>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: more people and places along the snowbound east coast got back to normal and got back to work today. but the death toll rose to 45, and in washington d.c., especially, there was still a lot of digging out to do. the nation's capital lurched slowly back to life on this third day after the great blizzard. federal offices remained closed, but work crews were out early to clear more snow, and the mayor sounded cautiously optimistic. >> we have finished two full days of plowing and removal and our crews made good progress through the night. they've gotten down to asphalt on all major arteries, >> woodruff: washington's subway system was also back to near- normal operations, albeit with some delays. but many side streets remained unplowed, and emergency manager chris geldart said the focus now is on getting into those neighborhoods. >> that will continue through today and through tonight. we're monitoring progress every two hours, to ensure that no areas in the city that we have not touched and that are not passable. >> woodruff: that effort will be vital to re-opening d.c. public schools tomorrow. another concern: how to pay for the massive cleanup effort that's eating up most of the city's annual snow removal budget of $6.2 million. d.c. officials have asked for federal disaster assistance. and, another kind of help arrived today in the form of a snow melter, on loan from indianapolis. it was quickly deployed to tackle the mountains of snow being collected from city streets. >> we have water inside, like a giant hot tub basically, get the b.t.u.s to get the temperature up to a certain level and then just start loading it. >> woodruff: meanwhile, new york city-- with a much larger snow budget-- has recovered more quickly and is already clearing outer boroughs of snow. in the day's other news, wall street surged ahead as oil prices turned higher again. the dow jones industrial average gained more than 280 points to close at 16,167. the nasdaq rose 49 points, and the s&p 500 added 26. a congressional task force today called for keeping more non- violent criminals out of federal prison, and saving $5 billion in the process. the panel recommended prosecuting "only the most serious" cases and repealing mandatory minimum penalties for many drug offenses. that could cut the federal prison population by 60,000 in 2024. it's now nearly 200,000. in syria, bombings erupted in the central part of the country, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100. the islamic state group claimed responsibility for the attacks in homs. they struck just three days before peace talks are supposed to begin, and left refugee officials warning of the price of failure. >> as we do now have momentum to get agreements, we can, as humanitarians, reach the besieged areas, all of them, within days of the agreement. all of the millions, we're out of reach within weeks. we can do it. so, finally, if they lose this momentum, i think they will live to regret it. >> woodruff: meanwhile, syrian opposition groups backed by saudi arabia met in riyadh, to decide whether to attend the peace talks. and russia pushed for the main syrian kurdish party to participate, despite opposition from turkey, which considers it a terrorist group. a policeman in afghanistan shot dead 10 other officers late monday, in the country's latest insider attack. it happened in the south, in uruzgan province, bordering the taliban strongholds of helmand and kandahar. one local official said the victims were sleeping when they were killed. another said they'd been drugged. the taliban claimed responsibility. warnings of the zika virus spread today. the centers for disease prevention said pregnant women should postpone visit there any 22 other destinations. the virus is being linked to birth defects. the official design for a new world war one memorial has been unveiled in washington. artist renderings today show walls bearing relief sculptures of soldiers, with quotations. each cubic foot represents an american soldier who died in the war-- a total of 116,516. the memorial will be located near the white house, in a small urban park. something old is new again, in the world of peter rabbit. there's word today that an unpublished story by renowned children's author beatrix potter is bound for book stores, more than a century after it was written. sharon thomas of independent television news has the story. >> reporter: once upon a time there was a serious, well-behaved young black cat. it belonged to a kind old lady who assured me that no other cats could compare with kitty. "the tale of kitty-in-boots" tells the story of a well-behaved cat who leads a double life. for more than a century, it lay undiscovered. danie"between the world and me"x potter menned 23 books. now a 24th has been unearthed. "the tale of kitty-in-boots" was referenced in an out-of-print biography on the author. three manuscripts were found in the archives in london. her classic, "peter rabbit," has been published in 36 languages, and sold more than 45 million copies. beatrix potter had only completed a single drawing to go with "kitten in boots." the rest will be created by illustrator quentin blake. >> i mean, it will go like a hot cake. it's tantalizing, but, of course, the announcement has been made now. >> reporter: this july marks the 150th anniversary of beatrix potter's birth. "the tale of kitty-in-boots" will be published in september. >> woodruff: the story that started it all, "the tale of peter rabbit," was first published in 1902. and, two passings of note: actor abe vigoda died today in woodland park, new jersey. he was best known as the mafia captain "tessio" in "the godfather," and as the sad-sack detective "fish" in the 1970's tv series "barney miller." abe vigoda was 94 years old. and concepcion piccioto has died at a washington homeless shelter. she staged a three-decade peace vigil outside the white house-- the longest political protest in american history. still to come on the newshour: an end to solitary confinement for juveniles. the fine line between promoting