February 11, 2025 • 43 mins
The Hoover Institution is launching a new limited podcast series featuring experts grappling with how to reinvigorate civics education across America.
Renewing Civics Education: Preparing for American Citizenship is a five-part podcast series that will feature a range of experts on aspects of civics, such as civics instruction, the role of the media in fostering an understanding of civics, and how civics programs in higher education can resist any forms of indoctrination.
The series premieres on Tuesday, February 11, with an episode featuring Distinguished Visiting Fellow Bill Whalen interviewing Senior Fellow Chester E. (Checker) Finn Jr., a national renowned scholar on education policy who leads Hoover’s Working Group on Good American Citizenship. Whalen and Finn will discuss the efforts by Finn and his working group colleagues to reinvigorate civics education across the K–12 and college landscapes.
Subsequent episodes will be hosted by Finn and released weekly in the lead-up to Civic Learning Week, which begins March 10 and culminates at the Hoover Institution on March 13, when the Center on Revitalizing American Institutions will cohost a one-day conference on civics education.
The episodes, which will run as part of the Matters of Policy & Politics podcast, are developed in response to the urgent need to rekindle civics literacy via our schools and colleges. This five-part series takes on the challenges of citizenship education: why it matters, what it needs to do differently, and what shortcomings it must overcome.
Programming will include the following:
- A conversation between Bill Whalen and Checker Finn examines how US educators can improve civics instruction at the K–12 and collegiate levels.
- Focusing on civics at the K–12 level, Finn speaks with Senior Fellow Paul E. Peterson about his experiences teaching an introductory government course and his thoughts on related topics including education reform, school choice, and standardized testing.
- Examining the difference between instilling American patriotism and indoctrination, Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz joins Finn to talk about the reforms he believes are necessary elements of civics education, not just in college but also in high school.
- What do best practices of civics instruction at the undergraduate level look like? Senior Fellow Josiah Ober, who leads the Stanford Civics Initiative and co-leads the new Alliance for Civics in the Academy, joins Finn to talk about his roadmap for improving civics instruction.
- Contending with the decline of trust in news media and its impact on civic knowledge and participation, Nick Mastronardi, a Hoover Institution veteran fellow and software innovator in the field of public-sector communications, discusses advances in data collection and artificial intelligence and how they can positively affect government behavior and civic interaction.
The programming will also draw on the Good American Citizenship Working Group’s existing projects, which assess the state of civics instruction across US schools and how it has evolved over time.
Episodes will be available on YouTube and many other podcast distributors.
For coverage opportunities,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[MUSIC]>> Bill Whalen: It's Wednesday,
January 15, 2025, andwelcome to the first installment of
Renewing Civics Education- Preparing forAmerican Citizenship.
A Hoover Institution broadcast examiningthe state of learning in America and
the thorny question of just how wellversed in citizens re in the history
(00:20):
of the root causes, the republic,the American people are.
I'm Bill Whalen, I'm the HooverInstitution's Virginia Hobbs Carpenter
Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism.
I'll be moderating this episode.
I'd like to begin by noting that thetiming of this series is excellent in at
least two regards.
First, middle of March just happens tobe Civic Learning Week here in America,
culminating in a national forum that'llbe held here at the Hoover Institution.
(00:44):
Second in case you've forgotten, we areonly one year and a few months shy of July
4, 2026, and the 250th anniversary ofthe founding of this great nation.
Which means there will be lots ofconversations about lessons from 1776 and
years passed.
And some Americans will bebetter versed than others,
which raises the question of why allAmericans don't want about their country.
(01:05):
So here's howRenewing Civics Education- Preparing for
American Citizenship is going to work.
There will be four,maybe five installments in all.
Moderating each of those shows will beit's my great honor to talk to him today.
My colleague Chester Finn, or Checker ashis friends call him, about Checker Finn.
He's the Volcker Senior Fellow adjuncthere at the Hoover Institution,
as well as a distinguishedsenior fellow and
(01:26):
President Emeritus ofthe Thomas B Fordham Institute.
Checker also serves as the chair ofthe Hoover Institution's working group on
Good American Citizenship.
Checker Finn's name is synonymouswith referring primary and
secondary schooling in America.
As you'll see in later shows,
his interests run also include highereducation and the role colleges and
universities can and should be playing incivics learning in citizenship Learning.
(01:49):
Checker, thanks forcoming on the show today.
>> Chester E. Finn (01:52):
It's a treat to be with you again, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (01:54):
So I mentioned Civic Learning Week in the introduction.
Can you tell us a little moreabout what exactly this entails?
I'd like to hear the story of howit's gonna end up in all places,
the Hoover Institution,how it managed to come west this time.
>> Chester E. Finn (02:06):
It's a great story.
And Civic Learning Weekis an annual event for
aimed primarily at educatorswho are involved with civics
education in the schools andincreasingly in the colleges.
And it's been going on for several years,largely under the auspices of
(02:27):
a Cambridge Mass based group callediCivics, well known organization,
nonprofit group founded in honor andmemory of justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
And they've been the main drivingforce in Civic Learning Week,
which takes place virtually for fivedays but face to face live in real time
on Monday, which happens tobe the Thursday of that week.
(02:50):
In this case it will be March 13th,and until now it's capstone event.
That big national forum has always been inWashington, DC, co sponsored by Washington
based organizations such as GeorgeWashington University, for instance.
But it occurred to several people,including a couple of Hoover overseers,
(03:14):
Hoover senior fellow Ben Ginsberg,who's on the board of iCivics.
Louise Dube who leads iCivics,myself Tom Schnauvelt who co leads
Hoover's center onReinvigorating American Institutions, etc.
That what a good idea if A,it could come west of the Potomac for
(03:34):
the first time ever.
B, draw a broader, wider population ofpeople to come, including people who live,
let's say, in the Rocky Mountains andin the states west of the Mississippi.
They don't tend to come to Washington forthis.
And finally,to broaden the base of interest in and
even potential consensus in this veryfraught issue of civics education.
(03:57):
And as part of the run up, as you said,
to the anniversary ofthe Declaration of Independence.
So this is a big deal,it's a feather in Hoover's cap and
I think it's a great thing forAmerican education.
>> Bill Whalen (04:10):
So was I correct in mentioning the semi quincentennial?
I'm sohappy I could say semi quincentennial.
I took four years of Latin andgrade school checker.
I never get to flash Latin around.
So semi quincentennial, 250 years.
Was I correct in bringing this up?
Is that a natural tie into what'sgoing on here with civics learning?
>> Chester E. Finn (04:25):
It is, it's a natural tie in also for
the Hoover's working group ongood American citizenship.
We see that as a kind of eitheran endpoint or a checkpoint for
the work we're doing, which includeshelping we've got a bunch of projects.
But that includes helping organize andplan and
participate in thisCivic Learning Week event at Hoover.
(04:47):
Absolutely, this is a momentousanniversary for the United States.
And how exactly it's gonna be celebratedand observed is a little bit of a mystery,
especially with the federal governmentchanging leadership at the present time.
There is a national commission thatoversees the semi quincentennial
(05:08):
celebration.
I believe President Trump has saidhe wants a giant party to celebrate
the 250th.
We shall see how that emerges.
And a bunch of states are takingthis really seriously.
The semi quintessence, they've gottheir own activities already underway,
for example, in Virginia and Pennsylvania,
(05:30):
just to name two states that werepretty important back in 1776.
>> Bill Whalen (05:34):
Many people watching and listening to this maybe weren't around for
the bicentennial in 1976, but theseare big deals that it's time to reflect.
I'd like to know more about the workinggroup on citizenship, Checker,
and what do you guys do?
I don't wanna be facetious here andsuggest that you're just basically
teaching people how to walk littleold ladies across the street and
things like that, but what does it mean?
Working group on citizenship.
>> Chester E. Finn (05:57):
We, meaning the high command at Hoover, myself and others,
realized that citizenship inthe United States, which includes civics
education but is broader than that, is notin real good shape at the present time.
We know that from knowledge tests.
We know that from watchingpeople's behavior.
We know that from lookingat polls of all kinds.
(06:19):
We wondered, what could Hooverdo to improve the situation?
And so we recruited,
I think we're now seven Hooversenior Fellows and affiliates,
to get together periodically with smallstaff that's undertaken some research.
Our end goal is to see what we can do toessentially improve the preparation of and
the performance of American citizens.
(06:42):
It's a very tall order and we're onlygonna make a modest contribution toward
it, but we've got some pretty niftyresearch studies that we've done.
And a couple of really cool projectsin the works that as they emerge and
in full flower,I think might make a difference.
And all of the participants in thispodcast series that we're talking
(07:04):
about today are membersof the working group.
And as everyone will see,they're articulate, knowledgeable,
and deeply committed.
So I think we're trying to do our parton what's a big national issue and
a big national opportunity.
>> Bill Whalen (07:21):
Checker, are you familiar with the work of a singer named Sam Cooke?
>> Chester E. Finn (07:24):
Probably not, tell me more.
>> Bill Whalen (07:26):
Bet you've heard a song he's done, it's called Wonderful World.
What a wonderful world it would be,this is why I don't go on karaoke dates,
by the way.
[MUSIC]
He did a song in 1960, I believe it was called Wonderful World.
And let me kind of semi singa couple lyrics to you.
>> Chester E. Finn (07:43):
Please. >> Bill Whalen
Do the semi sing please, don't really sing.
>> Bill Whalen (07:46):
Yes, exactly.
So here's what Sam Cookewarbled back in 1960.
Don't know much about history.
You probably heard this.
>> Chester E. Finn (07:53):
I know this song.
>> Bill Whalen (07:55):
Don't know much about a science book.
Don't much about the French I took.
Sam Cooke could have easilyput the word civics in there.
Of course,you can't rhyme civics with anything,
so that's why they'll go with the song.
But the point here is that Americansare willfully ignorant when it comes to
civics.
And here I am gonnapoint to you some data,
US chamber of Commerce Foundation Checker.
(08:15):
Last year they did a studyabout this time came out.
