Transcripts For CSPAN AZ Gov. Doug Ducey Betsy DeVos And Others Discuss The Education System 20221019

Our book came out a year and a half b you can watch the rest of this segment if you go to our website. Now we join doug ducey and betsy devos, live for a discussion on education. Live coverage here on cspan. Bad luck of following dr. Rice. [laughter] but i have an esteemed panel here to make sure that we have a robust conversation on education. Parents and policymakers across the country are concerned america is falling behind on education. A new poll came out today that says the number two issue as People Get Ready to go to the polls, some of them already voting in early voting, right, is about education. So, we are going to talk about that today and we are going to talk a lot about ideas and our first question really is what are the challenges facing education and what other the big ideas from this panel on how we tackle them . Secretary devos, ladies first. Maybe thats not a good thing this time but i know you have a lot of ideas. Obviously as secretary of education you have experience across the country. Share with us some of those ideas that you see for moving us forward on education. Betsy thank you very much to the governor for having us here today and for convening this summit. Its really an honor to be here and participate. I believe the big idea for education continues to be even more today the introduction of education freedom into our k12 years system. By education freedom i mean something broader than School Choice. I think it involves more than just School Buildings and infrastructure and what we think of as school today. When you consider the fact that these system that we have, that most students are a part of, its essentially the same as the system that was founded 175 years ago in the early Industrial Age to put students in and send them through and turn them out the other end onto factory lines. Its essentially unchanged from 175 years ago. Its interesting to note that horace mann, commonly known as the founder of the k12 system, died 20 years before Alexander Graham bell invented the telephone. When you think about that, it really gives a picture to how antiquated our approach has continued to be around k12 learning. The pandemic laid bare the failings of a system that have long been behind the curve. Parents had a front load front row seat to see what they were and werent learning. This window of opportunity to support policy change is very real right now. I just want to give great kudos to governor ducey and the state of arizona for leading the way in providing the kinds of choices that will cultivate the creativity and entrepreneurial ingenuity that we know is resident in our country to really meet the needs of students in arizona and, i predict, many other states are going to follow suit. I wont steal his thunder on that but that is where i predict we need to start. Governor ducey . Doug in terms of ideas for arizona, first i want to say thank you, deb. My good friend, asa hutchinson, invited me in here today. We came to this governors conference together and these eight years have flown. Im thrilled that you are talking about ideas for us to go forward and its a wonderful thing to be a part of this panel with the governor and secretary who have been so supportive of all the ideas we have been able to bring to life. In arizona i have three things i want to touch on that we have been able to do. First i want to come up with ideas and new ideas because we have problems to solve. One of our challenges now in the wake of covid is our kids have fallen behind. In arizona we took the available dollars that we have and every governor today has available dollars, much different from 2015, and we put together the arizona on track summer camps. We wanted to get our kids caught up. Online learning was not good for the kids. Especially the kids in the low income areas. We worked with the boys and girls club and came up with opportunities for teachers to make to terrific additional income over the summer with 12 weeks where the kids could come in to get caught up on their math, reading, science and american civics. We had tens of thousands of kids who took advantage of this and it was so successful and appreciated by the parents we prefunded it for next year. They will be having a summer camp whether they want to or not. Thats something thats probably common across the country, kids need that extra instruction. These are the types of settings where not only is it a fun answer for moms and dads who are often still working over the summer but it is helping our kids leapfrog forward over what they fell behind on. Secondly, this idea around School Choice. I thought secretary rice put it so eloquently why we want School Choice and im able to stand on the shoulders of leaders who came before me. Arizona has 525 Charter Schools with 230 5000 kids already in those schools. Thats nearly 20 of our student population and those kids are excelling in our state. The ground had been softened for School Choice. In the last session of our legislature we were we were able to pass universal educational savings accounts. [applause] and it, it, it took all of eight years to get that done. An idea that elevated animated my campaign in 2014. Something that we tried and tried, tried and tried. It was persistence and good luck in circumstances. Saying im not going to sign any budget until we get educational savings accounts, that was something we were able to bring forward. Every parent in our state can now access taxpayer dollars for whatever use they want it for. From Catholic Schools to parochial schools, private schools in homeschooling, micro schooling and tuition, textbooks, its wide open. We had a version of educational savings accounts