security and fear on the campaign trail. a push for an alternative to college. and much more. >> woodruff: in the latter part of his tenure, president obama has put criminal justice reform high on his agenda. his latest move includes a new ban on solitary confinement for juveniles in the federal prison system. the executive actions also put new limits on how long federal prison officials can use solitary for first-time offenses. the department of justice caps its use at two months rather than a full year. and the president prohibited federal officers from using solitary for low-level infractions. hari sreenivasan has our look. >> sreenivasan: the president's changes would affect about 10,000 federal inmates a year. in an op-ed published in the "washington post," the president cited the case of kalief browder, who committed suicide within a year after he was released from prison. he spent nearly two years in solitary at rikers island. in the op-ed, the president says, "solitary confinement has the potential to lead to devastating, lasting psychological consequence pptz united states say nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance." we discuss these changes with shaka senghor, who was convicted of second-degree murder and sent to prison at the age of 19 and during parts of his sentence he spent a total of seven years in solitary. he's written a memoir and is with the group cut 50 air, national, bipartisan initiative to reduce the prison population. and maurice chammah of the marshall product, a not-for-profit news agency covering the criminal justice system. one of the critiques here is this is going to affect a very small population in federal prison, compared to the large populations that we have in state prisons. how significant is this impact going to be? >> that's true. it's kind of hard to tell at this moment sort of how widespread it will be. one of the things the president has done has been to ban solitary confinement for juveniles in the system, and in the federal prison system there are maybe a dozen of that sort of unmate. but across the states, in state prisons and jails, like rikers island, where kalief browder was, there are thousands of juveniles who are sometimes held in solitary confinement. and the president's actions won't affect them, so this is a signal, of course, to people who run prison systems around the country that the national mood is shifting on this. >> sreenivasan: shack ai'm sure you're excited about the president's announcement today, but tell us a bit about why you think this is important. you had been in solitary. what did it do to you in the short term and the long term? >> i'm super excited about the president's decision today because i know the impact it will have on men and women currently in solitary confinement in the federal prison system. and for me, personally, knowing the devastating impact of being in the most barbaric and inhumane environment, locked down for 23 hours a day, and sometimes 24 hours a day, i just think it's one of those type of moment where's it helps people to think about, you know, what our responsibility is in terms of men and women who come home from pris pon and we have a choice. we have a choice whether we want to bring home healthy men and women or broken men and women. when i was in solitary confinement, i remember dealing with depression and being dwooelg, you know, the feeling of hopelessness. when you have somebody incarcerated the last thing you want to do is leave them way sense of hopelessness. >> sreenivasan: what did it do to you when you were coming out? what kind of effects did you still have to deal with and maybe even deal with today? >> i served a total of seven years in solitary confinement, and at one point, four and a half years straight. and one of the things i struggled with getting out was the ability to just communicate in normal ways with everyday people. i wasn't very trustworthy of people touching me, of standing behind me. i dealt with sensory dep riff ailings-- deprivation. i dealt with depth of field perception. i had a little struggle driving and being able to adjust because i had been in a box for so long. so it's small, nuanced things, and fortunately, i was literate while i was in solitary, so i was able to read books about nelson mandela that kept me focused and kept me strong. but that's not the typical case in an environment where the majority of men i was around were suffering from severe cases of mental illness, and if they didn't have it going in, they definitely left with it. >> sreenivasan: maurice, what is the justification and rationale that prison officials give you for solitary confinement? >> there are a few. usually people are placed in solitary confinement because the wardens or correctional officers in the institution feel that person might be a threat. un, either they attacked someone or they, you know, attacked, you know, either their cell mate or an officer. but, you know, often the justification has kind of stretched down into smaller, more mundane, mouthing off at an officer or refuse a direct order. you know, one of the major concerns i think a lot of people have is that correctional officers have sort of become overly used to using solitary confinement as a punishment. sometimes you also hear the justification used that younger inmates who are maybe more vulnerable need to be in solitary confinement for their own protection. luckily, that rationale has sort of slowly been ebbing away, though it still does gift in some prisons. >> sreenivasan: shack agiven those reasons dsolitary work when you were placed in there? when you came out dyour behavior change towards what they wanted? and i guess a corollary to that what would have worked better? >> in my instance it was more a matter of what i chose to do with the time i had when i was in solitary confinement. i set my cell up like i was at a college campus. but again, that speaks to my literacy going in. to me there's really no long-term benefits for putting somebody in solitary confinement, and i think what i would have benefited from was actually counseling, conflict