Are you right now . Im in california doing just fine. I heard a funny line, not sure if im working at home or living at work. I am finding this a time when ive been pretty productive, able to do everything remotely. Tried to keep up my exercise routine, practicing the panel to i have been director of the Hoover Institution but the time off the road, not on airplanes allowed me to make us move transition. Ali and all, keeping in touch with friends and family by text, really quite okay. 2020, even though you are being modest about it. This is a year like no other, first and foremost the pandemic, and another 700 people lost their lives around the world, the bloated us economy, tens of millions of americans, many going hungry, protests for Racial Justice after the death of george floyd, wildfires right now across the western United States, deadly reminder of Climate Change and as we are here to discuss the interruption in education and questions about this falls election if we didnt need Something Else to think about. Where do we go to get our arms around this, to understand what is going on . First thing is to keep perspective. It is an incredibly challenging time. It has been rare to have so many crises one after the other, challenging our institutions, challenging Good American characteristics of optimism, we were just reminded about Ronald Reagan, founded in crisis. Should never have come to being. We were fighting the greatest military power of the time, it emerged victorious and if we continue to pull together if you remember the stories all over the country, one american to another. Nobody is on the streets, communities that are mobilizing to make sure a kid who perhaps doesnt have access to broadband finds a place to study. At our institutions will catch up. I am encouraged and inspired by what i see in every american stepping up to take responsibility not just for themselves. Covid19 is uppermost in our minds, where do americans turn . There are several narratives, who do we trust . I do trust what i am hearing from scientists in washington. I know doctor fauci, they are good people doing their best. We also have myriad voices that have differing views. I dont have a problem with people questioning the tradeoffs we are making in society. From an epidemiological point of view stopping the spread of the virus we have to do certain things and we should do everything we can. I wear a mask even when i dont have to because i want to send a signal to people that i care about your health as much as i care about mine. It is also the case that we are having to make tradeoffs in businesses and i am hoping we are giving them a chance to start to open because these are people whose entire livelihood is tied up in the ability, we are having to make tradeoffs and just saying it is just the science is not really fair, the effects on education. There are downsides to Virtual Learning for kids k12. Trying to do my work as a citizen, going to one source, going to look at different multiple voices. We are talking about education, we are having less civil conversation and the civil exchanges. How important is it to have the kind of different points of view to share in a civil way to raise voices or shake their fists. Going through Something Like this that is fundamentally new in many ways in the past, i was National Security adviser during sars, seen nothing of this consequence in my lifetime in terms of the virus. Lets approach with a sense that nobody owns the, quote, truth. We are trying to wake our way through understanding and that makes you more civil because youre willing to listen to somebody who is different. One of our problems, i will date myself, my family used to watch the brinkley report every night and some watched Walter Cronkite interviewer another generation you watched rather and brokaw and newshour. Now i can go to my aggregator, my websites, my cable news channel. I never have to encounter anybody who thinks differently, when you dont you do think they are either venal or stupid. You really have to make a pledge to get out of our own a go chambers, stop going to be places where people say amen to everything we say, we are reinforced in the rightness and certainty of our opinions and we are willing to listen and if we can begin to get our information that way, we are going to be better off and be more civil. No question Many Americans agree with what you just said. We are not hearing that advice at the highest level right now. We are not hearing it in washington and not hearing across the avenue, not just 1600, and they are reflecting off. It was a compromise, but our founders built our system on the expectation of constant contestation, trying to solve our problems. We have to sometimes win or lose this battle but not consider that person my enemy but move on to the next Public Interest at heart. The Ronald Reagan was a master at that. Ronald reagan held strong views. As a young soviet specialist i remember how much he changed our thinking to confront the soviet union and we did when the confrontation. Ronald reagan could go to the other side of the island it has always been talked about, to talk about what was good for america. He could unite us across partisan lines to do great legislation and help us win the cold war so we need to ask our leaders that we are not enemies in politics. We have differences, but we are trying to make america better. We can hope and work toward that goal. So many things we discussed a moment ago, one thing it has done is exposed the economic divide, racial divide, educational divide, talk about how that happened. Not as if we didnt know there was inequality of opportunity in this country, that there was racism in this country, talk about what you see this year with covid19 and what his is closed. Covid19 has exposed the deep inequalities in our system, and you are continuing to be productive, maybe it is a problem when your pet wanders into the room, you can keep doing your work and some would say we have been better at doing that work. If you have to go to the restaurant you are unemployed. The kind of work you have and the education you have has helped determine how well you are getting through this covid19 crisis. On the education side it is more dramatic. So many, a refuge from a bad home, where a kid has that kind of inspiring determination to get better and overcome home in order to do it. When we think about potential learning loss and when i was about to be in first grade, the state of alabama said if you didnt turn 6 before october 30 first you had to wait. You think my educator parents let me sit home for a year . My mother who was a schoolteacher took a year off and taught me at home. By the time she finished, third or fourth grade, think about the kid whose parents spoke english. Cant help them with that homework, cant hire the tutor to put together the kids in pod this summer doing. The inequality is growing. I am concerned, i dont think we have enough conversation about the cost of shutting down schools. I understand the safety concerns and the safety concerns of the teachers. I also understand this is a difficult tradeoff, these kids lost a year and maybe even more. What should the School System be doing, they have given this, thoughts and analysts, meetings, conversations, research that has been done in a short time we have had, look at Virtual Learning. Many of them, most of them are trying to do the right thing. What else do they need to be doing . I think you are right, they are trying to do the right thing. Not just about what we could have done in the classroom in terms of teaching math and science but also supporting the kids in other aspects particularly poor kids. One thing that widens the gap is after the time you spent virtually on todays lessons contrast what happens in the home of a poor kid in the home i know after School Activities for those kids who are healthy and extended learning. Is that happening for poor kids . Boys and girls clubs trying to help fill the gap, the essay contest and after School Debate club or something. We cant just think the learning loss is just for 5 hours a day we are trying to engage in Virtual Learning but also everything outside the classroom, one thing i have been impressed with, the attention given to the children for whom school is a place to get healthy meals and people take a lot of attention to that. You have to Pay Attention to the activity side. Thats part of the extended learning thing and teachers are tired, somebodys got to take up that slack. The after School Environment is equal in a sense for kids to go across the spectrum. Keep coming back to particular education aspects of all of this. That has been a year for racial reckoning, a hard look at social justice, protests across the country, the vast majority, one question to you, there has been racial injustice. What is different about this . You wrote an oped in early june, you hope that his death was not in vain in the us could move on to positive action. How do you see what happened to him fitting into our reckoning on race in america . When it happened, we were disgusted, appalled, made angry by the dehumanization of a human being. The response was encouraging, my hometown of birmingham, alabama, if a black man died at the hand of the police it would be a footnote in the newspaper let alone people going out to protest. I was very encouraged by that but i am worried it has been hijacked by people who want to chair the system down. There are protesters, this far too much portland and seattle and far too much what is happening of painting all Law Enforcement with a broad brush that they are all racist. We just cant go there. The response that im most appreciative for, people of all colors and ages wanted to say this is okay. If i look at what happened in the 60s there was a protest, selma and montgomery and the great john lewis, the marches, i was a kid in birmingham, i remember the protests in Kelly Ingraham park where the place was bombed. We just came to the 60 seventh anniversary of that on september 15th. I remember the protest and bull carters police dog. It wasnt just protest that got us to 64, 65 in civil rights legislation but was a legislative agenda or the use of the courts, Thurgood Marshall and the naacp taking cases to court since the 30s to find places they could break down segregation. They had to use the institutions in addition to protesting. I tried to stay in the Washington Post piece each of us have to decide what our role is going to be in Racial Justice. It is a hard issue. My dna is 3 european. My greatgrandmother was the greatgranddaughter of a slave owner. I have ancestors who are slaveowners and slaves. This is a deep wound in america. A birth defect at our founding. What conversation can i have. What am i concerned about . It is the impact of race on educational differences. What do you do about that . It may be as small or what you would consider insignificant go work do something personal in your community, that is how americans respond, 300 million of us have that attitude. Theres individual responsibility. What about responsibility, what role do you think they play in wrestling with this . Our political leaders set the tone. We need a tone that brings us together, not divides us. They have an obligation to think about systems and infrastructure. For instance police reform. We need police reform. Just before this, landmark criminal justice reform. We can get it done and we did it across partisan lines. Trying to take that again is important and infrastructure, back to education, if you dont have access to broadband it is not having electricity or running water. A National Project on broadband, how about National Service . I have been a big advocate with general Stanley Mcchrystal and others and getting people to do voluntary National Service. A lot of people taking a gap here. What are they doing with the gap here. Maybe you could study but maybe you could also find a way to go to a neighborhood you would otherwise not know those people and help in that neighborhood, when i get to know each other as human beings and recognize whatever difficulties we are going through there are people going through much more difficult circumstances made better for it. Along the entire spectrum, legislature and infrastructure, we