presidential candidates' plans on education. we continue our series looking at the issues shaping these election. >> ifill: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial futuren >> 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.prcoyo >> woodruff: for the president today, a moment on the worldda stage at the united nations, one last time. his message: an urgent plea to make a better world. >> at this moment, we all face a choice. >> woodruff: it was his final address to the u.n. general assembly, and president obamaa used it to issue a challenge. >> we can choose to press forward with a better model of cooperation and integration, or we can retreat into a worldwe sharply divided and ultimatelyul in conflict along age-old lines of nation and tribe and race and religion. >> woodruff: the president spoke of a "growing contest" between authoritarian rule and liberalism, and of people losing faith in the face of terrorism and the refugee crises. >> and so given the difficulty in forging true democracy in the face of these pressures, it's no surprise that some argue the future favors the strong man, a top-down model rather than strong democratic institutions.a but i believe the road to true democracy remains the bettero path. >> woodruff: mr. obama appealed to the world to do more for the millions fleeing war-tornar countries. and he warned against the politics of donald trump,mp without mentioning the republican nominee by name. >> the world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall and prevent extremism fromi affecting our own societies. >> woodruff: immigration was likewise a priority for newly-wi named british prime minister teresa may, making her first address at the u.n. since taking office. >> we did not vote to turn inward or walk away from any of our partners in the world.pa faced with challenges like migration, they demanded a politic that is more in touch with their concerns and bold action to address them. but that action must be more global, not less. >> woodruff: but for many leaders, syria topped the agenda. president obama aimed strong criticism at the syrians' main ally, russia, for its aggressive moves there, and in ukraine. >> in a world that left the age of empire behind, we see russia attempting to recover lost glory through force. it may fuel nationalist fervor for a time. but over time, it's also going to diminish its stature and makl its borders less secure. >> woodruff: u.n. secretaryet general ban ki moon, also forcefully-denounced the syriane regime, and its main backer, in his last address to the general assembly. >> there is no military solution, many groups have killed many innocents, but none more so than the government of syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees. powerful patrons that keep have blood on their hands. >> woodruff: french president francois hollande added his own demand to stop the killing in syria. f >> ( translated ): the syrian tragedy will be seen by history as disgrace for the international community if we do not end it quickly. thousands of children have died in bombings. whole populations are starving, humanitarian convoys are being attacked, chemical weapons are being used.be >> woodruff: turkey's president recip tayyip erdogan joined those who called for a solutiony in syria, but his main focus was an exiled cleric in the u.s., fethullah gulen, whom erdogan and his government accuse of fomenting the failed july coup. >> ( translated ): i am calling, from this podium, to all our friends, to swiftly take the necessary measures against the gulenist terrorist organization for their own safety and the future of their nations. >> woodruff: the general assembly continues through next monday. >> ifill: in the day's other news, new details emerged ons ahmad khan rahami, the suspect in the new york and new jersey bombings. "the new york times" reportedhe the f.b.i. briefly investigatedi rahami in 2014, after he allegedly stabbed his brother. at the time, his father told police that rahami was at "terrorist," but he later recanted, and an investigation found nothing.g. >> woodruff: authorities in france have made eight new arrests in a deadly truck attack in july. 86 people were killed when a driver plowed through crowds of revelers in nice on bastille day, the french national holiday. the attacker, a tunisian, was killed by police. the suspects arrested on mondayr are french and tunisian. >> ifill: the united nations hai suspended all aid deliveries to syria after an attack on a red crescent convoy killed at least 20 people. it happened near the northern city of aleppo, just hours after a cease-fire expired. footage today showed the charred wreckage of trucks lining the streets, and supplies, some marked with the u.n. logo, strewn about. >> this is a very very dark day for humanitarians in syria, and i'll say across the world because i think there's been a moment of shock and, frankly, disgust, by this attack. >> ifill: russia denied claims that its warplanes attacked the convoy. but it did say there is drone footage showing heavily armed militants traveling with the aid trucks. >> woodruff: a fire roared f through a migrant camp on the greek island of lesbosn overnight. thousands fled and no one was injured but 60% of the camp was destroyed. the fire broke out late monday and was extinguished by midday today. the camp houses several thousand migrants.ts police say the fire started after clashes between differentr ethnic groups. >> ifill: back in this country, hillary clinton took a day off the trail to study up for next week's first presidential debate, while donald trump went back to school. john yang has our report. >> yang: it was donald trump's turn to bring the campaign to a college, just as hillary clinton he spoke at high point university in north carolina, and again decried clinton's criticism that he's aiding and abetting isis.n' >> her claim that my opposition to radical islamic terrorism is as. recruiting tool. why? because i'm tough it's a recruiting tool? t it demonstrates a level of ignorance about the terror theft. >> reporter: it came amid more questions about the charitable trump foundation. the "washington post" reported it paid moree than $250,000 to settle lawsuits involving his businesses. >> the trump campaign didn't respond, and social media became a battleground over donald trump, jr.'s, tweet likening syrian refugees to a tainted bowl of skittles. a clinton campaign spokesman called it "disgusting," and a former obama speechwriter tweeted a picture that had earlier gone viral saying, this syrian boy is one of the millions of children youu compared to a poison skittle. clinton made no public appearances today, but there was word she may get the vote of a former republican president. former maryland republican governor kathleen kennedyee townsend, daughter of robert kennedy, posted on facebook george h.w. bush said he's voting for hillrism the former president said he's a privatev citizen and his vote will be, too, private. for the pbs "newshour," i'm john yang. >> woodruff: relief is on the way for five southern states after a pipeline leak in alabama. colonial pipeline said today it's completed a bypass line,yp and can restart the flow tomorrow. the leak has caused many gas stations in the region to shut down pumps. and, prices have jumped more than 20 cents in some parts. >> ifill: 21 states went to federal court today to block a new overtime pay rule.er it takes effect december first, and requires overtime for salaried workers making less than $47,500. that's double the current threshold. the states say it places a heavy, new burden on state budgets. >> woodruff: and, a slow day on wall street. the dow jones industrial average gained nine points to close near 18,130. the nasdaq rose six points, and the s&p 500 added a fraction. still to come on the newshour: new details on abuse at a marine training camp. tulsa police promise justice after the killing of an unarmed black man. breaking down the candidates' plans on education, and much more. >> ifill: the c.e.o. of wells fargo appeared on capitol hill and faced a barrage of questions about the bank's conduct underth his leadership, and why employees opened nearly two million phony accounts. regulators say employees, under pressure to meet sales goals,es had secretly created unauthorized bank and credit card accounts for customers, since 2011, without their knowledge. today, bank chairman john stumpf apologized before the senaten banking committee. >> i am deeply sorry that we failed to fulfill on our responsibility to our customers, to our team members and to the american public. we never directed nor wanted our team members to provide products and services to customers that they did not want. that is not good for our customers and that is not good f for our business. it is against everything we stand for as a company. >> ifill: more than 5,000 workers, mostly lower-level, have been fired. but senators on both sides of the aisle said it was stumpf wha should be paying the price. massachusetts democrat elizabeth warren. >> you haven't resigned. you haven't returned a single nickel of your personal earnings. you haven't fired a single senior executive. instead, evidently, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don't have the money for a fancy p.r. firm to defend themselves. it's gutless leadership. you squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you couldd drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket. and when it all blew up, you kept your job. you kept your multi-millionu dollar bonuses. >> ifill: we turn now to michael corkery, who's been reporting ol this story for "the new york times." michael, you were in the room today in the hearing chamber today, and you saw the outrage that was expressed byy republicans and democrats,ed not just elizabeth warren, but also david vitter. outrage is easy.as what's the fix they're asking for? >> well, i think they want more accountability. i mean, this fraud was extraordinary for how widespread it was. i mean, it affected thousands of customers, we're talking upward of two million potentially fake created accounts by wells fargo employees, 5,300 bank workers, mostly low-level, low-paid bank workers have been fired, but i think what the committee was focused on and what elizabeth warren in particular was takingt up the charge for was that none of the senior executives seem to have been affected, either losing their jobs or taking back some of their compensation. >> ifill: how long have senior executives known about thiss problem? >> well, john stumpf said he first knew about it in 2013, though the problems may have gone back to 2011. but even 2013, this problem has been going on for three years in some form or another. those employees who have beenee fired have been fired over a period of five years, and, you know, even up to this year people were being fired at the bank for this behavior, low-level workers, so i thinko again the committee was focused on why didn't you do more sooner to take care of this problem? >> ifill: some employees said this problem propped up because of a culture of competition atio wells fargo. what are they talking about?ut >> wells is a very hard-driving bank. it's very successful, very profitable. stock has been on a tear.ar they say that employees were under these enormous pressure to meet these sales goals, to open as many new accounts as they can. john stumpf wanted all west bank customers, one goal was to have every bank customer have eight accounts, eight products with wells fargo, you think a loan, a checking account, a savings account, so these employees thought they were unrealistic. they were totally unrealistic.e in order the meet them, not just to gain bonuses, but just to keep their jobs, they felt compelled to meet these. in order to doee that, many forr employees said they needed to bend the rules to, fake some. >> ifill: is there a dollar number you can put on a number of accounts, the dollar impact on actual account holders that found out they held a lot more accounts in their name than they realizeed? >> right now regulators,, they have put the number at about $2 million. it's not a anything number when you consider the extent of the fraud. that's what's weird here. these fees meant things to people, these were overdraft fees, these were late fees on credit cards they didn't know they had, but again, it was happening in ways where sometimes a bank employee would open up an account for someone, the person didn't know it, and then two days later they wouldd close it. and they would just do it just to get credit for the sale. and it suggests that this selling culture was so broken that it wasn't even making the bank money. it was just meeting goals for the sake of meeting goals. >> ifill: some of the sympathy in the hearing seemed to be for employees who were fired, who they think were treated as scapegoats. >> they kept coming back to this point over and over again, 5,000 employees.oy these are people mostly who make about $12 an hour. those are the ones who have been fired. at this point, other than the few, as john stumpf said, quite vaguely managers and managers of managers, nobody in the c suite, no big, top executive has lost their job. and i think that has the optics at least of the little guy gets squeezed and gets hurt and takes the fall, and the big c.e.o.s get off. >> ifill: michael corkery of "the new york times," thank yout very much. >> thank you. t >> woodruff: we turn to the revelations of abuse at the marine corps training facility at parris island, south carolina. an internal investigation that began after the death of a young recruit earlier this year has uncovered a larger pattern of hazing and abuse at the legendary facility. the newshour's william brangham, who's recently been reporting at parris island, joins me now for more. so william, tell us about this investigation that's been under way. >> brangham: as you mentioned, this whole investigation began marineis 20-year-oldun recruit, he was a man from michigan, he jumped off a third-floor balcony and fell to his death. the investigation that went into that death revealed that he had been physically abused by one of his drill instructors. he had... the morning that he died, he went out and claimedim that he had a sore throat and asked for a medical... to be sent to the doctor, and his drill instructor apparently didn't believe him and made him run laps up and down the barracks when they were sleeping. he then apparently wasn'twa responding to his drill instructor appropriately, so he was choked. he fell to the ground. then his drill instructor got over him and slapped him in the face, at least once, perhaps three time, in which he jumpede up at that point, ran out the back door and leapt off the balcony and fell to his death. now the marines have ruled this a suicide. his family believes he was targeted specifically and was abused intentionally. apparently this drill instructor involved in this had referred to this young man as a terrorist before. the bigger thing that this investigation has revealed is that this particular drill instructor had been investigated prior to this for another instance of abuse on another muslim recruit a year before where he had apparently called this young man a terrorist also, had put him enter a large commercial dryer and run that dryer and burned the recruit. >> woodruff: a clothes dryer? >>. >> brangham: a clothes dryer, a large industrial dryer. the family's argument is why was this man reassigned? this investigation has continued to unfold fromes there. >> woodruff: you were just att parris island reporting on another story in the last fewew weeks. did you see any evidence of this kind of treatment of these recruits? >> brangham: no, we saw nothing of the time. i was down there reporting on a story about how women are now entering more combat roles in the marine corps, and we were following some female recruits. and we saw no evidence of anything like this. we saw what a lot of civiliansi would look at as almost stereotypical marine drill sergeant behavior. it's rough and tough stuff. drill sergeants yelling at young recruits, making them run around, sometimes running to ths point of exhaustion, a lot of chaos, a lot of scream, but that's what the marine corps thinks of as it's honored tradition of turning civiliani into corps. we saw no evidence of abuse whatsoever, nothing that's alleged in this investigation. >> woodruff: you were telling me there are still more allegations out there about the way recruits have been treated by these drill instructors? >> brangham: that's right. this investigation, which hasn't been released to the pentagon. -- hasn't been released to the public. we went to the pentagonhe yesterday to read it for ata few hours. this investigation revealed at least a dozen other drill instructors were involved in what the marine corps calls the fostering of abuse. hitting of recruit, encouragingg recruits the hit other recruits, choking of recruits, a lack of oversight by officers looking into this.by it blossomed into a much larger investigation in the corps.s >> woodruff: you mentioned officers. who is being held accountable for this at this point?? >> >> brangham: right now no one has been criminally charged with any wrongdoing whatsoever. several people have been fired or dismissed. they let go a colonel, a lieutenant colonel and aol sergeant major. right now the marine corps isco trying to decide who should be prosecuted, who might face a court-martial, what sort of disciplinary action. but at least 20 marines are possibly subject to further action in these cases. >> woodruff: we were discussing the fact that over the years there have been allegations made about what's being going on at parris island. have they changed their techniques, the m.o., the way they operate in general over time? >> the marine corps would say, yes, they have been very diligent about this. there was a notorious incident back in the '50s where a drill instructor led a group of recruits into a very dangerouser circumstance and several died. reforms were made after that. there were also a series of reforms and training made after the end of the vietnam era when we moved from a draft to a more volunteer army. with regard to these particular allegation, the biggest concern that we heard in talking toal current marines and former marines is that the leadership failed in theirr job here, that this type of abuse should not have been allowed to fester and blossom the way it did. and that's really the most damning part of the investigation, is that the supervisory officers who shouldc have been observing this activity really were absent and negligent of their duties. >> woodruff: it is such a disturbing story. i know the reporting on it continues as well as the investigation. william brangham, thank you. >> brangham: thank you. >> ifill: there are new calls for a federal investigation into the police shooting of an unarmed black man in tulsa, oklahoma, raising questions yetu again about the relationshipip between law enforcement and citizens of color. 40-year-old terence crutcher was killed on friday when local officers responded to a call of a stalled vehicle in the middle of the road. police video subsequently showed crutcher-- hands in the air,-- walking away from the officers-- before police fired. here is some of that video. [siren blaring] >> that looks like a bad dude, too. >> i think he may have just been tasered. >> shots fired. >> we have shots fired. we have one suspect down. >> ifill: an attorney for thett officer said she believed crutcher was armed and did not heed instruction. but attorneys for the family say the video proves otherwise, and they believe the officer who shot him, betty jo shelby. should be charged with murder. she is on paid administrative leave.de his twin sister tiffany, notedot that officers watching at a distance from a helicopter, could be heard on tape referring to her brother as a "bad dude." >> that big, bad dude was my twin brother. that big, bad dude was a father. that big, bad dude was a son. that big, bad dude was enrolled at tulsa community college. >> ifill: for the latest on the investigation and the mood in the city, i am joined by ginnie graham, news columnist for thee "tulsa world" newspaper. ginny graham, the "washington post" keeps a database now in which they say in the past year 696 people, 172 of them black men, have been fatally shot by police. in tulsa, how did this come about? >> this particular incident, some of that is unfolding. we know that he had a stalled car and that the officer, betty shelby, was responding to a different call and came upon him. the problem is there is some missing video or not missing video, there was no video leading up to what we now see. and it's pretty clear that he had his hands up and you can see the officers responded and you have the aerial view and he was shot. he was tasered and then shot. so people are coming to their own conclusions watching theus video, and other people have lingering questions about whatab led up to that, how he responded and then how the officers responded directly after that. he was left on the street. >> ifill: he was left on the street for some time. was there a dispute between the police account of the incidente and what others are saying? >> not so much right now. the police aren't saying too much. they are launching their own investigation. and they will be returning those results over to the districtov attorney, who will decide on a charge, but there is also another investigation going on. the police chief had called theh justice department early on, and the u.s. attorney is looking l into this as an independent and parallel investigation to see it there are any federal civil rights violations that occurred. so he will be releasing those results at the same time. >> ifill: we got to see thiss video relatively quickly, more quickly than we often see in these cases. do you think what happened in tulsa with the police rapid response, relatively rapid response is the result of what we've seen happen in othern cities and other places? >> it could be. there are also effortsef throughout the year to talk about race in tulsa. we have had a dubious history of dealing with race issues, and so for the last decade were to decades, it had been various groups to try to forge relationships in between these tense times, and so this is going to be a challenge for the city's leaders on how they move forward. but i think the other cities and how they've dealt with that are certainly a caution. but there's also a call for transparency to get the t information out quickly, get it out to the public, and then we can make decisions from there on what... if they acted correctly. >> ifill: when you talk about tulsa's dubious history, you're referring not only the instances where there have been police-involved shootings, butin going all the way back to 1921, right? >> exactly. we had an infamous 1921 race riot, and it burned a section oi the city to the ground. and it was the part of the cityt referred to as black wall street. for decades that wound was left to fester. that part of town was never rebuilt. the families were never given any sort of help to rebuild. and it was only in the 1990s that a commission was established to investigate what happened during that time. and since then there is the john hope reconciliation center that hold a national forum on race. other groups in the city hold seminars, symposium, dialogues and talks, but all of that will be tested right now, because as i said, right now people are upset. they're grieving. they're angry. and so how the city responds, whether they're going to be straightforward, whether they're going to live up to their promises, that's what's going to determine the relationships from here on out. so hopefully our city has learned some lessons on how to heal, how to deal with this in a peaceful yet just manner. >> ifill: it should be said that right up until now we have not seen riots or unrest or fires or looting, have we? >> not in tulsa. and we've had a couple instances before where last year we had our county deputy sheriff, a reserve officer, shot and killed and an armed black man, as well. our district attorney filed charges in thatdi with a secondy manslaughter conviction. so there is some history that our city leaders will do the right thing. and there have been calls from the family and from other leaders to be patient but yet, you know, keep up the oversight, because protests are more than welcome. our police chief even said he invites protesters. they came into the press conference. the hope is theyco can remain peaceful and that we can sit down and have this discussion about, you know, how can we be safe on our streets and how can we build trust that people that are living in north tulsa and all over tulsa feel safe with the police that are on the streets and find out whatfi happened and the act swiftly. >> ifill: ginny graham, columnist for "the tulsa world," thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us,f: coming up on the newshour: ken burns' newest film about a couple who dared to defy theed nazis. and the overlooked challenges of first-generation college students. but first, our coverage of the issues in this presidential campaign continues. and we're taking the opportunity to focus on where they stand ono education, as part of our weekly series, "making the grade." correspondent lisa desjardins gets us started with this primer. >> reporter: it is a wide education gap. the candidates disagree not just on how to fix schools, but also on what the problems are.te first, donald trump. >> that's why i'm proposing a plan to provide school choice to every disadvantaged student inst america. >> reporter: the republican wants a $12,000 voucher for every child living in poverty. >> that appearance parents will be able to send their kids to the desired public, private, or even religious school of their choice. >> reporter: here's trump's math: $12,000 times 11 million kids, that's over $130 billion. to pay for that, trump would kick in $20 billion in federal funds and he'd like states to find the rest, over $100 billion. libertarian gary johnson has long pushed for vouchers, but he is to the right of trump on something else. he would close the department of education and send savings back to the states.he hillary clinton, on the other hand, strongly opposes vouchers, charging that trump's plan would gut public school funding. one of her biggest changes would be for even younger kids, a universal preschool plan thates was part of her campaign launchc last year. >> our country won't be competitive or fair if we don't help more families give their kids the best possible start in life. >> reporter: another contrast, the common core education standards. trump regularly touts his full opposition. >> we're going to terminate common core out of washington. we're going to bring our education local.ed >> reporter: clinton doesn't talk common core much, but she does support it. instead her marquee education plan is about a different rung. >> we came up with a plan that makes public college tuition free for working families and debt-free for everyone. >> reporter: clinton's idea, inspired in part by former opponent bernie sanders, is three fold. one, she'd make in-state universities tuition-free for families earning less than $125,000. two, community college would be tuition-free for everyone. and three, she'd address those who have to pay now. >> if you already have debt, we will help you refinance it. and pay it back as a percentage of your income so you're nevere on 2 hook for more than you can afford.. >> reporter: clinton would raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for her college plans. the green party's jill stein would erase all student debt d with a kind of government bailout. in contrast trump has no specific plans for college costs, though in a twitter video he did criticize the government's role in student lending. the candidates hit nearly opposite education issues, even as they fight for the same student and parent votes. for the pbs "newshour," i'm lisa desjardins. >> ifill: jeffrey brown looks more deeply into the differencek between the two major nominees on education.ne >> brown: and for that, we turn to two journalists who cover this closely. andrew ujifusa is with our partners at "education week." scott jaschik is the editor of "inside higher ed." welcome to both of you. andrew, let me start with you. w let's start with k-12 and the differences over vouchers and school choices. school choice, dramatic differences. >> very dramatic differences. recently donald trump composed a $20 billion federal school choice program, which a lot of conservatives like.ns it's not entirely clear how that would work in many instance, but it does have the backing of many republicans. clinton very much opposed to it. i think as you keep in mind here, the two national teachers unions, which very closely back clinton and have for some time, they are very much opposed to vouchers, as well. >> brown: because they're historically worried about its implications for public education. >> that's right.gh >> brown: is it clear how h donald trump would pay for this? >> no, he has not made that clear. he has not said, for example, where the money would come from within the federal government. i don't think he wants the raise taxes to pay for his school choice program. that would not go over well with fellow minutes. -- republicans. but a lot of the details about that program are still unclear. >> brown: and hillary clinton has expressed in the past some support for charter schools, right, but where is... what is she saying these days? >>e >> >> that is a very good questiono and it's hard the say. i'd say in the past she's been more supportive of charter schools, but ever since she hit the 2016 campaign trail, she has voiced more concerns about charter schools, such as the type of students they enroll. again, that might reflect a lot of the concerns that teachers' unions have about charters. >> brown: and on the question of common core, there again you have donald trump who has referred to it as a disaster. i think he's pretty clear. hillary clinton measured support? where would you put the two of them right now?ht >> i think she does support the standards. she does not talk a lot about it. i think concerns with the common core on the democratic side mostly have to do with tests that are connected to the common core. the unions have a lot of concerns about those tests and how they're used. donald trump has made it very clear he does not like the common core. that reflects in particular thee position of the republican base. he has not explained why he thinks it's a bad idea. he has said that he will get rid of the common core, but there's no real clear avenue for him to do that if he's elected. >> brown: scott jaschik, where do you see when you're looking at k-12 the kind of school reform movement that we've watched over many years now,, where do you see these two candidates? >> i see the two candidates on school reform and higher ed reform in the same place. barack obama very much embraced school reform, innovation, online education, new ways of delivering education. hillary clinton a little more sceptical, and i think that relates to her being close to the teachers' unions as we were talking about. donald trump, aside from a few speeches, has not given much detail at all. >> brown: so take us now more directly into the higher ed part, because here hillaryca clinton has taken a real strong position, right, with her idea for free public higher education for many. >> correct. she's to -- she's proposing that everyone be entitled to free public tuition at publicub colleges in their home state. if you're from family incomes up to $125,000. that covers more than 80% of the population. she would give grants to states to distribute to the university, which the states would have to match a $1 for $3, so that ther would be money to replace the lost tuition revenue. >> brown: this comes with a big price tag, $500 million. >> it's a lot of money, and she has said that increased taxes on wealthier americans would pay for it. >> brown: what about donaldt trump. how much has he said... he has said less in this area. >> he's said very little. i've had two interviews with oni of his top advisers who has described a desire to reform the student loan system to have banks and colleges mutual decide who is credit worthy. he is... has also opposed the free public higher educationr tuition and also opposed president obama's free community college plan. >> brown: you were telling me just before we started that a lot of people in the higher education community are focused on donald trump for what he said about integration more thann anything he said about specifically about education.ut >> he's gone through several iteration, but he says he wants the make it much more difficultu for people to get a visa to come to the united states for a variety of purpose, including to study. this worries u.s. academic leaders who want and need foreign students. >> brown: so andrew, when you look at the education, you'veou been following this throughout the campaign, are you surprisedr by how much or how littlet attention it has gotten and in what forms it's gotten? >> i can't say i'm surprised. education is never a top-tier issue, you know, in the election, and i think it's particularly true this go around. i think that we should have expected that donald trump would bring up the common core because it is such a hot button topic, particularly in the republicanan base. it's also important to keep in mind that we have a new federal education law that president obama signed at the end of last year that sort of has taken education off the front burner for now in several ways. >> brown: this is the every student succeeds act that picked up on the no child left behind.n that was a big deal just a year ago. >> it was a big deal. it remains a big deal. it returns a lot of the control over several key policy decisions to states and districts.st so there's a little bit less that washington can this and states and other folks are still figuring out what exactly it i means. >> brown: scott, what do you see when you look broadly at the came pain? >> i think we'll hear more about clinton's higher education plan. her aides clearly see this as something that will reach middle-class voters. many middle-class families are deeply concerned about payingce for their children's college, and likewise many people in academia worry about the futuree of public higher education if states have in many ways walked away from their historic obligation. >> brown: do you expect more from donald trump? >> i doubt we'll see more from donald trump. one challenge he has is when he talks about education is people talk about trump university. while that's not typical of university, i don't think his aides view that as a positive topic of discussion. >> brown: all right, an issue to watch. scott jaschik and andrew ujifusa, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: we've compiled the candidates' stances on education into a handy reference chart,ti you can find that on our, website, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: a new ken burns documentary airs tonight on pbs, and for this story, he co- directs with another filmmaker for whom the details are veryet personal. i talked with the men at the united states holocaust memoriat museum about the "cloak and dagger" story behind "defying the nazis: the sharps' war." >> the telephone rang and it was probably the most momentous telephone call i ever received.b i knew whose voice it was: my closest friend everett baker. he said, "i am inviting you to undertake the first intervention against evil by the denomination to start immediately overseas." >> woodruff: and with that call in 1939, the life of unitarian minister waitstill sharp and his wife, martha, would never be ths same, nor would the world. the sharps, who lived ino wellesley, massachusetts, were sent by their church to lead a secret and perilous rescue of refugees and dissidents in europe before and after the start of world war two.ld they directly helped over 100 people escape and had a part in helping over 2,000 people avoid deportation to nazi death camps. they expected to be gone for several months and instead were gone two years...go >> they were motivated to go out there into the kingdom of hell to try to get some people out. >> woodruff: they left two young children at home... artemis joukowski is the grandson of the sharps, the son of martha sharp who was named after her courageous mother. artemis, this really has been almost a lifelong project for you, since you were, what, in high school? l >> yes, i was in 9th grade and i was given an assignment to interview someone of moral courage. and i went home and i said to my mom, "who should i interview?" she said, "talk to your grandmother, she did some coolan things during world war ii." and that interview changed my life. >> woodruff: what was it that she shared with you? w obviously you were young. but she shared something with you that stayed. what was it? >> i think a love for people, aa love for difference, a love for celebrating what is good in the world and what makes the world so rich. >> woodruff: ken, you have so many different film ideas to choose from, what was it about this story? k >> this is a story that chose me. i did not start this project; it was started years and years agos by artemis. and he brought it to me wanting and i looked at the germ of the story i was so stunned that i had to drop everything and sort of work its these two lone figures init the face of this gigantic tidal wave of the greatest cataclysm in human history, the second world war.ane and what happens is, is that cataclysm becomes so big that it's undefinable.ap we say six million jews, and we can't actually personalize it in a way. so here was an opportunity, a kind of back door, a stage door to go through these two extraordinary but improbable heroes, courageous people who are throwing us, the audience, into an espionage story, a spy story. i mean this is a story of courage but also of sacrifice. >> woodruff: in fact, the more he dug for documents, the more complicated and interesting the story became. >> i didn't even know what i had.li and then over the next 15 years and working with ken's team, wee have now begun to create not just the story of what we're sharing with the world but an archive that is all over the world.he we have archives now in france, in germany, in the czech republic that are connected to our collections. we've discovered over 200,000 documents, original documents, of rescue and that are nowl archived here at the museum. and what's extraordinary is how the documents come alive. >> woodruff: but you also lost a lot of documents, becausecu's documents, thousands, millions of pages had to be burned to keep them from the nazis. >> what is so remarkable about this project is how many people are coming forward today saying, "the sharps helped us in this way.lp we have documents that show the sharps helped us." and this very large network of underground, you know, rescuers, both the jewish community, the protestant community, the catholic community, others who saw rescue as something thatot they had to do for their faith.h >> what he'd sent was this diamond in the rough, and you realize that the story was everything, and that you can always find a way to tell a story. if there's no pictures, then you find the documents. if there are no documents, then you find the pictures, or youu get live cinematography, or you do something. >> woodruff: to that end, some of those rescued are portrayed in the film through narration and photos. leon feutwanger, a german-jewish novelist and playwright is one: >> why are you here doing wht you're doing? >> i'm just as capable of sins of human nature as anyone else but i believe the will of god is to be interpreted by the liberts of the human spirit. >> woodruff: and, there aref: actual interviews with those who are still alive like rosemaryho feigel of vienna. >> my father went from consulate to consulate to try to get visas to go anywhere that wasto plausible. that's how he met martha sharp who saved my life. my mother just packed my things. martha gave us all beige berets and there are pictures of us in those beige berets. >> we realized we were on the front lines against nazism. "waitstill" looked at me and whispered: "courage." >> woodruff: do you have a sense of what, for her, was the hardest, the scariest moment? >> i think facing up to a nazi official, knowing that this could be death.ac i think negotiating with people who she viewed in her mind as being not connected to human reality. i think she felt afraid for everyone she tried to help. i think that notion of thisi being just a drop in the bucket of how many people could have been saved, i think she lived with that pain and that regret all her life. this story is not just about celebrating their lives, it's an instruction manual for what-- a how we need to operate today ase people and as civilizations.li >> woodruff: and at the same time, as ken said, there was a personal toll on your family, on your mother. and there was some suggestion that the film is in part- or the work, the project is an effort to do some healing. how do you see that? >> and she understands how she felt as a child. we portray her in the film as a vulnerable child, just as the children my grandmother was rescuing. >> that it has something that is universal to it. you see today, where we're wrestling in our own country with what direction we want to take.re he could give a sermon every sunday; he could minister to the common problems of his parishioners. and then all of a sudden he's in nazi-occupied prague, suddenly learning how to launder money. and she's trying to escape the gestapo tail. this is all true. it is all true. >> woodruff: towards the end, the film shows the sharp's daughter, martha sharp joukowsky, aided by rosemary a feig, lighting