Educate the american. Today they are going to share with us the original inspiration behind the book and why it is more important now to be finalized the education. Joining us today, president of the bill of Rights Institute, david has worked for 20 years to build strong Civic Education programs that engage the hearts and minds of young people, previously working at Hillside College and author of a book on the vital role of merely in politics. Welcome. Also joining us from the chair and liberty of the American Enterprise institute and the editor in chief of the dispatch and hes offered a chapter and how to educate an american. Finally, sarah morgan smith, director of faculty which seeks to restore and strengthen the capacity the American People constitutional selfgovernment. Thank you all for joining us. Two quick notes, who will through a q a so please submit questions in one of two ways. Either you can email nicole. Penn, pe and or submit questions to the , educating american aei. Second this webinar will be posted on the website. Im pleased to share cspan book tvs website will also air the discussion. It is fair to say the world has changed dramatically by first conceived this book. They want to gather a group of scholars to provide a companion of ideas forward reinvigorate education and ensure young people would value the nations history, understand a system of government and cherish its founding ideals but then when i describe as to earthquakes and the tremor occurred. The first earthquake is the covid19 pandemic. As someone who runs the network in its third month of Distance Learning for 2000 students and now we are doing massive amounts of scenario planning for what school will look like in the fall, the one thing certain is that instructional delivery and education is going to look radically different. Whats less discussed is evidence suggesting children who enter the pandemic embedded in strong married families were much more likely to be protected from financial and emotional stress. How would that change the urgency of what we teach young people about the importance of building Strong Families and a Strong Civil Society in a post covert world . The second earthquake, as i describe it, the New York Times 1619 project. If youre not familiar with 1619, it is the New York Times attempt at slavery at the center of our National Narrative and your 1619 as the founding of america, could not be 1776. Both the left and right and its premise being challenged by a group of scholars and activists who formed the 1776. Despite this, the 16th 19 product lead author on the pulitzer which will likely only accelerate distribution of a 1619 curriculum, which is already in thousands of urban schools, ensuring primarily low income kids of color grow up with an understanding of American History the correct use founding ideals were false when they were written in anti public racism runs into very dna of this country. How do we focus on education when theres a growing movement in urban schools . Beyond these two earthquakes is what i call the tremor, a periodic disruption that regularly reminds us of the crisis Civic Education that exists in america. New results revealing the percentage of students who demonstrate proficiency in content knowledge and skill was just 24 , 25 geography and 16 in u. S. History. In history, only 10 of eighth graders can explain why a south lost the civil war. These numbers unfortunately are nothing new in this has been repeated for years. Without framing of the challenges, how to educate an american the lead editor is going to kick us off. Given how the landscape has changed, how is it different changing or been enhanced . Thank you, appreciate that. Thank you for hosting and moderating but especially the great work you and your colleagues are doing. Keep to the Enterprise Institute for hosting this, it was supposed to be a live event once upon a time, covid obviously made that impossible but appreciate going ahead with this webinar. There are hundreds of you out there watching and we appreciate your time as well. We launched the project that would become how to educate an american from a place of frustration. Thats because the National Education Reform Movement across america after a nation at risk like running out of steam. Reform efforts still in some states and communities, they appear almost as often. Theres a version that they write about in his new book, we felt stuck. Standards and expectations are higher almost everywhere and they give to be. Treatment has risen a bit mostly in math and especially the lowest performance. Gaps have narrowed and many opportunities are wider. More families have options for the Children Education is no longer taken for granted but students who attend the district operated was closest to their homes. Many of these reforms driving ideas conservative in origin, making them happen by compromise. Centerleft and centerright ground, ground and proceeded big changes in a deeply entrenched Education System not successfully serving many children are deciding where they live. Bipartisanship is in tatters today in our national life. His chapter in the book, it is an opportunity for conservatives who recognize but the gains made possible through bipartisanship suppressing important differences and neglecting schooling in particular. It seemed like time to lead to these differences, highlight whats neglected, lost or distorted. Traveling education void and see if we can renegotiate terms before the next wave of bipartisan reform. That was the purpose of how to educate an american, a vision for tomorrows course. In it, almost 2000 public intellectuals and scholars responded to our request to help us address the Big Questions about where america finds itself in this moment in history, where we are going or should go in the role of primary secondary education and taking us there. As expected from this Incredible Group of creative thinkers, they set off in many directions and got, they revolve around a few key things. One thing around good character including moral education, properly construed but the critical work of helping young people armed purpose and muted big benefits of asking students to work hard and theres studies and beyond and injustice of discipline reform that reinforce soft bigotry of low expectations around student behavior. Second thing urged a broader view of what comes after elementary and secondary education. Any of the authors argued college may not be the only pathway to dignity or middleclass in a key goal should be informing teenagers about success sequence and encourage them to follow it. The sequence is to finish school, get a fulltime job, get married and start a family in the order. In im sure was a later, in his chapter in the success sequence and broader issues of Family Structure. The third thing, the one discussed today is recommitting students understanding of American History, civics and citizenship including a time that instilled in informed love of country even as it acknowledges past feeling and present challenges. I would focus fantastic chapter about rating the past about which we will hear more in a moment. Also the subject of area patriotic history, History Program american and also medical of the many ways our beloved nation has fallen short of this idea. How voters can promote an excellent, engaging version of Civics Education without relying solely on public institutions. It was a big part of the concluding chapter by former education secretary, william expressing his concern more than three decades after don hirsch warned us about cultural illiteracy, we still failed to teach our youngest students street and geography, science and the arts, all important in their own right but also essential if we are ever to win the war against illiteracy. When all this has in common is broad agreement around the problem. The problem simply put, the academic left has embraced revisionist history as the means to panic inherently unjust. This history jumped from lead colleges and universities into our high school, especially your textbooks, peoples history of the u. S. And more recently, the 16th 19 project. This has politicized our k12 history class rooms. Thats not to say history was taught perfectly in the past. Way back when, schools were too eager to cross over failures. Too often did so with boring lectures at the pound cannot be ignored. Those who lead and teach have to choose to respond. Will focus on the question of the right response. Some may dream of eradicating it from a patriotic version of history focused on great men and was one and perhaps that might actually happen to some extent in conservative, private and charter schools. Is that really the best solution . Some American Kids would be taught American History while others learn blue American History . Is there a way to teach red and blue and even purple history . It is patriotic and critical. Without avoiding the conflicts and controversies which would think history even more boring and on engaging for our teens. That is the challenge of the nations educators facing and i hope today might give them hope that it can be met. Thank you. Thank you for that great introduction. Now we are going to hear from david bob, president of the bill of Rights Institute. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for the excellent framing and for putting this outstanding volume of reflections together. In 2015 from the south korean government set in motion a plan by which a new book was unveiled. The correct textbook of history was its title. Mind you, it was south korea, not north korea. Designed not to remedy other textbooks, this resource has the government. It was a regime sanction textbook. You might be thinking, isnt it great we dont do that in the u. S. . It is true, we do not have official textbooks issued by the u. S. Federal government. We do have is a system in which the authority at the state of is lodged largely with bureaucrats. Where choosing textbooks created by a handful of the largest publishers. What we have done in essence, create a kind of cartel. This cartel has produced textbooks that want to be ideologically boring. Administrators say that teachers are usings textbooks half the time, he half the days that schools were in session, precovid19. Teachers say their using their official sanctioned textbooks about one out of five days. I think thats a good thing. And as several contributors point out, we need to do more to help district, charter, private, and home schooling teachers, parents, have ready access to viewpoint diverse resources. If the nate to challenge students how to become thoughtful patriotic citizens. Robby george make the case that the viewpoint diverse shy be a public and private good and the foundation on which we build a sound Civic Education. This part of the solution in particular suggests that the subtitle of the book the conservative vision for tomorrows schools might well be amended to, a vision for tomorrows schools for all americans. In other words, scientific education is near their conservative progressive, neither left or right, it does not push a political agenda but it does ennoble our policy. Civics teaches its students young and old the vibrancy of Civil Society. Civics is also inescapable. In this whether or not thats a course called civics for secondary school students, theyre constantly forming for good or ill a viewpoint on american ideas and institutions. For most Young Americans that world view is inchoate. The admits at the end of his essay that patriotic history needs guardrails to ensure it doesnt feel ideological narratives like the lost cause idea row lating to the civil war. Cohen advances what might be called the this book section on civic and History Education. Let me just summarize it using his words. Here i quote, without civics, our Political Institutions are reduced to valueless mechanisms, without history, there is no sink education. Civic education. Without Civic Education there are no citizens. Without citizen is there is no free republic. I endorse this line of argument and greatly appreciate robby georges reminder that civics and history, as well as philosophy must be grounded in humility. Our task is not to have another period of lamentation out scores but to take of the task of supporting teachersparents and administrators need to recognize it is a hard task to be viewpoint diverse, and i believe, having seen this for the last six years of the bill of Rights Institute, that many of our teachers in he social studies community are very much in favor of and indeed do every day a viewpoint diverse presentation of civics and history. There are resources we have created at the bill of Rights Institute that seek to be part of the solution. I just want to mention a cowl of of a couple of them. The website, teach. Mbri. Org hat hundreds, in fact thousands of different resources that teachers can choose from to support their work. As the next slide indicates these are topics that relate to thing that are often really hard subjects. For example, how do we balance liberty and security, talk but in a plural way religious liberty. How do we understand immigration. How do we note and celebrate those remarkable accomplishments done in the spirit of the declaration of independence like the 19th amend. At the next slide shows theres a lot of thing is think can be done to directly engage students. They just got done, for example, millions of students taking advance placement exams we had seminars and webinar that engaged students with the ideas and a rich conversation and on july 6th the bill of right itsen constitute will release a publication called life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, history of the american experiment. It employs 100 leading academic kickons who agree he on virtually nothing, to debate pointcounterpoint the key questions of hit. In so dog the students are invited to a conversation. A rich conversation that spans decades and centuries, of debate and dialogue, and we think the outcome of that kind of thing is the sound civic that this book rightfully points us in the direction of. Thank you so much. David, thank you very much. Think the points about Viewpoint Diversity and the fact that history is neither conservative or liberal, was tremendously resonate and david recommended a different subtitle for the book, not theres necessarily a conservative vision but a description for all a vision for all children. Are you ready to chang the subtitle. As soon as the press is ready to publish the sect edition with 80,000 copies this time, because of the demand that is this show is generating, yes, lets change the subtitle. Excellent. Checker now is your time to share your reflexes mike reflections. What war round help wow outsides to create this . Well, we have a number of hopes having to do with reinvigorating oat indication reform and invigorating people on the flight the effort on the right in the efforts, believing that while we are stauch support efforts School Choice, sometimes when conservatives think but education reform, they focus only on choice, and ignore all of the other things that are involved, quality education, quality choices, with kids who dont make choices, with kids who dont have parents who make choices for them, and with the whole variety of other things. So we felt a broader brush was needed to go at the future education reform issues. The book is 18 chapters and spans a bunch of topics, from gifted education to Family Structure to Student Engagement and student effort and so on. But we did want to talk primarily today pout the civics and history element of the book, which is much of it, as mike said and is a major theme around which men over authors congregate. Ive been a rate warrior since i was a history major in the late middle ages in college, and i have also despaired ill we say over the decades at boredom and elsewhere but the state of social studies education in american schools. And that social studies is typically what both history and civics are imbedded in, in american schools and its often a couldnt of a mishmash in the elementary and middle grades and then in high school, typically confined to a single years course in u. S. History and a half year or so one year course in sometimes called civics, sometimes american government. When i was teacher it was called problems of american democracy, court which had an imminent new England Public High School had no curriculum whatsoever. The teacher was told to go to lie area and find kid booked that kids could read. That was the state of the curriculum back then. And one of the thing david has usefully done is illustrate the extent of and variety and quality of many of the materials currently available in the modern world for educators who want them and no what theyre doing and are enabled within their schools or School Systems to use this stuff. Were no longer textbook dependent or at least we dont have to be. And there is a wealth of material there, but its frustrate it use is frustrated by some kind of endemic problems in social studies education. One of which is frankly poorly train teachers in many cases, who are assigned to teach social studies but never studied it themselves. Grew up in schools that 15 of kids are proficient in history on the eighth grade test result and a lot of todays