America’s public school system is in crisis. Enrollment has plummeted since the pandemic, with one million families opting for private schools or homeschooling. The result? School closures across the country, have a disproportionate impact on Black and Latino communities. ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis joins Hari to discuss his latest article for The New Yorker: “The Death of School 10.”
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Amman Foreign Company. Here's what's coming up.
00:09Israel strikes a safe zone in Gaza, killing dozens. The IDF says they were targeting Hamas.
00:16We bring you the latest from the region.
00:18And with no end in sight to this war and hostages still in Gaza, I'm joined by Israeli opposition
00:25leader Yair Golan.
00:27Then.
00:28Their deal is simple. Fight, survive, and become free men.
00:32Convicts fighting for their country. A front-line report on the Ukrainian prisoner battalion
00:37in Pokrovsk.
00:38Plus.
00:39It all feels a little traumatic for an accidental drowning.
00:43A murder mystery in high society America. Christiane's conversation with Oscar-winning
00:48filmmaker Suzanne Beer. On her new show, The Perfect Couple, starring Nicole Kidman.
00:55Also ahead.
00:56We've had this really unprecedented drop nationwide, about one million kids off the public school
01:01rolls.
01:02The death of school 10. Reporter Alec McGillis tells Hari Sreenivasan about how declining
01:07enrollment is threatening American public education.
01:26Amenpour & Company is made possible by the Anderson Family Endowment. Jim Atwood and
01:36Leslie Williams. Candace King Weir. The Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment
01:43to Fight Anti-Semitism. The Family Foundation of Layla and Mickey Strauss. Mark J. Bleschner.
01:50The Philemon M. D'Agostino Foundation. Seton J. Melvin. The Peter G. Peterson and Joan
01:57Gantz Cooney Fund. Charles Rosenblum. Ku and Patricia Ewen. Committed to bridging cultural
02:04differences in our communities. Barbara Hope Zuckerberg. Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers.
02:11And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.
02:18Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York sitting in for Christiane
02:22Amenpour. Well, it's been more than 11 months since the brutal attack on Israel by Hamas
02:27on October 7th, and still the war grinds on. Health officials are counting the many dead
02:33after an Israeli strike on a designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza. The Israeli military
02:38claims that it struck significant Hamas terrorists in a command and control center. Hamas denies
02:44placing fighters in the area. Meantime, living conditions within the enclave are intolerable.
02:50Communicable diseases spreading, including polio, as sanitary conditions collapse. Reports
02:55of wounds infested by maggots in Gaza hospitals are becoming almost routine. And still, more
03:02than 100 hostages remain in captivity. We begin our coverage of all of this with correspondent
03:08Matthew Chance for more on the Israeli strike on Gaza.
03:15As rescue workers scramble for survivors, eyewitnesses say the Israeli strikes targeted
03:20what was meant to be a safe zone in the southern Gaza Strip, ripping through tents and makeshift
03:26shelters, leaving deep craters. And dozens have killed and injured.
03:32They told us this area was safe, says this man. I swear the people here were just normal,
03:39he says, not fighters. By daylight, you can see the extent of the destruction. Israel's
03:46military says it conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists operating a command and
03:53control center inside this humanitarian zone. An IDF statement says prior to the strike,
04:00numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
04:07But this was a heavily populated area, and civilians were caught up in the powerful blasts.
04:16This man says his two daughters were completely buried under the sand. Only one survived,
04:22he says. He says he found the body parts of his neighbors strewn around. This 12-year-old
04:28girl is nursing a broken shoulder, suffered when her tent collapsed, she says, trapping
04:34her and her mother inside. I was scared because the strikes were so close, she says.
04:44Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields and insists the Israeli military
04:50takes extensive measures to enable civilians in Gaza to avoid combat zones. But there's
04:57little real security in this brutal war. Matthew Chance reporting there from Tel Aviv.
05:06Also today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israeli security forces
05:10to make fundamental changes. His strongest statement yet in response to the killing of
05:15an American Turkish citizen on the West Bank. Meantime, inside Israel, the political situation
05:20is in turmoil. On October 7th, Eir Golan, a former major general in the IDF, saw a vacuum
05:27in leadership and took action. He put on his old army uniform and drove south to defend
05:32people there. Well now, as leader of a new center-left coalition party called the Democrats,
05:38he's trying to fill another vacuum. As war continues in Gaza and as tension ratchets
05:43up on the northern border and on the West Bank, he's working to unite the opposition
05:48to present a viable alternative to Netanyahu's government. Eir Golan, welcome to the program.
05:55As we've noted, that you are the chairman of the Democrats. That is a merger between
05:58Labor and Moretz. And this week, you called on leaders of the opposition to come together
06:04for, quote, immediate coordination on what you've called five burning issues. They include
06:09a hostage and ceasefire deal, an updated report on the IDF's ability to face an all-encompassing
06:15regional conflict into which you say Netanyahu is leading the country, and pushing for an
06:20inquiry into the October 7th attacks. How is that coming along?
06:26Well, unfortunately, up to now, we didn't manage to unify all our efforts in order to
06:36convince the public and convince the government and the coalition at the same time that this
06:42is the right time for new elections. I truly believe that in order to move in any positive
06:50direction concerning the future and the destiny of Israel, we need new elections as soon as
06:57possible.
