earlier today, the house armed services committee held a hearing on military operations to counter potential russian aggression in europe. you can watch this hearing again tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up friday morning, we will talk about what congress is doing to improve school safety with assistant editor of education week. then we look at the recent nerve agent attack in the uk on a former russian spy. joining us for that conversation is darryl kimball of the arms control association. henry olson, author and senior fellow of the ethics and public policy center on his book "the working class republican" about the future of the republican party. be sure to watch "washington

journal" live at 7:00 eastern friday morning. join the discussion. next, on c-span 3, a panel discussion on improving civics education and preparing students to become more politically engaged. the center for american progress and generation citizen hosted the panel discussion. former florida senator bob graham delivered the keynote address.

>> good morning, everyone. i'm winnie stackelberg. on behalf of everyone here and our great partners at generation citizen, i want to thank each and every one of you for joining us this morning for this important conversation. you know, when we first planned this event a few weeks ago we wanted to talk about the state of civic engagement among young people in our country, but now given the recent outcry and horrific acts at marjory stoneman douglas high school in po parkland and those students who survived last week's horrific mass shooting and the fact our keynote speaker holds such deep ties to the state of florida, i think today's discussion takes on a whole different meaning. now perhaps more than ever our government and its leaders must prove that they are not just listening to our nation's young

people but that they are doing everything in their power to ensure that all students feel protected and valued in the eyes of our society. one small step in that process can take place if we start to engage more young people at an earlier age. right now, only nine states along with washington, d.c. require high school students to complete a full year of civics before they can graduate. this likely explains why according to a recent study that less than 25% of all students achieve proficient scores in the civics exams administered by the national assessment of educational progress. perhaps more importantly, america's civic engagement is at an all-time low. voter participation and public trust in government remains near

historic lows, particularly with our nation's young people. less than half of millenials are voting, and only 18% of the public trusts their leaders in washington to do the right thing. this creates a vicious cycle where too many americans are dissatisfied with their government and yet still fail to vote because they believe their voices will not be heard. the good news is that across the country, we can find inspiring activists, policy makers, educators and others who are turning apathy into action. we are honored to welcome four outstanding panelists this morning who are committed to motivating and engaging america' students, and we look forward to hearing their insights. first, i have the great privilege of introducing our keynote speaker for today. senator bob graham.

during his remarkable career as a public servant, senator graham made it his mission to make life better for folks in his home state of florida. he's served as a member of the florida legislature, as the 38th governor of the state of florida, and as a member of the united states senate, and while in office, senator graham helped to redefine the term civic engagement. as governor, he spent nearly 400 days working in a wide range of jobs from police officer to construction worker, from fisherman to teacher, so he could better understand the challenges facing the people he represented. since leaving the senate, senator graham has devoted his energy toward training the next generation of civic leaders. he's founded the bob graham center for public service at the university of florida to teach young people the knowledge and

skills of democratic governance, and he's also opened the florida joint center on citizenship to strengthen civics education in the sunshine state and to rally its legislature to require a civics education for all students. senator graham truly embodies what it means to be an agent of change at this local, state and federal levels and we lon orred that he could join us this morning to talk about lis experiences. please join me in a warm round of applause and welcome senator bob graham. >> thank you very much for that kind introduction. thank you for the opportunity the center has given me to talk about a subject about which i'm passionate and which i believe

the nation is beginning to recognize its central importance. i have been so first, depressed, saddened by what occurred at stoneman douglas high school a week ago today, and then excited about what the students have done in response to that tragedy. one of the things that interests me is that florida, like most states, stopped teaching civics in the 1970s. civics was restored to the curriculum of our schools by legislative action in 2009, became operational in 2011. the significance of those numbers is that this group of students who are now at stoneman douglas senior high school were the first wave of students in florida public education to have had civics in almost four

decades. the fact that they are now empowered to take the actions that we are seeing and that we hope that we will see actions that result in real change in the near future i think is a testimony to the value of exposing young people to their rights, responsibilities and the competencies necessary to execute those rights and responsibilities as a member of a democracy. so we have a story within a story within a story occurring now, and a tragic event might be what it takes to achieve a renewal of america's awareness of the importance of preparing all of our people, but particularly our young people for their life as citizens in a democracy.

this is occurring at a time when there are plenty of headlines that indicate the severity of the current circumstance. from "the new yorker" of august last year, is america headed for a new kind of civil war. a group of scholars were assemble assembled before charlottesville to discuss the issue of whether america was headed for not a lee versus grant, but a new form of civil war. 35% of the participants in this program felt that we were and that it would be within 10 to 15 years. david brooks from the "new york times" in january opined on how

democracies perish. vox brought together 20 of america's top political scientists to discuss democracy. they were scared. if current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast. finally, from "the boston globe," a toxic collection is damaging the core of democracy young voters. the statistics that support those headlines are equally distressing. most americans have little knowledge of national, state or local government. a 2017 survey indicated that only 26% of americans could name the three branches of government. there's a declining acceptance of citizenship responsibility.

in 2016, u.s. voter turnout was 55.7%, which ranked us 28th among 35 developed democratic countries in the world, and local elections are even more distressing. between the beginning of this century and ten years later, the number of persons in the 144 largest metropolitan areas of america who voted in local elections declined from 26% to 20%. in 2013, only 6.4% of americans belonged to an organization such as the league of women voters or a kiwanas club or pta that had as its goal community action. younger voters are particularly

losing confidence in democracy. last year, a survey indicated that 35% of millenials are losing faith in democracy. only one in four had confidence in the democratic system as a means of governance. voter turnout in every presidential election since 1904 -- since 2004, the lowest generational grouping have been millenials. in 2012, whereas the oldest generation, over 65, 72% of americans voted with millenials, it was only 46%. so those all indicate the validity of these concerns about the state of our democracy as we begin the 21st century. why has this decline occurred? we are not alone.