in place for autistic children, children of military parents. The native american lands. That was at 20,000. The law went into effect two weeks ago. 30,000 have already signed up and we have 50,000 families taking advantage of this and i want to give a special thank you to janel would. She was my partner in getting this done. I dont see this as a partisan thing and she is not a part of my political party. But she did think that our kids needed this opportunity and she sat next to the first lady in my final state of the state, 50 years ago politicians stood in the schoolhouse door and would not let the minorities in. Today they stand at the schoolhouse door and they wont let minorities out. These kids are trapped in failing schools and its time to set these families free. Educational savings accounts gives back cool choice of those families and i cant wait to see what happens in arizona and all any other governor has to do is grab the bill, scratch out the state of arizona, right there state in and pass it through both chambers and im confident he can have it spread throughout the nation. Lastly, the big idea was really a return to first principles. We found that a lot of our kids didnt know american history. Didnt know there civics. The american civics acts was act was the first act bypassed in arizona. Its the same path every new naturalized american citizen has to take. 100 questions. Everyone in here would score a high score, you wouldnt know how you even learned it, it would just go through your education and today in arizona you cannot get a High School Diploma unless you pass the american civics act and we were able to build on that with the civics celebration day. Karen taylor is in the audience and was a regent in arizona and she put together the regents cup. We had that competition at the collegiate level as well. I think those are three ideas that we have been able to bring to life in the state of arizona that will make our young People Better citizens that are better prepared for whats next after school and also things that can be applied elsewhere. Thank you. Governor . Thank you to the hutchinsons for having us here and i apologize for my voice. I had a cold last weekend i spent saturday at the tennessee alabama Football Game using my voice. So one day my voice will come back but i consider it a worthy sacrifice. [laughs] number one, we have to change the conversation to be about Student Outcomes. I challenge you, secretary rice, democracy is not a spit acted or not a spectator sport. Tune in and listen to your school board meeting. You think you would let you would rather chew aluminum foil. But see how much time is spent talking about Student Outcomes. Hopefully it will horrify you because the answer usually is zero. You can hear them talk about everything from bus routes to football schedules to who should wear masks. Its hardly ever about Student Outcomes but we have to change that conversation. Number two, when we talk about all students we have to mean all students, having never done well there, we cant expect to do well there. Thats three. And we have to continually raise the standards about what we expect our students to know. When i came into office in tennessee we said 70 of our kids were at grade level. Guess what . When our kids went to Community College, 70 of them needed remedial work. Im not the greatest mathematician but those numbers dont really work right. So we have to define reality. Its like putting a basketball six feet and telling parents great your kids can all honk but they cant. We have to make sure that the standards are real standards. The fourth thing i would say is you have to have a way to assess that and a lot of people dont like that. They say it takes too long. We have to know what students are learning or they are not. You have to have an assessment in place. Fifth, people dont really like this but there has to be a way for teachers, when talking about how they are doing, have the assessment be a part of the conversation. It all gets politically fraught. Folks on the left in the right dont like those ideas but you started by saying that we use to be the envy of the world in education. Not just k12 but higher ed and thats starting to go. We are below the middle of the pack when you look at National Like that. National education achievement. We have to go back to talking about what students are learning , how they are learning it, and what we need to do. Especially at think we see it in Stem Education, science and math, not keeping up with the rest of the world. Critical to National Security. I hope you all have your notebooks out. There was a lot of ideas just presented right here. We will dig into them a little bit. Governor ducey, starting with you. Since im the moderator i get to pick what we are going to dig into first. My nephew actually lives in arizona and has been the benefit, has had the benefit of changing schools because of the law that you passed. The most comprehensive in the country on School Choice. I know it had to have some challenges. What are the Lessons Learned to share with other leaders . Doug well, first im thrilled to hear about your nephew and the opportunities hes had around School Choice and i get to hear those stories all the time every time im out in public and i think its important to remember that with a new idea, an innovative idea that we are in a persuasion business. There are some people who are very nostalgic for the Neighborhood School at horace mann, founded 100 plus years ago. But right now things have changed and we know that children learn in different ways and we know we have a special needs population, these children that are simply in zip codes where they are not having access to opportunity. For me a key learning in educational savings accounts getting over the finish line was really the coalition that we were able to build. Its a very tribal time in our nation. A very divided time. I think you will find most governors are pretty collegial. Very cooperative. At the end of the day, very competitive. In a healthy way. When we see a good idea in one state, we want to bring it to our state. Sometimes with attribution, sometimes without. But the coalition we were able to build to get education savings accounts over the finish line was not a republican coalition. There were of course some of those, the true believers on what choice can provide. Im also a believer, coming from the private sector, america rarely solves problems. We innovate out of our problems. To me, School Choice is the innovation for a k12 Education System that has flatlined but the real ahhah was the year last Conference Room and it was all the black pastors of arizona that wanted to get this done. Not one of them was a republican , they reminded me several times. It was their kids and their families. What a wonderful opportunity for us to go out and make this case that proves where you may be otherwise uncomfortable to build these coalitions. Im not going to ask anybody to change Party Registration but i will ask for your full support on the agenda and even that we were only able to get it passed with republican votes and i only have a one seat majority in my house and one in my senate, there were a lot of forces, government unions, in opposition to this. And all of the elected democrats. We were able to get it over the finish line and solidify it and codify it into law and now people are taking advantage of it. This was the example of Roger Bannister, the first person to break the fourminute mile. Nobody thought it could be done. Once Roger Bannister broke the fourminute mile, thousands of athletes after him did it because it was more of a mental thing. I think on School Choice and the universal education savings account, this has been something that was thought not to be able to be done at the same level and im very hope will that not only will others it it done, but they will improve on it in terms of policy and it is that idea of building that coalition, getting the most and moving it forward because all governors, stuart, they have over 50 steward governors steward 50 of their budget into education and Everyone Wants to see improvement in k12. You know its interesting because a decade ago education was a hot topic and it fell off. Everybody used to be the education governor, right . But it really fell off and we see its come back and really be a focus. Obviously, covid had a huge impact on that. We are going to talk a bit about parents and their engagement as we move on, but i want to give secretary devos a moment to weigh in because i know you have been a big proponent of School Choice for a long time. I have got to think that you are excited about what you have seen governor ducey do. What can the federal government do to support School Choice . Betsy first of all yes im a huge fan of arizona, the governor and what the legislators were able to achieve. I do believe that it will open the door for many other universal programs. The last year alone, 2016, either introduced new education freedom legislation or expanded existing legislation to allow for more choices but i think that the real, the ultimate goal is to really provide all students in every state the opportunity to take the dollars already attributed to them to the place that is going to be best for them to learn. I just want to roll back and reference the contention that this has become really a National Security issue for us and our achievement levels are falling behind. Prepandemic, the International Assessment tools showed us at 13th and reading, 18th in science, 37th in math as compared to the rest of the world and that was prepandemic. Most of the other nations of the world went back to school in person long before many areas of our country did. This is an issue that we cannot ignite deny or ignore end we need to allow for the types of freedoms that lead to being able to elect and adopt in the last two years what we can really build on. From a federal level, the role i believe the federal government should play is very handsoff. But we had a proposal in the last administration that would have established a federal tax credit for individuals or corporations who designated a small portion of their federal tax bill into scholarship granting organizations and states that wanted to participate, really providing rocket fuel to education freedom and School Choice programs in states us the country my contention was it has to be elected for the state and it would have to be very politically untenable for a state to ignore or deny families and those specific states and i think thats the Important Role of the federal government. No additional federal agency or program should be established to do this sort of, which is the sort of, the outcome. I also believe that there is every argument to fund the federal department of education and i say that because in the 43 years since the department of education was founded, 1970 nine, as a payoff to the Teachers Union politically we have spent over 1 trillion at the federal level alone with the express goal of closing the achievement gap. Not only have those gaps not narrowed of one little bit, they have widened by most measures. So the argument that we should continue to do more with more and more resources at the federal level with more topdown central approaches to solutions is a fallacy and i think that we should return to a federalism approach to education and as governor ducey well acknowledged, there is good, friendly competition between states and thats ultimately the best way to improve education for individual students, when there is more freedom for families, parents who can direct the education of the child and choose where they learn. And then competition and of the elected safety of the laboratory. Governor, would you like to weigh in on the role . Betsy just handle it, let the states figure it out, fit to keep your hands off. It really does work. We steal stuff from each other, we learn stuff from each other and we do it differently. When we became the first state to have two years free of Community College for Technical School, everybody feels like this isnt a republican idea, why do that . But to train the workforce for Technical School felt really important and our Community Colleges and Technical Schools can be more nimble than the fouryear institutions and can react to the customer quickly. And then joe biden came down to my hometown to say they wanted a National Program to do it and they wanted to do it in your hometown to make a splash and i said we would love to have you but im not in favor of a National Program. We figured out how to do this with no costs to the general fund to where we were really attracting students that were firstgeneration low income college to. Other states can figure it out and if we make it a National Program i guarantee you it will be less effective and more costly. I think that at sea nailed it. Let most states figure it out. The people that run for these jobs, democracy is a hard process but you learn what people care about. Let them figure out what to do. Lets talk a little bit more about Higher Education. You mentioned that as governor you wrote that proposal and were a real champion for education on the Higher Education side during your eight years as governor. Hindsight is 2020, right . Looking back at where we are today, with where we are seeing covid, what are the things you would tell policymakers or governors now. This is something i should have or would not have tackled thinking back. We had a conversation about the afterlife of leaving office, being asked governor. One quick story, my own hometown, opening ordering in a restaurant, one waitress kept looking at me saying i know i know you from somewhere. I finally got embarrassed and said hello, im bill haslam. And she said no, no thats not it. You gain a unique perspective. Higher ed is both the vendor and customer for these prep programs. We need to grade and look at them, how are the teachers doing repairing and being prepared. We can measure how well the students did compared to others. And the customer, what can they tell us about what the system is producing . One thing we learned is that access is wonderful but it doesnt mean excess. We found that we were woefully inadequate. One of my lessons would be see higher ed is a vendor and a customer. Customer, understand all of this is connected and from your Technical Schools to your fouryear schools, you have to be given that feedback and they have to be pairing people for the jobs that are out there. The last thing i would say, higher ed, a particular the fouryear system schools, it is an incredibly calcified, a very slow moving system and to make those changes is hard. The process for everything from how a dean gets elected to our president gets chosen and how decisions get made in higher ed, its probably predated, people ask you all the time what mistakes did you make as a governor. Most of them were sins of omission rather than commission. There are things i didnt do. One thing i didnt do was get involved more in the higher ed process not to become the star of it but to make certain the processes that were in place were leading to good outcomes. The smartest guy on my Florid University who went on to a very competitive law school and came back to arizona helped me in the campaign, called me up in my second year and set ive got an idea for you, shut down the law schools. We do not need anymore lawyers. We need a plumber in the county. Because i cant get one. So this idea of the two track education, of career and Technical Education is one you can affect as governor. I want to talk on the universities and Higher Education. I think we all know in addition to our own families we can talk about i know for myself i said the names out loud from behind the podium the teachers that have had an effect on my life in a positive way and have changed that direction. We need more teachers and there are things we can do. We can pay them more and we have done that in arizona. But also we can make it easier for them to get that degree. We can allow people who are scalable, use the example of maybe the most honorable arizonan and sandra day oconnor. She was a spring court justice, there was a law school down the street, there is a federal courthouse across the street named after her. When she retired from the United States Supreme Court she would been deemed unqualified to teach government in an arizona high school. So we waved to those Certification Requirements and gave the principal and the superintendent the ability to higher subject Matter Experts who wanted to go to the front of the classroom and then lastly we had Arizona Teachers College which any student in any of our universities that would commit five years into a Public School would graduate debtfree and have a job. So thats the arizona teachers academy. The last thing i would say is you really have an opportunity as a governor to affect the governing boards. The people you put on the board of regents because most important decision they will make in addition to helping our University President is to select that next University President. We have a real force of nature in the Arizona State university. All across the nation and what hes done for asu but we have had five University President s in 11 years at the