teachers were, to put it bluntly in the other 85 when they were in eighth grade, and didnt necessarily get cured as they made their we through college and ed school. Additional problem is that state policy, while it requires social studies, usually doesnt make it part of state accountability system. Usually it doesnt matter for a schools rating from the state whether kids are learning social studies. Often it doesnt matter other than the teachers grade whether they pass a social studies course in order to granddaughter wait. Often theres nothing like an end of course assessment by which the state will have a kind of external check on whether anything has actually been learned. Often times this is left to districts to work out. Im glad theres no National Social studies curriculum. I dont want to be south korea. But it is the case that in this country states are responsible for seeing that kids get educated, and in todays america, not more than anytime in my memory, that means wanting kids to grow up to be competent citizens of a United States of america, and for that to happen, civics and History Education have just got to be part of the fabric. They are intertwined, should be intertwined. They are certainly intertwined in the k8 social studies framework or standards in most states. And were doing a dreadful job of pog of them as evidence offed by the result but its not impossible. I remember a few years ago, a College Board wag overhauling the advanced placement framework for u. S. History, and in so doing, they first went interest a kind of a framework or the u. S. History framework, and then people called them on it and they said to their credit, lets good become and fix it. And a upu u. S. History framework right now is i think common ken sent and with almost no more critics, a nicely balanced not just viewpoint diverse. Theres a kind of a a sollead core to it solid core it to that everybody recognizes are important concepts and skills and knowledge for kids to acquire as they study u. S. History. Now, were talking there about a nontrivial number of kids. Hundreds of thousands of High School Kids eave year take ap u. S. History and if a automaticker of it as an exam of the fact its possible to do this well, and that if our schools and districts and states set out to do it well and made it count, which ap makes it count i think we could be doing a vastly better job of preparing future citizens of the United States than we are doing today. Thank you very much and im delighted to turn it back to you, ian. Chester, thank you for that. I share your belief there shouldnt be a National Social studies curriculum. That should be mandated be the government but maybe there should be a mandate that one does exist and its required state by state. Jonah,ow wrote a great piece that used james bond as a vehicle through which to talk about eradiating the past. Tell us about your reflections on the topic. Sure. All the requisite thank yous and im honored to be here and all that which had the benefit of being true. Yes, the i borrowed from the movie gold finger, the james bond movie, just to make the point that in the movie, the villains plan is not to rob fort knox which is what the audience is led to believe in the beginning. What he actually intends to do is detonate a small dirty become inside fort knox, eradiating all of the gold to make it useless for generations to comethereby making his own stockpile of gold infinitely more valuable, and i use it as a metaphor for the way the sort of howard zen left and others and now the 1619 project, their approach to American History is to basically toxify everything that is on the good side of the ledger in American History, so that the only history that is left is one tale of victimization and woe and bigotry and these things never shrink in the Rearview Mirror of history. They just they become the mark of cain in our permanent problem with america that has never gotten better, and my own view i like that chester brought up School Choice earlier. Im in favor of School Choice as well. I have School Choice. Send my daughter to a private school. Most of my friend inside d. C. Send their kids to private schools, and this problem im describing is probably worse in these schools than it is in the Public Schools because at least somewhere in the chain, theres a politician who is worried that might get in trouble if they teach something terrible in Public Schools, but the people who send their kids to these private schools they want their kidded to be taught all the social justice stuff that will get them into an Ivy League School and talk but the permanent stain of slavery is a feature, not a bug. My open view is that much like dish think there is such a thing as patriotic version of history and the word patriotic probably needs to good, though. Much like the word conservative needs to go because it just bad branding, even though i think theres nothing wrong with them. My even view is that conservatism boils down to gratitude. When you strip it of the pa partisan and philosophical priors it boils down to the idea that one of the things you find lovely and lovable out the society you police in the world you live, in that you want to preserve and pass on to your children. This is thed mon burke contract between the edmond burk contract seven at the living, the dead and the unborn. Theres story to tell about america that does and that you have to teach the howard sein stuff. You have to teach the slavery and the trail of tears and all of that because if you dont teach that you cannot teach the story of the improvement of this country toward the more perfect union. I very much want to teach the first thing you have to teach is slavery was evil. A moral evil. Then point out it existed in a lot of places and one of the he remarkable thing about the west isnt that we headed it but we get rid of it. Second to it being evil it was profoundly hypocritical for a new nation, born under the proposition that we are all equal in the eyes of god and should therefore be equal in the eyes of government to have institution like slavery. Thats a profound hypocrisy for a country offend on the ideals we have and the to drag that hypocrisy you only only he hip crate cal if you have principles. Hypocrisy illuminates the principles the country was founded on, and it also illuminates the pest best version of ourselves. Theres a wonderful store to tell, not about 1619 which is just shoddy propagandistickic history. Doesnt mean everythinges wrong but the contextualization is ludicrous and the American Revolution nice war was fought to protect slavery is crazy, but want to teach all the bad stuff and teach this story of the unfolding realization of the principles that make this country exceptional, that make this country a place we should be grateful to live in, a place where we can understand that illume names the sacrifices and some shortcomings of the generations that came before us and in a we that is honest and soul searching. I think if you could get that into the curriculum, a lot of the civic stuff would sort itself out. And the Viewpoint Diversity point, ill just close on this im my real job is in journalism, not this highfalutin stuff, and my view this best journalism in america is opinion journalism because youll know where the author is coming from and the best opinion journalism is like an argue. In acourt of law witch all know the prosecution is biased against the defendant and we all know the defense is biased in favor of the defendant, but each side has rules they must follow. They have to tell at the throughout, have to marshal evidence, and they have to deal with the sides best arguments or theyll lose. And Viewpoint Diversity should just be seen like that to me. Different sides of the question that are presented honestly, that characterize the other sides position fairly, and allow the students and the teachers to illuminate the various issues and contexts that make this a significant thing to understand in the first place. I think this book can help in all of that. So thanks again for having me. Thank you. That was excellent. Sarah, the Ashland Center has done phenomenal work and i have been watching the seminars. Telephone us about the resources you provide to trace these issues around civics in your view here. Absolutely. Im going to carry on with the theme of talking about the importance of Viewpoint Diversity, but im going to tweak it because what about do is talk but text, not textbooks. So we are not interested in patriotic history or however you want to characterize those things. If that history is the product of historians filtering through and interpreting the past for