They talked to 2,000 registered votersin the US and they found that 70% of
the people they talked to failed whatthey called a basic civic literacy quiz.
This is on topics, Checker, like can youname the three branches of government?
Can you name how many membersof Supreme Court justices are?
So, Checker, I wanna ask youa somewhat provocative question.
(08:37):
So what?
Who cares?
Does it really matter if an American cancount that there are nine justices on
the Supreme Court?
Or is it more important thanan American can count to nine and
multiply nine times nine?
Does it really matter, Checker,
if an American knows that there are what,three levels of the judicial branch?
Or is it more important, Checker,that America could actually read and
(08:59):
rationalize what it isthe Supreme Court comes out with?
In other words,is civics education that important, or
is this really much ado about somethingthat isn't quite that important?
>> Chester E. Finn (09:08):
Are you ready for
my 55 minute lecture on the importanceof civics and civic education?
>> Bill Whalen (09:13):
Yeah, 30 seconds or less, go for it.
No, but really,there's a serious question here.
How important,
in the great scheme you've been spendingdecades in the realm of education reform,
and my God, it's an A to Z list ofthings that can and should be done.
But really, civics that important?
Is it really that much of a priority orare there bigger fish to fry?
>> Chester E. Finn (09:31):
Well, the country has been obsessed in education reform circles
and federal policy and state policy forthe last few decades on reading and math.
And there's absolutely no doubtthat reading and math come first,
especially in the early grades of school.
If you can't read, you can't do much.
If you can't add and subtract,multiply and divide, you can't do much.
(09:53):
So we start with the basics.
Basics, however,do not make you an educated person.
They do not make you a good citizen.
They do not make you a good neighbor.
They do not make you an informed voter.
They do not make you a competentparticipant in your community.
A whole bunch of other things go intoa proper education and they include,
(10:15):
obviously, science and history andliterature and writing and I could go on.
Civics Is there, especially withUS History as part of creating
citizens who know what they're doingwhen they go into the voting booth,
who can interpret the news that they read,determine whether they believe it.
(10:36):
First of all, cuz we get a lot ofnews not worth believing lately.
So that they can engage withtheir friends, their neighbors,
their fellow voters,their people who live in their town and
their state on important issues facingthe world, facing their community.
As we talk, Los Angeles is burning.
(11:00):
And one of the questions is,who's responsible for
the failure preparation forthis enormous disaster?
Well, there's some failure preparation,and
some of that has to do with governments,municipal, state, maybe federal
people don't understand how governmentworks, and they're not ready to.
(11:23):
To live in Los Angeles, andprobably not in Chevy Chase, Maryland,
where I am at the moment either.
It matters, andwe're not doing a good job of it.
We weren't doing a good job ofit when that song was written.
There's all kinds of data besides the datayou just quoted from the Chamber of
Commerce attesting to the miserableknowledge base of Americans.
But it's a lot more than knowledge.
It is also understandinghow things really work,
(11:46):
not just how many justicesdoes the Supreme Court have.
But if you're reading an opinionthat's split five to four or
just hearing about it, or
an opinion that's split five to four fromthe Supreme Court, what does that mean?
It helps to know that thereare nine of them there in order for
the five to four thing tomake any sense to you.
>> Bill Whalen (12:08):
Okay, you sold me, my friend.
Now here's the question.
When should we start teachingyoung men and women about civics?
>> Chester E. Finn (12:14):
Kindergarten?
>> Bill Whalen (12:16):
You'd start all the way at K.
>> Chester E. Finn (12:18):
Yeah, with the easy stuff, with the Pledge of Allegiance,
just for example, andpossibly singing America the Beautiful.
But you also then begin tolearn about George Washington.
And you might begin to learnabout national holidays, and
you might begin to learn aboutwhat's Memorial Day about and
(12:38):
what's Veterans Day about andwhat's Labor Day about.
You might, you'll certainly beginto learn about him by third grade.
By then,we hope you can read about them, too.
We hope you might read somebiographies of Thomas Jefferson and
a bunch of other people.
Including people from all sorts ofbackgrounds and immigrant groups and
(12:59):
genders and races and soon that went into making this country.
And by middle school, you ought tobegin to be in social studies classes,
that's what they're usuallycalled at that stage.
That actually imparts some realknowledge about how the system Works,
how Congress makes the law, how federalismworks, what is the Constitution?
(13:22):
What does it mean to amendthe Constitution and things like that.
Why are people arguing aboutamendments to the Constitution?
Why are they arguing about gun control?
Is that in the Constitution?
Etc., high schools and college,I could go on, but yeah,
it should go all the way through.
>> Bill Whalen (13:38):
Okay, so we've established the when,
now let's establish the how often.
If you go through K through 12,you don't take one science course.
You take a series of variousthings under science.
The same with mathematics, the samewith history, English, if you will.
So how often should we beexposing kids to civics, Checker?
And in what form would you do it?
>> Chester E. Finn (13:57):
Well, everything you said is correct except the history part.
Because, especially in K8through middle school,
it's usually taught as part ofsocial studies, history and
civics and sometimes geography.
And sometimes world history andoccasionally a smidgen of sociolog,y and
(14:18):
a soup saw of psychology,a little bit of economics.
Social studies is a problem area, to behonest, in our curriculum, but if it's
done right, it includes civics and historyand some of those other things too.
And social studies usuallystarts in the elementary grades.
Usually by the time you're in third grade,
(14:39):
you're taking a littlebit of social studies.
Now that's one of the subjects that'sgotten kind of squeezed out by our
preoccupation with reading and math.
There's the school day is typicallyfive and a half, six hours.
If kids aren't reading,they'll expand the reading time and
expand the math time andshrink the art time and
the science time and all the other time,including the social studies time.
(15:03):
So in lots of elementary schools,and sometimes, unfortunately,
in middle school, there's 20 minutesof social studies, or in middle school,
maybe it's two class periods a week.
And so there's not a lotof time given over to this.
In high school, there's usually a course.
Well, in about three-forth of the statesthere's a course called civics or
(15:25):
called American Government.
Sometimes it's just one semester,sometimes just half the year.
Sometimes it's one period a day forone semester.
That's not much time.
At least it's called civics, but that'snot much time to learn the whole thing
if it didn't start earlier inthe social studies classes.
>> Bill Whalen (15:46):
So would you do an entire course and
call it civics or some clever name?
Would you make that a course forthe entire school year?
How many school years would you do?
And Checker, If you expand oradd to a school curriculum,
don't you have to subtractat the same time?
So if you elevate civics, what loses?
>> Chester E. Finn (16:04):
First of all, if I were king, I would make the social studies
course that is already in the curriculumcentered on US History and
civics, and I might leave out some ofthe other things that are in it today.
So I might squeeze some within the socialstudies course that's already got
a little bit of time, a little bitof purchase in the curriculum.
(16:27):
I should also add, I'm a longtimeadvocate of a longer school day and
a longer school year.
So I would in fact add tothe total if I were king.
And I would also make sure the teachers of
this course know more about itthan many of them do today.
Many of them are teaching social studies,but they were a college major in
(16:48):
sociology, so they might not knowvery much history and government.
Because that isn't exactly the part ofsocial studies they studied when they were
going through it themselves.
So I'd work on teacher stuff,I'd work on state testing requirements.
One of the problems with social studiesis there's really no accountability for
whether the kids actually learn it.
(17:08):
We teach it, butwe don't know if they learned it until we
give one of those after the fact tests andthen we discover they didn't learn it.
But actually, our whole elaborateaccountability system for schools,
which does seriously ding them if the kidsdon't learn to read and do math, right?
It doesn't ding them if theydon't learn social studies.
>> Bill Whalen (17:28):
And you just walked into my next question, which is, okay, great,
if we're gonna expandthe teaching of civics,
how do we prove that kids are learning?
Is there an Etsy test?
How would you determine actuallyhow kids are doing in the course?
>> Chester E. Finn (17:39):
A dozen states, this goes to high school, but
a dozen states are already using a versionof the national citizenship test
that immigrants take to administerto their high school kids.
And they're saying, if you can't passsome version of the immigration test,
you're not ready tograduate from high school.
That's just the beginning ofan accountability idea here.
(18:02):
In this case, it's laid on the students,not on the schools, not on the teachers.
I think it's important to lay iton the schools and the teachers,
not just the students.
But I think that it's a reasonablestatement that if American kids who were
born and brought up here and gone toschool here can't pass the same test
that we ask immigrants to passin order to get naturalized.
(18:24):
Then we're obviously not doingvery well in our school system.
So that's a kind of low bar, frankly.
It's a bar that some statesare setting and that's the start.
>> Bill Whalen (18:35):
The citizenship, I've looked this up, Checker.
The citizenship test is 106 questionsin all of which you're asked ten.
>> Chester E. Finn (18:43):
That's right.
>> Bill Whalen (18:43):
You have to get six right to pass the test.
>> Chester E. Finn (18:45):
That's right.
>> Bill Whalen (18:46):
How confident are you that most kids in America Today,
by their 12th year,by their final year of high school,
how confident are you that mostkids could pass that test?
>> Chester E. Finn (18:55):
I'm not at all confident cuz we've got a couple
of studies and field experimentsthat show that they can't.
Neither can American adults.
This has actually beenadministered to young adults,
the college age population, andmany of them cannot pass it.
Now, as you know, the 100 questions, yes,an immigrant takes ten that are kind
(19:16):
of randomly picked by the examiner andthey're given orally to the immigrants.
It's not a written test, sothere's versions of it though,
that have been given to a randomsample of young Americans.
They don't do very well on it.
And they're pretty rudimentary questions,most of them.
Some of them touch on history,a couple of them touch on geography.
(19:36):
Mostly they touch on citizenship,broadly described.
I wanna do a lot more than make surekids can pass the citizenship test.
Let me be clear.
But as a low bar to start with,let's do that.
>> Bill Whalen (19:49):
Now, gentlemen of age like you and
I will always say things werebetter when we were young.
Is there any empirical evidence checkerpointing out to that 50 years ago,
75 years ago, that Americans had bettercivics knowledge than they do today?