resolution, and being in an environment that nourishes the healthy part of human interactions and unfortunately that is not the way our systems are designed. we have a very punitive system that has been a model for decades. and i think what the president has shown is we have to take a step toward what we really want to see the outcomes be, which is we want to make sure healthy men and women are returning home. in order to do, that you have to pour into them a sense of respect, dignity, hope, and health. and when you fail to do, that you can't be surprised when the outcomes aren't positive. >> sreenivasan: maurice, let's talk a little bit about some of the other executive actions, or at least the initiatives the administration is trying to outline today besides just the ones for juveniles. >> sure. well, he's also limiting, basically, the way in which solitary confinement can be used across the board in the federal prison system for people who break rules. and it sends a message sort of from the top down to bureau of prison administrators that they have to kind of figure out a different way to deal with people who break rules within federal prison. this is broadly in line with things different states have tried out. the president did mention state experiments in his op-ed. and different states are kind of looking at ways to instead of put people in solitary confinement, do what shaka has been describing, give them counseling. in washington state, in colorado, they're doing this. you're kind of seeing that tide shift a little bit and the president's-- the president's op-ed kind of is a capstone for that. >> gl shaka in the brief amount of time we have left you're work with an organization trying to move the ball forward on different types of criminal justice reforms. is there a tipping point here? there seems to be some momentum in what maurice is outlining? >> the work i have been doing with cut 50 is amazing in that it gives us an inside look at what policies have been put on the table. about the of but the last six months, i mean, the president has set the tone in the leader in terms of assuring that he's paving the way by going inside of prison, really coming up on the with these aggressive policies. while we noted this only impacts federal prisons, i'm confident the states will pick up his leadership and take, you know-- and follow his lead. >> sreenivasan: all right, shaka senghor from cut 50, and maurice chammah from the marshall project. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you for having us. >> woodruff: now to the race for president. political director lisa desjardins guides us through the gauntlet of activity in just the past day. >> reporter: in campaign land, the biggest heavyweight is now the calendar. we're at tuesday, so candidates and voters have six short days left until next monday-- the iowa caucuses. and, as time wanes, intensity waxes. >> all right, we are live at drake university. >> reporter: last night it was des last night, it was des moines, iowa where democrats engaged, at a forum hosted by cnn. >> is secretary clinton simply better prepared for the job? >> don't leave, we have another 15 minute. ( applause ) >> reporter: >> reporter: bernie sanders, the former underdog, now co- frontrunner, was first on stage. >> this calls for a standing up response, that's all. >> reporter: the vermont senator argued that his judgment outweighs hillary clinton's experience. >> yeah, it's easy to get rid of a dictator like saddam hussein. but there's got to be a political vacuum. there will be instability, and it gives me no pleasure to tell you that much of what i feared in fact happened. hillary clinton voted for the war in iraq. >> i have a >> i have a much longer history than one vote, which i've said was a mistake because of the way that that was done and how the bush administration handled it. >> reporter: clinton responded with a double-punch, quoting president obama on depth and readiness. >> he said, you know, you don't get to pick the issues you work on when you're president, a lot of them come at you. they come in the door whether you open it or not. >> reporter: the familiar battle lines felt sharper. sanders, pressed about his plan to raise taxes on wall street, wore it as a badge of honor. >> fine, if that's the criticism i accept it. i demand that wall street start paying its fair share of taxes. >> reporter: from martin o'malley... >> i'm excited! >> reporter: ...came both an admission of and an argument about being the underdog. >> in the history of the state of iowa, iowa has found a way to sort through the noise and to sort through the national polls and to lift up a new leader for our country at times when that was critical and essential. >> reporter: and clinton showed quiet intensity when an air force veteran and muslim american expressed concern that her children could face discrimination. the candidate blasted republican donald trump as demeaning and dangerous. >> he started with mexicans, he's currently on muslims but i found it particularly harmful the way he has talked about muslims. american muslims, but muslims around the world. >> reporter: as for trump... >> i am angry. i'm angry about isis, we can't beat em. >> reporter: he was in new hampshire last night. but today, some of his republican rivals were also playing up the idea of a less divisive rhetoric. marco rubio, back in iowa, painted himself as a unity candidate. >> even the people that vote even the people that say mean things about me, i'm going to keep their families safe. i will be a president for all americans, even the ones who do not support me. >> reporter: john kasich, who just picked up endorsements from the "boston globe" and "concord monitor," spoke fireside in new hampshire. >> you can't always be with the most popular. sometimes you have to be with the ones, the people that don't have any power. somebody's got to speak for them. >> reporter: and ted cruz went for bucolic optics, standing among hay bales in iowa and picking up the endorsement of one of trump's most vocal critics, former candidate rick perry. >> he loves this country. he loves this constitution. >> reporter: endorsements, handshakes and rallies. every day now is an intense fight for votes. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: we are excited to share some news about our election coverage. this year we are teaming up with npr news to cover the democratic and republican conventions together. throughout the year, our teams will also report on the big issues affecting politics in america. we bring you our first joint topic tonight: the mood and emotions of the electorate. it's a theme for npr's morning edition, some local npr stations this week, and here at newshour: we are looking at the politics of fear. as we just saw, the issue of fear and terrorism came up in the forum last night, and some of the candidates have employed fear of terrorism as a way to appeal to voters. republican donald trump has called for a ban on muslims coming into the u.s. saying, "our country cannot be the victim of tremendous attacks by people who believe only in jihad." senator ted cruz has warned: "our enemies are not tired of killing us. and they're getting stronger." while senator marco rubio cautioned: "what happened in paris could happen here. these are radical terrorists who want to kill us." democratic candidate hillary clinton has warned of retaliation from trump's comments. "he is becoming isis's best recruiter. they are going to people showing videos of donald trump insulting islam." for our discussion on this, we're joined by stephen walt, professor of international affairs at harvard university, and beverly gage, professor of 20th century american history at yale university. and we welcome you both. beverly gage, to you first. how long have candidates used fear in one form or another in american politics? and how successful has it been? >> well, i'd like to say it's a brand new thing, and we can just tamp it down, but there's always been a certain element of fear politics. really, if you look back to the founding fathers, they were accuse each other of all sorts of thingses-- the federalists were accuse their opponents of all sorts of conspiracies. so i think we have a very long history. i do think oftentimes, as we're seeing today, that history is tied up in both foreign affairs and then issues at home, issues like race and crime and immigration. >> woodruff: stephen walt, what about the use of fear as a tactic through history? how successful do you think it's been? >> well, upg it's been used successfully by awe of a number of candidates in the past and useed by candidates from both parties. you recall in the late 40s and early 1950s, the truman administration was accused of losing china, being sort on communism. the claim was made by joseph mccarthy that communists were infill traight key american institutions. and then in 1960, john f. kennedy turned the tables and accused of eyes hour administration of also being week weak, of allowing a missile gap to develop, even though none existed. so this tactic of trying to play on people's fears and insecurities is a pretty common one, as beverly said. >> woodruff: and beverly, used pretty equally by both political parties or has one parent or another used it more? what do you see? >> i certainly think in the 20th century you can go cherry picking and find both parties using it. so probably the most famous example of fear politics in a campaign actually was a democrat, defaming a republican. so lyndon johnson and barry goldwater. johnson's famous ad that showed a little girl picking off the petals of a daisy, accusing barry goldwater being about to foment nuclear war. so i think you can see it happening on both sides but i think the more interesting question is sort of what position are candidates usually in when they're using this kind of politics had? and wiel there are exceptions it's often candidates who are in the opposition party and it's often candidates trying to appeal to people who feel like they have something to lose. and if the candidate comes in and says that's right, the terrible thing that you fear may happen is in fact going to happen, that, unfortunately, can be a pretty effective tactic. >> woodruff: so, stephen walt, telescope that to this year. how do you see it playing out in this campaign? i just used some quotes from some of the candidates a minute ago, but what do you see? >> what i think is interesting about this campaign is the degree to which it's fear of the other, fear of the alien, fear fear of those who aren't fully american or aren't potentially, or maybe disloyal in some fashion. so pointing to mexican americans. pointing to muslim americans. and this theme has actually been throughout obama's presidency when you think about it, the various bizarre accusations that he wasn't really american, that he was secretly muslim himself. this notion that somehow these people can't be trusted, and real americans face dangers that may be enormous. again, we've seen this in the past. this was clearly part of the mccarthy period. but i think it's the-- i think the thing most telling about 2016. and you even see it in a slightly different form with the sanders campaign suggesting that most of the problems in america are due to the greedy 1%ers of wall street. if we could just get them under control, we would be fine. i thin>> woodruff: and gairk hoo we distinguish between what's a responsible, healthy ca debate r real threats to this country, versus crossing a line into something that's just playing on people's fears and insecurities? >> right, well, that is the big question. so often, we are dealing with real issues. so, terrorism is a real issue, and in fact immigration itself is also a real issue. we are now at peak levels of immigration, levels of immigration we haven't seen really since the turn of the last century. so there is something driving this kind of politics. and i think the question is exactly what you've posed-- how do you kind of deal responsibly with it? it moob nice to say, "well, you just present the facts." but often that actually is not what really works. i think obama tried to do that in terms of