university of arizona. So wanted to think outside the box with the traditional recruiters and i think our first big win was when we were able to grab dr. Bobby robbins from the texas Medical Center, he was a stanford trained thoracic surgeon leading the Medical Center and he wanted to be a University President and i think weve seen this and other leaders like Mitch Daniels at purdue and what a difference they can make at the university level. You may not be able to pick that person directly like you can is superior court judge but you can affect that decisionmaking and to think that governance Going Forward will be so important to understand not only the importance of the Community Colleges, of the career and Technical Education and the university staying relevant and adjust to the needs of the economy like expanding the engineering school, the business school, those majors are all things that can be done and ideas that can happen at the statehouse level. Thank you governor. Lets continue on the conversation of higher ed for a moment and secretary devos you spent a lot of time working on title ix. And really tackling this process. Tell us why that was important and where it stands and the impact that you think its making today. I would just like to comment one second on our conversation previously about Higher Education because american Higher Education is the envy of the world, but we have to continue to innovate and change and i agree with bill about the necessity for thinking more broadly about what Higher Education is, we need to be talking about lifelong education and viewing it as a lifelong pursuit, not just a Fouryear College or university after high school as being the only pathway. And i really give credit to both of these governors for their efforts to break down that barrier and i think a lot of it goes to accreditation and the gatekeepers that the creditors are. They are basically, they ensure that the competition remains very contained in so that is an area i think that needs to be tackled and addressed in a big way. But to title ix, this was the biggest regulatory issue, the Biggest Issue in Higher Education i think that in and my team had to address while in office. Im sure all of you are familiar with the framework that the administration before hours had set up around how Higher Ed Institutions or how education institutions had to address matters of Sexual Misconduct on campus. Just to scroll back, a 19 72 is when title ix was signed into law as a step to ensure that both males and females could access their education equally and it has come to be known over the years primarily as the access for women to compete in sports and to do so on an even Playing Field with male counterparts. And over the years it has obviously taken different twists and turns, but the Previous Administration had set up the framework around title ix and Sexual Misconduct matters that really was unfair, imbalanced and actually destroyed hundreds of young peoples lives in the process. The kangaroo courts that were set up, the due process thrown out really, it was untenable for the future and so we went around, we went about the process of actually rulemaking and putting together a framework following the administrative procedures act to the letter and came out then with a rule that has the force of law on the other end. That really did set up a reliable, fair, balanced framework that respected both those who would bring a complaint and those who were on the receiving end of a complaint and that gave those who had to administer it a very clear process for doing so. It put those who brought the complaint in the drivers seat as to what happens, whether there would be formal investigations or if they just wanted some accommodations made, they could make that decision per they were in the drivers seat. The Current Administration is trying to undo everything that we did and go even further in the opposite direction as the Previous Administration had. And if we expect theyll come out with a rule probably sometime made year next year. And it will, if its anything close to what the draft was it will totally throw out any due process protections and equally and perhaps more concerning lane it will redefine or extend the definition of biological sex which was commonly understood at the signing of this legislation as male and female to basically anything anyone decides at any point in time. Which will ultimately in my view render title ix meaningless because the access to womens sports for females will be essentially negated by allowing biological males to compete on female teams whenever and wherever they ultimately decide they want to do so. And so this is a really serious issue that about 240,000 folks wrote comments in during the Comment Period on. Im hopeful this administration will look carefully and closely the arguments being made. If the rule comes out close to what it was drafted as, there will be many ways to attack it legally, but that does not account for the many young people who in the process will be harmed in some way whether its how those matters are handled on campuses or whether its a females right and opportunity to compete on a sports team. I was a swimmer as a young person. I swam competitively for nine years. I cannot imagine i wouldve gotten up for the Early Morning practices in the cold Swimming Pool if i knew i was also going to have to compete against biological males ultimately. And so this is a really very serious issue for thousands of young people and it is one to pay close attention to. Lets talk about parental involvement. Did i hear some laughing out here . Obviously the virginia governors race was a bit of i think a wakeup call, we saw Governor Youngkin really focus on that message as he was campaigning and all of a sudden