>> Chester E. Finn (20:01):
There's a little bit of evidence that older Americans,
like our demographic,know a little bit more than young
Americans about basic questionsof civics and history.
One of the things our workinggroup did in the summer of 2023,
collaborating with the pollingorganization, YouGov.
(20:22):
Was to do a big study of a randomsample of Americans on their
attitudes toward citizenshipacross a whole bunch of things.
That included some knowledge questions,just a handful.
And when you look at the answers andsubdivide by age group, you discover that
the knowledge questions were handledbetter by the 65 and over demographic.
(20:46):
In other words, my demographic, than theywere by everybody younger than that.
And the younger you get,the less they know.
So yeah, there's a little bit of evidence.
Now, whether that comes from schooling orfrom life experience, I don't know,
but that's a fact.
And we know that from something thatqualifies as an actual quality study.
>> Bill Whalen (21:08):
Okay, you've done a wonderful job explaining why this
needs to be done.
But one thing which we have not gotteninto is how this would be done if we were
to broaden civics education.
I'm curious how King Checker wouldget this done, because keep in mind,
if you want to ramp up civics education,what are the challenges facing us?
Well, first of all, you go back intoAmerican history is something, by the way,
(21:30):
didn't come up in the presidentialelection, which I kept waiting for.
There are two fundamentalviews of the republic,
depending what year youwant to pick it with.
And you know, which years I'm going to.
One is the aforementioned 1776, when theysigned the document in Philadelphia.
Other people, though,want to go back to 1619, and slavery and
make that the roots ofthe American experiences.
So you know what's gonna happen if youtry to push civics education in America,
(21:52):
depending on what pocket of the corner orcorner of the country you're in and
what kind of curriculumyou push forward to.
People are going to say, wait a second,it's either too jingoistic or
it's too apologetic.
You have to go through the Scylla andCharybdis of The New York Times and
Fox News and so forth.
So how would you make this happen,
Checker, without just opening up a big oldcan of worms and having a big old fight?
>> Chester E. Finn (22:12):
Well, there's sort of a little bit of good news,
a little bit of bad newson this very front.
The bad news is that in elite circles andacademic circles, there's a big
culture war over all of these thingsthat takes place in the editorial pages
of the New York Times and fashionablemagazines and websites and podcasts.
(22:34):
But there have also been prettygood surveys of parents and
ordinary citizens about whetherthere is a nascent consensus on
core elements of what everykid should learn in school.
And there's a remarkably wideconsensus among ordinary people,
including parents and school kids, on whatthe essential elements of a history and
(22:56):
civics curriculum should include.
Now, if you get into today's hot topics,there's less of a consensus.
But if you wanna get to sortof fundamentals like what
does it mean to live in a free society?
What's the difference betweendemocracy and totalitarianism?
(23:16):
How many states are there in the union,and what's a governor?
There's wide consensus onbasics in the general public.
The bad news, as I said,is there's a culture war underway.
But then there's another bit of good news,which is some responsible organizations,
iCivics that I mentionedearlier is one of them.
(23:39):
Working to build some frameworks for
curriculum that actuallyembody that consensus.
And that try very hard to push towarda framework that educators can use,
that real curriculum builders, textbookwriters and others can use to evoke
the consensus parts and also to challengekids to think about these things.
(24:01):
And not tell them what they have to think,but rather ask them probing questions that
once you have a little knowledge,you can begin to grapple with.
There's a framework that I'm a littlebit involved with called Educating for
American Democracy.
Known in this trade is EAD,and it's pretty good.
Not everybody approves of it, but
(24:22):
there's a wide bipartisan populationthat helped put it together.
And what's in it are the challengingquestions that kids should learn to
answer.
It doesn't give them the answers.
It gives them the questions,gives teachers the questions.
I think there's a start here.
>> Bill Whalen (24:35):
Now, does every state in America, Checker,
have the same civics curriculum,if you will?
One thing we pride about educationin America is we let states go their
own path.
We don't federalize andcontrol everything,
this goes back to the founding fathers.
But doing civics though,should we have a uniform program?
What you teach in California may notbe the same what you want to teach
(24:56):
in Wyoming.
>> Chester E. Finn (24:57):
Yes and no.
I don't want the federalgovernment to muck around in this.
I can turn on the television and
watch what's going on inWashington on any given issue.
And I don't wanna add this issue to what'sbeing argued over in Washington right now.
>> Bill Whalen (25:11):
Yes.
>> Chester E. Finn (25:12):
Having said that, the states all have, for starters,
graduation requirements that ordinarilyinclude US history course and
civics or American government course.
So, they've got a littlebit of start there.
The states also have whatwe call academic standards,
which basically describes what kidsshould come out having learned.
(25:35):
And those academic standards involvestandards for social studies,
sometimes spelled out forcivics and history.
And wearing my other hat at the FordhamInstitute, we did a few years ago,
a great big evaluation of statestandards in civics and history.
And I'm gonna turn to some more badnews here, because most many states did
(25:56):
a terrible job with their standards forcivics and history.
A handful of states did really well,proving that it can be done.
Question after that is,if you've got good standards which simply
describe the desired outcomeof your education system,
how's that going to be implemented?
Because standards don'tteach anybody anything.
(26:18):
They just describe a destination andto get there,
you got to work then on the nitty gritty.
There's a lot of nitty gritty.
It involves textbooks,curriculum, teacher training,
testing, accountability,class time and so on.
So there's a lot of moving parts to this.
States will do it differently buton that consensus of fundamentals,
(26:41):
they'll probably all include those things.
And then they'll addCalifornia history and
how the New York state government worksand what's distinctive about Ohio.
And that's fine, it should be there.
And local schools anddistricts will apply it locally, too.
(27:02):
A kid in Columbus, Ohio, anda kid in Cincinnati, Ohio,
won't get exactly the samecurriculum in their schools.
Even if they all deal withthe state standards and
even if they all embody thatcore around the fundamentals.
The kids in Cincinnati will be taught,we hope,
in ways that make them interested inwhat's going on in Cincinnati and so on.
(27:29):
This is a heavy lift, butthis is not an impossible dream.
>> Bill Whalen (27:33):
Checker, I think I've told you this story before, so bear with me.
But many, many moons ago, I worked inthe governor's office in Sacramento.
I worked for the governor of California,and I was his chief speechwriter and
director of public affairs, which meantthat each summer I had about ten or so
interns in my office.
And these were college kids.
And yeah, a lot of them werepolitically connected, but
these were kids going to Stanford and UCLAand USC, very good college universities.
(27:57):
And the jerk that I am, I wouldgive them an American history quiz.
You know what I discovered, Checker?
They knew precious little aboutAmerica before California statehood.
In other words, they were good from 1854.
1850 back, no, just really,really frighteningly ignorant.
And I remember asking a few of them,did you study this in high school?
(28:19):
And they kind of shruggedtheir shoulders and I'd say,
aren't you studying thisright now in college?
And except for the few who actually weredabbling in history courses, not really.
This begs the question, Checker,of how the college experience complements
what you're learning intheory from K through 12.
So how should collegesbe approaching civics?
>> Chester E. Finn (28:36):
Let me start answering by saying that Stanford University itself
is pioneering what a college can and
I think should do in this realm witha mandatory freshman course in civics.
Which Stanford didn't havefive years ago and which very,
very few other Americancolleges have today.
But Stanford faculty,including Josiah Josh Ober,
(28:58):
who's part of the working group,part of this podcast series.
Has created a network of othercollege people around the country
who are joining together to advancethe idea that this is a college
responsibility also,not just a K12 responsibility.
I believe it is.
(29:19):
And I think that more collegeswill step up to the plate and
at least take a swing at it.
It's a big challenge ifK12 doesn't do its part.
One of our podcast colleaguesin this program, Paul Peterson,
who teaches government atHarvard of all places.
>> Bill Whalen (29:39):
Right. >> Chester E. Finn
a lot of what he does is he calls itremedial because his Harvard students
arrived like your summer interns inthe governor's office, not knowing much.
And so he attempts to teach them much ofwhich he thinks they should have learned
in high school.
I agree.
If K12 does its part, then there'sa really exciting opportunity for
(30:02):
colleges to build on that andactually work on the citizen part of it,
not just the knowledge andskills part of it.
And you think the smart approach is to embed it.
In other words, you come to collegeyour first year, you got to take it.
>> Chester E. Finn (30:15):
You got to take freshman writing most places cuz you can't
write when you get there.
So the college has decidedthey got to teach you writing.
Well, if you can't answer a basiccitizenship test correctly when
you get there,college got to teach you citizenship.
I view that as equivalent to the writingcourse that many colleges do require.
>> Bill Whalen (30:37):
I think that's a great point, Checker.
For years I've served as a facultyadvisor here at Stanford.
And what Stanford does is it asks peopleat the university if they'd be willing to
connect with incoming freshmen andjust basically kind of watch over them.
And you discover what that the typical 18year old who's coming to Stanford is 18
going on age 40.
And that they basically, they'rebetter organized in life than I am.
(31:00):
And they are just kind of have theirlife mapped out in front of them.
That's the whole purpose when youcome to Stanford the first year,
Stanford just wants to throw the brakes.
Instead of Checker Finn coming in and justwanting to build an app and go out and
make a fortune by getting his engineeringdegree, they say, wait a second, Checker.
You can't declare your majoruntil after your second year.
And by golly, you're gonna takesome courses in your first
year that don't really are not germaneto what you want to do in life, but
(31:23):
are of a balanced education.
>> Chester E. Finn (31:24):
I'm all for it.
The early professionalism that a lot ofkids are arriving in college with today
and the notion that they have tohave their career marked out and
that everything they do in collegehas to feed into the career.
This is not what a liberaleducation is about and
not what college ought to be doing.
And one of our other colleagues inthis podcast series, Peter Berkowitz,
(31:48):
who also teaches at Stanford, andas a member of the working group.
Points out that liberal education ismuch more than becoming an engineer or
becoming a doctor, for that matter, orbecoming a plumber, for that matter.
It involves becoming a responsiblehuman being who can be a citizen of
the United states in the 21st century.