students and teachers. What we do is we connect students and teachers and interested citizen is with actual documents from the past. We im one of the coeditor of our core document collection, when its all done it will be 45 individual volumes on different themes or focused on different time periods in our nations past. Each of those volumes brings together somewhere between 25 and 40 documents that come from different people who actually lived through the things we want to investigate. So they can be letters, speeches, but theyre not just the great men on the stage pushing history forward. They could be things from people who were down in the dirt and being affected by these policies and sort of thinking through them. So, one thing really think is important when we talk about Viewpoint Diversity aarons not just Viewpoint Diversity in our time but actually understanding there were multiple puppets at all times in americas past and we want to engage as many of those voices in the conversation as possible and to allow them to speak on their own without applying layer upon layer. That is difficult. Im a 17th century scholar by training so i know that words that we look at today and say, thats the obvious meaning, didnt mean that in the 17th 17th century and you cant just put a type in front of a seventh grader and expect them to know that, theres obviously some scaffolding has to take place to get them to see where those language has shifted over time or dig into thank you nuance. When you begin to do that work, and what we do at ash brookes we do teacher seminars and bring the documents and the teachers into the room and sit around a hollow square table and dot that work with them and model and engage them in the process so they back and do it with their students. When you do that work, then you really can begin to think for yourself about the past and not to accept the interpretation of even the most imminent scholar. So thats the real big key for me in think about this Viewpoint Diversity essay which robbys else say was great but i would have leaked to have thought about its more historically and chronologically. The other thing id like to say but the volume and maybe we can pick this up in the q a is so much of the focus hope to conversation has been on schooling as in students in the context of a k12 school, but education and learning and particularly civic learning takes place in many more environments than the four walls of a classroom. My own background, before i started work with ash brooke was in Museum Education so a lot of great public history sites covering all kinds of stories that would otherwise be forgotten or that would lack nuance because we dont have texts to engage them. But we do have these artifacts and places where we can go and engage with the past in tangible way and would have been interesting if somebody thought but what role do published history organizations or history museums have in this process, and then even beyond that, thinking about school reform, moving forward in a postcovid19 world, how much do we actually need send our students to School Monday through friday, versus allowing them to get out there and engage with other elements of Civil Society and aprepare tis. The thursday wise mentors and gain practical skills but actually cooperating with other people or learning to apply some of these character traits we want them to have instilled in them in their real life. So those are my two thoughts on the book. I will leave the rest for q a. Sarah, thank you for that. Its great distinction, this idea of text verse textbook. Were but to move into a discussion amongst ourselves is a mentioned earlier well be doing q a so please submit questions either directly by email using the copen at aei. Org or submit questions to educating americans aei. So one question i would like to throw out to the group is what is the real risk here . Its interesting, we have been living with Civic Education scores of 15 of our kids understanding civics and history for a long time. What is the risk if we dont do what ashbrook does so well chills not providing interpretation of history but actual texts that show the Viewpoint Diversity that existed at the time. What is the danger . Is is just conservatives hyperventilating in ill open it to anyone. What the real risk here . The general risk is worsening as the policy of the country divides into echo chambers and warring factions and other forms of pluribus at the expend of the unim. So able tolerate 15 proficient si is one thing if the country is sort of holding together. The risk gets worse if country is in other ways coming apart, and so even agreements on which texts to discuss would be a pretty good start here. I think jonah really hit the nail on the head when he talked but hypocrisy and the important educative purpose of hypocrisy. The risk i think of those low percentages is not that students dont know particular facts but that they dont know what the principles are that make them say, slavery was wrong and i should be pissed off about it. If you dont understand the moral truth that is in conflict with a regime of human ownership, than you have no Real Foundation for the kind of moral judgment that citizens need to make but contemporary problems either. So i think that what is lost is a sense of ownership of a core set of political principles. I would second that. I think theres a challenge that the hyperpolarization and the kind of hyperpartisanship we have seen present, for students it can come down to something very practical. Can i maintain a friendship with my friends and still disagree with them . And when you think on it at that level, the vitality and what is at stake here is civic friendship. The idea we can disagree about certain things while Still Holding to those things that make us an unim and i thing the definition of what those connections are, sometime wed overcomplicate these things. What we try to do at the bill of Rights Institute is point balance back to declaration of independence and the constitution. Thats amazing how many law student goes throughout without reading the two documents let alone any the federalists. So, think of what it is for a seventh grader to confront those and certainly to do that without theber mediation of scholarly opinion wearing down on them the first thing you have to do is confront the text the key thing that can emerge are discussions and debates that dont have a particular end in mind immediately. This outcome of this process is something that is very good, that is the sustaining of the republic and as i think this volume meat very clear the thing at stake is our future, period. Wants to add two comments. First to david, when they confront the document such as the declaration and constitution, they also need to understand why the people that wrote those were writing. The. What was going on in the world . What england doing that made people want to declare their independence from it . And i want to say to sarah, in addition to grasping the moral principles that slavery is wrong, its also good that kids understand why in the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries what were the economics as well as the views that led people to have slaves. It is one thing to say it is wrong and was wrong, its another thing to say why did it happen . You know, ian, its important for us not to pretend lick there is would something golden age in the past where we were doing this really well. Look, in much of American History, people werent going through school much longer than maybe an eighth grade education. Only until very recently we had mass Higher Education and still a send that the country could come together in address great challenges. I think we have the sense today that everything is sort of splintering. Were all in our own little bubbles in terms of media and the porlarization and all of that. Its a little unfair to say that schools will fix that and obviously the people who are, lets say, the babyboomers today, they were educated in very different way, generations ago, and theyre still part of the problem. Its not like theyre behaving great when it comes to civics and citizenship and civic friendliness. So, we cant put this all on the schools. But because we are at a place now where are there are so few common experience that people have, theres not a draft anymore, theres not three Network Television stations we all watched. School is one of those experiences that is more common, and so trying to get schools back to this place where they see preparing citizens and i love that term, david, the sort of the civic friendship as a huge part of their mission and a lot of news