High School Hostage Drama; Crisis Heats Up in Korea; Students Getting Second Chance Online
VELSHI: Time now for "Globe Trekking." North Korea, it's the one we've leading with every day. It is throwing gas on its rhetorical battle with South Korea -- today, warning of an all-out war any time if South Korea and the United States continue the joint naval exercises in the disputed Yellow Sea. Those are under way right now. Despite the threat, those war games continued full speed ahead today and are scheduled to run through Friday. The U.S. military says they are designed to send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea. Washington says the exercises are in response to North Korea's sinking of four South Korean -- of a South Korean warship in March which killed 46 sailors. The north denies it had anything to do with the sinking. More on this now from CNN's Stan Grant onboard the USS Aircraft Carrier George Washington.</s>STAN GRANT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: One after one, these fighter jets are coming back in to land on the USS George Washington aircraft carrier. There are about 75 of these. We'll take a break right now. They make an absolutely almighty sound as they come in, an extraordinary sight as they come to such an abrupt halt. You can really feel that shake right through your body. Now, these aircraft departed these exercises in the Yellow Sea between South Korea and the United States. There are about 6,000 troops -- await that. About 6,000 troops on board this aircraft carrier and they've been linking up with the South Korean forces. We're about 100 kilometers, 60 miles south of the disputed maritime border between North and South Korea. Now, these exercises were meant to be for defensive purposes, but, of course, they've taken on a whole new significance after North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea branding that as an inhumane act, an act unprecedented since the Korean War to target civilians and warning that any more aggression, any more provocation and South Korea will hit back and hit back hard. Now, the U.S. forces are standing shoulder to shoulder with South Korea as their ally in this region. North Korea is saying this is a pretext for war. But what we are seeing here is a real display of the fire power that South Korea and the United States have at their disposal. And here's another one. And that's another example of that fire power I've been talking about. Stan Grant, CNN, on board the USS George Washington, in the Yellow Sea.</s>VELSHI: Got a presence right there in the middle of this. We will keep you posted as this story develops. Keep tuned in to us because it is developing. In Rome, a massive student protest over expected spending cuts in education brings the city to a virtual standstill. Protesters also disrupted traffic and blocked train tracks in Milan, Pisa and Venice. The mass demonstrations are called "Block Everything Day." It comes as the parliament debates a bill on education reform. Students argue that the cuts breach their right to education. All of this are just more headaches for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He faces two different confidence votes this upcoming month -- Kate.</s>BOLDUAN: Time for a little "Chalk Talk" now. Traditionally, students who failed courses during the year have to repeat them again to get credits. When school districts at the same time are looking for new ways to boost graduation rates, many are turning to something called online credit recovery -- students getting online instruction and then taking a test to regain the credit. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia have OK'd this online credit recovery and Los Angeles schools have been using the technique for a year and a half now. Themy Sparangis, the chief technology director at a Los Angeles Unified School District, joining me now live from Los Angeles. So tell me, Mr. Sparangis, why the surge in this online credit recovery now? What's going on behind the scenes here?</s>THEMY SPARANGIS, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: Well, what's happening is that we're always looking for better ways to serve our students to make sure that they achieve, they are successful. And the online, particularly these hybrid programs where we use the online together with a teacher in the classroom, have grown very, very well, because we can have differentiated instruction using the online system and then also leverage the face-to-face teacher for any individualized or small group instruction.</s>BOLDUAN: In these tough economic times, when I think of online, you know, this online element, it seems like it must be a money saver not having to run the cost associated with keeping a summer school going on all summer long. Doing some of these online elements seems like it could save money. So, is this purely economics driven?</s>SPARANGIS: Actually, it's not. Money is not what's driving this at all. There is an actual teacher that is online. It's really a shifting of the cost to better serve our students.</s>BOLDUAN: So, I was looking into this. It seems like while many are clearly jumping onboard with this and taking this on as a good way to work with students and maybe take advantage of how students work these days, being online so much, there seems to be also some concern about the quality of education that students are getting with this online element. How did your school district work with those concerns?</s>SPARANGIS: When there's a different pedagogy involved when there's an online teacher and using particularly in these hybrid environments where we leverage online and face-to-face instruction. All of those things come into play into evaluating the student, making sure the student is successful. As a matter of fact, most of our students that do take the online actually find it very rigorous.</s>BOLDUAN: So many of these online courses are prepared by for- profit companies. How is your school district able to maintain control, educational control over the material and the content?</s>SPARANGIS: Right. Well, we use both internally developed content and content that is available out there for purchase. Basically, what we do is we evaluate all of the content from the different providers and the content that we use and make sure it's aligned to state standards, make sure it's aligned to district standards and to make sure that it's effective in the classroom with our students online and in the classroom.</s>BOLDUAN: Do you see just the element of the online education as part of going to be the new kind of fabric of public education and private education as we move into this digital age? Do you see it as being a key component moving forward?</s>SPARANGIS: Oh, absolutely. I absolutely do.</s>BOLDUAN: All right, Themy Sparangis, thank you so much for joining us today.</s>SPARANGIS: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: All right, so it is the car of the future or is it? GM's long-awaited Chevy Volt is now rolling of the assembly line. Our Poppy Harlow talks with GM's CEO next.