the eternal flame at yad vashem 10 years ago when the sharps were honored as "the righteous among the nations." they are two of only five americans honored among 25,000 people with that distinction. >> woodruff: the documentaryum airs tonight on pbs stations. check local listings. joukowsky has just published a companion book about this story as well. >> ifill: we close with an essay. novelist jeannine capo crucet grew up in miami and attended cornell university in upstate new york. in addition to adjusting to the cold, jeannine learned to navigate campus as a first generation college student. tonight she shares thoughts on why colleges need to do betteree at welcoming students like her. >> it took me going away to college to learn that by doing so, i'd become something called a first-generation college student. this means i was the first in my family to go to college, but it also meant i had no idea howso much i didn't know. for instance, my family stuck around for all of freshman orientation because the paperwork about move-in day didn't explicitly state when they should leave, so we assumed they needed to be there the a whole week. long after other families had taken off, mine was still following me around as i registered for classes, or during the school-mandated swim test. i was glad to have them there, but it did make for some awkwark meals in the dining hall.al aside from going to class, i had no road map for what i was supposed to do as a newly-minted college student.co i navigated those first weeks by carefully watching what i thought of as "real students"- those whose parents had gone to college, who'd gotten a life- long rundown of what was in store. that's how i knew to wear flip- flops in the shower, or to take notes in class, or that visits to the writing center were covered by tuition. but there was still a lot i couldn't figure out this way. for instance, i dropped a class after realizing the textbooks would cost a couple hundred dollars; by the time i learned that professors often put books on course reserve, it was too late to add it back that semester. or like when my professors keptk saying "see me in office hours," as if we all knew what that meant. but it took a bad grade on a paper for him to explain to me what office hours were: that he was just waiting around in one place, ready to answers all my questions. what could my college have done to show me how much i needed to know without making me feel dumb or out of my league in the process? this is where well-meaning administrators usually start throwing around the word mentorship, but too many colleges still think of mentoring as just meetingst between two people-one who knows some things, and another who doesn't yet know those things. technically, i had a mentor my first year in college, but when i finally met him, he didn'tdi seem to understand how confused i was, in part because he came from a long line of college-ca going folks. he didn't know how much i didn't know either.it formal mentors like the one my college assigned me need to be first-generation college students themselves or have been trained by people intimately familiar with the challengesle students like me faced. they need to do more than send us concerned emails: they have to knock on our literal doors. and they should be compensated for their work as mentors, not asked to volunteer or serve outr of some sense of obligation to help out a past version of themselves. they need to be concretely valued for the resource they are, for the unique survivalar skills they bring to campus. i now work as a novelist and,ve believe it or not, a professor. whenever i'm in front of a new a group of readers or students, i ask those who identify as first- generation college people to raise their hands. i then congratulate them, i tell them how much it means to me to meet them, and i tell them thato i'm one of them. but later, after whatever talk or lecture i've given, there's i almost always someone who comes up to me and admits that they didn't raise their hand because they didn't know being a first- generation college student was a fact they could be proud of. only then do i admit to them something i know that they don't: when i was in their place, i wouldn't have raised my hand either. >> ifill: you can find more of our essays on our website at pbs.org/newshour/essays. >> ifill: and a news update before we go. it's balancing reported tonight that federal prosecutors have againstrrorism chargesfi ahmad khan rahami, the suspect in the new york and new jerseyah bombings.mb they include use of a weapon of mass destruction and destruction of property. rahami also faces charges of attempted murder for his shoot-out with police. >> ifill: tune in later tonight, on charlie rose: lead singerni bono of u-2 joins charlie as the band celebrates its 40th year.os and that's the newshour for tonight.t. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy. woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening.ne. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. u >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial futuren >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. fwi >> carnegie corporation of new york.n supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security.nt at carnegie.org. >> 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 pbp station from viewers like you.an thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc ct captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ♪ " with tyler mathisen.usiness no. okay. so y haven't resigned, you haven't returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven't fired a single senior executive. instead, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don't have the money or a fancy pr firm to defend themselves. it's gutless leadership. >> heated and intense. the fireworks flew on capitol hill and the ceo reviewed during testimony today the fake accounts scandal may run deeper than most thought. the great rate debate. federal reserve begins its