reform, havent been talking about. I we have been obsessed with College Career and helping individuals find their way into the middle class andon, which again for all very many good reasons, but we have not been as focused on the mission of the schools and especially Public Schools but all schools in preparing young people for citizenship and that just getting back to that, chester and i had a colleague of ours had a piece are he just went and looked on the big School District websites, the biggest School Districts in the country, almost none of them mentioned citizenship in their mission statement. How did that happen . But its a little bit just reflects that we have gotten away from this explosion we need to get back to it. Can i just add one quick im sorry go ahead. I agree we cant count on the schools to fiction all these things. Think you have to its concentric circling with parents, schools have to help, other institutions have to help. One thing im fairly obsessed with these day is this danger of populism and nationalism and these tort sorts of things, and one of thing things set sinkses education does Civics Education does is it allows for just everyday citizens, but also political leaders who are responsible for those citizens, to be just a bit more rooted, rooted in the facts. Rooted in the soil of reality, and when you live in a society like we do right now, where its really just all about competing narratives on television and the internet, that are designed to arouse anger more than enlighten. That sort of stuff, whether its q anonor racists on the right by by modify some racist on he left or whoever when people are not equipped with the basic facts to say, oh, my gosh, what im hearing here is b. S. , it becomes all the more easier to manipulate the people and to whip them up into an outrage state of mind. Theres a wonderful essay by John Courtney measure murray where he says the real threat the gates of the city facing America Today i not the commune blyed but its the idiots. And what he meant was he was using idiot in the original greek term which meant someone who wasnt schooled enough to be fit to behave in politicked. Wasnt informed enough to have an opinion that mattered. And the democratization of all of our politics, the democratization of the parties and journalism through social media is letting the morse persuasive idiots have wildly outside power in our Society Today and that is legitimately dangerous and its a danger we have had in the past but the technology was not on the side of itots the way it is idiots the way it is today and all the more important to teach civics and basic facts. As someone who runs school, its a very heavy burden to think that we have the sole role to play in enhancing okay said indication. This institutions through which young people learn what it meant to be an american, Community Based organizations, their own family, Faith Community all of that, we need a renewal and one thing that is interesting running school, talk but this idea of america as a selfgoverning presociety. That assumes we have individuals who know how to self govern. The idea of rights and responsibilities and typically when youre we have this discussion, it seems like theres a lot of focus on into it entitlements and right but but not a lot of responsibility. What would this group want young people to understand but theyre responsibilities to be an american . What does that look like . Ian ill jump in and suggest that we might look to one of the things that is part of the 1619 project as a point of departure. Theres a curriculum put together by its interesting when you look at the lesson machines part of this because one of them is something called erasure poetry. Imagine you take the declaration does this is the exam they use what you do as a young person is blot out the words that reveal then those words that are left your feelings about that document or that statement. So, jonah, the important words are feelings. Feelings. Jonah this goes to your puzzle about why is private schools so often are the ones most prone to take this sort of thing, win we dont have that shared reflection on, what is the text first . You were saying, sarah, how can we offer a critique of it . I think most High School Students are certainly ready to enter three that critique mode but first you have to spend the bulk of it on reflecting and understanding what there is before you do anything like an erasure poem. I think theres way in which that reality based education requires a confrontation and it doesnt have to be boring. It can be really exciting. You get into these really big debates and anybody that is taught i remember when i would teach slavery, we spent a lot of time on just trying to find out the question, why is it wrong . And thats that moral inquiry. And young people, teenager, middle school students, even little ones, i have two sons ages eight and ten. The love to enter other into the detates and theyve candle of of fight and we rob them if we dont invite them into these kind of debates. Im contemplating the prospect that 12yearolds erasing editing jefferson and mad mat disson madison and lincoln. That may be our reality. If these things are so outrage just and checker you mentioned earlier thank heavens the federal government is not impose the curriculum. What is the proper role of federal or state oversight if School Districts can just independently adopt curricula that is so an the cal to the core values of the country. They can assert as much influence as they choose to, even in socalled local control states. States decide what is in standards and what is on the assessment and what are the graduation requirements, and some states have a model curricula, some of which is pretty good. They are almost never obligatory curricula, districts and schools choose where to use them or not. But they could be mandated and could have a high quality statewide curriculum aligned with a high quality state assessments and then the challenge is to prepare teachers and materials to appropriately and success any teach it. I think theres a lot of opportunities here a state level. Lets leave the feds out for the time being. The responses on that . Im actually leery of state level curricula. Many moons ago i served on one iteration of new jerseys redrafting of the state social study standards and either the things that seemed important to include, even were like just as prone to kind of pork belly fin neglectling as any other political agenda there was a statewide pretty rigorous scope and sequence of what people were supposed to do but that didnt mean it was good, and the fact it existed actually prevented teachers who wanted to do good work and wanted to really engage their students with the past in a meaningful way from being able to do that because there was this thing that happen to happen through the scope and sequence. So im leery of standardization in general. I can here that for sure. Fordham where we welcome we have been reviewing state standards for 20 years in all subjects and certainly social studies and most of them are terrible. They written by committee, and so they come out mediocre at best. One thing we have not talked but is when we might be able to short circuit these debates and thats when kids are little. It certainly talking but high school kid. Of course owl the issues around Viewpoint Diversity matter a whole lot but if were talking about five, six, seven, eightyearolds issue think most americans would agree with the, hey, lets just make sure they get some of the basic. Hear the stories and learn about our heros and have an exclusively of heroes but as bill bennett wrote in his chapter were simply not doing that. That most american Elementary Schools today do not teach any history until at the soonest maybe fourth of fifth grade, if by then and its because of this notion that were going to you all the time we can for, quote, reading comprehension. Thats boring, repetitive examiner of fining the main idea and the narratives point. Its table it turns out that not only is it boring, it doesnt actually, who in terms of teaching kids how to read. Of you want to teach a kid how to read, tetch them how to sound out the language and then you need to actually teach them stuff. History and joe agograph geography and art and music and all the rest. Thats huge potential, if with could get our Elementary Schools teaching history again, in a meaningful way, again, itself might look, quote, mostly patriotic jonah with give us a better word broad consensus and get the basic, the basic narrative and the key people involved in this story of overcoming many of the ills and challenges we have had. That