have an opportunity to address Racial Disparities and the witches brew, they meet poverty. That is where the country is most challenged. How do you get that attitude for people who dont recognize there is this or whatever reason, either because they have been exposed to the information or whatever reason, they dont recognize the Racial Disparity or the education disparity . How should we get the word out . And changing peoples minds and hearts. Change peoples minds and hearts by meeting them where they are and change their minds and hearts by not yelling at them. I actually think americans know there are Racial Disparities. But if the discussion of those Racial Disparities, a heavy dose of recruitment nation and i have been telling i dont want to hear it, dont need it. I want to know what you think you can do about the fact that we are not colorblind, never will be, we need to act that way. If we do this in a way that i weapon i see my identity it is all about recrimination, all about guilt, people will tune out and i think that is what they are seeing. On the other side of the color line to make this conversation one that people are willing to engage in. I tell my students all the time you dont have a constitutional right not to be offended. If somebody offends you, suppose you just tell them, here is why, maybe have a conversation about it. Theres responsibility on both sides to make this a time, to what weve been through. Have we made progress . It is yet to come. Weve made some progress people are more aware. Everywhere i go, people want to know and do the right thing, most people want to do the right thing. I tell you, when you say no matter where you are in the success ladder you will still feel the effects of race, people are surprised at that so we need to talk about it with each other, need to talk to our kids about it but we also need to continue to talk about the progress we made. Nothing gets the hair up on the back of my neck. Why bother, if nothing is changed in 200 years, why bother . That i think, its a really debilitating way to think about what were going through. Do you see in this next generation, when youve been in the classroom, do you see a change in the Younger Generation as theyre coming along in all of this . All these kids are different. Its the most public might a generation ive ever taught. They want to do something bigger than themselves. I think they both come on a daily basis they can kind of over, race. They still see it. Theyre in a bit of a hurry. I tell them all the time, slow down. I had kids come to me to i want to be a leader. Its not a Job Description and its not a destination. Lets start with what are you going to know. They dont actually know the history very well. That is a problem. By the way, we need to teach them the history in a in a wayt is very clear about the original sin of america and the birth defect of america. But also about the institutions that allowed me one day to stand in the ben franklin room in the state department under a portrait of benjamin franklin, and take the oath of office to a constitution that once counted by ancestors as threefifths of a man, sworn in by a jewish Woman Supreme Court justice named ruth bader ginsburg. So they need to know that, too. They also need to understand that the governing over difference is hard. Authoritarians dont have a problem with this. Pages cultivate their people. Look at what the chinese doing to the uighurs. But in a democracy its hard to govern over difference and we are not the only ones that have this problem, and so i would like our students to have a fuller picture of what the race issue looks like in america. Lets segue back to education, although its always part of what were talking about. How wide is the learning gap, the education gap right now . Weve been exposed by covid. You refer to it a few minutes ago, but how wide is . I think the education gap is wide and its going to widen after this experience. We continue to have thirdgraders who cant read, and if you get read by the time youre in third grade you will probably not. We have to ask ourselves what of it going to do about that. Im a great believer in Public Schools. I mother was a Public School teacher. I have cousins who are Public School teachers today. I am a great believer in the public School System, but who are we kidding . Right now its an optimal system. If you are of means you move the district with the schools are good and houses are expensive. If you are really wealthy you will send your kids to private school. So who is stuck in family neighborhood schools . For kids, and a lot of them are minority kids. I am really, i dont understand the argument that you shouldnt give to the poor parents, not all of whom are dysfunctional by the wake of just some of them, many of them are poor, so why shouldnt you give them the same choices that you have two projected in a good school . So i believe in vouchers. I believe in school choice. I believe in Charter Schools. Not all Charter Schools are good but a lot of them are very good. And when someone wants to say if you support Charter Schools or school choice, look at what youre doing to the public School System. Then i would say, all right, if youre going to write that editorial, send your kid to school in anacostia outside of washington, d. C. Dont send your kid to sidwell and then write that editorial. We need to call out the inequality and hypocrisy of those who in Public Schools and then told her own children escape the worst ask entrance aspects. You can see it wouldnt ever, judy, whatever there is a lottery for place in a charter school, for a scholarship, poor parents are lined up around the block. They know. They know what their kids need. And, yes, i am all for Higher Expectations for the kids. I am a teacher. If you give kids low expectations, they will live down to them. Im all for merit pay for teachers. I know that studies show if you can get a good principle into a school that will make a difference. Better training imposition of principles. While we are doing all structural reform lets give poor parent some choices. As you know what are the main arguments about all this