there has been a global movement away from democracy and towards authoritarianism. countries that we used to think of as having moved past being emerging democracies to being mature democracies such as turkey have now slipped back into authoritarian rule. i think we in america are legitimately concerned as to whether we may be on a similar path. why is this happening? i think one of the reasons that the students in tallahassee today are living is the question of can democracy respond to the challenges of the day. we faced this challenge throughout our history. there have been times when we have questioned whether the

democratic processes were capable of bringing solutions to complex problems. in most of those instances, democracy has met the challenge. today, it is being challenged again. i think the students are asking the question can something as fundamental as providing safety for young people in their educational settings be assured, is a challenge for democratic institutions to be able to effectively answer. we await the determination as to whether that in fact occurs. i think that one of the fundamental reasons why we have reached this low state is the very fact that we stopped teaching civics in the 1970s. why did we do that? well, some of the scholars of democracy have attributed it to the fact that in that time

period, there was an increasing polarization in america with the far left thinking that the civics education was being used to militarize students so they would be more accepting of the vietnam war. people on the far right feeling that civic education was being used to motivate students to engage in activities such as the civil rights movement, women's rights movement, other forms of public display, which they found to be offensive. it was one thing the extreme right and extreme left could agree on, and that was that civics was not a good idea and so they began leading an effort first at the local level, then at the state level, to eliminate civics. i graduated from miami senior high school in 1955.

i had taken three one-year courses in civics between the seventh and twelfth grade. that was not unusual. that was, in fact, the national standard. i have 11 grandchildren, nine of whom have graduated from high school. most of those nine students have had no civics. the most any of them have had is one semester. that's what has happened in two generations of an american family. what do we do to begin to reverse this decline? let me just share a personal story. in 1973, i was chairman of the florida state senate education committee. we were holding our hearings before the legislative session

in schools around florida and on this particular day, we were at wolfson high school, a middle class high school in jacksonville, florida. we had a slot in the agenda for students to come and talk about their concerns, and on this particular day at wolfson, there were a large number of students, all who had the same issue. probably one of the most long-standing issues in american public education. bad food in the cafeteria. i was not surprised that the food was bad. it wasn't great at miami high. but i was surprised that they had come to the state senate to talk about cold pizza on friday. i asked were we the first people they talked to. they said no, actually you're the third. that made me feel better until i asked who were one and two. number one was the mayor of

jacksonville, who empathized with the students but said that it wasn't his responsibility. the second was the sheriff of duval county, who said the food was no doubt bad but it wasn't criminal, wasn't his responsibility. we were number three. i told that story a few weeks later when i spoke to a group of civics teachers in miami that something was wrong if a group of bright high school students, many of them about to graduate, had come to the conclusion that the mayor, the sheriff or the state legislature was the place you went for bad food. one of the teachers stood up and said i am sick to death, sick to death of you politicians telling teachers how to do our work better when you don't know what in the hell you're talking about. the only way you can find out is to actually go in the classroom

and experience what it's like to be around indifferent students, to be around parents who won't show up for a parent/teacher conference, overly bureaucratic school administration and all those damn laws that you legislators pass that we have to live by. so she said the only way you can find out is to actually come in the classroom. i accepted her challenge, thinking that she had in mind a couple of hours on tuesday afternoon. when she called back, she had a somewhat different idea. she said bob, come to carroll city senior high school, an almost inner city high school in miami, on the day after labor day at 8:00 in the morning, report to room 208 and you will be teaching twelfth grade american civics for the next 18 weeks. that was a little more than i had quite bargained for.

but i figured that, a, i had committed myself, i was going to do it. b, i needed help. i found a young social science teacher at co-teach the class. we spent the summer working on a curriculum. the curriculum was built around answering the question, what does a citizen need to know to make democracy work for them? what does a citizen need to know to make democracy work for them? that's the course that we taught for 18 weeks. it became a life-transforming event. i not only learned a lot about life in a modern american high school, i learned a lot about learning. the difference between learning by actually doing something, as opposed to learning by lecture

or textbook. i also learned that some of that was transportable to other areas. and as minnie said, i started taking workdays, the one at carroll city was number one, and i did another 407 over the next 30 years in order to feel that i had a connectedness, an understanding with the people of my state. the 30 years later, as i retired from the u.s. senate, i was a senior fellow at the kennedy school and i taught, as every fellow is required to do, although at harvard you don't teach unless you're a member of the faculty. you can lead, you can guide, you can direct, whatever verb you want to use, but you can't teach. i did one of those things using

a modified version of the same curriculum, what every citizen needs to know. that course was -- i found that the harvard undergraduates of the early part of this century were only mildly more civically illiterate than the high school students that i had taught 30 years earlier. some of the faculty at the kennedy school monitored the course and recommended that i try to put the curriculum into book form. and the result of that was a book called "america: the owner's manual: you can fight city hall and win." the book is based around the ten competencies of effective citizenship. following the harvard model, each chapter begins with a case study of how citizen used that particular competence to achieve

their objective and then it describes how you can master that skill. i hope those are some of the things that the students from stoneman douglas are doing today in tallahassee. i believe from that experience that not only is it critical to return civics to the classroom, but it's also critical it be returned in the right form. most of what is now civics is based on the study of the institutions and processes of government. i remember one of the things that i had to do in one of those one-year courses was memorize the state capitals of all 50 states. and i still remember to this day that the capital of south dakota is minneapolis. i personally think that jefferson would have been very

disturbed with this. in his early writings on the importance of public education to a new democracy, jefferson said that a primary goal of our schools should be to give to every citizen, and i emphasize the word, "every." he was very critical of the idea that civics was for an elite few. that every citizen should be given the information needed to understand his duties to his neighbors and his country, and to discharge with competence. competence is a word that i believe is inadequately emphasized in most civics instruction. but to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either.

that is what i think should be the purpose of a civics education. and that -- what does that convert to? that converts to issues of skills, are we preparing students with the skills that will allow them to, first, discern that there is a problem or a missed opportunity, and then to exercise a series of competencies necessary to overcome the problem or achieve the missed opportunity. i also believe that civics is like a musical instrument or a sport. you don't learn to play the piano by reading a textbook about the piano. you learn to play the piano by playing the piano. you learn civics by actually engaging. in that course that i referred

to at carroll city, the first day we organized the students into groups of three so that they would begin to learn some of the principles of small group interaction and select a topic that was of concern to them. they could have selected any topic that they wanted. human rights in china. but they had this constraint, that one-third of their final grade was going to be based on what they were able to do about the problem. were they able to move the needle over the 18 weeks? that got them focused on things that were close at home. as an example, carroll city had a private water and sewer company and there had been a longtime feeling that the water that that company was providing to its customers was below grade. a group of three of students wanted to take on that issue. was it below grade?

well, the first thing that they did is they went to the chemistry department of carroll city and they learned the standards that you have to utilize if you are going to challenge a product, in this case, water, as to its cleanliness and efficacy. once -- because civics does not occur in a vacuum. it almost always requires knowledge of other topics in order to be effective. with that understanding, they collected dozens of bottles of water according to the scientific standards. they then had to find out who was the decisionmaker. it was not difficult because in our federalist system, we distribute political responsibility broadly. in this case, they determined

that it was the county health director who was responsible. they went to the office of the county health director with all their bottles, asked that the water be analyzed, and the finding was that, yes, the water was bad. and the county health director began issuing cease and desist orders to this private utility company. needless to say, those students got a very high grade in terms of how they moved the needle. i think that kind of practical learning is a key part of an effective civics curriculum. i also think it's important that in most cases you start local. as these students did with local water supply. i'm concerned, my -- i have a granddaughter who next week is going to participate in a model united nations.

i'm a supporter of the united nations. it's an important global institution. but i really think that the students would probably better serve if they were going to spend a few days doing a model school board or model city council or an activity that was more relevant to their current lives. those are some of the principles that i think should be incorporated into a civics curriculum which should, in turn, return to the american public school system. i think this is a critically important issue. we cannot owe another generation lost by failure to expose them to the basic principles and competencies of citizenship in a democracy. the students from stoneman

douglas are, this morning, displaying what it means to society to have young people who are prepared to be not just passive spectators but active participants in making their community, their school, their state, their nation, a more democratic place for all its citizens. thank you. >> thank you so much, senator. we got time for one question for one question for the senator, and then we're going to bring up the panel talking about engagement and civics. it's exciting. can i -- great. go to this gentleman over here. there's a microphone. just state your name and maybe if you have san affiliation and the question. thank you. >> i'm bill with growing democracy. i loved what you said you don't learn to play the piano by reading a textbook. i was wondering do you agree with laurence tribe and other

scholars who said we should lower the voting age so people studying civics can participate in elections? >> i -- i honestly don't have an opinion as to whether moving the voting age from 18 to 16, for instance, would be advantageous. probably in a spirit of enhancing democracy, i would say it wouldn't be a bad thing for maybe some states to use the laboratory of democracy, which states are supposed to do, and experiment with that and see what the results were and then we could make a judgment as to whether it appeared to be an idea worthy of nationwide adoption. >> again, thank senator graham for your leadership, for your civics lesson to us this morning. and i'm going to invite my colleague, catherine brown, and the panel to come up to the stage.

thank you. >> great. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> wonderful. well, thank you, all, so much for being with us this morning to discuss this important event. this important issue. my name is catherine brown. i'm the vice president for education policy here at the center for american progress. we're going to dive right in, we're going to do a slightly different format where i'm not going to introduce the panelists at the outset. instead i'm going to give a short history of their biowhen i introduce them. this is stephanie? sanford. she is the author of "civic life in the information age, politics, and generation x. and the former director of policy and advocacy of the program at the bill and melinda gates foundation. a deep expert in this topic. i want to start with level

settings, stephanie. can you just tell us the difference between civics and history. >> so thank you so much, it's wonderful to be here and this is an issue near and dear to my heart. i thought the senator did a super job at really delineating the difference. i mean, its most basic level, history is what happened, what happened before. it's a study of the past. what civics is is something that's quite active, study of rights and duties and responsibilities, to be an effective citizen in a democracy. the way we have talked about it on other panels, the notion that we have -- civics means sort of knowledge so you know what to do, and you know about these institutions. you have skills. you know how to engage with them, and you have agency, which says you believe you can make a difference. >> wonderful. there's been a fair amount of research on the focus and senator graham alluded to this, on the focus on reading and math and even going back to the 1970s

that has pushed out civics and other topics as well, art, music, history, physical education, so forth. i'm curious, stephanie, if you think that we have a new opportunity with the every student succeeds act, which creates a broader definition of school success to bring civics back into american education today. >> i think so. there certainly is the charge that a somewhat narrow focus on reading and math has pushed out other topics and i think it essa clears that up. it very clearly says, explicitly calls for a well-rounded education and calls out civics and government quite specifically, sort of to reestablish a broader range of educational experience and enriched curriculum. i also think to caution that the notion does imply there was some intent. i do think that the senator had an sort of an excellent articulation of the pressure that civic education, in particular, came under. but the idea that in focusing on

reading, i mean, we have -- when we redesigned the s.a.t. two years ago, that's a test of reading, writing and math. one of the things we did is was to assure in that of the 7 million students who will take either the psat or s.a.t. each year that you would encounter an american founding document or some -- or another document of that sort of great conversation. and so the idea that whether it's the constitution -- whether you would find the constitution or the declaration or barbara jordan's testimony to the judiciary committee during impeachment, the idea that a broad-based instrument, that you would encounter through reading, that you would encounter these texts was great thing. so i think it's a great opportunity. there isn't anything in the focusing on reading and writing that you couldn't read those meaningful texts. >> that's an excellent point. thank you so much. i want to turn to juanita, where

who is joining us from pr providence,rhode island, where she was a teacher and currently national program and curricular development and serves on the generation citizens rhode island board. so another barrier we heard when we looked into this is most educators want to remain neutral to politics in their classroom. and talking about current events and civics today in a way that values all students' experiences and cultures and identity values can be very challenging, a very charged environment. i'd love to hear how you dealt with this challenge in your classroom, and how you advise other citizen teachers to deal with this through the curriculum you're developing. >> thank you, and thank you for having me. in the classroom, one of the things i would do, and during the last election to be very neutral in the classroom. and we did have many discussions in terms of what was going on,

you know, the national level. but i kept turning it back to what's going on in your local community. and in generation citizen, that was a very natural thing to do. so we emphasize and try to have students focus on hyper local issues, you know, very similar to what senator graham was referring to with his version of the curriculum many years ago which was real exciting that was happening at that time. because we do something similar, we just labeled it action civics. so i've had students just come back to, what's going on in our community and how does it affect you. and once you start talking about how it effects you, a lot of the barriers that you could encounter talking about controversial issues kind of lessen and diminish. and then there are times when you are talking about things like police brutality where you need to have these hard conversations and have a safe space for your students to have

them. and it's difficult work to do. so right now in my new role working with teachers nationwide, we try to provide guidance for them to have those conversations. and we are currently working on a revision to our curriculum and one of the top priorities is to ensure that we are looking at an equity framework and ensuring that all of our lessons incorporate those elements to make sure that all of our students needs are being met. and, you know, every student component, not just developmental stage or learning ability, but any other type of diversity that we can consider. >> wonderful. thank you so much. i want to turn now to scott who is the co-founder and ceo of generation citizen where he has worked to expand action civics