could put us in a much better place and then once kids are older, dont have to retrod the grouped. You can get into the primary docs and when kids are little theyre not cynical teenagers ts who think history is boring the six of us actually like history. Most teenagers hate it and hate it because it has not been taught in a very inspiring way. So teach it to them when they went to hear stories of far away times and places. The is material available for little kids. The core knowledge sequence from the Core Knowledge Foundation which does a wonderful job of imbedding history into Language Arts actually or joining them together. Wonderful video for little kids called, libertys kids, that is as well taught a basic civics course in cartoon video form over multiple hours as ive ever seen. A lot of stuff that can work for little kids. Im sure davids organization has and sarahs has materials for young students. And field trips to go back to my plea to remember placebased learning. Most field trips happen in the elementary year. By the time you get to meddle school and then forget it in omaha theres too much con at any time we have to cover. So we can take our kids to the places where history happened and engaging them with the past in a way that is meaningful and well resonate for a long time, even if they forget the specifics of the text. I think adam point out in their chapter is that public history has had that very important role, 85 million persons have visited mt. Vernon over the years, and while those numbers are declining, even precovid there are many ways to have that kind of really important and vital engage when you ask parents do you want values taught to younger kids in schools, theyll often recoil and say, whose values . However, if you ask them would you like responsibility, courage, other virtues taught, they say, yes. And i think without being too preachy, there are excellent curricula out there that are storybased, that engage the moral imaginations of young people, and that can build that kind of runway for future Civic Education. One thing that youve all highlight the importance of teaching history especially at younger ages. I wonder how important it is to start teaching the social norms by which young people understand what is to be an american. Mike, you mentioned the teaching of the success sequence. Its overwhelming dat that saves of you fin just the high school degree, get fulltime work, marge, then children, 9 7re office those folks who followed that course in that order have ended up in the middle class or beyond. Thats extraordinary. Seems when conservative have talked bourgeois social norms its taken at racist or. Posing middle class value. Shouldnt that be is a important as talk about the social formed that have defined what it means to ben an american . Ill jump in on this real quick go ahead. John, take it. Yeah. This is a source of great frustration for me and Charles Murray has written about this. One of the main problem inside society is that our elites wont preach what they practice. The divorce rate among the top quinn tile, whatever dwight line you pant to put on it, 1 , 2 , whatever, the family the divorce rate flattened out and corrected itself for the most part 2030 years ago for those people. And it turns out that just with the success sequence, that all of these things, delayed gratification, religious attendance, family integrity, these are things that make people successful and that they have the kind of social moral, financial, economic capital that allows them to be successful. But there is this thing in our culture which says that youre not allowed to tell other people how to live, even though its the other people who are poor or otherwise disadvantaged, who need that guidance more than anybody else. If youre rich you can afford your sins. You can afford your mistakes. I always think but an old story now but mcdonagh, who made her career without of what i idea to call flatter chic, with all this stuff, she gave an interview to some magazine where she said that she was named super mom by People Magazine and she said that she had never changed a diaper because she has a staff of over 200 people, and she can preach all sorts of thing about sort of nontraditional value and afford whatever mistakes she makeses, but somebody down the socioeconomic ladder who thinks, the way madonna thinks the world works, good enough for me, cant afford the kind of mistakes she can make and this is across the society, the new class types, want to talk but a kind of society we dont actually live in that doesnt have conflict. More economic benefits to get at least equal to getting married as to going to college for most people. How often do we hear hough vital it is you go to college versus how vital it is to get married, and one is a much more lasting source of happy iness and its not college. My wife would be happy for me to save i agree with you. Very verging into one of the themes of the book which we call Character Education, and i think an important point to get on the table, the virtual table here, is the extent to which Character Education in schools is modeling behavior by adults in schools. And the way kids learn to behave and conduct themselves with respect to other kids and adults and people outside by watching adults do it correctly. One oprices were paying for the virtual environment right now, and is that young kids are not in school seeing the models. They are at home, seeing whatever models they have in home which may be fine, but theyre not seeing the other model theyd might be seeing if they were in school. Thank you all. Im excited now to move to questions from our audience for which we have many. Very exciting. Todd the social studies teacher at Berry Hill High School who is a veteran in High School Social study teacher says he is looking for ways to include Character Virtue Development in his kruk him. What are key American Values and virtues . What are those key five or ten, whatever number, values that need to be taught to High School Students . I could start with Ben Franklins list in his autobiography. Give us a little, sarah. Oh, have to be humble, industrious, somebody help me out. Franklin is not my favorite founder. Franklin has very i mean, because of one franklin is writing the autobiography and who he is writing it for which is his son, and he is writing it after america already has won the war and now he is thinking about how to bring along a generation of genuine republican citizens, that list, as he is remembering what he tried to train himself to do as a young person, is really modeled ate that exact question, what does it take be virtues republican. Also pretty good list in the old boy scout oath as i remember it from my adolescence which as i recall said truth wuy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obeent, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverend. Well done. Very impressive. And amy wax, the professor of law school had the odd dis audacity to lay out storm norms and was heavily attacked for even uttering what is it what is it about the ease at which you can recite the boy scout oath for sarah talking about ben franklin what seems to obvious in the past now is a source of such conflict. I think the theres a think that we have lost to suggest that virtue really does have something very much to do with public things. And thats in part what franklin was getting at because that project that sarah kind was hatched in this 20s and he realized he was the kind of guy that always wanted to win the argue. And pulled together a list of a dozen virtues and asked a friend of us if you look at this, would you suggest i work on anything else because what he wanted to do is embark on a project what he calledmer perfection, and his friend a quake are said youre arrogant. Try hugh manipulate. And franklin took him up on that and then tried to put that into, and he worked on virtue each week until he got it right, and he realized that humility was the hardest one of them, of that list ump think theres an element here that is really important and teachers know this, theres a skill Building Quality to the norms were talking about. And often times we have tried to put those interest something called action civics, and i dont think its a very good fit because ultimately what youre doing is before you have that content, youre running kids out into projects that very often have a very kind of almost activist tenor. I think that conservatives need to become more open to the idea that skill building in schools and beyond schools is vital, and that it doesnt have to be that action civics equals activist civics. But that we need to