsunami. Backpack after backpack sits for parents to retrieve along with a picture of the school little league, the bats they used, art bags filled with crayons.

"I'm not OK," she says, "of course, I'm not, but I have another son." I can see he's pretending to be happy so we don't worry about him. So mother joins and pretends for her son and for herself.

But pretending is not an option for city crews, victims themselves who cry as they work.

"I don't want to lose my hometown. I want it to come back. We won't give up." he says. A fighting spirit that keeps this region from crumbling. The son who won't leave the wreckage of his home until he can find his parent's body. The hometown boy who pledges to rebuild despite that nearly every part of this town is leveled. And the newborn babies, Yuma (ph) and Yukia (ph), just days old, small signs, say their homeless mothers, that the next chapter in the rebirth of a region can be written.

Kyung Lah, CNN in Northern Japan, tsunami zone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And now in the this country, the U.S. Census results are in and one ethnic group, in particular, expanded so much that it now accounts for half of the entire nation's growth. Can you guess which one it might be? You'll find out after this.

Data from the 2010 Census show that significant population changes have taken place across the country. Here's a breakdown of states reporting the most growth.

Texas came in at number five with its population increasing 20.6 percent. Idaho at number four with 21.1 percent growth. And Utah followed topping that list or -- take a look at the numbers actually involving that state with 23.8 percent. We'll have the top two states with the most growth right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. We're taking a look at the states with the largest population increase in the past ten years. Coming in at number two, Arizona. And the state with the most growth, Nevada's population increased by more than 35 percent. That's a huge number. So one in six, that's how many people in this country refer to themselves as Hispanic. Government officials knew that Latinos were growing as a group, but the new census figures surprised even them. Here's CNN's Casey Wian in Los Angeles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: One in six people living in the United States is now Hispanic passing the 50 million mark in total for the first time. The Census Department says the nation's Hispanic population grew 43 percent during the century's first decade by 15 million people accounting for more than half of the nation's population growth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY PASSEL, PEW HISPANIC CENTER: The growth is very rapid in what a lot of us are calling new settlement areas mainly in the Southeastern United States. A broad swath of states from Maryland down to Georgia over to Louisiana up to Kentucky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN (voice-over): Earlier census projections of the nation's 2010 ethnic makeup underestimated the Hispanic population by about a million people. CNN asked census officials how much of the increase was the result of higher birthrates and immigration, both legal and illegal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTO REMERIZ, U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS: Those are actually very excellent questions and we are actually in the middle of the process right now of actually investigating and doing that. We hope to come out later in the year with more specific information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN (on camera): Census figures are used to draw political boundaries for state and national elections. That means more political power for states with rising Hispanic populations. Latino advocacy groups are counting on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK SHARRY, AMERICA'S VOICE: One of the implications of the growth of Hispanic voting power is that sooner rather than later Congress will have to deal with comprehensive immigration reform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN (voice-over): The nation's Asian population grew at the same rate, 43 percent, as Hispanics though their numbers are smaller. Still, the increase in Asians during the decade, 4.4 million, outpaced the growth of the black population, 4.3 million, for the first time. The nation's theoretical population center also continues to shift toward the Southwest. It started in Maryland during the 1790 census and is now located in Plato, Missouri, population 109.

Casey Wian, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. The crisis in Japan has a lot of people focusing -- a lot of attention on nuclear power. We'll get a rare look at the inner workings of a nuclear plant right here in the U.S.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Most Americans never get an inside view of a nuclear power plant. But after the crisis in Japan, experts who operate America's plants are anxious to relieve public fears now. CNN's David Mattingly takes us on a tour of one of those plants.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, operators of the country's largest public utility are in full damage control right now. They want to drive a single point home and to do that they took us inside for a tour of a nuclear plant. They wanted to tell us that what happened in Japan will not happen here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: This is a rare look at the inner workings of a nuclear plant, this one owned by TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority at Browns Ferry. They're opening up this tour today because they want to reassure the public that what happened in Japan would not happen here.

(voice-over): This nuclear plant was built to generate electricity the same way as the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant. But operators here say redundant layers of generators and batteries would keep the critical systems running after a catastrophe.

(on camera): This is a very interesting place right here. Just step through right here and right below my feet is a thousand pounds of pressurized steam. I'm standing right on top of one of the reactors.

(voice-over): Shutting it down in an emergency is easy, keeping the nuclear fuel from overheating though was a problem in Japan.