(32:11):
And colleges have to push kids to getthose parts that they didn't sign up for
or didn't voluntarily sign up for.
>> Bill Whalen (32:19):
Okay, so let's talk about the people you've lined up for
your series here.
Let's begin with Josh Ober, who youmentioned, who's a Hoover Senior Fellow.
He's a Stanford political scientist andclassics professor, but
he's also the faculty director ofthe aforementioned civics initiatives.
So what do you wanna learn from Josh?
>> Chester E. Finn (32:34):
Well, I want Josh to say how he's done it at Stanford
because somany people think that the higher ed's
in even worse shape in termsof culture wars than K12.
And how do you get a elite liberal artsinstitution to mandate a civics course for
undergraduates?
Well, they've done it.
I'd like to know how they've done it andwhat lessons there are and
(32:56):
what it looks like andwhat it smells like.
And also what he's doing to encourageother colleges to do likewise.
>> Bill Whalen (33:04):
Okay, Paul Peterson, you mentioned.
Paul's also Hoover Senior Fellow andhe's a Harvard professor and
he teaches that first yearcourse on government.
What are we gonna get out of that,
other than we can all have funmocking that big crimson H?
>> Chester E. Finn (33:16):
Well, once upon a time I went there myself, and so I'm culpable.
But Paul needs to explain how he teaches
American government to Harvard students.
And he's got a very interestingapproach to doing it, I think.
And he also has to help us understand thisproblem that I mentioned a minute ago,
(33:39):
which is the state of his enteringcollege students at an elite institution.
Because the remedial part of what he hastold me he's doing is an issue we have
to grapple with during Civic Learning Weekand during a whole lot more than that.
>> Bill Whalen (33:55):
Right, it begs a great question, Checker.
It's the difference between what?
Being intelligent versusbeing knowledgeable.
>> Chester E. Finn (34:01):
Yes, sir.
>> Bill Whalen (34:02):
Okay, Peter Berkowitz you mentioned, Peter, yet again,
a Hoover Senior Fellow.
And as you mentioned, he teaches a course,
I think it's on conservatism inthe Civics program at Stanford.
>> Chester E. Finn (34:12):
He does indeed.
And he is a eloquent advocate fortwo ideas,
both of which I thinkare fundamental here.
I already mentioned liberal education,
the broad education that Peter thinksevery college student should get.
But Peter is also a deepbeliever that schools and
colleges have to impartpatriotism to their students.
(34:35):
And if you want a loaded word inthe culture wars of American civics,
right now, it's patriotism.
And Peter explains and needs to explain,and does an eloquent job of explaining,
what we mean by patriotism and why itbelongs in what schools and colleges do.
>> Bill Whalen (34:52):
Yeah, because that gets back to the word I used earlier,
which is jingoism.
People think patriotism, and it's toomuch, it's just too one-sided, it's too-
>> Chester E. Finn (34:59):
So I opt for phrases,
I think Peter does too, like informedpatriotism or thoughtful patriotism,
but to avoid the jingoismconnotation a little bit.
But even then, it's a challenge.
>> Bill Whalen (35:12):
Right, and then finally, in the lineup, we have Nick Mastronardi,
who is a Hoover Veteran Fellow,and he's an interesting guy.
He's an economist andhe's a data guy, isn't he, Checker?
>> Chester E. Finn (35:22):
He's a data guy who's been in the Air Force and
who now runs a survey polling organizationthat works with local governments.
And we think too much about civics as justhaving to do with the national government
and even the state government.
Nick is a really interestingexplainer of two things, I think.
One is the challenges andthe opportunities that technology has
(35:46):
brought to citizenship andto civics education.
But he also talks a lot about people'srelationship to their local government,
which is very different from theirrelationship to the national government.
And helps us understand why peoplegenerally have more positive views
of their local government thanof the national government.
And yet how even those positiveviews are deteriorating,
(36:09):
how they are slackening andwhat we're going to do about that.
>> Bill Whalen (36:14):
Yeah, and one thing about Nick which is great,
which I think your interviewwith him is going to get into,
is Nick at all times is looking athow information flows in society.
And this is a huge deal we saw in the lastpresidential election that Donald Trump
understood differently fromKamala Harris how information flows.
He took much better advantage ofsocial media than she did, but
there's a problem here.
Social media is fast, it's unbridled,it's kind of reckless at times.
(36:37):
And Americans are,I love to use the Trump term,
sometimes they're getting fake news andthey're running with it.
You see this in Los Angeles, Checker,with the fires, where there's so
much information flying around.
And somebody sees a data point which kindof confirms to them what they already
believe, that your governmentin Sacramento is a mess.
And the government of Sacramento isdoing a great job, and they run with it.
So this ties into civics in this regard.
(36:59):
Part having trust notjust in your country,
it's also having trust ininstitutions like the media.
>> Chester E. Finn (37:04):
Yep, Nick is really very eloquent and clear on this topic.
And I'm about to show my age by sayingthat I was pretty happy back in the day
when either Walter Cronkite or Huntley and
Brinkley would just tell me what wasthe facts and then I would believe them.
>> Bill Whalen (37:19):
Well, there's the movie Full Metal Jacket,
which is based in parton the Tet Offensive.
And the incredibly annoying guy whois running Stars and Stripes in Hue,
I think it is, comes in and goes.
He goes, you lose Cronkite,you lost the war.
>> Chester E. Finn (37:32):
Right, we don't have Cronkite.
We have social media andwe got to grapple with that too.
And that's also part of civics andcitizenship and civic education, and
welcome to Civic Learning Week, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (37:43):
I wanna take a step back at what time we have left on this show,
Checker.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout the role of education at
the Hoover Institutionto the outside world.
They look at Hoover andthey think of Hoover as economics.
They think of Hoover at foreign policy,but
they don't really associatewith his education.
And here I think we need to do a littlebetter job of education in this regard.
(38:05):
People look at our director,Condoleezza Rice, and
what do they think of whenthey think of Condi Rice?
Well, based on her existence,
they think foreign policystatesmanship because she's secretary.
Here's what they don'tunderstand about Condi Rice.
She has a deep andabiding interest in education.
Now some of this for her is very personal.
I believe her mom was a high schoolteacher, her dad was a counselor,
(38:26):
I believe, here in California,she was in Palo Alto.
She's co founder of what's calledthe center for New Generation,
which is an academic and arts enrichmentprogram for low income kids who
are underserved either after school orduring summer hours and things like that.
Education is a huge deal for her andI think part of her role as a director has
been to ramp up Hoover'sperformance on the education side.
>> Chester E. Finn (38:48):
She has indeed done that.
It started a little earlier when she,I think, was busy being secretary of state
when the late John Razian wasdirector of the Hoover Institution.
And he began to pull together a bunch ofpeople to work on K12 education at least.
And we're back to that, there's a wholeHoover team in the field of education.
(39:08):
It's not a big team, but it's very strongacademically and I think getting stronger.
And I think that this isan important part of Hoover's work.
And I think that you are correct thatit's not as well known as it could be and
should be, and I believe will be.
And Civic Learning Week,
incidentally, with this capstoneevent at Hoover is part of that.
>> Bill Whalen (39:30):
Good, which ties to another passion project of hers,
which is revitalizingAmerican institutions,
which I love the title of it cuzit is such a broad umbrella.
But when you think about thisinstitutional challenge in America,
it is like an octopus,it has a lot of arms.
>> Chester E. Finn (39:43):
It's got a lot of arms, and
a bunch of them have withered andneed revitalizing.
So let's see how we can do on that front,too.
>> Bill Whalen (39:51):
Okay, Checker, final thought for you, my friend.
So here we are in the United Statesof America, and that word, united,
has been under attack for some time now.
I can take you back to the firstdecade of the century, and
we had a country that ended up gettingvery divided by war and recession.
I can take you to the second decadeof the century, Checker, and
(40:12):
I can point you to the rise of angrypopulism, the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders,
ultimately Donald Trump, andnow his second presidency.
You can see this continuinginto this decade,
which is the concept lashing outat various forms of institutions.
You're lashing out against politicians.
If you're on the left, you're lashingout against corporate America.
If you're on the right,you're lashing out against the media.
(40:34):
And meanwhile, schools themselvesfind themselves under attack,
especially in an increasednumber in recent years.
Not to bore you too muchwith American politics, but
you follow these races as much as I do.
And you've seen how school curriculumhave been tied up in local and
governor's races and so forth.
As the question, Checker, as we lookat civics education, how is civics
education going to return us to thatconcept of a United States of America?
>> Chester E. Finn (40:58):
All by itself it's not gonna return us, but
it gives people the knowledge andunderstanding and history, I think,
to open the possibility of at leastseeing what we have in common.
To understand the ideas that all of usare in a country that was built on.
To understand the sort of centraldocuments that it's built on,
(41:22):
including the Declarationof Independence with its
semiquincentennial coming upin real time pretty soon.
I think it creates the opportunity forsome, if not uniting, at least
diminish the disuniting by understandingwhat does hold us together as a country.
And has actually done a not badjob of that over 250 years,
(41:46):
in spite of all our differences.
I mean, your little litany onlydealt with the 20th century, and
the 21st you didn't evenget back to the Civil War.
I mean, talk about a disunited countrythat managed to pull through even that.
>> Bill Whalen (42:01):
Right, exactly, well put.
So you mentioned your pal Ben Ginsbergat the beginning of this podcast,
Ben is a Hoover fellow as well.
So we turned Ben loose a couple years agoon the podcast front, Checker, and we came
up with the series for him when we calledit Saints, Sinners and Salvageables.
And this was Ben doing a series ofinterviews on election integrity, and
it was great.
And our listeners, I hope, will check thatout because Ben is the foremost authority
(42:23):
on election law in America, I would argue.
So now we're turning you loose,Checker, as well on civic.
So I wish you the best of luck,I'm looking forward to the podcast.
I hope you and I can get togethermaybe when it's all done.
Maybe after Civic Learning Week,we can do a recap of what you learned.
But good luck,I know you're gonna slam it.