06:59But new elections aren't set, as you know, until October 2026. You said in June on this
07:04very program that what would trigger new elections, what is required, is mass protests on a scale
07:11of one million people every single day. Since then, tragically, we have seen the brutal
07:17murder of six Israeli hostages really cripple the nation there, and a lot of more outrage
07:23specifically against this government, against Prime Minister Netanyahu, who many, including
07:28those in his defense establishment, have accused of trying to sabotage a hostage deal.
07:33We've seen a turnout of a few hundred thousand protesters, the largest we've seen since October
07:397th, but nowhere near the one million you say is required on a daily basis. So what
07:45is it that will get Israelis to that point, in your view?
07:52What we need to protest every day, all day. It's not enough to protest during weekends.
07:57It's not enough, you know, to do it here and there. It should be a constant pressure on
08:03the government. The government should be convinced that the best solution for them, the best
08:09political solution for them, is to conduct new elections as soon as possible.
08:15And yet they're not moving in that direction. In fact, it appears the Prime Minister has
08:21really-
08:22It's a struggle.
08:23It is a struggle, and I know it's one that you disagree on other opposition leaders with
08:29in terms of how to address. For example, Yair Lapid has even offered to give Prime Minister
08:34Netanyahu a lifeline in order to seal a hostage deal, if in case you do have far-right coalition
08:41members like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich leave, as they're threatening to do. You say that
08:47is counterproductive for Lapid to be offering a lifeline. What do you say to those who think
08:55that approach suggests you care more about getting Prime Minister Netanyahu out of office
09:01than by solidifying or coming much closer to a ceasefire deal?
09:07Well, I would say the following. We should not take any political consideration right
09:13now. It's much more about national considerations and moral considerations. We need to free
09:19all the hostages as soon as possible, because freeing the hostages, this is the, I would
09:27say, the beginning of a process of reaching a ceasefire in the south. By reaching a ceasefire
09:34in the south, we will be able to reach a ceasefire in the north. And by ending the
09:39war, we could start the most desirable process, the recovery of Israel. And therefore, I think
09:47that all opposition leaders need to understand that we need to unify all our efforts together
09:55and we need to work together and we need to coordinate all our measures in order to convince
10:03the public and convince the government that without new elections, we cannot save Israel
10:08out of this miserable situation we experience right now.
10:15As you know, early polling suggests that your party could win approximately 10 or 11 of
10:21the 120 Knesset seats. How do you explain that per this polling, Netanyahu would still
10:27be able to bring in about 22 seats, granted that's less than the 32 they have, but that's
10:33much more than you're expected or projected to bring in? After everything that the country
10:39has gone through this year, after the mass protests that we've seen, after the fact that
10:44100 Israelis still remain held hostage in Gaza, why is he able to hold such a high number
10:51of seats?
10:55I would say the following. First, the most important issue are the clusters, the clusters
11:01of parties, the one of the opposition and the one of the coalition, and no doubt, according
11:07to all polls since the war erupted, that the coalition has a very low number of seats in
11:18the next Knesset, according to the polls. So we need to change this government because
11:24this government has no legitimacy to keep its rule over Israel. The other part is the
11:32trauma. The Israeli public is under terrible trauma. Think about it. The scale of the Hamas
11:42attack on October 7, comparing to the Israeli people, you know, comparing to the event of
11:49the September 11th, is much, much bigger. So it's a different scale. So Israel is under
11:56terrible trauma, and people in time of trauma tend to adopt more, I would say, vigorous
12:05stance. And this is not exactly what we need right now. Right now, we need to keep thinking
12:13from our minds and our brains rather than from our stomach. And no doubt that the most
12:21desirable situation for Israel is to free all the hostages, because freeing all the
12:27hostages, that symbolizes the ability of the Israeli people to keep a sense of solidarity.
12:36And I think about the days after the war. And in order to recover, we need solidarity,
12:44a strong sense of solidarity. And there is no other thing, no other issue, like the hostages
12:51question, which symbolizes the importance of solidarity.
12:56That I have to tell you. I've been to Israel a number of times now since October 7. I've
13:01interviewed and gotten to know many of these families quite well. And that is the one constant
13:06I hear, that the country cannot properly heal until these hostages are all brought home.
13:13That is something that the majority of Israelis appear to be an alliance on.
13:17On the issue, though, on the issue, though, of change, where you seem to differ from at
13:22least the majority of Israelis is while they are open and perhaps most now would like to
13:29see a change at the top in leadership, the country, you know more than anyone, has shifted
13:36further to the right. You continue to remain steadfast in your view that the best way to
13:42Israel's security and the Palestinians is a separation, a divorce between the two, as
13:48many describe it, and a two-state solution.
13:51What do you say to Israelis who argue that leaving Gaza is what got Israel in this place
13:58to begin with on October 7th? And when you look at anybody that is likely seen as a replacement
14:05for Benjamin Netanyahu, it's not anyone on the center left. It's those who perhaps could
14:10be even further to the right than he is politically, namely Naftali Bennett.
14:15Well, I have to admit that I'm here and I'm ready to lead Israel if it's needed. And hopefully
14:23it will be needed. So there is an alternative. There is always an alternative. And I think
14:30what we need right now is to combine together, on the one hand, a strong sense of security
14:39and the willingness to implement all the military measures in order to keep the security of
14:47Israel. This is something we don't do right now in the north, for example. So concerning
14:53that, I'm much more aggressive comparing to the policy of this government. But on the
14:59other hand, we need to understand that without having some sort of international and regional
15:06measures in order to secure Israel, and especially concerning the rising threat from Iran, well,
15:14we cannot do it alone. So Israel needs to work with other forces in the region. Israel
15:22truly needs the backing of the West and especially the backing of the United States of America.