This is the pool where spent fuel rods are kept cool just like the one that malfunctioned in the Japanese plant. Fire hoses are strung nearby to pump water into the pool manually if all systems fail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESTON SWAFFORD, TVA CHIEF NUCLEAR OFFICER: You can never in our business say ever positively because I think the Japanese may have said the same thing. But I'll tell you, I don't believe we're going to have a 43-foot high wall of water that's going to hit this interior plant inside in the state of Alabama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY (on camera): This big red area is a huge reservoir of water that sits underneath the reactor. The water in here is then pumped into the reactor in emergency situations. What I want to show you is right here, that piece of metal right there that looks like a shock absorber for your car, that's a shock absorber for this reactor. It's called a snubber and it goes into operation in case there's an earthquake.

(voice-over): This plant is designed to withstand a 6.0 earthquake and a million-year flood on the Tennessee River. We asked local residents, is that enough?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUTHER MCKINNEY, ATHENS, ALABAMA RESIDENT: If -- if a earthquake or a million-year flood came around here, I mean, there's probably nothing too much we could do but try to run. So I mean, I feel safe that they have everything in order.

JESSICA MARTINEZ, ATHENA, ALABAMA RESIDENT: Considering I live right down the road from it and the things we've seen go down up here, probably not. With four kids in my house and never knowing what's going on, because with the river flooding, you don't know where you're going to wind up at. Look what happened to Japan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY (on camera): One major change after watching what happened to Japan is that the operators of this facility and others are going to go back to the drawing board to decide if indeed they have worked out their worst case scenario. They're going to be playing a game of what if to see if they've got it right -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, David, appreciate that.

So check out this Web site to see if you happen to live near a nuclear plant by going to CNNmoney.com.

All right. In the meantime, the cost of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is now skyrocketing. Current estimates say it already exceeds $170 billion, but will it be the most expensive?

"The Guardian" newspaper has compiled a list of recent disasters and coming up in number -- as number five is the 2010 Haiti earthquake. At number four, in terms of the cost of disasters, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. And at number three, the 2010 Pakistan floods which left a fifth of the country underwater. The top two, when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. We were looking at the most expensive global disasters in recent history. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 ranks number two. And topping the list, at least for now, is the 2008 Sichuan earthquake with $85 billion in damage. And again, the situation in Japan is expected to top all of these with damages already estimated to exceed $170 billion.

A look at our "Top Stories" right now. Political trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro has died. She battled a type of blood cancer for a dozen years. In 1984, the former congresswoman was the first female vice-presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party. Ferraro was 75 years old.

Rebel forces have captured a key city in Libya. Muammar Gadhafi's tanks were at the gates of Adjabiya and they were stopped by NATO air strike. The city is the gateway to oil rich Eastern Libya.

And remember that collapsed roof over the Metrodome in Minneapolis, well work on replacing the roof finally got underway this week, months after a December snowstorm tore that place up. The aim is to finish it by August before the scheduled start of the new NFL season.

All right. There's a movement taking place across the country. Parents, teachers and students are fed up with testing. They say kids are being taught to pass the test, not to learn how to solve problems. CNN's Julie Peterson has more on the movie behind this debate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE PETERSON, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): High school sophomore Hayes Buchanan joined hundreds of parents, kids and teachers to watch a film, a phenomenon really. It's "Race to Nowhere" the documentary that's getting people riled up across the country one auditorium at a time. This one seated over 1,000 people.

The films says our country's students are getting literally sick with too many activities, too much homework, and too much testing. Hayes says the film's points are valid, and he thinks some adults in the audience didn't take it seriously enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES BUCHANAN, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: They view the sort of situations that are in this video from an outside perspective. As a student, I sort of -- I experience them firsthand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PETERSON (voice-over): Film producer and mother, Vicki Abeles, says many factors, including college application pressure and government- mandated standardized testing are to blame. She says it's all resulted in a health crisis, both physical and mental, for our children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICKI ABELES, PRODUCER, "RACE TO NOWHERE": Educating our children and racing our children, it is a human endeavor. You know, our kids are not widgets on an assembly line. This performance in competitive is a one-size-fits all approach to educating and also raising our children. It is not serving our children.

PETERSON: Stephen Kennedy runs Atlantis Trinity School, a private elementary school. He organized this event bringing in experts across the U.S.

STEPHEN KENNEDY, TRINITY SCHOOL: We're hopeful that this kind of documentary and the dialogue that it creates will in depth providing a lot of conversation about alternatives so the kids can have both deep learning and deep thinking and also healthy lifestyle.

PETERSON: One of the experts? Author and education critic, Alfie Kohn.

ALFIE KOHN, AUTHOR "FEEL-BAD EDUCATION": That very word accountability, the very emphasis on new miracle outcomes reflects the sort of thing you would expect to see in a bad corporation. Instead, it's being imposed on teachers and children.

