Our next panel explore one of the most Critical Issues facing, president ial and Historic Sites today, the state of civics ihistory, education. Now it is my privilege to introduce our moderator and Julie Silverbrook senior director of partnerships and i civics. Joining her on stage is joni albrecht, director of the John Marshall center for Virginia Museum history and culture jay barth, director of the william j. Clinton president ial library and ohn bridgeland cochaired ceo move perfect and former director white house domestic policy l kaufman associate Department Director and Senior Researcher for rand. Please join me in welcoming our. Matt, thank you so much for wonderful introduction. Were going to dig right in to this ask this first question, which civics and history are two sides of the same relationship between the two . Well i think you put it well. They are the two sides of the same coin. I think they really Work Together. Maybe like gears one drives the other. I think one way that we look at itJohn Marshall center is that history really answers the why of civics. We look backwards to see how we govern and form communities today. And i think thats so important. And then i think civics answers the why does it matter now of y . And thats probably our biggest challenge is making history relevant . But civics can provide that. So weve just joined a museum. Were. And thats kind of what we do all of our lessons is really make that connection and i do find that thats where students also can place themselves. When you do connect to the now to the jd you want to weigh in on that and in particular, you know how that at the at the clinton library. Yeah, i mean, i think its well put might frame it just slightly differently is i think that for comprehensive civics youve really got to the the the where where it came from whether it was the founding period and the founding documents or whether its the civil war era and the the civil war amendments whether its the the changes expansions of rights that we see, the Womens Movement and the civil rights movement, the lgbtq movement. So but then that has to connect how it works, right . How those and how those rights have expanded over time. And then that Civics Knowledge is is created. Then there is the connection to Civic Engagement, right . Helping young people and people of all ages figure out what their skills and talents as citizens and make, putting those to use and. Thats that is where the real magic of civics happened is when you have civic now. So so acknowledge meaning, Civic Engagement and thats what were we try to do and partner a lot with the Clinton Foundation. Every program we do is collaborative at at the clinton president ial center. We take the lead more on the Civics Knowledge side they take a little bit more the lead on the Civic Engagement side, especially with with young people as. They develop their their skills. But thats ther with our ultimate of creating a more healthy arkansas, because thats where were located and thats where president clinton, i think really cares so deeply about continuing to make a better place. Great. John, you guys want to weigh in on this . Sure. History. I just want first thank Anita Mcbride and stuart mclaren. And this is the best organized summit i think ive ever been to. And grace mccaffrey for this panel. Just to build on what was said, you know, a democracy of all t on a welleducated and the founders actually worried a lot, you know, these men and women of enlightenment that a system so heavily predicated rights future generations would neglect their duties. And while theres no federal right to an education, the u. S. Consti single constitution, including the massachusetts constitution which predated our federal constitution by a decade put Civic Education at the center of the inquiry. And interestingly not just civic learning, but history. The humanities, arts, literature. And so i feel like history civics, you know, they breathe life each other. I mean, were moving toward the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence in 2026. And so ive been rereading do celebrar at the bicentennial. One of the ones i found most inspiring was a piece by mortimer called we hold these truths. And in it it says, you most americans dont recognize any of the democ racy citizen, not president , not governor, not senators. Actually, the highest office in the land. And this notion that jeffrey and talked about the pursuit of happiness with a capital h wasnt an individual right, but a cooperative enterprise. We help one another achieve. And our communities andry are better for it. And when i was in the white house after 911 and the president asked me to create this initiative, and i looke how you know, Young Students doing on civics and history and in fact we didnt collect data on high schools mostly eighth graders. It was and that was 20 years ago when there werent the threats ocracy. We see today. So i think its fundamental. You have an understanding of democratic norms, values and institutions, but also where weve been as a country, the Great Stories that can inspire people to be great citizens in those great moments that che and others touched on. And i think of it as more from research perspective. I think about an outcome like Civic Engagement and how you need both Civics Knowledge schools. So im a School Researcher primarily, an education researcher, so you need that civics from about how our government works, what it means to live in a. But then, of course, you need the history to really feel like Civic Engagement is a deep value issue for you. So for example