in schools, curricula, and empower young people to become engaged in their communities. scott, you saw a real need for students to become active in their democracy. can you tell us about generation citizen's model, about the history and how you sequence the instruction in order to give all students the knowledge, skills and agency that stefanie referred to earlier? >> yes. thanks so much for having us and this event. very timely issue and gratifying so see so many folks talking and and recognizing the importance of civics education. senator graham did the solutions what we think about as well. i helped cofound generation citizen about eight years ago. my own background, actually, i grew up the son of a foreign service officer. so i grew up in emerging democracies around the world. so senator graham was talking about distinctions between emerging democracies and democracies. i got to observe elections in

kenya that worked in 2002. i saw a coup in ecuador and was really motived by the power and fragility of democracy. so the power of what happens when people come together to make a collective difference. and fragility, it's something that needs to be cultivated and tended to. it's not a static concept. and when i got back to the u.s., this gets to the model question, extent the trope of young people being disengaged is not true. that's something people talk about. they talk about the millennial generation not engaged. that's not true. what can be true is the ways in policy in government to effect change. i think that is something that occurs for a whole host of reasons. but one is they don't see democracy in government as relevant to their lives. and it becomes this abstract concept that either isn't taught or is taught here are the three branches of government, this is how a bill becomes a law.

now go take a test. and if you are going to teach civics in that way it's not going to be relevant to students. it's not going to be the vibrant concept that can bring alive like she was able to do in her classroom. you put action before civics and it changes everything. but it sort of is practicing the penal approach where students choose very local issues that they care about, and then learn about how local government works through actually taking action on those issues. and it's a real school class. it's not after school activity. it's not extra curricula but they're taking this just like they're taking math, science, or english. so it will be choosing issues like affordable housing and gentrification in new york city and then looking at specific city council laws that would provide affordable housing to provide tax incentives to landlords that provide affordable housing. get tripped up when i say that. those are 11th graders working on an issue like that.

and this goes to something senator graham said. every student wants to tackle cafeteria food. so we have a class in brooklyn that looked at cafeteria food. and through our curriculum we encouraged them to go to the root cause of the issue. why does it actually exist? it's not about raising awareness, but how can you think about systemic root causes. so they actually found that in a lot of restaurants they have the a, b, c grades like sanitation grades, so new york schools actually have those grades, but they weren't required to be public. so they actually did go to the state legislature but this was the right body to go to in this case and got the state legislature, they successfully convinced them to pass a bill that now requires schools to publish their sanitation grades. now, that doesn't necessarily mean that right away that cold pizza will become gourmet, but i think what it did get them to realize is oh we care about cafeteria food in our school and we're going to learn about how the state legislature works using that and making that

relevant to our own lives and expanding that so it's more relevant in the community too. so that's how action civics works. very similar to the framework senator graham did. but really going in on local issuing, figuring out the cause and how do we get civics and politics to be exciting when i saw emerging democracies growing up. and i do think we have a moment in this country and you'll see this in response to parkland, are recognizing the relevance of democracy and government in their own lives. and that's the knob that needs to be turned. >> thank you so much. i want to bring carolyn into the conversation who is ceo of rock the vote. so this panel has been focused on what happens in schools and how schools and educators can better prepare students to be active citizens. but the goal of a civics education, as senator graham was challenging news the green room earlier is to prepare students throughout their lives to be active citizens, to participate in their democracies. we have to look beyond schools and think about the whole continuum of how you engage young people. can you tell us what you've learned about youth engagement more broadly and specifically

how rock the vote is contributing to helping young people? >> well, first, thank you for having us. i think as ben discussed on the panel already it's timely, and i hope if anything has come out of the tragedy in parkland, that it is that the students there are disabusing everyone in the country of something that we know at rock the vote, that young people are engage and they have very knowledgeable. and that with agency and with civic education and with empowerment, that they actually will move things. i mean, the issue we see is because of the state of civic education, a lot of young people when they turn 18 or get out of their traditional institutions of higher education, that they are not prepared at all and they have inherited a very broken system. excuse me. and so what we do at rock the vote is our mission is to build political power for young people, but that involves a lot

of things. and civic education is part of that. so one of the pieces we have seen that young people are really questioning the poweror of their vote in a very serious way, and are seeing other avenues. so that's why you are seeing a lot more protests in the streets from issues like black lives matter to gun violence and a whole slew of different issues. so one of the things that i think civic education both in the schools and out of the schools can do a better job of is really tying to it the issue, tying their civic participation to the issues that impact their community. because i do think -- and impact their daily lives. because i do think there is a very big disconnect when they're 18 years old of how do these issues actually impact my day-to-day life. and if you can bring it down to the community level, it's both a strategy and a tactic to get them engaged. so that's sort of the first step is showing them that they can have impact with their vote or

by approaching a state senator or a state representative or whoever their elected officials are that move the issue. but then also educating them on the registration and voting process, quite frankly. that should be part of civics education. it is different in every state. it is terribly confusing. and purposely so. so those are just some pieces that we work to do is guiding people through the process. >> wonderful. thank you so much. now i want to get into some of the solutions, particularly some of the policy solutions and love to ask stefanie and also scott, one of the things that has emerged in a number of states and a product i would encourage you all to pick is up the state of education. my colleague and i did a 50-state analysis of what the state of civics education is in every state. and one of the solutions is requiring students to take citizenship test. and i'm curious what your

reaction. will this actual le get at some of the low voter registration rates we're seeing? we'd love to hear any of thoughts on that as a policy solution. >> i think the citizenship test in preparation of this, i took it online this weekend. just will tell you kind of how i spend my weekends. so it's 100 questions. and it's quite rudimentary. like 17 states i believe have done this and actually met when i was in arizona before the holidays, i met actually the state senator who saw that as a step one. so i think, one, it is it's step one. it's by no means the answer. no assessment. assessment simply is some sort of measure of knowledge. but the idea that this would somehow be too high a bar, just to give you an example of a couple of the questions that are on the test. we elect u.s. representatives for how many years? who was the first president?