PETERSON: Psychologists Mark Crawford says American kids are terribly stressed.

DR. MARK CRAWFORD, PSYCHOLOGIST: Kids today are looking to achieve a goal without really thinking about the process of getting there. In other words, let me get a good grade or let me get a high test score, but what about learning? What about critical thinking? What about learning how to problem solve?

PETERSON: Backers of the film say they hope it encourages parents to insist on improvements on how we educate and raise our children.

KOHN: We have to organize, which is how political change has always made. Parents have to get together with other parents.

ABELES: I think this is forever changing the way a parent sees their child and conversations that they're going to have.

PETERSON: Julie Peterson, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, one mother took the movie's message to heart and opted out of state testing. Altogether, her story and reaction next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, before the break, we were talking about standardized testing in a lot of public schools across the country. Well, one Pennsylvania mother decided to take action by opting her kids out of state testing. Our Susan Candiotti has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Silence everyone. These third graders in State College Pennsylvania are pouring over their standardized exams. It looks like the test books are as big as some of the kids. Listen to the required instructions for these eight year olds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You read the first passage set and the selected answers to other questions. You will read the question and write your answer on the lines provided in your booklet.

CANDIOTTI: As students dig in, a fellow classmate is happily constructing Legos neither he nor his big brother working on an independent study are taking the test. Their parents said forget it.

MICHELE GRAY, MOM: I believe that the tests are wrong. I believe that they are hurting children. I believe that they are hurting not just my children, but they're hurting children across this country.

CANDIOTTI: Their mom, Michele Gray, is opting out of the two-week long standardized tests required of every public school under no child left behind.

It's a controversial law aimed at making sure schools measure up. The opt-out parent say the stakes of passing the test are too high for schools. Forcing teachers to spend way too much time teaching to the test.

TIMOTHY SLEKAR, PROFESSOR, PENN STATE ALTOONA: We turn children in to data points as opposed to learners.

CANDIOTTI: In Pennsylvania, students must take it every year in grades three through eight.

GRAY: That's just insane. That's cruel.

CANDIOTTI: In 2014, if 100 percent of students don't pass, the school's funding could be slashed. For this year, this parent is opting in, but that could change.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a dilemma. It's a moral dilemma for a parent.

CANDIOTTI (on camera): Here at Park Forest Elementary, a school awarded for excellence, no one opted out of the test last year. This year with parents beginning to organize, 9 of 500 students are not taking the tests.

Then State Altoona Education Professor Timothy Slekar opted out his fifth grade son and told other parents how they could do the same.

SLEKAR: Most parents did not know this was their option because, you know, the state and federal government do not want parents to know that that is an option.

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): President Obama acknowledges the tests need revamping, but still sees their value.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We don't need to know whether the student can fill out a bubble. We do need to know whether they are making progress.

CANDIOTTI: Critics say opt-out parents are coddling kids who need to be more competitive than even. A test of wills that has some students sitting on the sideline. Susan Candiotti, CNN, State College, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, joining me now to talk about the importance of this state testing is Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes. Good to see you, Senator.

VINCENT HUGHES, PENNSYLVANIA STATE SENATOR: Fredricka, how are you?

WHITFIELD: I'm doing pretty good. All right, first of all, explain what is the goal in your view of these standardized tests? What do they ask students? What are they testing them on and why is it necessary?

HUGHES: I think we need to know exactly where our students are with respect to how they are achieving. We need to look at these testings not just as testing, but as a measurement.

Where are they? How are they learning? How are they progressing? And are the curricula and the standards and the techniques utilized to teach our young people these days, are they working? Are they effective? We spent a lot of money on education. We want to make sure that the investments that we're making really have the impact that we really want them to have.

WHITFIELD: So how are this standardized tests different or compliment the kind of quizzes that are conducted in the classroom on a regular basis. The essays, the reports that a child must do based on a teacher's, you know, curriculum for that class -- how do they work in concert or potentially conflict?

HUGHES: Well, I think they work in concert. I think testing and I think the way we look at it here in Pennsylvania, which is I think consistent with most other states. Testing is just part of an overall assessment with what is happening with our young people and what is happening in the classroom.

You look at the tests. You look at the grades. You look at the other means and techniques utilized to assess student achievement and then you can modulate what is happening in the classroom and you can especially modulate what you're doing with the student to get us all to the standards that we really want.

WHITFIELD: OK, so you are a big advocate of this. Why is it we are hearing as we saw in the pieces so many parents and even educators who are saying that this is not a good thing for students.