terrorism at his state of the union when he said, you know, we're not in the middle of world war iii. we are not at risk as a nation. but i'm not sure that actually played very well. i think often what can make the real difference is actually shifting the debate ail little bit, acknowledging that the problem is real and the question is not how to freak out about it but how to begin to deal with it constructively. >> woodruff: stephen walt have, you seen examples of candidates handling it well this year? and who's responsible for getting it all straightened out and making sure people know what's-- what is responsible, what's healthy, and what's cross the line? >> well, certainly, there's a role for the candidates to challenge each other. and i think one of the things candidates can do is first force their arrivals to be specific. don't just point to some menace whose dimensions are being exaggerated but force people to be concrete and specific about the policies that they would follow, what they would do differently, how they would make the problem manageable. don't treat, again, as this infinitely large menace but rather as a practical problem to be solved. there's also, obviously, a role here for the media in challenging the various claims from the candidates, asking them for specifics, asking them for facts, and not accepting magical solutions. it shouldn't be acceptable for a candidate to be able to say, "look, we're facing a huge danger here, but i have an easy way to solve this particular huge danger." and finally, i think candidates can play a certain jujitsu on their rivals by basically saying those who are fear mongering don't have enough confidence in america's basic strengths, don't have confidence in america's institutions. and i think ronald regan was the modern genius at this. he used fear mongering in the 1980 campaign against jimmy carter, but he also managed to do it with a sense of great optimism, that america was fundamentally good, fundamentally strong, and these challenges were something it could overcome. if any of the candidates can manage that sweet spot, they're likely to do pretty well. >> woodruff: so, beverly gage, that means that there's promise out there that candidates will handle it well this year and beyond? >> there is promise out there. i think there are also some dark examples from american history, so another moment in which terrorism, immigration was really on the table was in the teens and the 20s. and what we actually got coming out of that political moment was in fact pretty extreme immigration restriction, as well as the rise of the new ku klux klan during that period. so i think there's a lot at stake, and i think we're still early in the campaign and we'll see how it goes. >> woodruff: a lot at stake. and you're right, we are really early in the campaign. we'll see. beverly gage, stephen walt. we thank you both. >> thank you, judy. >> nice talking with you. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: calls to screen for depression during pregnancy. a celebration of mozart's genius and birthday. and a young dancer challenging gender stereotypes. but first, a new night for education. the newshour has long been committed to covering that topic. starting tonight, we will be expanding our coverage on tuesdays with a new feature series called "making the grade." we'll provide in-depth reporting on education issues at every level, from early childhood and pre-school, all the way through high school and beyond with the world of higher education. we'll explore the most fundamental concerns in schools, communities and workplaces, and we'll also cover plenty of approaches you may not have heard about yet. tonight, we focus on vocational education. there's a growing recognition of its value for some students. but how do you determine when it's working for the long haul. special corespondent, john tulenko of education week, has the story. >> reporter: this year more than a million students will graduate from high school, and most will go on to college. it ought to be something to celebrate but in fact, nearly 40% of those who go to four-year colleges, and some 70% of students at community college, will never earn their degree. >> it's the shame of our nation, when you look at, a student comes out of high school, not knowing what they want to do; goes to college; drops out. now they're in debt, without a job, and not knowing what they want to do. they're worse off than they were, you know, as little as a year before. and that's all preventable, all of it. >> reporter: one solution, principal dave wheeler says, lies in schools like his, southeastern regional vocational technical high school, south of boston. here in addition to the regular school subjects students learn skilled trades and professions and if they choose, instead of college, they can go directly into the workforce. >> you can become anything you want here, if you take advantage of what we have. >> reporter: choosing a career program starts in ninth grade. students spend the first semester sampling each of the roughly 20 professions taught here. dajon lopes chose culinary arts. >> we learn to cook everything. a whole bunch of foreign dishes, american dishes, anything. you name it, we got it. >> this right here is a asian scallop sauteé. >> reporter: is this a new dish for you? >> yes. my first time as a matter of fact. >> reporter: your first time? may i? >> sure. >> it's not like you're opening a book and reading about it. >> reporter: culinary arts teacher paula kfoury. >> it's hands-on which is so different. >> reporter: that's very nice. >> thank you. >> they come in here every day, and open a restaurant. and we do all of the functions for the school. >> this car gave us a lot of problems. >> reporter: in collision repair, the work is also real. >> a customer brings in a car, we like, do a estimate on it. >> reporter: this is someone's car? >> yeah. and after that we call the customer up, we tell 'em how much it'll cost. and we start repairing it. >> almost all of our shops do some form of-- we call it live work. >> cosmetology takes