>> Chester E. Finn (42:38):
Well, it's always a risk to turn me loose, but I'm looking
forward to this and Civic Learning Weekand getting back with you after that.
So thank you very much, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (42:46):
Okay, Checker, congratulations and bon voyage, and
I'm looking forward to the podcast.
>> Chester E. Finn (42:51):
All the best, thanks a lot.
>> Bill Whalen (42:52):
You've been listening to Renewing Civics Education- Preparing for
American Citizenship,
a Hoover Institution broadcast examiningthe state of learning in America.
And the thorny question of just how wellversed the citizenry is in history and
the root causes of the republic.
If you've enjoyed this conversation,please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to our show.
We are not above accepting either kudos orcriticism, we welcome both.
(43:14):
The Hoover Institution has Facebook,Instagram, and X feeds.
Our X handle is @Hooverinst,that's spelled H-O-O-V-E-R-I-N-S-T.
If you wanna learn more about Checker Finnand his endeavors, well, go to hoover.org
and you'll find his bio there andyou'll find all of his good work.
And while there, you should sign up forthe Hoover Daily Report,
which keeps you updated on what Checkerand his Hoover colleagues are up to.
And that's gonna reachyour inbox weekdays.
(43:35):
For the Hoover Institution, this isBill Whalen, thanks for joining us today.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]>> Bill Whalen: It's Wednesday,
January 15, 2025, andwelcome to the first installment of
Renewing Civics Education- Preparing forAmerican Citizenship.
A Hoover Institution broadcast examiningthe state of learning in America and
the thorny question of just how wellversed in citizens re in the history
(00:20):
of the root causes, the republic,the American people are.
I'm Bill Whalen, I'm the HooverInstitution's Virginia Hobbs Carpenter
Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism.
I'll be moderating this episode.
I'd like to begin by noting that thetiming of this series is excellent in at
least two regards.
First, middle of March just happens tobe Civic Learning Week here in America,
culminating in a national forum that'llbe held here at the Hoover Institution.
(00:44):
Second in case you've forgotten, we areonly one year and a few months shy of July
4, 2026, and the 250th anniversary ofthe founding of this great nation.
Which means there will be lots ofconversations about lessons from 1776 and
years passed.
And some Americans will bebetter versed than others,
which raises the question of why allAmericans don't want about their country.
(01:05):
So here's howRenewing Civics Education- Preparing for
American Citizenship is going to work.
There will be four,maybe five installments in all.
Moderating each of those shows will beit's my great honor to talk to him today.
My colleague Chester Finn, or Checker ashis friends call him, about Checker Finn.
He's the Volcker Senior Fellow adjuncthere at the Hoover Institution,
as well as a distinguishedsenior fellow and
(01:26):
President Emeritus ofthe Thomas B Fordham Institute.
Checker also serves as the chair ofthe Hoover Institution's working group on
Good American Citizenship.
Checker Finn's name is synonymouswith referring primary and
secondary schooling in America.
As you'll see in later shows,
his interests run also include highereducation and the role colleges and
universities can and should be playing incivics learning in citizenship Learning.
(01:49):
Checker, thanks forcoming on the show today.
>> Chester E. Finn (01:52):
It's a treat to be with you again, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (01:54):
So I mentioned Civic Learning Week in the introduction.
Can you tell us a little moreabout what exactly this entails?
I'd like to hear the story of howit's gonna end up in all places,
the Hoover Institution,how it managed to come west this time.
>> Chester E. Finn (02:06):
It's a great story.
And Civic Learning Weekis an annual event for
aimed primarily at educatorswho are involved with civics
education in the schools andincreasingly in the colleges.
And it's been going on for several years,largely under the auspices of
(02:27):
a Cambridge Mass based group callediCivics, well known organization,
nonprofit group founded in honor andmemory of justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
And they've been the main drivingforce in Civic Learning Week,
which takes place virtually for fivedays but face to face live in real time
on Monday, which happens tobe the Thursday of that week.
(02:50):
In this case it will be March 13th,and until now it's capstone event.
That big national forum has always been inWashington, DC, co sponsored by Washington
based organizations such as GeorgeWashington University, for instance.
But it occurred to several people,including a couple of Hoover overseers,
(03:14):
Hoover senior fellow Ben Ginsberg,who's on the board of iCivics.
Louise Dube who leads iCivics,myself Tom Schnauvelt who co leads
Hoover's center onReinvigorating American Institutions, etc.
That what a good idea if A,it could come west of the Potomac for
(03:34):
the first time ever.
B, draw a broader, wider population ofpeople to come, including people who live,
let's say, in the Rocky Mountains andin the states west of the Mississippi.
They don't tend to come to Washington forthis.
And finally,to broaden the base of interest in and
even potential consensus in this veryfraught issue of civics education.
(03:57):
And as part of the run up, as you said,
to the anniversary ofthe Declaration of Independence.
So this is a big deal,it's a feather in Hoover's cap and
I think it's a great thing forAmerican education.
>> Bill Whalen (04:10):
So was I correct in mentioning the semi quincentennial?
I'm sohappy I could say semi quincentennial.
I took four years of Latin andgrade school checker.
I never get to flash Latin around.
So semi quincentennial, 250 years.
Was I correct in bringing this up?
Is that a natural tie into what'sgoing on here with civics learning?
>> Chester E. Finn (04:25):
It is, it's a natural tie in also for
the Hoover's working group ongood American citizenship.
We see that as a kind of eitheran endpoint or a checkpoint for
the work we're doing, which includeshelping we've got a bunch of projects.
But that includes helping organize andplan and
participate in thisCivic Learning Week event at Hoover.
(04:47):
Absolutely, this is a momentousanniversary for the United States.
And how exactly it's gonna be celebratedand observed is a little bit of a mystery,
especially with the federal governmentchanging leadership at the present time.
There is a national commission thatoversees the semi quincentennial
(05:08):
celebration.
I believe President Trump has saidhe wants a giant party to celebrate
the 250th.
We shall see how that emerges.
And a bunch of states are takingthis really seriously.
The semi quintessence, they've gottheir own activities already underway,
for example, in Virginia and Pennsylvania,
(05:30):
just to name two states that werepretty important back in 1776.
>> Bill Whalen (05:34):
Many people watching and listening to this maybe weren't around for
the bicentennial in 1976, but theseare big deals that it's time to reflect.
I'd like to know more about the workinggroup on citizenship, Checker,
and what do you guys do?
I don't wanna be facetious here andsuggest that you're just basically
teaching people how to walk littleold ladies across the street and
things like that, but what does it mean?
Working group on citizenship.
>> Chester E. Finn (05:57):
We, meaning the high command at Hoover, myself and others,
realized that citizenship inthe United States, which includes civics
education but is broader than that, is notin real good shape at the present time.
We know that from knowledge tests.
We know that from watchingpeople's behavior.
We know that from lookingat polls of all kinds.
(06:19):
We wondered, what could Hooverdo to improve the situation?
And so we recruited,
I think we're now seven Hooversenior Fellows and affiliates,
to get together periodically with smallstaff that's undertaken some research.
Our end goal is to see what we can do toessentially improve the preparation of and
the performance of American citizens.
(06:42):
It's a very tall order and we're onlygonna make a modest contribution toward
it, but we've got some pretty niftyresearch studies that we've done.
And a couple of really cool projectsin the works that as they emerge and
in full flower,I think might make a difference.
And all of the participants in thispodcast series that we're talking
(07:04):
about today are membersof the working group.
And as everyone will see,they're articulate, knowledgeable,
and deeply committed.
So I think we're trying to do our parton what's a big national issue and
a big national opportunity.
>> Bill Whalen (07:21):
Checker, are you familiar with the work of a singer named Sam Cooke?
>> Chester E. Finn (07:24):
Probably not, tell me more.
>> Bill Whalen (07:26):
Bet you've heard a song he's done, it's called Wonderful World.
What a wonderful world it would be,this is why I don't go on karaoke dates,
by the way.
[MUSIC]
He did a song in 1960, I believe it was called Wonderful World.
And let me kind of semi singa couple lyrics to you.
>> Chester E. Finn (07:43):
Please. >> Bill Whalen
Do the semi sing please, don't really sing.
>> Bill Whalen (07:46):
Yes, exactly.
So here's what Sam Cookewarbled back in 1960.
Don't know much about history.
You probably heard this.
>> Chester E. Finn (07:53):
I know this song.
>> Bill Whalen (07:55):
Don't know much about a science book.
Don't much about the French I took.
Sam Cooke could have easilyput the word civics in there.
Of course,you can't rhyme civics with anything,
so that's why they'll go with the song.
But the point here is that Americansare willfully ignorant when it comes to
civics.
And here I am gonnapoint to you some data,
US chamber of Commerce Foundation Checker.
(08:15):
Last year they did a studyabout this time came out.
They talked to 2,000 registered votersin the US and they found that 70% of
the people they talked to failed whatthey called a basic civic literacy quiz.
This is on topics, Checker, like can youname the three branches of government?
Can you name how many membersof Supreme Court justices are?
So, Checker, I wanna ask youa somewhat provocative question.
(08:37):
So what?
Who cares?
Does it really matter if an American cancount that there are nine justices on
the Supreme Court?
Or is it more important thanan American can count to nine and
multiply nine times nine?
Does it really matter, Checker,
if an American knows that there are what,three levels of the judicial branch?
Or is it more important, Checker,that America could actually read and
(08:59):
rationalize what it isthe Supreme Court comes out with?
In other words,is civics education that important, or
is this really much ado about somethingthat isn't quite that important?
>> Chester E. Finn (09:08):
Are you ready for
my 55 minute lecture on the importanceof civics and civic education?
>> Bill Whalen (09:13):
Yeah, 30 seconds or less, go for it.
No, but really,there's a serious question here.
How important,
in the great scheme you've been spendingdecades in the realm of education reform,
and my God, it's an A to Z list ofthings that can and should be done.
But really, civics that important?
Is it really that much of a priority orare there bigger fish to fry?
>> Chester E. Finn (09:31):
Well, the country has been obsessed in education reform circles
and federal policy and state policy forthe last few decades on reading and math.