That it is equivalent of stress inducing. That this does not encourage deep learning or deep thinking, why is this kind of language being associated with standardized tests? When you're saying that only good can come from it. HUGHES: Well, what I think is important is that testing cannot overwhelm the other importance of the other activities that should be happening in the classroom.

We need to be teaching young people on how to think critically and how to be analytical and how take data and put it all together to make sure that we can create a better --

WHITFIELD: And these tests you say help do that?

HUGHES: That testing can be a part of that. If you are spending all the time as a teacher just teaching to the test, that is not a good thing. I think it is only detrimental.

We need to make sure that students understand the subject matter that they are learning in, but we also need to make sure that the critical thinking and analytical thinking becomes part of the process.

WHITFIELD: So why is it that some jurisdictions including many in -- many districts in the state of Pennsylvania are allowing parents to opt out? If the state feels that these standardized tests are so complimentary of education, why give even families an area to opt out and continue to get educated in a public school setting?

HUGHES: Look, we believe that families have a right to be the leaders in terming how their children get educated. Consequently, they have the right to opt out of the testing. I think there is a concern however -- I have kids also. I want to know how well my children are performing.

I want to know not just for my individual needs, but as a society, we want to know what the over $600 billion we invest as taxpayers in education, that we get an assessment and understand and make sure our children are learning and can compete internationally.

You know, this country has fallen far behind in terms of where we rank with respect to 14th in reading, 17th in science, 25th in math when we compare where we are internationally to other countries around the world.

We have to get to the higher level. One way to determine the progress that we are making is by getting assessments and measuring on an annual basis. We measure for everything else in life, Fredericka. We measure the basketball games being played today. The hoops are being measured --

WHITFIELD: But you do hear from some parents that all kids cannot be measured the same or kids do not learn at the same pace. They different tools and that this kind of testing say many of these parents are critic is that all kids are being treated the same when they really are not.

HUGHES: We should respect the fact that children learn differently, but we have to have a snapshot. We have to have a snapshot to understand exactly what's working.

New curriculum is tried on an annual basis in our schools. We need to know when we invest the money whether that new curriculum is working.

WHITFIELD: All right.

HUGHES: Especially as we go down the process here in the commonwealth and other states around the nation are trying to provide a more corporate structure to the education system.

We need to know if these changes are being put in place whether they are working. Testing is a part of assessing what is working and what's not working.

WHITFIELD: OK.

HUGHES: We need to -- if we are not measuring stuff, we need to be serious about that.

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much, Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Hughes. Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate that.

HUGHES: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: OK, of course, education is a big concern among America's children, but so is hunger. Did you know that there are children right here in this country who go to bed hungry every night.

One California chef is cooking up change and that is why he is our "CNN Hero of the Week."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNO SERATO, "CHAMPIONING CHILDREN": I came to this country 30 years ago. I love to cook, but to be in the restaurant business, you must love the people.

How's your lunch, ladies?

In 2005 my mom was on vacation from Italy. I said, mom, let's go to the Boys & Girls Club. And this little boy, 5 years old, was eating potato chips for his dinner. He was a motel kid.

I find out a poor family who has nothing else, you live in a motel. The motel environment is extremely bad. Drugs, prostitution, alcoholics, it's horrible.

When they go back after school, there's no dinner. There's no money. Mom is like, Bruno, you must feed them pasta.

I'm Bruno Serato, I listen to my mama, now my mission is feeding hungry children.

We start feeding the kids. When the recession came, customers dropped and the children doubled.

Oh, mama mia.

I don't give the kids leftover. I prepare fresh pasta. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bruno brings a tray in and all the kids start getting excited.

SERATO: Are you hungry? Are you hungry?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good to get a free dinner.

SERATO: Right now we are between 150 to 200 kids seven days a week.

Who likes the pasta?

GROUP OF CHILDREN: Me!

SERATO: My mom, she made me start. Now I could never stop.

I'll see you soon, huh?

They are customers. My favorite customers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: That is sweet. So we always want to hear from you. Tell us about the heroes in your community. We want you to send in some nominations to CNN.com/heroes. That is how we learn of so many remarkable people just like him.

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WHITFIELD: All right. The world has been watching and assessing all that's been taking place particularly in North Africa involving Libya and Egypt. But you know what?

There are some other countries in Africa that are also starting to get the U.N.'s attention and the world's attention as people are learning a little more particularly about some political strife namely in West Africa.

That is why we have Ralitsa Vassileva with us right now to give us an idea how in the world this has not been on the map when I know people of the Ivory Coast who have been saying, wait a minute, what about us?