15:29And we cannot move forward in order to have these alliances without ending the war, without
15:37promising some sort of a positive future to our troubled region. And therefore, we need
15:46to work hand in hand with the Americans at least.
15:50You mentioned needing that alliance with the United States. And it is notable that you
15:54said you've had a much more hawkish view on the situation in the north. You served as
15:58commander of Israel's northern command. And you said this in an interview, quote, when
16:03it comes to the north, Israel should take a risk of having a much wider confrontation
16:07with Hezbollah. We have tens of thousands of Israelis living like refugees in their
16:10own country. This is the most devastating blow the Zionist project ever got. You know
16:15that that is not the position, at least not right now, of the U.S. government. I do want
16:20to ask you, though, where you are in agreement with the U.S. government, more so than the
16:25current administration under Prime Minister Netanyahu. And that is what the day after
16:30in Gaza will look like, because you said, yes, you do need to fight all militants there
16:35and build an alternative that includes working with the Palestinian Authority. That is something
16:41that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not signed off on. Why do you think that is vital?
16:49Because look at the Palestinian society. There are two basic elements, Hamas and the other
16:56organizations that are not willing to have any concession with Israel and want to destroy
17:03Israel, and the Palestinian Authority that in, well, at least formally support this two-state
17:10solution and practically work with Israel hand in hand for many, many years. So what
17:17is better for Israel, working with the one who want to kill us or working with some sort
17:24of separate element, although not Zionist in the Palestinian society? So I think the
17:31answer is quite clear. So therefore, in our region, you need to work with the people who
17:38are willing to work with you. And no doubt, from any perspective, national perspective,
17:46regional perspective and international perspective, we need to work hand in hand with the
17:52Palestinian Authority in order to stabilizing the situation and in order to secure the lives
17:58of Israeli citizens.
18:00We have about 30 seconds left. I do want to ask you whether or not you think the Secretary
18:04of State Blinken's criticism of how the IDF acted in shooting and killing a Turkish American
18:11citizen in the West Bank last week, he called it unacceptable. The IDF said that it's highly
18:17likely that this hit was indirect and unintentional. Your response?
18:23Well, I take the stand of the IDF and it's a very unfortunate event. And I feel, you
18:31know, much sorrow about events like that. But, you know, we are in a very complicated
18:37situation and therefore there is no other way but to fight terrorism inside the Gaza
18:43Strip and inside the Judea and Samaria. No other way.
18:47No doubt in a very complicated situation. I would bet that you would agree that 11
18:53months ago when you bravely went to go rescue your fellow Israeli citizens there after the
18:58worst attack on the country and its history, you didn't imagine that 11 months later we'd
19:04still be in this place.
19:07Pierre Golan, thank you so much for your time and for joining the program.
19:12Thank you. Thank you so much.
19:15Well, we turn now to another conflict that feels never-ending, and that is Russia's war
19:20on Ukraine. Overnight, Kiev carried out its biggest drone attack on Russia's capital to
19:25date, killing at least one woman, wrecking dozens of homes and forcing about 50 flights
19:30to be diverted from airports around Moscow. Russia says that its air defenses thwarted
19:35the attack, shooting down scores of drones. Meantime, Zelensky's troops remain under immense
19:40pressure around the eastern city of Pokrovsk. Correspondent Fred Pleitgen has a report from
19:45the front line where former prisoners are seizing their chance to become Ukrainian heroes.
19:51Ukrainian troops sweeping into a village on the eastern front. But these aren't career
19:56soldiers. They're ex-convicts who volunteered from prison, got some basic training and were
20:02thrust into battle.
20:04Vitaly, 41 years old, 10 years in jail for theft and violent assault, now assaulting
20:10Vladimir Putin's army.
20:26The ex-convicts are part of Ukraine's 59th Brigade. They're camped near the front line,
20:32more rudimentary, but a lot better than jail. Our conversations remain basic about survival
20:38or death.
20:46Many are dying here on both sides. The 59th Brigade gave us this video showing Russians
20:52fleeing a burning house as the ex-convicts attack. But Vitaly admits they are suffering
20:58casualties as well.
21:03Their deal is simple. Fight, survive and become free men.
21:25Company commander Alexander says his men performed some of the most dangerous assaults around
21:31here. Alexander was a jail warden and many of those here his inmates. He recruited them
21:38and says the traits that put them in jail now keep them alive.
21:52This unit is part of Ukraine's force defending the key logistic hub, Pokrovsk.
21:58Pokrovsk is now one of the main front line towns in the war in Ukraine. As you can see
22:02the streets here are virtually deserted. At the same time, the Russians are hitting this
22:06place with really heavy munitions. Everything from artillery shells to large rockets.
22:12After major advances, the Russians are knocking on the door here. Shells and rockets constantly
22:17impacting, especially in the evenings. And that's when the medics from the 68th Mountaineer
22:23Brigade start receiving most of the heavy casualties.
22:27They show us this video of a US-supplied Max Pro armor vehicle hit by a Russian drone.