clients. construction, we've done complete renovations of buildings. we've done websites for people. we do printing. there is no better way to engage a student than they're doing real, meaningful work. >> reporter: of course, they also do academics. every other week, students are in traditional classes, full- time. >> every single kid is going to learn algebra. everyone's gonna get a high- level literature class. everyone's going to get physics. >> reporter: on the state math test 73% of students scored above proficient and in english 90%-- numbers that nearly match state averages. and southeastern's 93% graduation rate is better than average. on the flip side, sat scores and scores on advanced placement tests lag significantly behind the state as a whole. but for dave wheeler, those are not the numbers that matter most. >> when we do follow up studies, generally speaking we hit the high 90% range of students that are either in the workforce, continue to be enrolled in college or have gone into the military. the point is to get you to be a happy, productive citizen. >> reporter: this approach is getting lots of attention from reformers these days who see it as a way to improve engagement and achievement in high schools. but career and technical education, or c.t.e. as its sometimes called, has its critics. >> even though that is what people are touting as a possibility, rigorous c.t.e. programs, in the reality i don't think it's going ot happen. >> reporter: during her fifteen years as an award-winning high school principal in new york state, carol burris had an insider's view on these programs. >> i think a lot of schools are going to take kids that are behavior issues and will say you know what, i think technical education is where you need to be. i think they'll take kids that have learning disabilities and rather than work with them in academics, push them on that track. we just know that historically. >> reporter: almost from the start, high schools were organized into tracks. with separate programs for students bound for college, and those bound for work. >> and oftentimes, the way the system made that decision was based on the color of their skin, or by zip code. and it was mostly kids of color and low-income kids who were shuffled into vocational programs, many of which were terrible. >> reporter: but mike petrilli who heads the thomas fordham institute, an education think tank, says a major shift was coming. >> there was a big effort to de- track the high schools and the middle schools, starting the late 1980s, early '90s, which was very successful in most big cities. >> we decided that we were going to give academic education - which essentially teaches abstraction- we decided to give that to everybody through high school. >> reporter: the mission of public schools changed, says economist tony carnevale, and college became the goal. >> the basic american model is high school to harvard. the difficulty with that is, it doesn't work for most students. you ask the teacher, why am i taking this course? and they'll say, well, you need it for college. and that's enough. for a lot of kids, that's not enough. >> reporter: many arrive at college unprepared, fall behind and drop out. >> it would be a lot better for those people to go out into the workforce, get some real skills and maybe down the road they would be ready then to go and get a postsecondary credential. >> schoolwork wasn't, i wasn't the greatest at it. i feel like i'm more of a hands- on person. >> reporter: for justin meeks, fabricating metal was a better fit. he learned the trade at southeastern. and through an apprenticeship arranged by the school, he landed a full-time job just days after graduation. >> school prepared me well for this. i, i weld here a lot. i have to cut well on. >> reporter: and you can't make a mistake on a beam like this. >> yeah, you can't fix it. if you don't mind my asking, how much do you make? $14.66. and if i can keep getting more money and more money, and raise, and working harder, i think i could be fine without college. >> reporter: is this a success? >> first of all let's look at the alternative. if this was young person who was not doing well in school. if he wasn't engaged in something that motivated him, he probably would have dropped out or maybe he would have made it to graduation and then that was it and then he'd be going into the workforce and lucky to get a minimum wage job. this is a much better outcome. >> reporter: and petrilli says vocational schools like justin's are different these days. because at schools like southeastern, tracking is a thing of the past. >> it's very important that, that the pathways are chosen by the kids themselves. we want to provide options, and let young people make decisions. >> i think it's very dangerous. i've seen so many kids who have been academic late bloomers who all of sudden they mature and buckle down and they do their studies and they go on to college. when you start to push kids when they are too young to make that decision, they're just not ready to make it. >> reporter: but that's not stopping families from enrolling their teenagers at southeastern. this year some 800 students applied for 400 spots. in south easton, massachusetts, i'm john tulenko of "education week," reporting for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: a federal health panel is now calling for all women to be screened for depression during pregnancy, and again after giving birth. the u.s. preventive services task force says there's new evidence that post-partum depression is more common than previously believed. the report also recommends all adults over 18 be screened for depression. william brangham zeroes in on the new guidelines, and how they apply to women >> brangham: today's recommendations follow recent research suggesting that as many as 1-in-5 women may develop depression, anxiety or other forms of mental illness within a year of giving birth. joining me to discuss this is dr. hal lawrence, he's a longtime ob/gyn and currently the c.e.o. of the american congress of obstetricians and gynecologists. thank you