who is president now? so the test itself took about 15 minutes. and it was a series of questions that were as simple as this. so a couple of things. one, it would be i think a terrible idea if that were the end. right. that if the idea of civic knowledge you need to it be able to answer sort of 100 i would say elementary school type questions. but i do think that having that as a step one, because senator graham talked about just how little civic knowledge there really is, that, you know, the idea that two thirds of americans cannot name the three branches of government. arne duncan said, however, 75% can name all three stooges and at least one judge on "american idol." so maybe this isn't such a terrible place to start. >> yeah, i think it's interesting, because i think there is almost a distinction between the policy and the

politics of it too. i do think that this is a time that requires innovative policy solutions to the problem. so we can talk through some of them. but i think that's important. and i think -- i agree with stefanie that every american should be able to pass this citizenship test. i don't think that's a high bar. i think the challenge is -- and i don't know if i have a particularly strong personal opinion on it, but the challenge is are schools going to use that as step one, or because it's becoming assessed is that going to be the sort of end game. and so that's the fear, right. to sort of extend other analogies, you don't teach science just by teaching the periodic table. so it's important to know the periodic table which is probably inordinately harder than the citizenship test. but that's -- it's almost as you were saying, i don't know if the periodic table step one, but

it's integrated into the overall teaching, right. so if we are saying after an effective civics course you should be able to pass the citizenship test, i think that that makes sense. i think the challenge is, and juanita can maybe weigh in on this too, are teachers going to see oh, this is another requirement. i have to teach to this. and, therefore, not necessarily going to integrate everything else that makes a civics course effective. now, i don't know, but i think that's the fear that -- and we have been working in legislation in massachusetts this has been integrated into it with everything else. when it's a stand alone policy that gets to the politics piece, that gets me a little more nervous. but i don't know how you would think about that it if that were in your class. >> okay, so i actually played around with it in a couple of years. and at the beginning of the semester i had my generation citizen class and social studies both take the test. actually we had some teacher assistants and special educators in the classroom who took it

along with us just for fun, i guess. and many of the adults didn't pass it. and many of the students obviously didn't pass it either. they are 8th graders. and then we did it like midterm, and then at the end of the school year. and i did see scores definitely went up. did anyone pass it? i think a few people, a few students passed it, but it was kind of like set aside. it wasn't the focus for the year. that said, i don't think that it should definitely be a graduation requirement, because i know that's been floating around. because it sets our bar pretty low. i mean, the 15 minute test, that's pretty low. i think my students were able to show their civic knowledge in different ways, talking about

bills, reading a bill and pulling out the important parts of it, and then making suggestions as to how we could improve it. there is some way we can assess that to make this more increasing the standards and our expectations for our students. no, go ahead. >> i was just going to say, i think building on that, there is the knowledge piece, right, we are talking about, there is knowledge needed. but there is also skills that go into civic education. you have deliberation, collaboration, public speaking, writing, critical thinking, and those are increasingly important when we are talking about more and more of what we're accessing is actually online. and where we need to be able to teach kids to discern what's real, what's not, how to think about different issues, especially as we are becoming more polarized as well. >> i think generation citizens is such an excellent model.

i mean, if we think about that you need to know things and be able to a do things and be able to apply, where can you find the information or where these decisions are made. i love of the idea that you have to practice. it's a noncontroversial idea that you have to practice the piano. it's a noncontroversial idea that you have to practice free throws to get better at basketball. but somehow we don't think about it in education, but specifically civics education, and i think that as i've gotten to know this model, is particularly that focus on localism that says okay, here is a problem. how do i learn about that problem? how do i learn where it can be solved? how do i learn about the mechanisms of government? sajd it's through that, learning something, and doing something and then having an impact locally which is much more likely closer to a community, that builds its own sense of agency. and i suspect you would find from your students, then once you do that, then you can have the agency and the sense

that then i can do more. i can recruit other people and be more active in my community. and i think that generates a virtues you cycle of increased participation. >> one more thing on that. almost like i'd prefer a local citizenship test. because i do agree on that. so if you know that, you'll know who is the president is. and do you know which branch of the government the chief of police is in rather than do you know the three branches of government. we were talking about district attorneys and how that's galvanized. do you understand what the district dorian does, what their office actually allows them to do and the branch they're in, as opposed to what the executive, judicial and legislative all do. i do think sometimes the bar can be set too low. >> i'm sorry. >> i love that idea of having a local citizenship test. oftentimes in my class i would have chart paper on the wall with the three branches. but under that we weren't looking at federal.

we weren't even often looking at state level. we were looking at where does the school board committee fit in. and how do they end up on the school board committee, because in many different communities, it's done differently. in different communities. and who are these folks? let's learn about these people making extremely important decisions from cold pizza on friday to what am i wearing, to where is our money going to. and i think that helps make this whole idea of government and democracy less abstract and less daunting and less scary for our students at a very early age. my first generation citizen class was sixth graders. and they decided -- they were upset about a lot of different things. and in the end, they realized they didn't really have a voice in our school. so they said, well, you know, how about a student council, how about we become part of a government, and they created student government, and started

from that student government dealing with, okay, what do we think of the uniform policy? what do we think of our food and contacting the actual folks that deal with the food? so i think definitely having the focus on the local government is so much more powerful for our students in k-12. >> and is this, carolyn, where do we start with this? is this idea that you find out what drives students, what motivates them, what connects in their lives, then you build a civics curriculum around that? that's sort of what i'm hearing but i wanted to directly ask. >> me? >> yes. juanita and carolyn, how do you tap into young people to get them engaged? what are the most powerful sources? >> it is issue driven. it is also the idea the idea that they can have agency. so usually you can see that more on the local level in the community. so one of the things we focused on in 2017 was actually municipal elections.

for instance. we provide an election center that breaks down what offices actually do, what the responsibilities are, who is running for them, we have links for the websites and social media, everything that you could possibly want. and we did that in 2016 as well. in 2016, we have 4 million users access the information. in 2017, it was obviously lower than that. but we also teamed up with local groups to develop voter guides that were issues impacting their community. so young people were designing questions and then contacting candidates and getting the answers to those questions. then we would post it onto our website. and because our name was associated with it, a lot of times the candidates were actually more responsive to them. >> i think that one of the things that we do really well, and there is always room for improvement, so we are working on it still, generation citizen

is creating a democratic classroom culture. and that's ensuring that our curriculum and the space that it's taught in is very student centered, student driven. because it is an action base. it's project based learning, essentially, when you talk about it in educational terms. so ensuring that students have a confidence to speak, the vocabulary, the activities to look at the different issues. so we start with creating a classroom constitution. how are we going to approach the semester? and we focus -- we emphasize that it is a living document. so throughout the semester there are points where, you know, we are in a classroom with 28 kids, it's not always going to be lovely all the time and roses. let's stop and go back to the constitution. what are we doing well? what do we need to work on?