we are talking about School Boards. We havent talked about School Boards in a long time. Most people dont even know whos running on their school board. But School Boards have become a hot topic. Is this a phenomenon thats come out because of covid and its here for a moment or is this new level of engaged parental involvement here to stay . I am looking at you governor. I hope not. I hope its not just a function of covid. I think covid obviously gave some jet fuel to parents in terms of what are Students Learning and the concerns about when is my student can be able to go back to school and i hope that engagement sticks. And i hope that engagement sticks through a lot of other issues. We have a fairly serious Teacher Shortage in the country today that the real problem. What are we doing to recruit the best teachers to come to our system and be involved with everything from what are Student Outcomes, all of those longterm issues and not just that moment in time. I think the virginia race, that caught everybodys attention. He had been out there enough to know parents are upset about this. Terry mcauliffe an incredible seasoned politician but 10 days before the election says why are all these parents wanting to be involved in education which i think that was one of the big reasons glenn won. Do you get a lot of calls from parents about education right now . I do think covid changed most everything around education. I will say we likely wouldnt have gotten educational savings accounts past without covid because some parents were wondering how did that superintendent make the decision to keep that district shut down yet the Catholic School and the Charter School and the district and the other zip code are all wide open. So we used through executive order at the time the ability to give people a right to go where they wanted to school and they could take their taxpayer dollars to do it. People like to that, it was a way they were able to push back a bit on the heavy handedness and the topdown mentality especially once we understood that people were vaccinated, where the vulnerable where and who had Underlying Health conditions. The other thing i would say on this is theres so much opportunity in terms of how we move these ideas forward Going Forward that not only educational savings accounts and what we were able to do postcovid, but just to continue the common sense and Kitchen Table type sensibility of this. Think about what the secretary just talked about in terms of protecting womens sports and what Glenn Youngkin talked about in that campaign. Parents should be able to be involved in their kids education. This is something that i think is an expectation. I am surprised some of these have become political issues they are political issues and i think if we handle them properly that we can be the Parents Party , we can be the ones on the side of the parents and like the governor talked, this is a National Defense issue. Secretary rice talks about this is a civil rights and equality issue. And will also find the Great Teachers of tomorrow in that common sense, but this has to be a pursuit across the board and i was so thankful to hear secretary devos talk about washingtons role in education. Its so rare to have someone go to washington and think that washington will continue to have not think that washington will have all the answers. Im confident we can get this done of the state level because parents are going to be school going to these school board meetings. Some said these elections will be the most important we have. And i do think they will be important but i think bringing choice will solve a lot of the issues because parents will vote with their feet. Our most rigorous Public Schools are the ones with the longest waitlist. Parents are good consumers and they want their children to learn something of value and they will find the best place for them. Very good. Secretary i know you want to weigh in on this. I absolutely think that parents are going to continue to be much more involved, they had a wakeup call the last few years and many parents who thought their children were doing very well in the schools that they chose to have them in, whether it was moving to a suburban district the good school or wherever else, they suddenly realized that they did not have quite as much influence or say over what actually happens with their children. And many of them saw just a lack of rigor when they were doing the distancelearning, even that which was fairly well executed, i think they were surprised at the lack of expectation and aspiration and so this is a really good moment in time to ensure that policies that are passed are going to support families ability to drive their childrens education. I think parents realized like never before how little say they ultimately have had and they are not happy about that. I would add to that i think this is a good moment for teachers because i think a lot of teachers also were very frustrated with how the system dealt with the last couple of years and i think with more and more education freedom i think we will see more and more Great Teachers who have gone to the sidelines, back on the field and engage when they have more ability to also control the environment in which they are teaching and participating. I did two roundtables while i was in office with teachers who had been teachers of the year in their state or their district and very soon after they had done their year victory lap have gone back to their classrooms and within a few months had quit teaching. And i wanted to know why. These were clearly very talented, capable individuals and yet they had left what they loved doing. And almost to a person it was i had my moment in the sun, i thought i could go back and add more to my school, my