22:33Two killed, four severely injured. Casualties Ukraine's military, already badly outmanned,
22:39cannot afford, the medic who goes by the call sign Barbarian tells me.
22:54And Russian drones are also lethal at night, so we leave Pokrovsk as darkness falls, Ukrainian
23:00troops heading towards the front, hoping to keep Putin's army away from this key city.
23:07Thanks to Fred for that report.
23:09We'll be back in a minute with more on the situation in Pokrovsk.
23:23We turn now to the not-so-perfect couple. Oscar-winning filmmaker Suzanne Beer is already
23:28known for directing hits like The Undoing, The Night Manager, and Bird Box. And now she's
23:33teamed up again with Nicole Kidman for a new Netflix series, The Perfect Couple.
23:42Is there something that you want to tell me?
23:44Tell me.
23:49This all feels a little traumatic for an accidental drowning.
23:54Why do you ask people to sign NDAs?
23:57Pardon?
23:58They're rich. Kill someone and get away with it, rich.
24:08Hello?
24:12I see you, bitch.
24:15Stop! Enough! Talk! This is vintage!
24:20Suzanne Beer joined Christiane on set in London just before the series dropped.
24:26Suzanne Beer, welcome to the program.
24:29So here is a really gripping murder mystery set in a high society, high class beach house,
24:36Nantucket, you know, the epitome of American upper class vacation. First of all, it's called
24:42A Perfect Couple. Why did you call it A Perfect Couple? What makes A Perfect Couple?
24:46Well, I think it's, this is kind of obviously not a perfect couple. It's very ironic and
24:55it's a kind of, it is a murder mystery and it is who did it, but it's also, it's got
25:01clear comedic aspects, which is also a little bit what drew me to it because all the characters,
25:08every single one of them is sort of a little bit of wonderful, but a little bit nothing
25:18isn't quite what it seems.
25:20Exactly. And honestly, I have, like many of the reviewers, seen a certain number, most
25:26of them, but you haven't dropped the last one to us. And it's actually edge of your
25:30seat stuff. And I'm probably stupid, but I can't figure it out. Or maybe it's a willing
25:35suspension of disbelief. I don't know. But it's fun as well, right? It's dark, but it's
25:41light and fun.
25:42It's sort of dark and it's undercurrent because it does have a, it does sort of suggest that
25:49maybe the upper class are not, the sort of entitlement is not all sympathetic and it's
25:55not all likable and is at times incredibly disrespectful to other people.
26:01But also not so good for them. You see some of the characters kind of dissatisfied, unmoored,
26:07unmotivated because of their privilege.
26:10Oh, because of the expectations they have because of their privilege. But essentially
26:18it is fun. I mean, essentially you are kind of enjoying that they are all at various times
26:26are frying a little bit. And I think at various times you do think maybe he or she did it.
26:33Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm constantly thinking, I know, but let's go to almost one of the
26:37first scenes, if not the first scene in the first episode, and that is the wedding photo.
26:42It's the pre-wedding dinner and they're doing this video. So we're going to play it.
26:48We are so, so thrilled for both of you.
26:52To Benji and his beautiful bride.
26:55Mr. and Mrs. Winfrey, any words of wisdom for the bride and groom?
26:58Oh, come on. Yes.
26:59If you are half as lucky as your mother and I have been, you will have a very long and a very,
27:04very happy marriage. Cheers, we love you.
27:07We love you. We love you.
27:09The bride and groom. Happy wedding Eve.
27:12Hi! Happy wedding Eve.
27:14Happy wedding Eve. I love this woman to death.
27:18To death.
27:21To death, not such a subtle piece of dialogue.
27:25I want to ask you, because this is based on a series by the novelist Ellen Hildenbrand,
27:33bestselling author. For those who haven't read the book, first of all,
27:36do you think people need to read the book or do you think you'd like to give a little bit
27:40of a précis as to what the story is about?
27:43So here's the thing. I didn't purposely not read the book until a couple of weeks
27:48before we started shooting because I was so involved in the scripts.
27:52And I did assume that a lot of people who would be watching the show had not read the book.
27:58So I thought I better stay in that position.
28:01So I have those glasses on where I can assess whether things works without having read the book or not.
28:09And then I read the book.
28:11And what Ellen Hildenbrand does magnificently is that she's got so much texture into a society.
28:21She's got so much sort of that beachy, sort of presumably laid back, upper-classy American thing.
28:31I understood so much about that texture when I read the book.
28:35But I was also pleased that I not read it because the series are very different,
28:40although the soul of the book is very loyal to the actual core soul of the book.
28:47But the structure and storyline is very different.
28:52So we see they're the perfect couple because Nicole Kidman playing the author, wife, mother,
28:58married to Liev Schreiber, you think that they are the perfect couple until, well,
29:03sometimes you don't, but nonetheless, well, maybe they are.
29:08It's a mystery within a mystery.
29:10But I want to ask you, what was it like working with her again?
29:13And how come you keep choosing her to play these kind of murder mystery kind of roles?
29:18The last time was with The Undoing that you directed with Hugh Grant, which was hugely successful.
29:26Well, she's very enigmatic.
29:30And she has a kind of, you know, and I think Nicole, she's so enigmatic,
29:36and I think she probably has a secret she doesn't know herself.
29:39In real life?
29:41You know what I mean?
29:42She has this kind of, you know, she's got so many layers.
29:45But also, she's totally fearless.