for being here. what was your reaction when you first heard the guidelines? >> it's excellent news for us. we have been aware for decades about the risk of post-partum depression, and, in all honesty, the risk of depression in women throughout their lives. you know, one in five women, or 20% of all women, will have a major depressive episode during their lifetime, and pregnancy and other stressful events increase that for them. >> reporter: i'm curious, why is it that pregnancy is a particular trigger for that? >> it's such a stressful time. everybody looks at pregnancy as this joyous moment. and it is joyous, and you have a healthy mother, and you have a healthy baby. but there's also a lot of stress. that woman's life has changed. she feels-- she's so dedicated to her baby. and then anything that makes her feel uncomfortable, she questions herself-- am i doing the right thing? am i doing it good enough? and for some women, that just sort of works through the post-partum blues, which almost every post-partum patient has. but by a week or two or three weeks that really passes. but for about 20% it, doesn't. it hangs on for a while, and they actually have some depression. and a much smaller group, 2%, can go on to something called mall psychosis, where they have ideations of suicide, hurting themselves, hurting their baby, and it's all because of the stress of that period, and at times feelings of not being what they want to be or being what people expect them to be. >> reporter: these recommendations indicate that mothers should be screened not just after the birth but during their pregnancy, and i wonder why-- is it that signs during pregnancy tend to show up? >> well, as i said, we know that 20% of all women will have some depression during their lifetime, and so some women actually enter pregnancy with some signs of depression. some may have already had a diagnosis of depression or psychological illness, and those people are at increased risk. so picking that up early, or if you don't know about it, helps you be careful about those parents when they become post-partum. so screening during pregnancy is very important. screening post-partum is very important, and screening, you know, earlier than even six weeks. you know, it's interesting, many times the pediatricians who are seeing the babies back for a growth checks and weight gain and all that will pick up on this because they'll -- >> reporter: pick up on the mother's behavior. >> exactly. there's this detachment between the mom and the baby, which is not normal. and they oftentimes the pediatricians call and say, "hey, there's something going on here. you need to see mrs. jones." they sense that. >> reporter: if you were a doctor sitting opposite me what, does a screening for depression look like or sound like? >> well, actually, there are some tools that are out there. they have this edinborough post-partum depression screen which has a series of questions that are very simple expel straightforward, takes just a few minutes for the patients to fill out. you can quickly grade it, and based on how you grade it, gives you an idea as to how this woman's emotional stability is at that time. we recommend that or a tool like that for everybody. >> reporter: the reason i ask about this is whenever we have a, for instance, a major episode of gun violence, people always talk about the need to increase mental health care in this country. and one of the retorts to that is always, "we don't have the mental health infrastructure to handle all those people." and i'm wondering do you think there's a concern that these guidelines might be recommending services that we don't have the ability to deliver? >> well, i think we have to have the ability to deliver those services. and, yes, there is a good reason to expand mental health services in this country. but when you look at the post-partum patient, i think it's really a team. yes, oftentimes you need a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but many times, you need an alert pediatrician, an alert and sensitive obstetrician-gynecologist, family members who see this going on. and that team working to help support and ensure that the mother's getting the support and care she needs. we have to-- when we recognize it-- i mean, i've of i practiced for almost 30 years and delivered over 5,000 babies. i've made this diagnosis. i've started these people on treatment. you have to do that and see if you can't get them healthy. >> reporter: dr. brie larson, the american congress of obstetricians and gynecologists, thank you very much. >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. >> woodruff: now, genius in three notes. tomorrow marks wolfgang amadeus mozart's birthday. we celebrate with a conversation jeffrey brown had recently with composer and pianist rob kapilow, who deconstructs music for us from time to time. they met up at the signature theatre in arlington, virginia. >> brown: happy birthday, mozart, right. welcome rob kapilow. let's start by acknowledging this is one of the world's great musical geniuses. >> so true. whenever you think of musical prodigy, you think of mozart. writing orchestral music as six and seven. it's really disgusting if you're a composer like me. you don't want to think about mozart's birthday. >> brown: there's a whole world of mozart to choose from. you picked symphony number 40, the gaims "g" minor, and the beginning of that. >> this is on everybody's cell phone ring tone. everybody has heard this, even if you think you have never heard a note of classical music, this is the one you've heard: >> for many generations of kids this was ruined as. ♪ it's a bird, it's a plane, now it's a mozart ♪ and ruined it for television viewers as well. it's one of the most famous themes mozart wrote but what happens to it is amazing. i often say classical smiewsk about becoming not being. >> brown: "becoming not being." it's not what what a musical idea it is when you first hear it but what it can become or transforms over a piece of music. in and of itself, it's not that amazing in and of itself. it has three-note idea. that's