think mainly about content the norms and content principles that we are imparting to young people and theyre doing things to put these into action is a good thing and wellconstructed can be part of our formal curriculum. All right. One quick point. About virtue not just of for individual character but the character of the American People. Im actually one who believes in american exceptional originally understood which is not waving a foam finger saying were number one of its that we were just different because we didnt a feudal past and Different Things about america, some were really good, some were really bad. More violent than other countries. But one of the really good things is we are also more selfsufficient. Theres a bit in election sis de tocqueville where he says in europe if a cart is overturned on a bridge, everyone stands around waiting for the constable to come and take control of the situation, but the americans just all get together, they pick up the cart and move it out of the road and i think that teaching a little bit of that is really important in part because at least among elite kids, who are going to grow up to he about the opinionmakers and influencers, the marry meritocracy is creating a lot of kid good at taking tests and kids are good at jumping through hoops to get to to their piece of cheese at the end of the maize but their fragile, and theyre they get out hoff Education System and they are looking for someone to ask permission to do the next thing and i think thats a longterm problem for the american character, the American People, that if you have green up your whole life and always had a third Party Authority figure to adjudicate any interpersonal conflict and you just know how to follow instructions really well, something really important about america will be lost. Jonah, i think also kids are deterred from thinking there are absolute truths. So, franklin adds humility but in the book he says to be humble like socrates and jesus. So neither of those are wishy washy men. They werent my truth is for me and your truth is for you. No. Sock socrates has a true understanding of philosophy and annoying people with it. Its not humility that everys throughout valid but coming to an understanding of truth and make a commitment and engage in a civic dialogue while standing your own ground and saying theres a right and a wrong here. Absolutely. We have another question from timothy simpson, professor of College Education from morehead stay university. What role do teacher Education Programs play in creating civic illiteratey and how can social studies Teacher Education be reform to contribute to civic literacy. David you may have some and sarah, i think you have thoughts here. Its a big question, and its a good one. I think one of the main things that happens while theres been some mod test steps taken modest steps take in the last decade to try to begin to address this, one of the biggest problems in training our teachers to be, there is so much emphasis in the teachers colleges of the pedagogy that content mastery is left behind too often. I believe that he this major thing that needs to be corrected. And by the way gives the teachers the greatest confidence when theyre entering the classroom. We are sewing in the social studies arena even greater Teacher Attrition than in some of the other fields, where attrition is already sky high. And its a pretty intimidating thing for one if you havent done it to try to get up in front of a bunch of people, even if theyre young, and talk but things if you dont know anything. So we talk but critical thinks. You need to have something about which youre going to think creditly and thats the marge reform we could see in our teacher colleges. You may not be based in truth but social justice ideal and all the rest. Im not optimistic about putting many eggs in the perform basket, people have been trying for hundreds of years and failing. Talk about social studies teachers in most states they are not spending as much time in elementary. Most recognize that so you need a history degree. I would come back to this notion around curriculum. Here is one way to push this in a positive direction, what do we want students to actually be able to do . Think about the student work, what kind of essay prompts we think a well educated American Healthcare should be able to answer . You can look at this and ap history from or even a you not just what kind of writing we want . Kind of oral presentations, basic knowledge and other skills we want them to have . If you focus on facts, you can step back and say okay, prepare those who can help kids get to where they can complete those assignments effectively as a parent right now, this room teaching experience, homeschooling, what we are seeing is what school has become from a it is stripped out of most especially, very little teacher instruction that my kids are seeing anymore, its basically just the assignment. Getting of the week, here are the assignments kids need to make their way through and yet, at the end of the bank, that is what education is. We expect students to do that. I think we stay focused on that but then we might be able to get more constructive things. To get into these curricular issues resident years ago in massachusetts, just winging as a 22yearold do the best you can, that is not a strategy that will get us very far. We have a question from serena penn, a spanish interpreter, serena is asking, how do we educate children whose parents do not encourage education, as an educator, i think i might say think its necessarily parent dont care, its just they assume the school has not been covered but with the pandemic, a lot of parents have gotten a lot more insight into what their kids are actually doing. As happy i think. How do we educate kids whose parents may not be as engaged for a whole host of reasons . Most parents do care, they may not be skillful navigators in the Education System and they may not be good structures because they let personal familiarity what it is kids are supposed to, many are distracted by obligation. Theres one chapter in the book about what is the meaning of School Choice for kids basically dont have that foster kids and like that. The recommendation is was for some kids are much more involved. Actually take a much more active, encompassing role in the lives of those children. I also believe, and i think a lot of charter schools, theyve done an outreach, it is possible to help parents become more engaged once they realize the school isnt just going to do it for them. This book is not a repair shop. I dont know what is happening in your school in respect to getting parents up to speed on how to help the children, but youve got a lot of it. Extraordinary amount. Our parent very much appreciate the role we are playing at school to prescribed resources but again, have much more visibly in the work and the fact that they are playing the role of teacher. As a great opportunity here, serena, i assume your parents would love to be more engaged, it is not that they dont care, its that they think the kids are more actively engaged in their education. Thank you for the work you are doing and echo what you just said. I believe there is a role for parents where oftentimes, whether it is time when it is hard to figure out exactly what your kids are starting, theres a portal, how to get on it time concerns, all of these things but even precovid, maybe an exercise in which the child is asking their parents a question for plan parent or guardian what you think of what we are going through now . Get those dinnertable conversations going even if they are not over the dinner table. We work with thousands of educators who are working with students in the eol communities have a resource called being an american. It is designed to boil down the ideas for the learners and their parents what are those basic things each american should know . I think what we need is more of a dialogue Going Forward and i hope i think that can come out of covid that would be unexpected and good for more of the interchange repairs are supporting, even if it is modest stuff, the hard work happening in the classrooms and vice versa. Teachers are recognizing it is not easy for parents to be totally involved in their kids academic lives. One more thing. Curating and exiting what the kids are watching when they are not at school, i could go a long way also depending on the age of the kids. A crash course in history, theres a lot of wonderful things that will educate them extremely well as long as someone is choosing them for them rather than some of the less appealing things that are appealing less valuable. Good