29:48And she weirdly is devoid of vanity.
29:53You know, you have this amazingly, I mean, amazingly, stunningly beautiful woman
29:57where you kind of, you literally, you know, when I stand next to her, you know,
30:01I kind of reach her mid-waist.
30:04I kind of feel like I'm looking up to this sort of beautiful giraffe-like creature.
30:10But she doesn't care.
30:12She's much more of a tomboy than she is somebody who really cares about her looks.
30:19And I find that really interesting.
30:21And I find that kind of mix really fascinating.
30:25And so it doesn't, you don't, you don't kind of run out of interesting facets to her
30:32because it just seems endless.
30:34Now, all the women are actually interesting.
30:36The men are more kind of funny and a little bit weak, a little bit, I think, most of them.
30:43Some of them are quite funny.
30:45Some of them are angry.
30:46Some of them are wounded.
30:47But the women are really quite strong.
30:50And that's not an accident.
30:52The writer Jenna Lamere, she said the theme that emerged there was that powerful females
30:57don't have to be rivals.
30:59Powerful females can be allies.
31:01And as I say, you've got Nicole Kidman.
31:03You've got Eve Hewson.
31:05And you've got Dakota Fanning.
31:07And you've got a bunch of really important and beautiful young established women.
31:12Do you think they're allies, though, in this?
31:14When I watched the first, you know, the first five segments,
31:17they seem to be much more butting heads.
31:19A little bit towards the end, there was a little bit of sympathies shown between some of them.
31:25Look, I don't consider them allies in this.
31:28But I do think that they're very strong.
31:30And I do think that the men, I mean, part of what I thought was fun about this was that
31:35there is a kind of sense that the men are way weaker and the female are much stronger.
31:43And, you know, I'm going to be forever cancelled if I ask the question whether that possibly reflects real life.
31:52You're going to get cancelled.
31:54I will get cancelled, yeah.
31:56But...
31:58But does that interest you, the balance of power generally between the...
32:03Yes.
32:04Yes.
32:05I also think that part of the...
32:07I think part of that conflict is somehow an artificial conflict.
32:12And I think potentially these women could be allies.
32:16But you better finish the show.
32:18It's true.
32:19Potentially they could be.
32:20That's why I say it.
32:21You sort of creep up to a point where you think there's going to be some revelation
32:25or some sort of empathy, sympathy shown.
32:28And then they all sort of plunge back into their roles there.
32:32You said once, I do think moviemaking is about seduction.
32:38And I do think seduction will then allow me to emphasise things that I personally think are important.
32:43So what, in this case, were the important matters for you in this story?
32:49I think by doing something really sexy and delicious and fun and not homework-like at all,
32:58I do think that you could kind of sneak in, you know,
33:03a political commentary might be a bit pretentious to say in this context,
33:07but there is a sort of moral, social commentary in terms of the world of wealth,
33:16the sort of entitlement, the conceit that the rules don't apply to you
33:25just because you are wealthy and privileged.
33:28That whole thing I found important, interesting and worthwhile describing.
33:36And I'm more keen to describe it in a sort of lightweight manner than I am in a heavyweight
33:43because I actually think it works better.
33:45Can I ask you whether that may come from perhaps your own life, your own history?
33:52I mean, this is obviously all about WASP-y America, right? Couldn't be more WASP-y.
33:56You grew up an observant Jew in Denmark.
34:01What was your family's story before the war, during the war?
34:05Do you think that may have, you know,
34:08may influence some of what you find interesting in moviemaking today?
34:12For sure. For sure, my background and for sure, you know, I'm a second generation.
34:20You know, my father was stateless a big part of his life.
34:24For sure, that history has impacted what I want to tell.
34:29But I think also, also recognising that you don't necessarily tell important stuff
34:35by signalling this is important has also been really crucial to me
34:43because I do feel that a lot of the signalling this is important gets lost.
34:48And people think you're sort of bashing them over the head with some kind of cudgel.
34:52Yes, yes.
34:53Look, you've had incredibly successful movies.
34:55In 2011, A Better World won the Oscar and you came close to it another time, right?
35:02Before that.
35:03Before that, yeah.
35:04After the wedding.
35:05Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:06But Bird Box, which was hugely, hugely successful,
35:09deals with a mother trying to protect her children from a really calamitous external threat.
35:15Again, was that from your family experience?
35:17Did you draw upon anything in your own life for that?
35:20You know, I want to say everything I've done have dealt with families in one way or the other.
35:26Yeah.
35:27And for some reason, I always feel that families are who we are.
35:31Even if we, you know, even for people who have no contact with their families,
35:37it still defines them.
35:39And it has always interested me.
35:42And as you mentioned earlier, I think it has to do with my history.
35:46It has to do with my family history.
35:48And it has to do with, quite frankly, having an incredibly close relationship with my family.
35:54And so it's always on my mind and I think it's always part of who I am and what I want to do.
36:00So you must have been, I mean, chortling inside if you have such a close relationship
36:04and the perfect couple cast, the story, the family there is dysfunctional.
36:10That must have been interesting.
36:12It's a lot of fun.
36:13It's a lot of fun.
36:14And the weird thing is that you can look at your own family and you can look at ways of talking
36:21and then you can apply it to something which is very different.
36:24And it still has similarities.
36:28It's very, very interesting.
36:30Thank you very much for being with us.
36:32Thank you so much for having me.