not so great. he does it once... does it again... a third time. and then leaps up. i'm now going to ruin this again for a new generation. i'm going to call it. ♪ do it once, do it twice, and then leap up ♪ the second half just goes down a scale. though the two halfs are connected, they rhyme, they have the same rhythm. and in and of itself if moat art ped there we wouldn't be celebrating his birthday years later. it's not that great. but what happens to it over the course of the fees pieceis amazing. let's skip ahead to the middle of the piece. all of a sudden, we end up here. this is a normal place to end... all of a sudden, three abrupt chords take to us a completely different place... ♪ where are we we hear our opening... now, originally, it was here... we are now starting on a different note, what we call transposing, and we do it here... all sounds normal. everyone expects to hear this... but instead we get... first shock. >> brown: that's through the key change, first. >> absolutely, first three key changes and then we change the melody. then do it again. everyone expects... but no, we get... second shock. then we hear it again, third time even lower. and then the piece just takes off. now, this is like a character in a novel who you think you've met. you think you understand them. but now all of a sudden, what he's going to do is almost beethovenian. beethoven was actually only 18 years expoald still a babe in the world but this is fundamentally beethovenian. he will take an eight-measure melody... reduce it to four measures, reduce it to two measures. 10 notes, seven notes, and finally the whole universe will get summed up in only three notes. so watch this. >> brown: the whole universe. >> the whole universe in three notes. a cosmic essence. we hear mozart think out loud. what i can do? >> brown: even those three notes. >> what can i do with these these 3 notes. it's not much. this is not great. he says what if i just take the ending and put it down here in the flute nobodyo, and overlap like this. try it up higher. upoupon even higher. trying to find out what is does the idea mean? and then the ultimate final step is we reduce the whole thing to nothing but the first three notes. who would dream that this... could be the topic for an entire piece. >> brown: we started this conversation about genius. your case is that is sort of the essence of it, taking something simple, creating a whole universe. >> exactly. there's a quote from ezra pound, genius is the capacity to see 10 things where the ordinary man sees one. we hear the opening idea but you have heard 20 things in an idea we never could have imagined. mark twain, "there never was yet an uninteresting life. inside the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy." and mozart heard the drama, comedy, and tragedy in all of us and turned it into music. >> brown: all right, happy birthday, mozart. rob kapilow, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and finally, the story of a young dancer from pennsylvania striving to find his place among his peers while battling sports stereotypes and his own anxieties. this is the second in our series from student reporting labs called outside the box, profiles of high school and middle school students bravely challenging today's gender stereotypes. >> i've danced for eight years. jazz, tap, and ballet as well as lyrical, modern, and contemporary. when i first started, i was afraid to tell people. some of them don't ever agree with it or accept it. >> i think boys are often stigmatized and encouraged to do something else. it's a lot easier for parents to give a boy a baseball bat or a football and say, "that's my boy." >> most of the guys don't react too well. they, like, try to poke fun at me. >> i think sean has probably lost friends but from my parental perspective, i think those have been minimal. he's really connected with a niche group of people who like him for who he is. >> there are some days when it gets to me. people typically say to me, it's gillish or feminine and it's not a real sport. when i'm not dancing, it probably does the opposite of helping me with my anxiety. when i'm actually dancing, it helps a lot, and it just gives me peace. >> dance allows him to address the anxiety that buildses up in him by being able to be extremely physical. it's very good for him to release some of that pent-up energy. >> i am pretty nervous to go up to the high school just because i'm not sure exactly how people will react. it will probably get harder. >> you have to choose to surround yourself with people who help lift you up and separate yourself from those who are all about tearing you down. step up there, put it out there, and say, "this is who i am." there's something about the arts that gives life and purpose and meaning to life. >> woodruff: impressive. to see more youth-produced stories about how gender stereotypes affect teenagers visit the "outside the box" page on our pbs.org/newshour home page. also online right now, you can pay an arm and a leg for a small bottle of water at the airport. making sense columnist john komlos offers an economic lesson in why we pay such a steep price, and what should be done about it. all that and more is on our web site. again, that's pbs.org/newshour. tune in later tonight on charlie rose: former defense secretary donald rumsfeld on the administration's decision to send troops back to iraq. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org apple reports the slowest growth in i phone sales since they went on sale in 2007. what does that mean for shares of the world's most valuable company? curb appeal. plan on shopping for a home this spring? you may be in for sticker shock. : new way to save. the white house has plans to tackle the biggest issue sanding in the way of your retirement. all that and more "nightly business report" for tuesday, january 26th. i'm sue herera. tyler mathisen will join us later in the program for morning star where he interviewed one of 2015 top fund managers today on wall street stocks as they

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