every 11 seconds an american child drops out of school. what's wrong with the system? what can we do to give our children a better future? we're live at the white house to ask those questions to president barack obama today, monday september 27th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, everyone. welcome to "today" on this monday morning. i'm matt lauer live at the white house. ann curry is actually back in new york kicking off education nation over in the learning plaza. ann, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt. and you should take a look at what we've done to the place. we've turned this entire area, matt, into a learning plaza, and we're bringing together today some 300 -- >> ann, thanks very much. every single american president says they want to become the education president. studies show that the situation over the years has actually gotten worse. 12th graders who were tested for reading levels in 2005 actually scored lower than 12th graders tested for reading in 1992. 70% of our students graduate. that means that every year, 1.3 million students who should get a diploma simply do not. they drop out. and what about teachers? where are they going? well, according to some studies, roughly half of all teachers leave the profession in the first five years of teaching. and a new movie, "waiting for superman," lays out in dramatic fashion the problems facing our education system. the question, of course, is, can we fix those problems? we're going to ask those questions to president barack obama in an exclusive, live, 30-minute interview coming up in our 8:00 half hour. ann? >> thanks a lot, matt. and i'm sorry if you couldn't hear me earlier, but we've turned this entire 30 rock area into a learning plaza. we've got lots of teachers coming out to speak, also parents and government technology experts. talking about what we can do to fix the problem. also coming up from new york, we're going to be speaking to that megachurch pastor who's accused of luring young men from his congregation into sexual relationships. he'll be speaking out first time about the allegations. and also, we're going to meet the man who survived a very scary crash. we have some pictures of that very scary crash when a guardrail sliced right through his suv. he survived, and he'll be talking to us about that coming up this morning. now, matt, back to you at the white house. >> thanks very much. we've got a lot to get to. first, let's go back inside studio 1a. tamron hall has all the headlines. we began with more flooding in parts of the midwest. a levee is leaking in portage, wisconsin. some people have been evacuated. officials say if more evacuations are needed residents will have to get out by boat. people in minnesota are also dealing with major flood damage. today a panel appointed by president obama starts its investigation into the bp oil spill in the gulf of mexico and the administration's response to it. hyundai is recalling more than 139,000 sonata sedans sold in the u.s. because of potential steering wheel problems. the recall involves 2011 sonatas built before september 10th. with the summer driving season now over, gas prices are holding steady, according to the lundberg survey. the average price for regular, now $2.69 a gallon. comcast chief operating officer, steve burke, will become ceo of nbc universal. when comcast takes majority ownership of the company, which is expected by the end of the year. burke will replace current ceo, jeff zurich, who is stepping down when the deal closes. overseas markets are higher higher after the big gains on wall street on friday. erin burnett is on wall street. >> optimism really the focus. we're talking about the best september since 1939. we'll see if we can hold through the end of the week, but that's what we're looking at. and this week we can hear about the government's plan to get out of the insurer aig. taxpayers put about $200 billion into aig. it's still possible aig could make good on that money. and elsewhere, companies doing deals. you've got walmart buying the biggest retailer in south africa. and again, nearly $4 billion. today, confidence is our headline. back to you. in the effort to rescue 33 miners trapped more than seven weeks in chile, heavy pipes that will eventually be used to make a earlier a rescue capsule that will hoist the men up one by one also arrived. it is now 7:05. back to ann. >> tamron, thank you so much. we're going to go outside this huge learning plaza to al with a check of the weather. >> we're in one of the pods, these multimedia pods, centers, where you can listen to interviews, get information, interact with computer information all about our education nation. but as we take a look at what's going on now, we have got some big problems, good thing these things are covered because it is going to wet from tallahassee to d.c., hail, heavy rain, rainfall, you can see heavy rain now moving through central georgia, it's all pushing to the north. for today, we're looking at the heaviest rain along the coastline, anywhere from three to six inches of rain, but one to three inches generally, tomorrow that heavy rain lifts to the east and north, moves into new york on into new england. that's what's going on around the country, here's what's happening in your neck of t no rain here. just 8 lot of heat. a beautiful shot looking at the bay bridge. the sun is coming up and dechltures are nice, but it will be a hot day. the hottest day of the week. some areas getting into the 100 degree range. great air quality later this week. today very bad air quality. if you can carpool or find alternate transportation. 