36:35And all episodes of The Perfect Couple are now streaming on Netflix.
36:39Well, up next, America's public schools are facing a crisis.
36:42Since the pandemic, enrollment has plummeted,
36:45with around a million families opting for private schools or homeschooling.
36:49The result? Mass closures across the country.
36:52And according to our next guest, it's predominantly impacting Black and Latino communities.
36:57For Publica reporter Alec McGillis joins Hari Sreenivasan
37:01to discuss his latest article for The New Yorker,
37:04the depth of School 10 and the future of American public education.
37:09Thanks, Vianna. Alec McGillis, thanks so much for joining us.
37:11Your story focuses on School 10 in Rochester.
37:15First, for people who might not have read it, why School 10? Why Rochester?
37:19I wanted to look into this problem that I was hearing about,
37:22which is that public school enrollment around the country has plunged since the pandemic,
37:27down by about a million students nationwide.
37:30And this, of course, causes a challenge for cities
37:34that have lots of empty schools or under-enrolled schools.
37:37And I saw that Rochester, New York, was facing an especially stark example of this challenge.
37:44Huge drop in enrollment since the pandemic.
37:47They lost about 10% of their students since 2019.
37:51And as a result, we're having to think about closing a lot of schools
37:54and embarked on that process.
37:56We're basically already into this process that a lot of other cities around the country are going to be facing.
38:02And so I went to Rochester a couple times to report on what they were doing there
38:07and just how wrenching this process was going to be for this city
38:11and for other cities around the country as they face this deep drop in public school enrollment.
38:16So connect those dots for us.
38:18What was it that kind of precipitated the drop in enrollment
38:21and how does that affect the budget for the school closure?
38:26It's pretty straightforward.
38:27I mean, we closed the schools for a really long time in lots of cities,
38:31lots of districts around this country.
38:33And many cities' schools stayed closed for in-person learning for a year and a half
38:39all the way until September of 21.
38:42And so you just had a lot of families that chose to leave the public schools during that period.
38:47They left for private schools, parochial schools, many of which had stayed open for most of the pandemic.
38:54They left for homeschooling.
38:56And then even after schools reopened, many of these districts,
39:01when some families came back, when some kids came back,
39:04they found that things were so unruly.
39:06A lot of schools were really wrestling with very kind of just kind of crazy behaviors in classrooms,
39:13kids coming back after being away for so long, being kind of unsocialized.
39:17So a lot of families made the decision at that point
39:20that they were going to move their kids out of the public schools.
39:23And so we've had this really unprecedented drop nationwide,
39:26about one million kids off of the public school rolls.
39:29And that very naturally leads many cities with more space, more staff, more buildings than they need.
39:37And they're now then having to consider this really, really difficult upheaval
39:42that's involved in closing schools in certain neighborhoods.
39:46So if Rochester is not alone, if this is part of a national trend of public school enrollment decline,
39:53does that mean that we are likely to see in other cities what is happening in Rochester,
39:59this kind of belt tightening where if you've got this building costs and if you've got the teacher costs,
40:05but you don't have the student sort of checks that come in with them, you're going to have to do this?
40:10Absolutely. And my article mentioned some other cities that are also embarking on this.
40:15And it's actually not just cities that we think of as being very heavily sort of disadvantaged cities,
40:21like Rochester, New York, even sort of wealthier cities are going through this,
40:25because really you saw wherever schools stayed closed for a very long time,
40:30you're seeing this challenge being especially acute.
40:33Seattle is facing the closure of many of its elementary schools.
40:37Ann Arbor, Michigan, a quite wealthy city, is facing a huge budget deficit
40:42as a result of having lost about a thousand students there.
40:45Columbus, Ohio, is looking to close a lot of schools.
40:49Santa Clara, California and Silicon Valley, they faced a huge drop in enrollment.
40:54This is happening in lots of places, but especially in the sort of blue cities
41:00and counties that had their schools closed, especially long during the pandemic.
41:07Okay, so if the schools are having to be closed,
41:11is there a pattern about what type of schools get closed more often
41:16or what the student population is of these schools that are most impacted?
41:21Yes, unfortunately there is.
41:23To the extent that the closures were especially long in many cities,
41:28many heavily black and brown and low-income cities, low-income districts,
41:35and it's those districts that are now having to close schools,
41:39you're seeing, because of this enrollment decline,
41:41you're seeing a disproportionate effect in those communities.
41:45And then on top of that, there's research that is showing,
41:48even in prior years, when districts set out to close schools
41:52because of under-enrollment, that seems to fall disproportionately heavily
41:57on black and brown majority schools, even beyond what one would expect
42:02from the enrollment numbers and the school performance numbers.
42:06It just seems to, unfortunately, kind of cut that way.
42:09There seems to be a bias, really, in the way that districts end up closing schools.
42:15And the research also shows, unfortunately, that kids whose schools have been closed
42:19who have to move to other schools, that that has a consequence,
42:22a lasting consequence on their academic performance.
42:26That doesn't mean it's a mistake to close the schools.
42:28In many cases, it's unavoidable.
42:30If your numbers get so low, it's really hard to justify keeping schools open.
42:34But it does have a lasting consequence on the kids whose schools have been closed.
42:40You take the reader through this story with the help of a couple of characters.
42:46One is a mom who just sounds amazing, Janice Kapoor.
42:51Tell us a little bit about her.
