Meteorite Lit Up Sky Over Midwest; Fixing America's Schools
LEMON: We have been telling you about the volcanic ash that crippled air travel over Europe and affecting flights here. Jacqui Jeras, look at that smoke and ash.</s>JACQUI JERAS, METEOROLOGIST: Oh, yeah.</s>LEMON: There are tons of pronouncers here. There is a Eyjafjallajokull.</s>JERAS: I believe it is Eyjafjallajokull.</s>LEMON: That was the pronunciation I got. Who knows?</s>JERAS: On the internet, you learn how to speak Spanish or how to speak Scandinavian, it goes, agua, water, and gives you time to say how it pronounces. Time to move on. And look at that. I just lost my flight data. Gosh darn it. Basically what I wanted to show you on that was that there are really no planes across northern Europe, which have been traveling at all. We have had some air traffic from Spain down through the Mediterranean and Italy, and then on over to Turkey. So the flights have been able to go in here, but not up here, and that has to do with the upper level winds and which way they have been directing that ash plume. And you can see Iceland, there is the volcano, we have put it on there for you. The winds have been going this way and dispersing and all the way over to Russia now. We expect this weather pattern to continue as we head throughout the rest of the weekend. However, we are hopeful that we're going to see a little bit of a change in the weather pattern by the middle to latter part of the week. We'll see this kind of ridge out as we call it, and send that plume a little further to the north. Scandinavia, but maybe get flights out of Great Britain and down into France and all those people who have been stranded.</s>LEMON: And before we move on to the weather here, what happens, the space shuttle comes back on Monday?</s>JERAS: Yes, space shuttle comes back on Monday and we're not worried about it. So the expected path is that it is going to be trying to come in east of the ash plume area. It is going to go over the Pacific Ocean. You can see a lovely picture as it undocked from the international space station, it did that today. Expect it to land at Kennedy Space Center on Monday morning, I think 7:45 almost eastern time. And if we look at the maps here, it will show you the path that is it is expected to take. . You can see it moving over the Pacific Northwest, going through the central U.S. and landing at Kennedy Space Center. A lot of people will see this. It will be dark out. If you want to get up extra early and see the bright light in the sky, you may be able to do so. There is a chance of showers by the way in the forecast. We'll have to watch for that impacting the landing.</s>LEMON: Chance of showers. What is going on now? Anything interesting?</s>JERAS: Across the U.S. most of us are having a good weekend, right? I won't deny that. We have some really, really extreme weather here across parts of the southern plains states. In particular, we have been watching Texas. We had very heavy showers and thundershowers down there, Corpus Christi, they already moved through the San Antonio area, but put down a good 4 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. So a lot of folks dealing with flooded streets and we also had some stranded cars as well. The northeast, this is just really light stuff, but check it out, don, that's pink. That's white on our winter radar. It is mid-April. So unusually cool. We had a little mixing, not enough to really cause you any travel problems, maybe slick on the roadways. Look at those temperatures. You see that cold front which dropped on through, been real, real quiet all week long. Things are starting to pick up a little bit now.</s>LEMON: Quite a beautiful day where we are in Atlanta.</s>JERAS: It is gorgeous.</s>LEMON: Thank you, Jacqui Jeras. See you soon.</s>JERAS: Okay.</s>LEMON: One day after the deadline to return census forms, the government says three in ten Americans hasn't done so yet. That's fairly close to the rate during the last census, ten years ago. If you haven't returned your form yet, you can expect a knock on the door from census workers in the near future. Be expecting it. It dazzled stargazers across the Midwest last week, but the shard of meteorite that made it to earth was tiny, about the size of a peanut shell. The man who found the fragment said he heard it bounce off the roof of a shed in his backyard in southeastern Wisconsin. Scientists hope other fragments might be found since the meteorite may have exploded into thousands of little pieces. We have this just in to CNN. A daughter of former president Lyndon Johnson has been rushed to the Mayo Clinic. A family spokesman says 62-year-old Luci Johnson, seen here on the left, along with her sister, she was taken from her home in Austin, Texas, to a local hospital after complaining of extreme weakness in her arms and in her legs. She was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where doctors suspect a disorder affecting the nervous system. We'll update you on that one. Whether you have children or not, the state of America's education system affects you in countless ways. All of us, really. Many Americans are not happy with what we see. Coming up tonight, at 7:00 p.m. eastern, a CNN one-hour special called "Fixing America's Schools." Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently came to Atlanta to offer his solutions in an exclusive town hall meeting with students, teachers and parents. It was just yesterday and CNN was there. Take a look.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do we encourage teachers? How can leaders and school administrators encourage teachers to move outside of the box and be creative in their teaching approaches so that they can reach all needs of students and so that kids can have a quality, world class education and that standard will be met at the same time?</s>ARNE DUNCAN, EDUCATION SECRETARY: I think teachers are unsung heroes in our society. I think the vast majority of teachers do an extraordinary job, working unbelievably hard, never had less resources than they do today. Children come to school with more challenges than ever before. We need to do a much better job of supporting those teachers, mentoring them, providing them with meaningful professional development, meaningful career ladders. We don't invest in teachers at our own peril. And I've challenged school education. They need to do a better job of preparing teachers to come into education, more practice, less theory, more hands on experience, but we have to do a much, much better job of helping teachers being successful and rewarding success. We have been scared to talk about excellence. Great teachers make a huge difference in students' lives. Every kind of -- every kind of study shows three great teachers in a row and that average child will be a year and a half to two grade levels ahead, three bad teachers in a row and that average child will be so far behind, they may never catch up. We need to recognize excellence, reward it, shine a spotlight on it, clone the teachers, put them in real leadership positions to help them share their knowledge. We have to stop being scared of talking about excellence. Great teachers, great principals, talent matters tremendously in education.</s>LEMON: It is a fascinating and important discussion that you don't want to miss. "Fixing America's Schools" coming up in about 90 minutes right here on CNN at 7:00 p.m. eastern. Addressing problems of the past to change the future.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Until we raise up our history and our wellness and our greatness, our men and women and children will continue to act inferior.</s>LEMON: A call of action by the African American community and the clock is ticking.