has to do with more comfortable resources that go into charter, private, publicprivate or public Charter Schools, the less resources there are for everybody else. I just dont buy the argument. Argument. I just dont buy the argument because in palo alto, in Fairfax County and hoover, alabama, outside of birmingham those schools are perfectly well resourced. You live in an expensive house and usage against it. You would argue if i have a charter where a poor parent get the same good education that youre getting in hoover or Fairfax County, hey, thats bad for the Public Schools. Do you believe that, then take those resources out of palo alto and put them in poor schools. I just dont buy the argument. I would be perfectly happy to put more resources into good Public Schools. I would be happy to put more resources into good teachers, good principles. I do think that the extended learning days really important. We are for developed countries, we have the shortest learning they and shortest learning year than that anyone in the world. No wonder our kids are not measured up on all these international tests. So im also believe in publicprivate partnerships between boys and girls clubs, for instance, and youth programs. I started something and palo alto called the center for a new generation that were for underserved kids to have high quality afterschool and summer experiences. Everything from hands on math and science and everything including instrumental band and that sort of thing because i believe music is important to kids, as a musician. We now have the in dallas and in birmingham, atlanta and several in california. Those kinds of partnerships are also really important because we really and by the way the programs take place in the School Building when were not in covid, in the School Building after school so we are also using the infrastructure. There are all kinds of ways that we can help close this gap, but we cant just keep talking about the gap as if it were just a matter of the amount of money that we spend. In our few remaining minutes, the theme of today is leadershi leadership, state leadership, leadership abruptly. We have spent a lot of confidence American Leadership as you describe it in recent years. How do we go about giving the American People confidence in their leaders, frankly, making the right decisions or taking the country in the right direction . You have to own your democracy. Its not just up to the leaders. If you dont like what you see, whats going on, then you had to find a way to actually be involved in the political process. I hear people said to want to be involved in politics, its dirty. Fine, then youll get what you get. By the way, it doesnt have to just be the better level but a chemist in the work in the campaign. It will really help you understand what democracy is about. Do public service, whether its in the government or not but when it comes to holding leaders accountable, if you think about the way the political process of working, most extremes are the one that a controlling the political space. And yet people quote in the middle are people who have a more nuanced view of politics. Are we spending our saturdays at the state convention . No. We complain because the people who are there are extreme. It can mean serving on a Planning Commission in your own community. It can mean serving on a school board in your own community. And so when i talk about leadership, yes, we want to elect people and were fortunate we have a system that allows us to change power peacefully. But whoever we elect as governor or president or whomever, there are whole other levels of governance that are extremely important to wear this country goes, and a lot of leadership is finding leadership characteristics in other people. And so i hope that all of us find a way to really engage in the process because a good friend of mine george shultz, now almost 100, one of the great Public Servants of our time, george and one of reagans secretary of state of course george wears a tie sometimes this is democracy is not a spectator sport. And i would say that is a message worth taking to heart. In that vein, in that spirit, last minute or so that we have, what would you advise be if you could speak right now to President Trump . My advice would be keep, try niceness. It gets hard during political campaigns. Rhetoric gets exacerbated. Everybody come and look, not just in this campaign. You go back, Thomas Jefferson said about a cigarette that George Washington was senile. Our politics has always been a little bit rough. But i would say to both President Trump and two former Vice President biden, speak to us in with us, not at us. People want to have a sense that this country can come together. Whether the sense that whatever happens on november 3, we are going to be reuniting around some big National Things, and i would hope we Start Talking about what those National Things are. By the way, i cant close without saying one of those themes has to be america has to stay engaged in the world. Because when america is not engaged in the world, this is something Ronald Reagan understood. When america is not engage in the world, our values and our interests are compromised. We want a world that is more prosperous, that is freer. The United States has always been, or place since the end of world war ii, the reason that others look to us because they knew that we cared, that we saw our own interests as inextricably linked to the interests of others. A time when the country [inaudible] on that note, what to think dr. Condoleezza rice, such an honor to speak with you. Im judy woodruff. Its been a complete to be part of this program today with the reagan institute. For both of us, thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name is bill hansen and its an honor to be with you today. Im president and ceo of the Education Network and its a great honor to be here. I think i had one of the unique opportunities to serve as a political appointee for all eight years of president lincoln at the department of education and i was a very young man at the time, but really was very much in the cycle of president reagan and i