And there's absolutely no doubtthat reading and math come first,
especially in the early grades of school.
If you can't read, you can't do much.
If you can't add and subtract,multiply and divide, you can't do much.
(09:53):
So we start with the basics.
Basics, however,do not make you an educated person.
They do not make you a good citizen.
They do not make you a good neighbor.
They do not make you an informed voter.
They do not make you a competentparticipant in your community.
A whole bunch of other things go intoa proper education and they include,
(10:15):
obviously, science and history andliterature and writing and I could go on.
Civics Is there, especially withUS History as part of creating
citizens who know what they're doingwhen they go into the voting booth,
who can interpret the news that they read,determine whether they believe it.
(10:36):
First of all, cuz we get a lot ofnews not worth believing lately.
So that they can engage withtheir friends, their neighbors,
their fellow voters,their people who live in their town and
their state on important issues facingthe world, facing their community.
As we talk, Los Angeles is burning.
(11:00):
And one of the questions is,who's responsible for
the failure preparation forthis enormous disaster?
Well, there's some failure preparation,and
some of that has to do with governments,municipal, state, maybe federal
people don't understand how governmentworks, and they're not ready to.
(11:23):
To live in Los Angeles, andprobably not in Chevy Chase, Maryland,
where I am at the moment either.
It matters, andwe're not doing a good job of it.
We weren't doing a good job ofit when that song was written.
There's all kinds of data besides the datayou just quoted from the Chamber of
Commerce attesting to the miserableknowledge base of Americans.
But it's a lot more than knowledge.
It is also understandinghow things really work,
(11:46):
not just how many justicesdoes the Supreme Court have.
But if you're reading an opinionthat's split five to four or
just hearing about it, or
an opinion that's split five to four fromthe Supreme Court, what does that mean?
It helps to know that thereare nine of them there in order for
the five to four thing tomake any sense to you.
>> Bill Whalen (12:08):
Okay, you sold me, my friend.
Now here's the question.
When should we start teachingyoung men and women about civics?
>> Chester E. Finn (12:14):
Kindergarten?
>> Bill Whalen (12:16):
You'd start all the way at K.
>> Chester E. Finn (12:18):
Yeah, with the easy stuff, with the Pledge of Allegiance,
just for example, andpossibly singing America the Beautiful.
But you also then begin tolearn about George Washington.
And you might begin to learnabout national holidays, and
you might begin to learn aboutwhat's Memorial Day about and
(12:38):
what's Veterans Day about andwhat's Labor Day about.
You might, you'll certainly beginto learn about him by third grade.
By then,we hope you can read about them, too.
We hope you might read somebiographies of Thomas Jefferson and
a bunch of other people.
Including people from all sorts ofbackgrounds and immigrant groups and
(12:59):
genders and races and soon that went into making this country.
And by middle school, you ought tobegin to be in social studies classes,
that's what they're usuallycalled at that stage.
That actually imparts some realknowledge about how the system Works,
how Congress makes the law, how federalismworks, what is the Constitution?
(13:22):
What does it mean to amendthe Constitution and things like that.
Why are people arguing aboutamendments to the Constitution?
Why are they arguing about gun control?
Is that in the Constitution?
Etc., high schools and college,I could go on, but yeah,
it should go all the way through.
>> Bill Whalen (13:38):
Okay, so we've established the when,
now let's establish the how often.
If you go through K through 12,you don't take one science course.
You take a series of variousthings under science.
The same with mathematics, the samewith history, English, if you will.
So how often should we beexposing kids to civics, Checker?
And in what form would you do it?
>> Chester E. Finn (13:57):
Well, everything you said is correct except the history part.
Because, especially in K8through middle school,
it's usually taught as part ofsocial studies, history and
civics and sometimes geography.
And sometimes world history andoccasionally a smidgen of sociolog,y and
(14:18):
a soup saw of psychology,a little bit of economics.
Social studies is a problem area, to behonest, in our curriculum, but if it's
done right, it includes civics and historyand some of those other things too.
And social studies usuallystarts in the elementary grades.
Usually by the time you're in third grade,
(14:39):
you're taking a littlebit of social studies.
Now that's one of the subjects that'sgotten kind of squeezed out by our
preoccupation with reading and math.
There's the school day is typicallyfive and a half, six hours.
If kids aren't reading,they'll expand the reading time and
expand the math time andshrink the art time and
the science time and all the other time,including the social studies time.
(15:03):
So in lots of elementary schools,and sometimes, unfortunately,
in middle school, there's 20 minutesof social studies, or in middle school,
maybe it's two class periods a week.
And so there's not a lotof time given over to this.
In high school, there's usually a course.
Well, in about three-forth of the statesthere's a course called civics or
(15:25):
called American Government.
Sometimes it's just one semester,sometimes just half the year.
Sometimes it's one period a day forone semester.
That's not much time.
At least it's called civics, but that'snot much time to learn the whole thing
if it didn't start earlier inthe social studies classes.
>> Bill Whalen (15:46):
So would you do an entire course and
call it civics or some clever name?
Would you make that a course forthe entire school year?
How many school years would you do?
And Checker, If you expand oradd to a school curriculum,
don't you have to subtractat the same time?
So if you elevate civics, what loses?
>> Chester E. Finn (16:04):
First of all, if I were king, I would make the social studies
course that is already in the curriculumcentered on US History and
civics, and I might leave out some ofthe other things that are in it today.
So I might squeeze some within the socialstudies course that's already got
a little bit of time, a little bitof purchase in the curriculum.
(16:27):
I should also add, I'm a longtimeadvocate of a longer school day and
a longer school year.
So I would in fact add tothe total if I were king.
And I would also make sure the teachers of
this course know more about itthan many of them do today.
Many of them are teaching social studies,but they were a college major in
(16:48):
sociology, so they might not knowvery much history and government.
Because that isn't exactly the part ofsocial studies they studied when they were
going through it themselves.
So I'd work on teacher stuff,I'd work on state testing requirements.
One of the problems with social studiesis there's really no accountability for
whether the kids actually learn it.
(17:08):
We teach it, butwe don't know if they learned it until we
give one of those after the fact tests andthen we discover they didn't learn it.
But actually, our whole elaborateaccountability system for schools,
which does seriously ding them if the kidsdon't learn to read and do math, right?
It doesn't ding them if theydon't learn social studies.
>> Bill Whalen (17:28):
And you just walked into my next question, which is, okay, great,
if we're gonna expandthe teaching of civics,
how do we prove that kids are learning?
Is there an Etsy test?
How would you determine actuallyhow kids are doing in the course?
>> Chester E. Finn (17:39):
A dozen states, this goes to high school, but
a dozen states are already using a versionof the national citizenship test
that immigrants take to administerto their high school kids.
And they're saying, if you can't passsome version of the immigration test,
you're not ready tograduate from high school.
That's just the beginning ofan accountability idea here.
(18:02):
In this case, it's laid on the students,not on the schools, not on the teachers.
I think it's important to lay iton the schools and the teachers,
not just the students.
But I think that it's a reasonablestatement that if American kids who were
born and brought up here and gone toschool here can't pass the same test
that we ask immigrants to passin order to get naturalized.
(18:24):
Then we're obviously not doingvery well in our school system.
So that's a kind of low bar, frankly.
It's a bar that some statesare setting and that's the start.
>> Bill Whalen (18:35):
The citizenship, I've looked this up, Checker.
The citizenship test is 106 questionsin all of which you're asked ten.
>> Chester E. Finn (18:43):
That's right.
>> Bill Whalen (18:43):
You have to get six right to pass the test.
>> Chester E. Finn (18:45):
That's right.
>> Bill Whalen (18:46):
How confident are you that most kids in America Today,
by their 12th year,by their final year of high school,
how confident are you that mostkids could pass that test?
>> Chester E. Finn (18:55):
I'm not at all confident cuz we've got a couple
of studies and field experimentsthat show that they can't.
Neither can American adults.
This has actually beenadministered to young adults,
the college age population, andmany of them cannot pass it.
Now, as you know, the 100 questions, yes,an immigrant takes ten that are kind
(19:16):
of randomly picked by the examiner andthey're given orally to the immigrants.
It's not a written test, sothere's versions of it though,
that have been given to a randomsample of young Americans.
They don't do very well on it.
And they're pretty rudimentary questions,most of them.
Some of them touch on history,a couple of them touch on geography.
(19:36):
Mostly they touch on citizenship,broadly described.
I wanna do a lot more than make surekids can pass the citizenship test.
Let me be clear.
But as a low bar to start with,let's do that.
>> Bill Whalen (19:49):
Now, gentlemen of age like you and
I will always say things werebetter when we were young.
Is there any empirical evidence checkerpointing out to that 50 years ago,
75 years ago, that Americans had bettercivics knowledge than they do today?
>> Chester E. Finn (20:01):
There's a little bit of evidence that older Americans,
like our demographic,know a little bit more than young
Americans about basic questionsof civics and history.
One of the things our workinggroup did in the summer of 2023,
collaborating with the pollingorganization, YouGov.
(20:22):
Was to do a big study of a randomsample of Americans on their
attitudes toward citizenshipacross a whole bunch of things.
That included some knowledge questions,just a handful.
And when you look at the answers andsubdivide by age group, you discover that
the knowledge questions were handledbetter by the 65 and over demographic.
(20:46):
In other words, my demographic, than theywere by everybody younger than that.
And the younger you get,the less they know.
So yeah, there's a little bit of evidence.
Now, whether that comes from schooling orfrom life experience, I don't know,
but that's a fact.
And we know that from something thatqualifies as an actual quality study.
>> Bill Whalen (21:08):
Okay, you've done a wonderful job explaining why this
needs to be done.
But one thing which we have not gotteninto is how this would be done if we were
to broaden civics education.
I'm curious how King Checker wouldget this done, because keep in mind,
if you want to ramp up civics education,what are the challenges facing us?
Well, first of all, you go back intoAmerican history is something, by the way,
(21:30):
didn't come up in the presidentialelection, which I kept waiting for.
There are two fundamentalviews of the republic,
depending what year youwant to pick it with.