environment, i thought i had more to bring an offer and i was basically told you have had your moment, get back in the box, by the way beyond page 32 of the textbook on this day and they got frustrated and left. And i think there are lots of those kinds of individuals out there that can come back out on the field and participate and i would just also mention a friend and late michigander, joe overton had a theory of political change that he developed in the years before his untimely death. It was further articulated by his successors at the mackinac center. It talked about the window of political possibility and how policy can follow and change when that window shifts and change. I would say that overton window of possibility around change in education policy has never been further open and wider to this notion of education freedom and parents being able to be much more controlling or directing of their kids Education Future than today. And again i give a lot of credit to doug and bill and many of their allies or many of their colleagues as well with making sure that this window of opportunity is not wasted. Since we are talking about children, parents and children. Lets talk about a hard issue and i think that is the Mental Health of our children coming out of covid and we see School Administrators, parents dealing with it. How do leaders help the School Administrators to deal with Mental Health crisis that we see happening across our students and in our school . I think this is definitely an issue we are all dealing with and i think people of my generation and older that actually have a tougher time with it. I think our young people are better, they dont see the stigma around it and they are much more accustomed to talking or presenting with these issues. One thing we did in policy in arizona was make certain that insurance would cover Mental Health exams just like they would cover an annual physical. So this idea that you would have access to it. And then of course bringing resources to it as well. I think is governor you can help remove and reduce that stigma to talk about this to recognize that people are hurting across our states and then to address it and really its more of the peertopeer individual counseling but i think has been so helpful and then the people that will actually speak out on behalf to others and talk about where there is hope, where they were at a certain point where they felt like they were at the end. And what we were able to do with policy statewide and federal in terms of access to information whether it the National Suicide line and these types of things are all things we can address but i think we will have a real renaissance Going Forward around this. It has always existed but it is something but was not talked about. We know what benefit there is not only to identify it but finding these solutions both through the proper resources or counselors and other things around some things as simple as proper diet, proper sleep hygiene. Good exercise schedule. And of course that is not always the solution, but sometimes it can be. And other times you need deeper interventions and more medical care. I think the first time my daughter has ever paid attention to me reading an article from the wall street journal was the recent article about starting high school later so that High Schoolers could get more sleep to help with their Mental Health. So it is obviously we have to look at all of the pieces of how to support those children. Doug did a nice job and they wont add much. The one thought i had was what secretary rice talked about, but was unique about america, the sense of volunteerism. I think kids when hard things happen, they want the person who was there the day before the School Shooting not the person who is parachuted in the day after. Its just a reminder of the importance for the boys and girls club or whatever it is of the importance of that in our communities in this room is full of people who are engaged in that way and supporting others in that way. I think that consistent caring adult in peoples lives and kids lives is whats going to be the one solid foundation. I would concur with everything thats been said and i think the notion that again the last two years these issues have become much more keen and much more severe, but that also brings around an opportunity to bring sunlight to it all and to address them and address the issues in ways that i think theres been reluctance to before. But acknowledging that this is all part of the whole person and like bills i like bills reference to those local most close to home organizations and i know for myself having mentor two young girls through all of their elementary, middle school and high school years, having that kind of relationship is beneficial for me as it was for them and i just encourage everyone to think about the ways you can personalize the work that you do to even bring more meaning to the bigger things that you do and these are issues that are best solved and resolved at the local level and so that requires strong institutions at the local level. So i want to wrap up with an acknowledgment to governor hutchinson. He was the chair of National Governors association and his initiative was very focused on Computer Science, he had been advocating for it here in arkansas and really went out and talked to governors about it, explain his vision and mission. Governor ducey you know how hard this is he got all 50 governors to sign on to a pledge to be advocates for Computer Science and really helped drive making sure the Computer Science is in our k12 education. Can you talk about, i know you got to hear him be an advocate for it. Talk about what that vision looks like and are you doing some of this in arizona . That was parsed part of his run