101 in concord and 101 in livermore and 103 in fairfield. very much, now to politics and countdown to the midterm election now about five weeks away. president obama will hit the campaign trail a little later today after our conversation in the 8:00 half hour. the president's going to try to recapture some of the campaign 2008 magic with a big rally on a college campus in wisconsin. this as congress decides to hold off on a very contentious vote over taxes. >> reporter: five weeks until election day, the president leaves today for a three-day campaign swing. while on the sunday shows it was clear the biggest fight in washington will likely not be resolved until after the midterm, whether to extend the bush tax cuts for the middle class only as the president wants, or for all taxpayers, even those with the highest income. >> we're absolutely going to get this done before the end of the year, we may well take it up before the midterms. >> reporter: desperate for an election season advantage, the white house has been ratcheting up the pressure on the gop. >> they're going to have to explain to their constituents why they're holding up tax cuts for the middle class. >> the administration wants to extend the tax cuts for middle class families but not those making more than $250,000 a year, saying to give the wealthy tax breaks will add $700 billion to the deficit, but the republicans are holding out arguing not even the highest income taxpayers can afford a tax hike in this struggling economy. >> if we leave here this week and adjourn for the election without preventing the tax increases on the american people, lit be the most irresponsible thing i've seen since i've been in washington, d.c. and i've been here a while. >> reporter: with five weeks to go, many analysts think democrats will lose control of the house this fall. the senate is a tougher hall. but senate minority leader mitch mcconnell was expressing optimism sunday. >> we're competitive in a lot of places. will we win them all? who knows. the delaware primary was interesting. new candidate, fresh face. i think she has a good chance to win it. >> yet more video surfaced of delaware candidate christine o'donnell courtesy of comedian bill maher, this time from october 1998 on the subject of evolution. >> evolution is a myth and darwin -- >> evolution is a myth? have you ever looked at a monkey? >> why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans? >> reporter: and in a sign of her growing national pro sfil, o'donnell was parodied on "saturday night live" which had fun with her comments that she had once dabbled in witchcraft. >> and live from new york, it's saturday night! >> speaking of elections, this could be the week we hear whether white house chief of staff rahm emmanuel is moving on to run for mayor of chicago. every indication he will the only question is when and who will replace him. >> savannah guthrie at the white house. it's now ten minutes past the hour. let's go back to ann in new york. lawrence o'donnell is the host of "last word" with lawrence o'donnell. five weeks before the midterm election, just how much trouble is the democrats in? >> this time in 1994 when we had the huge shift where the democrats lost the house and the senate, at this point in the process, no one knew that was going to happen. there were no polling indications that that would happen, no pundits predicted. the situation we're in right now according to the polling is the worst the democrats have ever been in. >> so with the news this morning in "the washington post" that the president's team is putting him on college campuses in a series of appearances to try to bring in those surge voters from 2008, would you characterize that as a hail mary pass? >> what it really is a move back to things that worked in the past. we have seen the president go into the town hall venue, didn't work so well, having people ask him questions, so now they're putting him back on stage in that celebrity mode. remember what obama's problem was? he was a celebrity, that's when he was the most popular, so now they're going to put him back in that giant arena with all these fans and try to re-create that feeling. >> let's take a look at what he's up against. last week, a couple bits of good news for republicans. one pew research poll found 41% of independents are likely to vote for a republican. also at the same time last week, we had these young guns come out with their touted pledge to america. how effective do you think these two bits of news were in changing the spotlight? >> well, footnote on the young gun republicans, they range in age from 40 to 47. so a nice definition of a young gun. the young gun stuff that they're advancing, the policies that they're advancing, people aren't really hearing it, what's controlling this is the unemployment numbers. the unemployment was bad in 1994 when the democrats lost everything. it's 50% worse now. so the economic conditions control this outcome more than anything else. history tells us that. >> people say we want a different kind of change. they don't want these unemployment numbers. they want to move. >> this kind of economy creates a vote for change and unfortunately for the democrats, since they're in control, the word change appears on the ballot as the word republican in a two-party system. >> all this attention about christine o'donnell, we heard about this videotape that emerged over the weekend. >> we are not related if that's your question. i think kelly's related to her, maybe nora is, i don't know. >> what i want to know is, is the delaware seat as important as all the attention that she's being given? >> absolutely, because if the republicans could take the delaware seat, they could probably take the senate. and if this nomination by the republicans is what loses it for the republicans, i'm afraid the phrase senator o'donnell, which i have been dieing the hear my whole life, will never be heard. but you can tell "saturday night live" because they gave the cpat to a regular cast member, and that means they want to use them again and again and again. >> good luck to you on your broadcast. it's great to have you here this morning. and "last word with lawrence o'donnell" is on at 10:00 p.m. eastern time on msnbc. back to matt at the white house. a scarey scene at jfk airport over the weekend when the crew of a delta connection flight was forced to make an emergency landing after the landing gear on that plane failed to deploy properly. now some passengers aboard the plane actually used their cell phone cameras to capture the tense moments. tom costello covers aviation for us, tom, good morning to you. >> good morning, the crew was getting an awful lot of credit for keeping their cool and making it very clear what the passengers should do as they came in for a very dicey emergency landing without all the plane's landing gear. >> reporter: from inside a regional jet saturday night, final harrowing moments as the pilot tells passengers to prepare for an emergency landing. >> brace for impact. >> reporter: and the warning from a deadly serious flight attendant. >> heads down! stay down! >> one lady in front of me is in tears. another lady is