Good afternoon, everyone. This is Thursday afternoon, January 21st, 1.40 p.m. Welcome to Senate Education, where we are going to be looking at Senator McCormick's bill today. I believe the number is S, I believe it's S17. 17, yes. Prior to that, I just want to mention a couple of housekeeping items, if you will, or updates. Please, following up on the multiple conversations we've had about education finance. I just want to let people know, please continue to ask the questions. They're great questions. Feel free to make appointments with joint fiscal in just work to wrap your head around these kinds of things. And if there's any, if you want to hear more, please just let me know. I'm happy to schedule additional time. If you want to do it on your own, that's fine as well. But, you know, this is something that, you know, sometimes it just takes a little while. And the questions have been great. And I just want to encourage people to continue to ask the questions. Secondly, senators may recall that we asked Jeff Fannin to take a leadership role in trying to understand, you know, the current situation in our schools as it relates to COVID and, you know, the current situation in our schools. And I just want to make sure that we have a sort of a post-Covid environment, if you will, around what our students, faculty and staff might need. He was hoping to come back on Tuesday with that report and share it with us. A report that I hope will work on together. And then as well as with Senator Kichl and appropriations and Senator Lyons and health and welfare and other things like that. So I just need some additional time. So I would expect that a little bit later in the week. Great. So, Senator McCormick. It's an honor to have you here as many of you know, Senator McCormick was once the chair of this committee. Certainly somebody that is a deep thinker about educational issues. I appreciate him very much putting this topic. On our calendars by entering this bill. And I would like to thank you for that. Thank you. Senator McCormick. So. What I've asked. Senator McCormick to do is to take us through the bill. We'll then hear from the members of the agency of education to talk a little bit about what's happening. Right now statewide as it relates to civic education. We'll then hear from Mark Snelling. And one of his associates associates from the Snelling Institute.  And we'll then hear from Mr. Sgar. Sorry, Brad, from the American Institute on progress. I know I'm getting the name wrong, but, and then a doctor, Levinson from Harvard school of education. Also talking to us about, you know, how do we educate and foster a strong democracy in the United States? You know, there are things that can be done in schools. There are things that can be done outside of schools. And so, you know, I think it's going to foster a strong democracy and I'm sure it's, it would, it's going to take a range of things. You know, we have jurisdiction over, over education to some extent. But this is something that I think a conversation will be having with colleagues and, and what's great is we have representation from other committees on this other key committees that might also share this topic with chairs and can help us to have this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Senator McCormick. Would you mind taking us through. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, it's an honor for me to be back. This is a one of the, well, there's no unimportant committee in the Senate, but certainly the work that this committee does is, is a great importance. I want to point out a few things before I get into the bill itself. I want to point out that, although I have as much of a political ego as anyone else, I really do not have a proprietary interest in the particular language of this bill. My intention is to put the issue on the table. And I think that there, the issue calls for discussion of, of exactly what a civics curriculum should look like, how we would go about evaluating and so on. And. When I talk government in the state colleges, I would always say, you know, that a bill will often not, it's in its original form will not survive the committee process. And in this case, I welcome that. I expect this committee will improve. I'm laying an idea before you. I want to point out also draw the committee's attention to the bipartisan co-sponsorship of this bill. We are the sponsors of this bill are all over the map. Ideologically. And years ago when Joe Benning and I tried to pass basically the same bill, he and I both said that it showed how confident we each are in our own opinions. Because each of us is convinced a better educated. Public will more likely agree with me. And that. But the other thing it shows is that. Whatever disagreements we may have. Those disagreements occur in a context. Of broad agreement. We agree or should we at least theoretically agree. On the ground rules for dealing with the disagreement. We may argue over whether the pitch was a ball or strike, but we don't argue over how many strikes making out. Three strikes making out unless it's a foul ball for the third strike. There are things that are beyond argument. We're all supposed to know this. The other thing I would point out is that I mentioned that I didn't teach a government in the state college system. And people often mistakenly referred to me as a college professor. And the one real college professor. The Senate would often bridle at that and point out that I was adjunct, not, not a professor. But I would also say that I really didn't teach. Government at a college level. It was a college course, but really what I realized you teach your students at where they are. And I think we all have examples of that, depending on one's ideological orientation. They might cite different examples, but I will just do a one, for example. Was the whole controversy about whether or not. President Obama. Was a Muslim. And it was often the argument often centered on the truth or falsehood of that. That he was not a Muslim. He was. It was a Christian. The United States Constitution explicitly and unambiguously says there is to be no religious. Test for public office. When John McCain said. If Obama were a Muslim. That should, that should not be a problem. He was right. But he wasn't particularly heroic or, or noble. He was saying, yeah, the constitution means what it says. I think large, people often in terms of, say, the separation of church and state. They think of the First Amendment. The fact this is his article. Six. And it's, and it's right in there in the, in the original version. And it's still the constitution. But there are. There are all sorts of other examples. There are people. And again, I'm going to use my examples based on what. Struck me. People of a different ideology will probably cite other examples of. Just ignorance of the Constitution. I once referred to healthcare as a right. Now you might agree that it is, or one might agree that it might, might say it's not. But the response I've gotten more than once when I say, health care is a right. The response I guess, well, where in the Constitution does it say that. The implication being if the Constitution does not explicitly list a right. It's not a right. Which means. The person has not read it. The person has not read it. Which means. The person has not read. The ninth amendment. Which says the existence of a listing of rights in this Constitution shall not be taken to preclude the existence. Of other rights. