D.C. Test Tampering?; Crisis in the Classroom
ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. The controversial former head of the Washington, D.C., school system, a school reformer now, Michelle Rhee, under fire this morning. High test scores during her tenure as chancellor, her short tenure, really, as chancellor, are being called into question. A report in "USA Today" says nearly 4,000 parents and teachers have petitioned for a federal investigation. They're calling for an in depth analysis of the students' test scores, and they want Rhee and other school officials to testify under oath about possible test tampering.</s>VELSHI: Another crisis in the classroom. American students flunk the most recent National Civics exam. The test result show less than half of eighth graders knew what the bill of rights was for. Just one in ten had any knowledge about checks and balances between the three branches of government. At the same time, only a quarter of high school seniors scored at proficient or advanced levels in civics.</s>CHETRY: Oh, wow. Come on, guys. Read a book. Please. All right. A new study suggests that students who work long hours during high school are actually less likely to finish college. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that for high school students who worked less than 15 hours a week, more than half of them got their bachelor's degree, but for every five additional work hours, there was an 8 percent drop in college graduation. Only about 20 percent of those who worked 31 hours or more a week in high school finish college.</s>VELSHI: Do we want outside of --</s>CHETRY: We're talking about a job, labor.</s>ROMANS: But here's the thing. I don't think that it's the job that necessarily is the thing that's the reason why the kid can't graduate from college.</s>VELSHI: Responsibility.</s>ROMANS: It's because the reason why the kid is working all these hours is because, maybe, there's, you know, financial setbacks in the family. Maybe the kid has to go back to work because they're supporting other people. It might not necessarily be that working takes your eye of the ball. That's just my opinion, because I worked a lot in high school. I'm a real advocate of having a job and working and learning that responsibility and hoping to pay for college. I mean, it's important.</s>VELSHI: Am I allowed to think about that for a while?</s>ROMANS: Think about it. Did you work in high school? Did you work in high school? Did you work in high school?</s>CHETRY: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Yes. So, three people who worked in high school.</s>CHETRY: I worked a lot in college.</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>VELSHI: Maryland, right?</s>CHETRY: Yes. University of -- go Terps.</s>VELSHI: You know a Terp is a turtle, right?</s>CHETRY: It's a tortoise. It's the fastest tortoise on the planet.</s>VELSHI: It should be a long time to understand that.</s>ROMANS: The fastest tortoise on the planet. All right. There's mixed reaction this morning to President Obama's decision not to go public with those Bin Laden death photos. The president says he will not use the graphic images as some sort of trophy. So, we want to know what you think about the president's decision not to release photos of Bin Laden's body. So, e-mail us at CNN.com/AM. Give us a tweet @CNNAM. You can tell us on Facebook. That's facebook.com/americanmorning. We'll be reading your comments later in the show, and I just got with Tom Wynter (ph) that says, you guys, I already saw a picture on the internet of this. Why do --</s>VELSHI: You didn't, Tom. You didn't.</s>ROMANS: Tom Wynter (ph), you did not see a picture.</s>VELSHI: Tom is not the only one who thinks he saw a picture, by the way. Several United States senators were under the impression that they had seen a picture of Bin Laden, and that kind of surprises me when you are a United States senator because you actually have access to be able to confirm things. Tom may not.</s>ROMANS: Just for the record, everything on the internet isn't true (ph).</s>VELSHI: Yes. So, no. For those of you, we welcome your views on it, but those of you who are going to respond saying you saw a picture of it, we're just going to tell now, you didn't see a picture of it.</s>CHETRY: It's not being released, and there are several photo shopped versions that are not accurate.</s>VELSHI: All right. We have this big story developing right now. It is a disaster really along the Mississippi river. We know it floods every spring. This is much more serious. There's danger in now at least ten different states from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans. Rob Marciano is in the flood zone. Reynolds Wolf is covering it from our Extreme Weather Center. We're going to give you a detail look at this when we come back.