This has been going on for weeks, if not months already. This political strife at the root of it, a presidential election, but the person that the people overwhelmingly voted for is not the person who was yielding the power right now.

RALITSA VASSILEVA, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the country now has two presidents. The president who's internationally recognized, who won the election in November, Alassane Ouattara. He is holdup in a hotel. He is guarded by U.N. peacekeepers.

The president who lost the election, Laurent Gbagbo, refuses to leave. What has happened since November? In four months, the country has deteriorated. The political violence has deteriorated to such an extent that now the U.N. is saying sounding that the country is on the brink of civil war. People are fleeing the country. It's been getting worse and worse. One of the most shocking incidents happened just a few weeks ago in a suburb of Ajdabiya with sides with the rightful women. Women went all women protests. They went out in the streets. We have video we can show you.

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VASSILEVA (voice-over): Very disturbing, very bold move, very disturbing video. You see them there. They are singing and carrying branches calling for peace and calling for Gbagbo to step down and for Ouattara, their supporters or Ouattara, the rightful winner to take power.

All of a sudden, they mauled -- six of them were killed by machine gunfire of people who are supporters of Gbagbo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: I hear the gunfire. So now what, if anything, can the world community, the United Nations, humanitarian groups, say can be done to assist the civilians, the citizens of this country?

VASSILEVA: First of all, the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner spokeswoman came out Friday and she sounded this alarm. She said in the past week or so, one million people have fled, Abidjan, which is the commercial capital where we watched those women protesters.

WHITFIELD: One million people.

VASSILEVA: Almost one million people. They have left. This is just happening. Some say that because of the Middle East unrest, people are not watching what was happening as you were mentioning in Ivory Coast.

She wants to bring back the attention to Ivory Coast and what's happening there. Let's take a listen as what she said, how concerned she is and why.

MELISSA FLEMING, UNHCR SPOKESWOMAN: We're very concerned that this conflict could spill into Liberia. There is fighting very close to the border areas. There are reports of Liberian mercenaries helping out in the fighting.

There is a very fragile eight-year peace in Liberia. When the high commissioner spoke to the president and other officials, he kept hearing over and over again. We are hugely concerned that the security of our country is at risk.

VASSILEVA: Now, what she's talking about, first she mentioned the one million people who fled. If we take a look at the map you can see the commercial capital is on the coast there in West Africa. She's talking about fighting in the west, which is like a rich cocoa-growing region, the most fertile land in the country, and it borders on Liberia in the west. People also cling from there and 100,000 refugees have gone to Liberia. Liberia has a very fragile peace. It's trying to recover from its own civil war. Here we have neighboring Ivory Coast on the brink of yet another civil war.

The irony is that those elections, disputed elections were supposed to bring the country out of the civil war and bring peace and reconciliation.

WHITFIELD: So it just meant more volatility for that entire region. Ralitsa Vassileva, thanks so much. Appreciate you bringing us up to date on this.

This really is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the world community is learning about what all is transpiring along the Ivory Coast and then possibly even Liberia, a good portion of West Africa. Thanks so much.

VASSILEVA: Welcome.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, I know the calendar says spring in this country, but parts of the country are now dealing with fresh snow already and some pending volatile weather on the horizon as well.

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WHITFIELD: Karen Maginnis is in the weather center to give us kind of a view outside the window without getting wet or snowed upon.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. We were talking about how chilly was in the deep south, and daffodils and tulips blooming everywhere, but temperatures in Atlanta only in the 50s now.

In Macon, Georgia, 100 or so miles away, the temperatures in the upper 70s. Winds coming out of the east toward Atlanta and we also have winds coming up from the southwest more towards Macon. So you kind of have this clash of the atmosphere and right along that boundary, that's where the thunderstorms are breaking out and that's where we're seeing the severe weather pop.

Now, this is a tornado watch in effect until 9:00 p.m. It encompasses a broad area of Alabama, also a good chunk of western and southwestern Georgia. It does not include the metro Atlanta area and is not to say it won't. The atmosphere is moist. The dew points are high enough that we could see the potential for severe weather. We already have, especially over in Alabama.

Now take a look at this. This is something that has just happened now, it has just popped up. This particular cell between Atlanta and Macon, this other particular cell that we're watching, this is all in Georgia right now. These have the potential to spawn tornadic activity.

What we have been seeing with these have been some very high winds and also a lot of reports of hail. So, Fredericka, the atmosphere is quite saturated. We knew we would see a severe weather event today and it does look like that is materializing. And we'll keep you update on that.

WHITFIELD: All right, look forward to that. Thanks so much, Karen, appreciate it.

All right, we'll have much more right after this.

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