do we need to make edits? remind our self moving forward, let's remind ourselves of how we're supposed to be working and then moving forward, creating a sense of confidence and ownership for what they're doing. also comes from consensus building which i think we do a nice job of, and it's a really fun activity that very often turns into a lively debate with, you know, students sharing very personal feelings on many different topics where they are deciding what issue they're going to focus on as a whole class for the entire semester. so you need some class bye-in. and even when you don't have 100% of students, which i don't know if that's ever happened, 100% of students excited than one issue that they're going to work foreign entire semester, we also focus on tapping into everyone's skills. you know, are you really good at writing? how do you feel about, you know, are you kind of extrovert and

are okay calling a legislator on the phone or calling the community activist? or do you love to do research? well, you could be on the research team. so we have the action research component that helps with that, too. so i think having, again, student led, student centered, and a space for everyone to be able to participate at some level during the semester make it a very powerful program. >> great. so pulling up to the policy level, if you could design the perfect set of requirements, i'm interventions, i'm curious, as a state policymaker, stefanie, what would you put in place? it sounds like you think the citizenship is a reasonable baseline. would you add things on top? i know you are very well aware of all the different mandates and challenges and things that schools are trying to accomplish these days. >> i think, i mean, the campaign for civic mission of schools has got a policy agenda out, and i would highly recommend that.

and it looks at how do you sort of teach, how do you teach sieve have i beens, how do you give meaningful responsibilities, how do you engage in the community, how do you have within school activities that develop agency. i think policies are pretty blunt instrument for this. just even where people very much agree here, and there is a lot of vitality and imagination within this sector right now, so i think i would look at the campaign for the civic mission of schools. they have a lot of history and making real progress, a number of states are taking action right now. but to have some humility about getting sort of too muscular about policy, about policy right now. because i do think we are in a moment where, whether it's the events in florida, the increased participation, the innovation

within classrooms, i think renewed interest in civic action, rather than trying to get one size fits all to really set baselines and allow for a lot of experimentation and variation. >> so i agree with all that. and so we actually, along with a broad coalition, are just releasing -- or it's not us, but the state legislature that is releasing a bill in massachusetts. so sort of building on what's been done in florida. what's been done in illinois. and it's pretty robust policy. and the way that this came about was talking to folks like eye civics which does online games for civics education which was started by justice sandra day o'connor. talking to the jfk museum. so it really is a crossorganizational collaboration. so what the bill will do is provide different options schools could get.

so it's looking as a graduation requirement, students should take some sort of civic project twice before they graduate. it will have that increase. it will increase funding for teachers to engage in this professional development because that doesn't happen right now. and actually launch some sort of almost like a spelling bee for civics in massachusetts just to get students thinking about this. so i think it will be interesting. it's trying to be one of the more robust policies that are out there. and massachusetts legislature has made this a priority. so it will be interesting to see what happens. the second thing, and this goes more on stefanie's point, i think there is an opportunity just beyond state level policy which i do think is important and you've seen in illinois and florida specifically and engage in some interesting work, largely around funding an assessment. so i think these are two of the latter points. but we always talk about schools as having a historical mission and having a historical purpose, but we don't really talk what that means.

and so i'm curious if there is a way to almost incorporate democracy in educating young people to be citizens as more of a framework for schools. so rather than just a civics class. i think civics classes are important. i also think it's relatively insufficient. if all we are talking about is one class and that's what policy will do is get one class in 8th grade, i don't think that's enough. so the way we started thinking about it a bit, and this goes to what juanita was talking about as far as culture be, how can schools a class that is relevant. democratic and engage in the community around them. so that means in science class measuring the ph levels of water to see if it's safe. in establish class they're writing letters to the editor using persuasive communication techniques. and math class traffic patterns to solve that. so thinking about it holistically as opposed to policy as blunt instrument, i think they both have to happen at the same time. >> i like how you said that.

and actually, the school i was teaching at, a middle school in providence, they actually began this year focusing on civic -- they're call it a civic strand in the school. so trying to do some of what scott is just mentioned. so i'm excited to see what's that going to look like. and if any other schools around the nation are working towards that. because i can see how that could definitely be a really great way to approach this. >> are there information sharing networks between states? do you feel like there has been a surge of interest in this issue and people are talking? i think you are probably a lot of these conversations, scott. >> a lot of talking. >> there is it a lot of interest in it. i don't have a sense of there being a lot of great robust infrastructure yet to be able to share best practices or to have states -- to have states collaborate. i think you've seen among the service groups, national service groups, you've seen their

coalition for service, your service idea. we've had conversations with them, this sort of the civic education committee. if we believe you need sort of knowledge skills, can we bring the knowledge people together with the skills and agency people. and i think very much to what scott was taking about, which is how can you then have these be really authentic experiences. i love scott's perspective which was is to work on real world problems because we see young people like to do that. sort of the great progress debbie meyer said young people need to come into contact with a range of adults that they can see themselves becoming. and the range of high school in particular has become really insular. and implicit what each of us are talking about is some way to better engage young people and the problems in their communities, that's a way to build relevant -- tie the knowledge to relevant experience and build that sense of agency that they can and should be

engaged in problem solving in their communities. >> you mentioned something i wanted to pick up on, which is cord of the knowledge piece is information you are getting is accurate and that you can discern fact from fiction from opinion. and how -- we have obviously seen a prevalence of fake news, and this is a challenge that young people are facing. with just a wealth of information across the internet. how does civics education help solve that problem if at all? scott? >> that's the issue of the day. i mean, i do think that media literacy absolutely has to be a component of civics education in trying to figure out how you distill real news from news that might not be as accurate. that's something, again, i think focusing on the local is really important. i think i read a stat the other day that 65% of millennials get the majority of their news from facebook. so that's just a fact, right? that is happening. so i do think there is more news literacy that needs to happen. i also think, not to badger on,

but i think the companies and the social media networks need to do a better job too and recognize their responsibility. because just seeing it as open marketplace, it's going to put too much pressure on educators and on young people themselves to be able to distill that. so both of those have to happen at the same time. and it's interesting, but i do think there is as civic agenda figuring out how you actually regulate. i'm punching above my pay grade here, but how do you actually regulate some of those folks so they actually see it as part of their mission. because if you have 60, 70% of young people getting their news from facebook, they have an obligation to figure out how to help distill that too, at least in my opinion. >> carolyn, you've done a lot of work in digital agency, any information on this fake news question and how we can help solve it? >> yeah, i don't -- like scott hope that some of the social media platforms take responsibility and do what's

right. but i also think that the action civics model of creating and helping students build critical thinking skills and deliberating and figuring out what is opinion and what is fact and what is fake are important. i also, one thing we haven't kind of discussed here, but i think can come into that, is the support that we need to provide teachers who kind of take on things that may in their community seem more political or may be political. excuse me. and i think that's a real challenge that a lot of teachers are facing. and need to beef up the districts to support them. but in terms of digital, it is something that is not going away, and needs to be addressed. and there are great groups doing a lot of research on this, but needs to be better incorporated with civic education definitely. >> so we don't have a ton of time left before we get to your questions. and i want to do a quick round-robin.