voting, thinking about voting as a piece of Civic Engagement, you need to not only know that our Founding Fathers fought for that right, butls the 19th amendment and womens and how hard fought it was for to gain that right to vote. And then the voter rights act of 1965 that outlawed discrimination or discriminatory acts against voting africanamericans who were trying to vote. So thinking about all of that really places a deep value on your own Civic Engagement. And so thats just one example of howgether to get you to that part where engaging civically and feel like youre really a citizen of this democracy. Well you guys have all teed up the next question so beautifully, which is for both civics and History Education often asked to what end, right . Are we creating a generation of citizen scholars . Maybe, maybe, maybe some of them will go on to do that. But really, we are creating the next generation of. So i want to talk a little bit about how in your work you have been able to history and civic to effectively inspire Civic Engagement. If you give, you know, particular examples from what your institutions have or efforts that youve been a part of. Jt what . I yeah, so i would say the library is one of the, National Archives of president ial libraries and together we of course, all share a common program, which is civics for all of us. And that a program that is primarily delivered, virtually and that has a lot of commonality to it than we all do our own local, much more nuanced programing as well. But in one of those civics for all of us programs which is of secondary level one is focused on the bill of rights. Theres this, you know, really great focus on a handful of of cases that end up at the u. S. Court that really, really show a lot of things about the democratic experience and they really focus on the case of fred kore case, the case of of of gideon, in terms and then a final case that really focuses on the gag rule and and its role in limiting voice, reproductive choices and all those cases, there this kind of deep dive into the history. Each of those things. It also then sws that, you know oftentimes justice or, some form of justice is dramatically delayed, that this is not an immediate win in a lot of cases. And i think thats a crucially important part of the understanding of civics, especially at the secondary level in that, you know, young people really need to that this these are often ongoing. There are there are there there are battles in all these institutions and these these battle bill of rights issues, they deal with all the different institutions of government. And i think thats a really great example of of the linkage between history and a very real high quality civic, Civic Education program. Johnny, this is, of course, what you guys do every single day. It is, yeah. So we we prioritize schools and and districts that have higher than average free reduced lunch qualification and lower than average so well rate for social studies and history. And so that places u1s oftentimes times in very underserved schools that probably dont have a dedicated civics or government d what try to do our best program that we offer, i think is six weeks in in time with students and we offer segments on civility thats called bridges. We do something called serve, which takes a piece of pop culture or a current event. We put a Historical Context around it. And then the constitu and and civics is really the through line. So it does end in a call to action. And that call to action might be something you alluded to is just you looking inside and finding where your place in the on it doesnt necessarily mean youre to make the decision to run for office office. But on the you know, how we find success and that is when you see a student who a marginalized student finding themselves in the constitution themselves in the democratic process, maybe for the first time is so rewarding. And, you know, we arerying to scale that up and, up and up. And i think all of us are that its its were all you know, in that same arena with that trying to i would say thats our goal is trying to have discover themselves as being a part of it and owning it is theirs. So talk about this we do this that isofix everything sort of student centered right . So youre youre putting the student in the drivers seat. Thats certainly what we do with our games, which i think were best known for. But we have lots of other resources and really the motivation is for that student to unpack, to learn and then to to engage how they see fit. So can you give us an example of a student centered program or resource and job great to to loop back you and then john has a particular initiative i want to talk about that was involved in well this is not very granular granular we start so we also do a segment on mock trial how to teaching the you principles of debate and usually the students start with debating the best fast how do that and so were building on something thats really close to home and something that they quite passionate about and. Then throughout the week, you knowind of gaining in their confidence and in their strategic skills. And then the last we debate something that has come up thats an actual issue america and our one of our most recent was going from fast food to debating lifetime of supremeurt justices. So it was great to leave with a big lead, but they went and it was really wonderful to see. They felt that they had a voice in that issue. Thats great. Yeah, we have a one that is grounded more were historically and are beginning to build out this series. But the one the one that we have thats