reminder of parental response body. Shot up to schoolhouse rock. My daughter, when she was much younger, she liked to hear about the things when i was a kid, i told her about schoolhouse rock we end up re watching all of it. Some of it, it is amazing how patriotic some of them are and how funny and well done they are. They are a great gateway drug for kids. Nafta analogy unnecessarily want to use. [laughter] one of the authors in the book would like to hear more comments about educating American Adults. Doesnt have to beefcake the 12th kids, what about college, noncollege older kids . Many American Adults clearly do love history because it is one of the most popular forms of books people still buy. He got these celebrity authors, many of whom are not academic historians continue to sell feelings of books and people love that. There is clearly a demand out there for history, i would also say about the technology or things out there on the internet, ancestry. Com is freeway into history for a lot of families today to be able to do this research looking at primary documents, going back through the generations and tell the story of your own family. Something you can do with kids and as adults and it is a way to rekindle the love for history. Ill leave it to others to talk about more specifics. Roundtable should, with a list. This is an opportunity where, if we imagine not just thinking at the margins of schooling but rethinking what School Looks Like and how much of our tax dollars go to Public Schools. Maybe if people had more control over expendable income, they would spend more about local history sites or maybe we could redirect some of the tax dollars from schools to local history sites. Were there ways we can encourage engagement in the community with history, just in the atmosphere of things that are published or packaged and developed by scholars but actually getting people out to places in their own backyard. Its been defined too often by pouring charts and the reason why a lot of adults are not as engaged on the pacific side then the mighty manifestations or popular history, attorneys families can go on together is something we need to do if i thought of questions, it is strange to see how much the constitutional education has become a room of experts and you see it even in the way our political actors look at it. It used to be that fine for interchange between politician on things but we will let the lawyers take care about. Questions about the law and the constitution but bringing it to a level that is conversational about Current Events and ways to get beyond the Political Force raised to what are the ideas at stake . Organizations doing out there and i think ive seen engagement by families and adults. Amazingly, we are coming to the end of our time so i want to thank all of these incredible panelists but i want to get each of you 30 seconds to a minute to answer the question, what is the call to action . If you purchase how to educate american that you just watch this webinar you are inspired, what is it that you would like someone to do right now to revitalize Civic Education in our country . First, act locally. If youre a parent or a citizen, show up at your local School Board Meeting and asked them, what texts are you fusing for your history curriculum . What does it look like . We doing our job teaching history in a balanced way . In terms of the values, as our own school live up to those values . Are we walking the talk with kids and teens, they are going to follow our lectures. Run for local school board. The election for local school board. Look into the views for the local school board. Educate your own children in some of the ways weve been talking about on the show at this session and then take it once we are allowed outdoors and Mount Rushmore of gettysburg and those places. Jonah. I was going to basically but also i do believe, the fight for all good things begins in your own backyard and i think that is something too many people want to outsource to an expert rather than the basics. Since that is covered, go on a road trip when this is over. Dont let your kids have devices for the drive and go to a couple of interesting Historical Places and talk about them. Dont let them look at the devices on the drive back as you talk about them. That would do a lot. Thank you, one more minute left. Find something that interests you and read about it and try and find sources that, and get your kids to read them with you talk about with them for your neighbors, but dont get into the echo chamber of your own head. Speak out with views that are different than your own, and often wondered, those who are coming to this country naturalization process to be adopted, so to speak by those community. It is actions like that and the local thinking thats going to be able to turn this around. Thank you. Id like to ensure our kids to understand the rights and responsibilities of what it means to be american and we live in a country that affords them the opportunity to have their own destiny. This has been fantastic. With come to the end, please consider purchasing how to educate an american and we look forward to the followup doing great things for kids. Are watching tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Your programs to watch out for this weekend will former acting attorney general and the trump administration, matthew argues there insiders Justice Department intent on subverting the president. University africanamerican studies professor Carol Anderson weighs in on Voting Rights in composition congresswoman makar berkeley california. Visit our archives to look at several programs lake author, tom fox. More information at the tv ductwork consultant or program guide. During a Virtual Author Program hosted by town hall seattle Pulitzer Prize winning journalist david roque looked at the idea of talks about the strength of the executive branch versus the other branches of government. The broader question is how do you control the fbi . Also, prevent them from carry out abuses and how do you prevent president s that . There was a thought and felt far from current years attorney general as part of this but may agree to these changes, to members cheney, they worked in the white house and opposed this scalia is not a legal scholar, he felt after marking the creation of these oversight committees theres also the creation of inspectors general. The spending of the Emergency Fund for coronavirus. Those were independent, political positions created by congress they were supposed to investigate spending and abuse and corruption in the executive branch and there is this hot that essentially the presidency was being weakened too much. Theres too much oversight by congress too much subpoenas about what the executive branch is doing and are in a speech about this, he felt there was too much activism from judges, hes an opponent of abortion he saw that the course going to park but in terms of the president s power, he felt, he complained recently President Trump from a few immigration orders that would be stopped by federal judges, there were several on the west coast, i think the muslim fan as it was called and he said its over preach, we need a strong presidency to protect this country in moments of disaster pandemics like today moments of war are argues the presidency, more than the legislative branch performed best when the country is under threat and he favors strong presidency that cant be okay by these other branches. Is there any evidence, in your reporting in the world that we have seen this is a little evidence, we dont have the example but is there any evidence a strong president done a better job than the legislatures . During times of crisis. I would argue post 9 11 the president needed to detain suspected terrorists and put them in guantanamo bay, that was the president running as he liked the bush ministration they ran a warrantless wiretapping program, go and ask for words, they felt it was needed most americans supported but this is a big debate. Fast forward to today, you have believed among bar and other conservatives the strong executive you have donald trump who welcomes our test want to the corners responsible back and forth on in the ultimate president is the state to decide but these are central questions about how china democracy function . All three branches equally powerful or do we need a strong presidency . We are living through an amazing moment in American History. To watch the restaurant visit our website tv ductwork and search david roque title of his book, inc. Is a great pleasure with the lunch for alex the great new book on excitement a fascinating journey for me