carolyn, you sort of touched on this in terms of supporting teachers. we'd love to hear any advice you have for educators or policy makers as they are thinking about this issue. does anyone want to start? carolyn? >> i just have one piece that we haven't actually addressed that i think we all work in so deeply but isn't part of the conversation a lot is just the inequity in civic education also and how -- i think winnie said a quarter of young people pass the civic assessment, but wealthy white students were four to six times more likely than hispanic and black students to be considered proficient it. so that needs to be part of the conversation if we are having assessments and having these, then support and resources really need to go to the places that are needed and have equity. >> by the way, incredibly important. thank you for underscoring that. >> and along with that, we also know black, brown students and students in low income areas, a lot of the urban areas, have never had, and will never have

experienced things like a debate, a classroom debate or like mock trials or any of these wonderful things that we know creates critical thinkers or help create critical thinkers. and i think that in terms of supporting a teacher, i know i took on a lot more than i could probably handle a lot of times trying to make sure my students had access to and were exposed to as much as possible during that time, that short amount of time they were with me, and i wish i could have done more. and i know that that's a big struggle. because if you are a teacher, you are here for a reason, and you mean well, and you want to do the best. but we simply often don't have the capacity to do it. so creating that for us is just critical in order to keep moving

civic education into, you know, what we want it to look like and to ensure that we do have future active students. >> such an important point. >> i think the last thing, and this goes off these comments, and we didn't touch on this as much, but just ensuring that we are listening to the students and students' voices are omnipresent in these conversations. so when asking what the best type of civic education is, ensuring that we are listening to them when we are talking about news literacy. i don't even know the platforms young people are engaging on these days. so actually listening to them and figuring out what they are engaging on is really important. and i think it goes back to what's happened in the last week. and i think what's been so powerful about students from florida is that they have made themselves be seen as legitimate actors. they were seen as legitimate actors from the start, but their specific knowledge on this and their passion. and i think this is halls what i believe in the power of young

people, their ability to see the world what it can be rather than what it is. whereas when we get into these gun control debates there is extensive stagnation, we know how this is going to end. they are not seeing that like that right now. and that's something incredibly powerful. so making sure we are not talking about civic education doing to young people, but working with them to co-construct the democracy that we want rather than the one that we have today. >> stefanie, any final thoughts? >> the theme of listening, a number of us were at the newseum in september. a wonderful day-long discussion of civic education. and one of the highlights is justice sotomayor spoke at the end of the day. she has taken over the chair of the board of i civic, which is what justice o'connor, the group that she started.

and gave a lovely talk. and walked through the crowd and took questions. i mean, sort of one on one. and there was a moment, there were young people there, and so i want to say, yes, we need to listen to the young people. but also we need to listen to each other. so there was a young undergraduate who was just sort of like seething in response. and she said -- said to the justice, her question, was how can you talk about all of this free speech when so many people are just so wrong? what do i do? and by the way, that's exactly what happened in that. the adults were like, okay. and she put her happened on that young women's shoulder and said, listen, and i do think that as we talk and consider knowledge, agency, voice, protest, that the flip side of that is that, yes, we listen to young people, but we also listen to each other.

>> great way to end. thank you so much. we would love to take your questions. if you could raise your hand and state your name and organization you are here with, that would be terrific. this woman in the front row, please. >> davis president of washington teachers union and i want to thank you all of you, and senator, for your comments. i am a teacher of 40 years in d.c. i was at one of the schools involved in the brown case about seven years ago when i discovered that the school was the subject of building v sharp. and of course i was excitedly telling my sixth graders about the case, and they told me they weren't interested. the school was defacto resegregated deplorable rundown 53 years after brown. and of course they complained every day about no library, no books. and i said listen, this is a chance for you to talk to the people who can make a difference. and one of the young ladies, the sixth graders said what are they celebrating, ms. davis?

they're celebrating this? we have the same books that were here in 1953. but the kid went before the city council and shared their thoughts. and i asked them to just write your council members and we'll go before the council. we did. they responded on d.c. cable. and by congressional black caucus on the 50th anniversary of brown and said can the kids come down and talk about the boling case. the bolling case, sure. they thought they would come to regurgitate the facts, the dates, the timeline. they talked about the deplorable conditions of the school 50 years after brown. and sitting in the room with nancy pelosi who asked them to come to the senate's commemoration, as a result, the school which was slated for demolition was restored, modernized, and is now sitting there in ward 7 of d.c. and students of course, and i do concur with what you said, after that project, taking the information that they learned in class, and using it to solve a real world problem for them, empowered them to believe they

could do anything else. and they did. they organized pta. and i learned from them that applying, teaching them how to apply the knowledge, and knowing that i cannot remain neutral in my classroom no matter how hard i tried was going to be the key, and allowing them to cite the problems in their school and community, used the lessons that i teached them to apply to solving those problems. and i do appreciate the message you brought this morning. because we have really lost contact with the need for civic engagement. civics in our schools, every school, and especially in these times. so thank you. >> thank you. >> gentleman in the second row. >> i have to agree with all. bill klein. i'm a retired army physician. i think with maybe one exception 50 years ago, i have never missed a vote. and i'm particularly -- i like to use the term scofflaw voters,

just like scofflaw husbands who don't pay their alimony, scofflaw voters are people who can vote but don't. most of the people you're talking about are people that aren't old enough to vote. but in the programs of your subjects i would put citizen responsibility at the center with book learning, education at one side, and experience at the other side. but my question is we talk a lot about doing things. but how do you instill the sense of responsibility in voters? you can do what australia did and require people to go to the polls. you can't require them to vote. but they have to get a ballot. or something more than that? but i really believe the main result we have from the government is almost 40% who are eligible but didn't vote in the 2016 elections, so that's why i put responsibility at the front and the scofflaw voters as responsible for what's happening now who the people that did vote on either side. >> and i'm curious -- >> carolyn, go ahead. >> one thing i wanted to say ton on that which i think is interesting from an education perspective is that i think we have gotten a little too

individualized and personalized in education writ large. and so we lose the collaborative spirit that is necessary for individual responsibility. and so that i think from education perspective, like one of the things we try to do is try to create that we are in this together, our success is dependent on all of our success. >> yeah. i think collective success is sort of one of the mantras we try and push forward. the challenges, things have changed a lot in 50 years. and it is, one, difficult to say to a young person, particularly a young person of color, it's your responsibility to vote when the system doesn't work for you. right. and we have to face that reality, because millennial generation, generation x is much more diverse than older generations. so the motivation, the persuasion to tell them that voting actually matters is very different than -- it's changed over the years.