been very successful was about whether whether the United States should have engaged in kosovo, obviously was a key decision in the clinton administration. And so we have a nice tight historical understanding of those events, key decisions. And then then students are really grouped, broken into groups to think about the variety of options and are the right paths and and the students come out conversation points about what should be done to say there was no there was no good decision here. There are always costs that come with this. But its a really great great example and it does then for students to engage in deep conversation that comes back to some of their own, but their own in local skills about this shared set of facts, which i think is a really thing, is that we have some consensus, and thats a crucial part of think a healthy democracy and the kind of democracy i think we would all like to have. So thats a thats a good example. Were going to build that out. Weve got one actually in the process now on the 1983 budget reconciliation and package were a key early economic decision. And in that case were working with economics to take that into two classes in the state. Model that i think plays very and obviously other president ial libraries other presi that. The Truman Library has an amazing decision room program as well, but i think those are those are reallyowerful tools. And i think they really make difference in students lives and bring this stuff life. Yeah. And i think also review the complexity of Decision Making and that a lot of times Decision Makers in our country throughout our history have been put in a position where they have to choose the less, less bad or least option available. And i think thats really thats a real mindset shift for young people in particular. John i that you organized an effort at the house that put the teaching of American History and Civic Education back at the center of our national priorities. Can you tell us about that effort and its continuing relevance today . Love listening though. I think we need to resurrect the 1993 budget negotiation learnings for the current environment. I remember with bob kerrey and people on a bipartisan basis in the congress, it was nothing short of heroic. So interestingly, after 911 i was in the oval office actually. We were spending with Anita Mcbride and others in the room you know, three, thremee tidomestic policy completely shifted from you know, working on education immigration comprehensive Immigration Reform with kennedy and a whole host of domestic issues to, you know worrying about curbside check in and arming pilots and the cockpit. But a week later, was in the oval office and the president said bridge, want you to create an initiative. And these his words that will foster a culture of service and responsibility. And in addition to growing these National Service programs, kennedys peace corps, clintons americorps, nixon senior, johnsons vista and creating a new National Service and volunteer infrastructure particularly to respond to disaster of all kinds. And there was an explosion in the country of of and goodness and decency. I looked at the needs scores and they were and i thought, well, you cant have citizenship and responsibility without american and Civic Education. So we first person i called was historian david mccullough, who became a really friend, he and rosalie. And he had written a book on john adams and of course, truman and others ando . What do you recommend . He said, um, train teachers and them at the president ial sites around the United States. I want them to go braintree, massachusetts, and learn about adams. The force that he was the force bigail was he was the driver of american independence. And my reaction to them was, oh my god, david, that was my civic spark. When i was 16 years old, my American Government teacher, jim powers in my American History, teacher john ellis, and i still keep in touch with jim powtook our classes talked about the merger civics in history. The hodge kentucky. I grew up in cincinnati, birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and then down to knob creek just down the road. And then we didnt go to pigeon creek farm in indiana or springfield. But we learned about them and. I said, you know, we learned that Abraham Lincoln was a 16 year old kid. He had eight massive decisions payments and losing office or nominations so. He lost his sweetheart. He had a depressive breakdown that caused to go to bed for six months. Failure after failure towards success. And yet became one of our greatest president s. And it it david was right it humor nice to the civic and historic story a way and it inspired then the other thing we learned we read gettysburg address and the two inaugural addresses on the on the way back if you can imagine that with different students reading different passages and ill never forget not since mcpherson was, the speechwriter for bush and ted sorensen for kennedy the spine tingling feeling i got reading those words and learning that lincoln had studied the bible and. One room cabin, and it inspired me public service. And so anyway, quickly after night and 911, we created a pretty massive American History and Civic Education initiative, a rose garden ceremony with ted kennedy, Lamar Alexander robert, who was mandating the reading of the constitution in the declaration of independence and constitution and day, which we quietly supported mandates are tough. We also made a 100 Million Investment through the National Endowment for the humanities and something called we the people that provided grant