panicking. >> reporter: among the 60 passengers on board, chase and alsondra returning from a business trip. >> it became surreal once the flight attendant was yelling. >> heads down! stay down! >> reporter: delta connection, flight 4951 was flying from atlanta to new york's white planes airport when the plane's right landing gear refused to come down, realizing they may need a bigger airport, the pilots diverted to jfk and ask controllers there to clear a run way. >> the right gear is stuck up, the other two are down. >> right gear is stuck up. okay. would you prefer 31 left or 31 right? >> when the landing gear is not coming down, you know you're going to have an accident for sure. the plane is going to swerve in the direction of the retracted gear. >> reporter: the delicate balancing act, putting the plane down on two of three landing gear. these images from a cell phone captured the sparking flying as the plane's wing dragged on the cement. despite fuel in the wing, no fire. once out of the plane safely, relief. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: and praise for the pilot who pulled it off. >> no complaints from me. >> reporter: and from one curious passenger, a question about his interrupted trip to white plains. >> do we still get frequent flier miles? >> reporter: all about the miles, right? atlantic southeast airlines praised the professionalism of the crew saying he was very proud of their actions. these days getting a landing gear stuck is rather rare, though it is mechanical, you can get malfunctions, the ntsb will be investigating to see why the gear didn't come down in the first place. >> tom, lucky it turned out the way it did. tom costello in washington. thank you very much. let's go back to new york and ann. as we have been reporting this morning, this week nbc news is going to be taking an unprecedented look at the state of america's schools. we'll be having a live interview with president obama for a full half hour coming up this morning. we have got nbc's tom brokaw here to set all things off on learning plaza. good morning. >> good morning, ann. i've been covering this subject for 40 years, a lot of documentaries for nbc and other outlets as well. there has never been a time in america when education is a more critical issue and understand the magnitude of this issue, you simply have to look at the numbers. >> reporter: today, american 15-year-olds rank 24th in math, 17th in science, tenth in literacy. more than a quarter of american students don't graduate from high school. those that do, only half are prepared for college. in just one generation, we have dropped from number one to number 12 in college graduation rates. >> pretty stunning numbers. and as you have been just mentioning, 40 years, what have you seen in terms of what has changed? why are we in this situation? >> there's been a sea change in terms of attitude, everybody understands that president bush's 43, no child left behind, this president's race to the top, the hedge fund industry, the silicon valley bail theirs are now getting deeply involved. they got to where they are because they were highly educated. they look at the future of their business and know they have to have an educated constituency to get workers and be able to compete against india and china who are pouring money into education and sending lots of their students abroad to get good educations here so they can go back to india and china and compete against us. >> tom brokaw this morning. it's fantastic that you're going to be lending your perspective as we take a look at this all this week. >> we're going to have mark zuckerberg on later who founded facebook who gave $100 million to newark. >> let's go back to the white house with matt lauer. >> all right, ann, thank you, and tom thank you as well. politics took center stage this weekend during the season premier of "saturday night live," just in case you missed any of it, here are some highlights. >> now the latest polls have you trailing, but that's because of the media's fixation on trivial things, like your talking about dabbling in witchcraft on bill maher's show. >> you guys, i was 16. >> is there anything else you can think of from your past, anything at all that might be problematic? >> no, nothing. >> this race is going to tighten up and when it does, it's going to be a real dogfight. >> please don't tell me about dogfights, i know all about dogfights. for your information, gentlemen, i used to run a business staging dog fights. >> we probably shouldn't be hearing this. >> exactly, you know what? the people of delaware don't want to hear about it either, they want to hear about the future and taking back the country and restoring the founders' vision. things like that. >> the honorable david paterson. [ cheers and applause ] >> this has gone on long enough. working in albany is just like watching "saturday night live." there are a lot of characters, it's funny for ten minutes and then you just want it to be over. >> finally on a serious note, nbc universal's ceo jeff zucker announced that he will be stepping down this winter. and i just want to take a chance to express my -- >> they take no prisoners, do they? >> they do not. oh, well. very funny i thought on saturday night. >> still ahead from here at the white house, our exclusive half-hour long interview with the president. he has said that the success of our students will determine success of this country in the 21st century. so how do we fix our schools? we'll talk about that with the president at 8:00, but first, this is "today" on nbc. [ male announcer ] barbara boxer. she fought to get our veterans the first full combat care center in california. her after school law is keeping a million kids off the street and out of gangs. and she's fighting every day to create new jobs. i'm working to make california the leader in clean energy. to jump-start our small businesses with tax credits and loans to create thousands more california jobs. i'm barbara boxer, and i approve this message... because i want to see the words made in america again. coming up, how early should you start your kids in school? i'll take you to a kindergarten class to take a look at some of the challenges facing students and their teachers. and we'll take a look at whether lindsay lohan will go back into rehab. that's coming up after your local news. 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