42:53Yeah, I decided to focus on Janice because she was just especially committed
42:58to trying to keep her school open.
43:00It's a school called School 10.
43:02It's in a really quite lovely sort of working class, middle class,
43:07majority black neighborhood in southwest Rochester.
43:10The school's been around for a long time.
43:12It's a beautiful old school built way back in 1916.
43:16And the community feels very attached to it.
43:19It seemed to be a very warm, welcoming kind of school.
43:23It has had challenges with test scores like many schools in Rochester,
43:27but it's really quite a beloved school.
43:29So when it ended up on the list to be closed, there was a real uproar.
43:34Janice, who's on the PTA there, leads the PTA there,
43:38became very engaged in trying to save the school.
43:42It was all the more painful in a sense because the school was not,
43:46the building was not going to be closed.
43:48School 10 was going to be shut down and all the kids there were going to be dispersed,
43:52but the building was still going to be used for a public Montessori program
43:56that had somewhat different demographics than School 10.
44:00And so it was very painful, and Janice was engaged for months
44:04in trying to keep the school open and then was not able to.
44:07And she was very eloquent in talking about just how wrenching
44:13this kind of process is for families like hers.
44:16You know, what's interesting is that even if this school that you're writing about
44:20didn't kind of measure up on test scores or whatever it is,
44:24the kind of different thresholds were,
44:26it seems that there was a sense of community here,
44:30that people still, that a school did bring these families together.
44:35Yeah, it really was. It was so clear.
44:37I spent the last couple of days of the school year there in late June
44:42and got to see various end-of-year ceremonies that they were holding,
44:46and it was so poignant and really affecting to see
44:50just how strongly students, kids, and their families
44:54were reacting to the end of this particular school.
44:58They had a big ceremony in the gym auditorium
45:02where the principal was calling up every single educator in school,
45:07every teacher, every aide, every staffer by name.
45:11And you could see the kids just shrieking with joy and gratitude
45:16for their teachers.
45:18You could sort of tell, of course, which ones were the most beloved
45:21by the decibel of the shrieks.
45:23And it was just a reminder that even a school like this
45:26that had by some metrics subpar scores
45:30was still a beloved place and was an important,
45:33very important institution in this community,
45:36and that was now going to be lost,
45:38just as it's going to be lost in so many of the other places
45:42around the country that are going to be having to close doors.
45:45I also wanted to highlight, I think the parent's name was Chrissy Miller,
45:49who is a parent of a special-needs child.
45:52What happens to kids like hers?
45:54Yeah, this is this especially wrenching aspect to this.
45:57You have cities like Rochester that have, over the years,
46:01as their enrollment has declined, even before the pandemic,
46:05enrollment was declining in Rochester,
46:07though not at the same speed as we've seen recently.
46:10In these districts, you see a lot of families leaving for the suburbs,
46:13families leaving for charter schools.
46:16In the district, the kids that remain in the district
46:19are very disproportionately have special-needs designations.
46:24So you just have a very high special-needs population.
46:27And for these kids, these closures were especially painful, difficult,
46:32because they're so used to their routines are so important to them.
46:37The stability, the reliability of both their educators
46:41and their fellow classmates means so much to them.
46:45And so there was this real plea coming out from those parents in Rochester
46:49to as much as possible keep the kids and their educators together
46:53as the school where many of them were going was being shut down.
46:58And it was just very hard for the district to actually do that
47:01when it came time to make assignments.
47:03So, in fact, I think a lot of those parents are just going to leave
47:06for homeschooling or maybe move elsewhere.
47:08And that's simply going to further exacerbate
47:11the falling enrollment in a city like Rochester.
47:14You write about a program that Rochester has,
47:17what, the Urban Suburban Program.
47:19Is that unique?
47:20I mean, and is that contributing to almost kind of urban flight?
47:24Yeah, urban flight.
47:25Rochester has, years ago, they set up this program
47:28that was intended to kind of increase movement between the suburbs
47:32and the city so it's easier to kind of move across lines.
47:36Over the years, not surprisingly, most of the movement has gone to the suburbs
47:41where kids in the city can apply to go to suburban schools
47:45and suburban schools can kind of pick and choose who they want to take.
47:50And that has had predictable effects of kind of pulling
47:54some of the most engaged families out of the city schools.
47:57There are similar programs in some other cities.
48:00And so you've had these dynamics that have been going on for some time now
48:04that have made things tough for urban schools.
48:06The fact is that now the pandemic closures and the consequences of that
48:10and enrollment have just kind of just wildly exacerbated
48:15this preexisting trend.
48:17And it gets to the point in some cities where you really start
48:19to wonder, is this institution going to survive?
48:22Rochester now, well more, fewer than half of kids born in Rochester
48:28are expected to be attending the district schools.
48:32And you just wonder at what point does a system get so small
48:36that it's hard to almost sustain itself?
48:38There's a study out by a group called Learning Council
48:41that predicted public education is set to lose 16 million enrollments by 2030.
48:48I mean, that's just six years away.
48:50And it says by that time, public schooling is predicted to be
48:54at or just above 50% of the market.
48:58Where are the growth rates here?
49:01Is it automatically going from public school to private school?
49:06Or how much is homeschooling increasing?
49:09It's really both of those.
49:10So you've had a huge boom in homeschooling since the start of the pandemic.