for office. Some thing he would talk about on the campaign trail and i think thats important as we look at the candidates out there today because if you do campaign on it, you can govern on it. And its amazing how much easier it is to get things passed and it was part of that platform or roadmap or agenda. I also think the understanding of its a good idea, its really necessary. Some of these folks i think tim cook said it will be as important to be able to know code as it is to know english. Going forward. I dont know if thats exactly accurate, but we certainly want our kids to have these kinds of opportunities in what is a really changing, dynamic and exciting economy. I think theres lots of examples. Bill had Free Community college in tennessee and when Something Like that happens you are answering questions on why its not yet available in arizona and i was hopeful on the american civics act as well. Its amazing to me that asa has gotten 50 governors on board with Computer Science and i think we only have 30 on board with the american civics act. The problem is asa is more persuasive than i have than i am. From a perspective of Computer Science and really that Stem Education in our k12 schools. How important is it for us as we continue to be competitive in the Global Market . 80s important to be competitive in the Global Market but i always say its important for our citizens. One of the reasons is looking at my years in 2013 weve done a survey that set in tennessee by 2025 55 of jobs in the state would require a degree or certificate. It doesnt sound so bad. I said where we now and they said 31 . We knew we had to do something to shock the system and i think one of the beauties of having a governor like asa who cares about the state and knows about it so well is he figures out this is a primary need and a primary opportunity. And governor lee has done the same thing in tennessee taking up on that. To me thats just what leadership looks like is what is our opportunity to address that. Stem education, the importance of technology quite frankly in our schools and with our students. Its obviously of great importance and we are seeing more schools and Charter Schools with focuses on Stem Education. I think about the Charter High School my husband started thats focused around aviation but with the stem focus and there are so many different convening ideas that can untapped the potential in students around if they have a propensity for coding and the stem subjects. I would say also equally important to ensure that our students learn how to commune at kate well and read and write well. How to think critically, solve problems and really a holistic approach to learning and also acknowledge that every student is different and so we need to ensure that they all have pathways to pursue but will untapped their greatest potential and that really does lend itself to customized education and the education freedom approach that will really bring the best out of all of our children as we anticipate the fact that they are our future leaders. 100 of our future is resonant in the next generation. I think about a woman who i heard years ago who i really have appreciated learning more about, Temple Grandin who thinks very differently, who has redesigned how cows and sheep are moved through to their final end and she has written a book for young people called calling all minds and its a fascinating approach to thinking about how we bring out the best in every individual because everyone has inherent talents and gifts and so Stem Education is really important but theres lots of other parts and pieces to learning that are equally important. We just need everybody, all hands on deck to ensure that we are going to continue to be the leaders in the world. I think that is a wonderful way to wrap up. We have covered the gamut on education per duy talked about all the hot issues. On education. I think we accomplished governor hutchinsons mission to us which was to really talk about education and the ideas out there. Thank you for your leadership each of you on the topic. Join me in thanking the panel for sharing with us their accomplishments. [applause] coming up, a conversation on covid19 and the pandemic preparedness. We are from the white house Covid Response coordinator and the ceo with the foundation for the National Institute of health. That will be live from Georgetown University starting at 1 20 p. M. Eastern on cspan you can also watch from the fee free mobile video app or from cspan. Org. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more including charter communications. Broadband is a force for empowerment. Toy charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and smal charter is connecting us. Charter commucations supports cspan as a Public Service along with these other television providers. Giving you a front row seat to democracy. This evening we begin with live coverage of the oklahoma governors debate. The public and incumbent kevin stitt and democratic challenger joy hofmeister meet at 6 30 eastern time hosted by the news website and news nine oklahoma. And it 7 30, Tom Malinowski and his republican challenger tom kane meet in the race for the states seventh congressial district hosted by the new jersey globe ended 8 3 k reynolds and democratic challenger meet in a debate hosted by iowa pbs iowa press. Watccoverage beginning at 6 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Cspan now, are free mobile video app or online at span. Org. Florida senator marco rubio, Senate Democratic challenger in the state 2022 u. S. Senate race val demings but dissipated in a debate hosted at Palm Beach State College. Live from the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth Beach florida, this is a wp bf 25 special presentation