And you know, which years I'm going to.
One is the aforementioned 1776, when theysigned the document in Philadelphia.
Other people, though,want to go back to 1619, and slavery and
make that the roots ofthe American experiences.
So you know what's gonna happen if youtry to push civics education in America,
(21:52):
depending on what pocket of the corner orcorner of the country you're in and
what kind of curriculumyou push forward to.
People are going to say, wait a second,it's either too jingoistic or
it's too apologetic.
You have to go through the Scylla andCharybdis of The New York Times and
Fox News and so forth.
So how would you make this happen,
Checker, without just opening up a big oldcan of worms and having a big old fight?
>> Chester E. Finn (22:12):
Well, there's sort of a little bit of good news,
a little bit of bad newson this very front.
The bad news is that in elite circles andacademic circles, there's a big
culture war over all of these thingsthat takes place in the editorial pages
of the New York Times and fashionablemagazines and websites and podcasts.
(22:34):
But there have also been prettygood surveys of parents and
ordinary citizens about whetherthere is a nascent consensus on
core elements of what everykid should learn in school.
And there's a remarkably wideconsensus among ordinary people,
including parents and school kids, on whatthe essential elements of a history and
(22:56):
civics curriculum should include.
Now, if you get into today's hot topics,there's less of a consensus.
But if you wanna get to sortof fundamentals like what
does it mean to live in a free society?
What's the difference betweendemocracy and totalitarianism?
(23:16):
How many states are there in the union,and what's a governor?
There's wide consensus onbasics in the general public.
The bad news, as I said,is there's a culture war underway.
But then there's another bit of good news,which is some responsible organizations,
iCivics that I mentionedearlier is one of them.
(23:39):
Working to build some frameworks for
curriculum that actuallyembody that consensus.
And that try very hard to push towarda framework that educators can use,
that real curriculum builders, textbookwriters and others can use to evoke
the consensus parts and also to challengekids to think about these things.
(24:01):
And not tell them what they have to think,but rather ask them probing questions that
once you have a little knowledge,you can begin to grapple with.
There's a framework that I'm a littlebit involved with called Educating for
American Democracy.
Known in this trade is EAD,and it's pretty good.
Not everybody approves of it, but
(24:22):
there's a wide bipartisan populationthat helped put it together.
And what's in it are the challengingquestions that kids should learn to
answer.
It doesn't give them the answers.
It gives them the questions,gives teachers the questions.
I think there's a start here.
>> Bill Whalen (24:35):
Now, does every state in America, Checker,
have the same civics curriculum,if you will?
One thing we pride about educationin America is we let states go their
own path.
We don't federalize andcontrol everything,
this goes back to the founding fathers.
But doing civics though,should we have a uniform program?
What you teach in California may notbe the same what you want to teach
(24:56):
in Wyoming.
>> Chester E. Finn (24:57):
Yes and no.
I don't want the federalgovernment to muck around in this.
I can turn on the television and
watch what's going on inWashington on any given issue.
And I don't wanna add this issue to what'sbeing argued over in Washington right now.
>> Bill Whalen (25:11):
Yes.
>> Chester E. Finn (25:12):
Having said that, the states all have, for starters,
graduation requirements that ordinarilyinclude US history course and
civics or American government course.
So, they've got a littlebit of start there.
The states also have whatwe call academic standards,
which basically describes what kidsshould come out having learned.
(25:35):
And those academic standards involvestandards for social studies,
sometimes spelled out forcivics and history.
And wearing my other hat at the FordhamInstitute, we did a few years ago,
a great big evaluation of statestandards in civics and history.
And I'm gonna turn to some more badnews here, because most many states did
(25:56):
a terrible job with their standards forcivics and history.
A handful of states did really well,proving that it can be done.
Question after that is,if you've got good standards which simply
describe the desired outcomeof your education system,
how's that going to be implemented?
Because standards don'tteach anybody anything.
(26:18):
They just describe a destination andto get there,
you got to work then on the nitty gritty.
There's a lot of nitty gritty.
It involves textbooks,curriculum, teacher training,
testing, accountability,class time and so on.
So there's a lot of moving parts to this.
States will do it differently buton that consensus of fundamentals,
(26:41):
they'll probably all include those things.
And then they'll addCalifornia history and
how the New York state government worksand what's distinctive about Ohio.
And that's fine, it should be there.
And local schools anddistricts will apply it locally, too.
(27:02):
A kid in Columbus, Ohio, anda kid in Cincinnati, Ohio,
won't get exactly the samecurriculum in their schools.
Even if they all deal withthe state standards and
even if they all embody thatcore around the fundamentals.
The kids in Cincinnati will be taught,we hope,
in ways that make them interested inwhat's going on in Cincinnati and so on.
(27:29):
This is a heavy lift, butthis is not an impossible dream.
>> Bill Whalen (27:33):
Checker, I think I've told you this story before, so bear with me.
But many, many moons ago, I worked inthe governor's office in Sacramento.
I worked for the governor of California,and I was his chief speechwriter and
director of public affairs, which meantthat each summer I had about ten or so
interns in my office.
And these were college kids.
And yeah, a lot of them werepolitically connected, but
these were kids going to Stanford and UCLAand USC, very good college universities.
(27:57):
And the jerk that I am, I wouldgive them an American history quiz.
You know what I discovered, Checker?
They knew precious little aboutAmerica before California statehood.
In other words, they were good from 1854.
1850 back, no, just really,really frighteningly ignorant.
And I remember asking a few of them,did you study this in high school?
(28:19):
And they kind of shruggedtheir shoulders and I'd say,
aren't you studying thisright now in college?
And except for the few who actually weredabbling in history courses, not really.
This begs the question, Checker,of how the college experience complements
what you're learning intheory from K through 12.
So how should collegesbe approaching civics?
>> Chester E. Finn (28:36):
Let me start answering by saying that Stanford University itself
is pioneering what a college can and
I think should do in this realm witha mandatory freshman course in civics.
Which Stanford didn't havefive years ago and which very,
very few other Americancolleges have today.
But Stanford faculty,including Josiah Josh Ober,
(28:58):
who's part of the working group,part of this podcast series.
Has created a network of othercollege people around the country
who are joining together to advancethe idea that this is a college
responsibility also,not just a K12 responsibility.
I believe it is.
(29:19):
And I think that more collegeswill step up to the plate and
at least take a swing at it.
It's a big challenge ifK12 doesn't do its part.
One of our podcast colleaguesin this program, Paul Peterson,
who teaches government atHarvard of all places.
>> Bill Whalen (29:39):
Right. >> Chester E. Finn
a lot of what he does is he calls itremedial because his Harvard students
arrived like your summer interns inthe governor's office, not knowing much.
And so he attempts to teach them much ofwhich he thinks they should have learned
in high school.
I agree.
If K12 does its part, then there'sa really exciting opportunity for
(30:02):
colleges to build on that andactually work on the citizen part of it,
not just the knowledge andskills part of it.
And you think the smart approach is to embed it.
In other words, you come to collegeyour first year, you got to take it.
>> Chester E. Finn (30:15):
You got to take freshman writing most places cuz you can't
write when you get there.
So the college has decidedthey got to teach you writing.
Well, if you can't answer a basiccitizenship test correctly when
you get there,college got to teach you citizenship.
I view that as equivalent to the writingcourse that many colleges do require.
>> Bill Whalen (30:37):
I think that's a great point, Checker.
For years I've served as a facultyadvisor here at Stanford.
And what Stanford does is it asks peopleat the university if they'd be willing to
connect with incoming freshmen andjust basically kind of watch over them.
And you discover what that the typical 18year old who's coming to Stanford is 18
going on age 40.
And that they basically, they'rebetter organized in life than I am.
(31:00):
And they are just kind of have theirlife mapped out in front of them.
That's the whole purpose when youcome to Stanford the first year,
Stanford just wants to throw the brakes.
Instead of Checker Finn coming in and justwanting to build an app and go out and
make a fortune by getting his engineeringdegree, they say, wait a second, Checker.
You can't declare your majoruntil after your second year.
And by golly, you're gonna takesome courses in your first
year that don't really are not germaneto what you want to do in life, but
(31:23):
are of a balanced education.
>> Chester E. Finn (31:24):
I'm all for it.
The early professionalism that a lot ofkids are arriving in college with today
and the notion that they have tohave their career marked out and
that everything they do in collegehas to feed into the career.
This is not what a liberaleducation is about and
not what college ought to be doing.
And one of our other colleagues inthis podcast series, Peter Berkowitz,
(31:48):
who also teaches at Stanford, andas a member of the working group.
Points out that liberal education ismuch more than becoming an engineer or
becoming a doctor, for that matter, orbecoming a plumber, for that matter.
It involves becoming a responsiblehuman being who can be a citizen of
the United states in the 21st century.
(32:11):
And colleges have to push kids to getthose parts that they didn't sign up for
or didn't voluntarily sign up for.
>> Bill Whalen (32:19):
Okay, so let's talk about the people you've lined up for
your series here.
Let's begin with Josh Ober, who youmentioned, who's a Hoover Senior Fellow.
He's a Stanford political scientist andclassics professor, but
he's also the faculty director ofthe aforementioned civics initiatives.
So what do you wanna learn from Josh?
>> Chester E. Finn (32:34):
Well, I want Josh to say how he's done it at Stanford
because somany people think that the higher ed's
in even worse shape in termsof culture wars than K12.
And how do you get a elite liberal artsinstitution to mandate a civics course for
undergraduates?
Well, they've done it.
I'd like to know how they've done it andwhat lessons there are and
(32:56):
what it looks like andwhat it smells like.
And also what he's doing to encourageother colleges to do likewise.
>> Bill Whalen (33:04):
Okay, Paul Peterson, you mentioned.
Paul's also Hoover Senior Fellow andhe's a Harvard professor and
he teaches that first yearcourse on government.
What are we gonna get out of that,
other than we can all have funmocking that big crimson H?
>> Chester E. Finn (33:16):
Well, once upon a time I went there myself, and so I'm culpable.
But Paul needs to explain how he teaches
American government to Harvard students.