49:16And the concern there, of course, is that in so many states,
49:19it's very, very unregulated.
49:21And so in some families, homeschooling can be a very serious,
49:26substantive thing where the family really commits itself,
49:29and they decide that it makes sense for their children.
49:33In other cases, unfortunately, homeschooling can really look
49:38not all that much different than truancy, where there's just not a lot
49:42going on in that home.
49:44And we have very little way of knowing in many states what's actually happening.
49:48Private schools are also seeing a big boom in many states,
49:51partly because of this massive expansion in private school vouchers
49:55that we're seeing in many mostly red and purple states,
49:59where vouchers have now become essentially universal.
50:03It used to be that they were targeted only toward lower-income kids
50:07and disadvantaged school districts.
50:09Now they're available in about a dozen states.
50:11They're available to any family, regardless of income,
50:13regardless of where they are in the state.
50:16How much does politics play into all of this?
50:19I mean, look, we're having this conversation in a heated election cycle,
50:23even though the former president has kind of distanced himself
50:25from Project 2025.
50:27I mean, one of the plans that the Heritage Foundation laid out
50:30was really an evisceration of the Department of Education,
50:33which has been a goal for a lot of conservatives for a long time.
50:37But, I mean, that said, most of the funding for schools
50:42comes at the state and local level, right?
50:45You know, some of the Heritage Foundation plans,
50:47the Project 2025 plans for education could have some real impact.
50:51There's plenty of funding that comes from the feds to schools,
50:55especially money that's intended for lower-income schools.
50:59But most of the education funding and policy setting in this country
51:03happens at the state and local level.
51:06That's why you're seeing what you're seeing around the country now,
51:09where you have the enrollment drops, especially in states
51:13that kept their schools closed a long time.
51:16Meanwhile, you've got the voucher money flowing in states
51:19that haven't suspended those programs.
51:22That's really where the real action is at the state and local level.
51:28And this enrollment decline, to be clear, is happening most of all
51:31in the blue states that kept schools closed for so long.
51:36That's what's happening here with this particular dynamic.
51:40It's not really something that's—
51:42ironically, it's not being driven by the conservative think tanks
51:45who have been hoping to undermine public schools for years.
51:48It really, in some sense, happened at the volition
51:51of the blue states and cities themselves.
51:54So how do you—you know, you've talked to a lot of these parents.
51:57Is there a way to stop this kind of spiral?
52:00Absolutely. This is kind of the spiral, the tipping point
52:04that this article is warning about happening in cities like this
52:08and many others around the country.
52:10And I think to stop that, it's really to arrest that cycle.
52:14It's going to take a real recognition by people who believe in public schools,
52:18who believe they're an important institution,
52:20a foundational institution in our country,
52:22to recognize the extent of the crisis right now,
52:26to recognize what happened coming out of the pandemic,
52:29and to be honest about that and to really somehow just confront it directly
52:36and try to at least slow or even possibly reverse some of these trends
52:43because there really is the chance of that kind of a spiral.
52:48I wonder how much of this is also an issue of public perception.
52:53I mean, there was a study out by Pew that essentially showed
52:59just over half of people don't have as much faith
53:04in the institution of K-12 education,
53:07and it's more on the Republican side than it is on the Democratic side.
53:10But how do you kind of rebuild that trust?
53:13It's really difficult, and it is—you know, it's something that I—
53:19I spoke about this with Randy Weingarten,
53:21the head of the American Federation of Teachers, back in September of 2020
53:26when I was reporting on the school closures
53:28and when it was becoming clear that the schools were not going to be
53:30reopening that fall in many districts around the country,
53:34especially in heavily Democratic areas.
53:36And I just put the question to her, you know,
53:39are you worried as someone who cares a lot about the public schools,
53:43as someone who's—all your—the educators who are in your union,
53:48and their jobs depend on this institution,
53:51are you worried that a lot of families are not going to come back
53:55and that you're also going to lose support from taxpayers
53:59after these extended closures?
54:01And she expressed confidence that that would not happen,
54:05that it was just so clear that public schools are such an important part
54:08of our country, of our communities,
54:12that they would inevitably survive this hiatus.
54:16And I think what we're seeing now is that—
54:20that that may have proved over-optimistic.
54:24Senior reporter for ProPublica, Alec MacGillis,
54:27thanks so much for joining us.
54:29And finally, remembering a giant of the stage and screen.
54:34Everything the light touches is our kingdom.
54:38Wow.
54:40That is the voice of iconic actor James Earl Jones,
54:44who died on Monday at the age of 93.
54:46From Mufasa and the Lion King to Darth Vader and Star Wars movies,
54:50he is known for voicing some legendary characters.
54:53And some audiences might also recognize him
54:56as the man behind these iconic three words.
55:00This is CNN.
55:05Well, now we'll end on a reflection from the actor himself,
55:08just after he had won the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award
55:12at the 2011 Oscars.
55:14I read something in this morning's paper about someone wishing to—
55:19not being able to change someone's mind in the world,
55:23to change their hearts.
55:24And I think that's the only thing
55:26when an actor looks out over the political landscape
55:29that he can hope for.
55:31But you've got to really focus on that,
55:34not the polemics of stories,
55:36but the heartbeat of the stories, you know.
55:39And hope to connect with the heartbeat of the audience.
55:42Thank you for watching Amman Foreign Company on PBS.
55:45Join us again tomorrow night.