in addition to that, you have civic education going down. our system is much more complex and especially when you talk about registering to vote and actually voting for young you about registering to vote and actually voting for young people. when you talk about voter i.d. laws that are systemically made so that young people can't participate in our system, particularly young people of color, it's harder to say it's your responsibility, get over it and participate in a system that you're inheriting that is already broken. so i just want to put that out there, but it is something i think because -- 2016, quite honestly, for some people made that argument even harder because you saw in the primary young people overwhelmingly voted for bernie. he didn't win in the primary. and then you saw young people overwhelmingly vote for hillary.

and she didn't win, right? even though she won the popular vote. so having that sense of i can make a difference, i'm going to keep voting and voting even when you don't feel like you can make a difference is really hard to get over. >> i also wonder if, and i don't think this is something that we've actually done, and i'm sure it's at the back of scott's mind at some point. is tracking the students that actually engage in actions civics, you know, during their school career. whether it's with us or any other of the wonderful organizations that also do action civics and seeing whether or not they are feeling more responsible and showing up to vote. i wonder if there is a connection there. i would imagine so. i know that, you know, there are certain cases of students that i still keep in contact with that i know are just more aware of what's going on and are more apt

to take action on things, whether very small or, you know, a little larger scale. so i wonder if there could be a connection to that as well. >> i also -- there are a group of behavorial scientists that actually studied young people and why they are less likely to vote and it's not just that they're young, they're new voters, and so without the civic education, without any sort of education of how to participate and then with increased barriers, they, one, overestimated process, they feel very uncertain about how the process actually works, like, if they actually can make impact, and then, two, they really underestimate their political intelligence and knowledge and think, i mean, in some ways someone might say it's responsible, but they don't have the expertise to really participate. so that's something also that, like, right -- and we actually at rock the vote did a -- if you

go to our website, we actually analyzed each state and assigned them a report card of how they do with voting laws and election policy and which states promote young people voting and which ones actually don't. it's really sad. >> i think the question of research is a good one, right? what are the things -- i mean, if the sort of most basic civic responsibility is to vote then are there -- do these kinds of -- whether it's the a.p. government and politics course, do any of those actually impact? and i think that that's a terrific research agenda and one we will likely undertake. >> the last thing i want to say on this, this was asked to senator graham, i think the notion of lowering the voting age to 16 is something worth looking at, especially in look am elections. >> absolutely. >> that is something you're seeing tacoma park heights, in greenbelt have lowered the voting age. there is an active bill that

will hopefully be introduced in washington, d.c. we worked on a bill in san francisco that would do that and that would give -- talking about research, there are countries around the world that do this and the voting rates are much higher, not only for young people but for adults in general. because if you're able to get young people to vote while they're still in school, demystify the voting process, especially in local elections, not just young people but people in the aggregate are participating, it would enhance and inspire more civics education. that's worth thinking about as something that would actually enhance civics education as well. >> i agree. there is a stepping stone to that, allowing preregistration of 16 and 17-year-olds which some states do as well. >> they're great ideas. i'll never forget the first time i voted. i believe that has an impact. we have time for one more question. the young man in the back. >> hello. my name is alexander hutton.

no current affiliation, just recent graduate of political science, b.a. there is a lot of talk especially in this q&a about voting and how it's the most basic civic fundamental right. short of doing something like australia mandatory at least showing up to the ballot box, the statistics there just don't affirm that voting actually matters. you have a one in 60 million chance in being the influential vote in a presidential election. you have a one and 10 million chance in being the influential vote in a statewide election. even just to bring this further, a recent school board election in my hometown of 1,200, not even a single vote would have influenced that. so how do you tie these ideas together when you look at the statistics and they say that voting is something you should partake in but when the statistics aren't there to back that up, how do you continue to make your argument? >> i think al gore and hillary clinton might disagree with that assessment, but i'm curious what other people think.

>> i -- so this is exactly the type of argument that you have to -- or the challenge that you have to overcome. i think a couple of things. one, this is where local elections are actually really important. because there are fewer people voting and you can actually make a difference with fewer votes, right? i would also say virginia, the legislature, i don't know if you guys all saw that. obviously i think you probably all did. one vote, right? if you broke down the votes in states like michigan or wisconsin or pennsylvania for the presidential election in 2016 and you broke them down by precinct, it comes down to a few votes per precinct. so i think we have to do a better job of showing people how their one vote actually matters, but it does certainly matter. >> the one -- i haven't seen this in the u.s. presidential elections so it would be interesting, but we just did a

random when rexit happened and people overwhelmingly voted against brexit. if young people voted at the average rate so the rate of every other demographic, brexit would not have passed. that's just like, there is the ability to actually change things. and, you know, i mean, yeah, the virginia legislature is in the hands of republicans because of one vote. i mean that's, you know -- >> well i really want to thank generation citizen and scott and juanita being our partners and all of our expert panelists taking their time to share their expertise and thoughts with us and all of you for coming. i hope you'll continue to push for civics education in all of its forms. thank you so much. >> have a good rest of the day. we'll see you again soon.

earlier today, the house armed services committee held a hearing on military operations to counter potential russian aggression in europe. you can watch this hearing again tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. sunday on c-span's "q&a," colorado college professor tom kroenen talks about hiss book "imagining a great republic." >> i think a reading of major american political classics is very nobling and empowering in terms of this country stands for something very special and the great writers like stoll and harper lee and all these people, i'm reminded, they're storytellers saying our tribe wants to be something special,

not just a city on a hill but a city that cares and loves one another and is willing to work with one another and understand that politics is indispensable to bringing our progress for as many people as possible. >> "q&a," sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. up next, the senate confirmation hearing for paul nakasoni. nominated to be the connect director of the national security agency. then a house hearing looking at operations in the congressional budget office. after that, a discussion on the future of the obama administration's school discipline directive. and now the senate intelligence committee confirm igs hearing for paul nakasone. and commander of u.s. cyber command. this is an hour and ten minutes.