And he's got a very interestingapproach to doing it, I think.
And he also has to help us understand thisproblem that I mentioned a minute ago,
(33:39):
which is the state of his enteringcollege students at an elite institution.
Because the remedial part of what he hastold me he's doing is an issue we have
to grapple with during Civic Learning Weekand during a whole lot more than that.
>> Bill Whalen (33:55):
Right, it begs a great question, Checker.
It's the difference between what?
Being intelligent versusbeing knowledgeable.
>> Chester E. Finn (34:01):
Yes, sir.
>> Bill Whalen (34:02):
Okay, Peter Berkowitz you mentioned, Peter, yet again,
a Hoover Senior Fellow.
And as you mentioned, he teaches a course,
I think it's on conservatism inthe Civics program at Stanford.
>> Chester E. Finn (34:12):
He does indeed.
And he is a eloquent advocate fortwo ideas,
both of which I thinkare fundamental here.
I already mentioned liberal education,
the broad education that Peter thinksevery college student should get.
But Peter is also a deepbeliever that schools and
colleges have to impartpatriotism to their students.
(34:35):
And if you want a loaded word inthe culture wars of American civics,
right now, it's patriotism.
And Peter explains and needs to explain,and does an eloquent job of explaining,
what we mean by patriotism and why itbelongs in what schools and colleges do.
>> Bill Whalen (34:52):
Yeah, because that gets back to the word I used earlier,
which is jingoism.
People think patriotism, and it's toomuch, it's just too one-sided, it's too-
>> Chester E. Finn (34:59):
So I opt for phrases,
I think Peter does too, like informedpatriotism or thoughtful patriotism,
but to avoid the jingoismconnotation a little bit.
But even then, it's a challenge.
>> Bill Whalen (35:12):
Right, and then finally, in the lineup, we have Nick Mastronardi,
who is a Hoover Veteran Fellow,and he's an interesting guy.
He's an economist andhe's a data guy, isn't he, Checker?
>> Chester E. Finn (35:22):
He's a data guy who's been in the Air Force and
who now runs a survey polling organizationthat works with local governments.
And we think too much about civics as justhaving to do with the national government
and even the state government.
Nick is a really interestingexplainer of two things, I think.
One is the challenges andthe opportunities that technology has
(35:46):
brought to citizenship andto civics education.
But he also talks a lot about people'srelationship to their local government,
which is very different from theirrelationship to the national government.
And helps us understand why peoplegenerally have more positive views
of their local government thanof the national government.
And yet how even those positiveviews are deteriorating,
(36:09):
how they are slackening andwhat we're going to do about that.
>> Bill Whalen (36:14):
Yeah, and one thing about Nick which is great,
which I think your interviewwith him is going to get into,
is Nick at all times is looking athow information flows in society.
And this is a huge deal we saw in the lastpresidential election that Donald Trump
understood differently fromKamala Harris how information flows.
He took much better advantage ofsocial media than she did, but
there's a problem here.
Social media is fast, it's unbridled,it's kind of reckless at times.
(36:37):
And Americans are,I love to use the Trump term,
sometimes they're getting fake news andthey're running with it.
You see this in Los Angeles, Checker,with the fires, where there's so
much information flying around.
And somebody sees a data point which kindof confirms to them what they already
believe, that your governmentin Sacramento is a mess.
And the government of Sacramento isdoing a great job, and they run with it.
So this ties into civics in this regard.
(36:59):
Part having trust notjust in your country,
it's also having trust ininstitutions like the media.
>> Chester E. Finn (37:04):
Yep, Nick is really very eloquent and clear on this topic.
And I'm about to show my age by sayingthat I was pretty happy back in the day
when either Walter Cronkite or Huntley and
Brinkley would just tell me what wasthe facts and then I would believe them.
>> Bill Whalen (37:19):
Well, there's the movie Full Metal Jacket,
which is based in parton the Tet Offensive.
And the incredibly annoying guy whois running Stars and Stripes in Hue,
I think it is, comes in and goes.
He goes, you lose Cronkite,you lost the war.
>> Chester E. Finn (37:32):
Right, we don't have Cronkite.
We have social media andwe got to grapple with that too.
And that's also part of civics andcitizenship and civic education, and
welcome to Civic Learning Week, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (37:43):
I wanna take a step back at what time we have left on this show,
Checker.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout the role of education at
the Hoover Institutionto the outside world.
They look at Hoover andthey think of Hoover as economics.
They think of Hoover at foreign policy,but
they don't really associatewith his education.
And here I think we need to do a littlebetter job of education in this regard.
(38:05):
People look at our director,Condoleezza Rice, and
what do they think of whenthey think of Condi Rice?
Well, based on her existence,
they think foreign policystatesmanship because she's secretary.
Here's what they don'tunderstand about Condi Rice.
She has a deep andabiding interest in education.
Now some of this for her is very personal.
I believe her mom was a high schoolteacher, her dad was a counselor,
(38:26):
I believe, here in California,she was in Palo Alto.
She's co founder of what's calledthe center for New Generation,
which is an academic and arts enrichmentprogram for low income kids who
are underserved either after school orduring summer hours and things like that.
Education is a huge deal for her andI think part of her role as a director has
been to ramp up Hoover'sperformance on the education side.
>> Chester E. Finn (38:48):
She has indeed done that.
It started a little earlier when she,I think, was busy being secretary of state
when the late John Razian wasdirector of the Hoover Institution.
And he began to pull together a bunch ofpeople to work on K12 education at least.
And we're back to that, there's a wholeHoover team in the field of education.
(39:08):
It's not a big team, but it's very strongacademically and I think getting stronger.
And I think that this isan important part of Hoover's work.
And I think that you are correct thatit's not as well known as it could be and
should be, and I believe will be.
And Civic Learning Week,
incidentally, with this capstoneevent at Hoover is part of that.
>> Bill Whalen (39:30):
Good, which ties to another passion project of hers,
which is revitalizingAmerican institutions,
which I love the title of it cuzit is such a broad umbrella.
But when you think about thisinstitutional challenge in America,
it is like an octopus,it has a lot of arms.
>> Chester E. Finn (39:43):
It's got a lot of arms, and
a bunch of them have withered andneed revitalizing.
So let's see how we can do on that front,too.
>> Bill Whalen (39:51):
Okay, Checker, final thought for you, my friend.
So here we are in the United Statesof America, and that word, united,
has been under attack for some time now.
I can take you back to the firstdecade of the century, and
we had a country that ended up gettingvery divided by war and recession.
I can take you to the second decadeof the century, Checker, and
(40:12):
I can point you to the rise of angrypopulism, the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders,
ultimately Donald Trump, andnow his second presidency.
You can see this continuinginto this decade,
which is the concept lashing outat various forms of institutions.
You're lashing out against politicians.
If you're on the left, you're lashingout against corporate America.
If you're on the right,you're lashing out against the media.
(40:34):
And meanwhile, schools themselvesfind themselves under attack,
especially in an increasednumber in recent years.
Not to bore you too muchwith American politics, but
you follow these races as much as I do.
And you've seen how school curriculumhave been tied up in local and
governor's races and so forth.
As the question, Checker, as we lookat civics education, how is civics
education going to return us to thatconcept of a United States of America?
>> Chester E. Finn (40:58):
All by itself it's not gonna return us, but
it gives people the knowledge andunderstanding and history, I think,
to open the possibility of at leastseeing what we have in common.
To understand the ideas that all of usare in a country that was built on.
To understand the sort of centraldocuments that it's built on,
(41:22):
including the Declarationof Independence with its
semiquincentennial coming upin real time pretty soon.
I think it creates the opportunity forsome, if not uniting, at least
diminish the disuniting by understandingwhat does hold us together as a country.
And has actually done a not badjob of that over 250 years,
(41:46):
in spite of all our differences.
I mean, your little litany onlydealt with the 20th century, and
the 21st you didn't evenget back to the Civil War.
I mean, talk about a disunited countrythat managed to pull through even that.
>> Bill Whalen (42:01):
Right, exactly, well put.
So you mentioned your pal Ben Ginsbergat the beginning of this podcast,
Ben is a Hoover fellow as well.
So we turned Ben loose a couple years agoon the podcast front, Checker, and we came
up with the series for him when we calledit Saints, Sinners and Salvageables.
And this was Ben doing a series ofinterviews on election integrity, and
it was great.
And our listeners, I hope, will check thatout because Ben is the foremost authority
(42:23):
on election law in America, I would argue.
So now we're turning you loose,Checker, as well on civic.
So I wish you the best of luck,I'm looking forward to the podcast.
I hope you and I can get togethermaybe when it's all done.
Maybe after Civic Learning Week,we can do a recap of what you learned.
But good luck,I know you're gonna slam it.
>> Chester E. Finn (42:38):
Well, it's always a risk to turn me loose, but I'm looking
forward to this and Civic Learning Weekand getting back with you after that.
So thank you very much, Bill.
>> Bill Whalen (42:46):
Okay, Checker, congratulations and bon voyage, and
I'm looking forward to the podcast.
>> Chester E. Finn (42:51):
All the best, thanks a lot.
>> Bill Whalen (42:52):
You've been listening to Renewing Civics Education- Preparing for
American Citizenship,
a Hoover Institution broadcast examiningthe state of learning in America.
And the thorny question of just how wellversed the citizenry is in history and
the root causes of the republic.
If you've enjoyed this conversation,please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to our show.
We are not above accepting either kudos orcriticism, we welcome both.
(43:14):
The Hoover Institution has Facebook,Instagram, and X feeds.
Our X handle is @Hooverinst,that's spelled H-O-O-V-E-R-I-N-S-T.
If you wanna learn more about Checker Finnand his endeavors, well, go to hoover.org
and you'll find his bio there andyou'll find all of his good work.
And while there, you should sign up forthe Hoover Daily Report,
which keeps you updated on what Checkerand his Hoover colleagues are up to.
And that's gonna reachyour inbox weekdays.
(43:35):
For the Hoover Institution, this isBill Whalen, thanks for joining us today.
[MUSIC]
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.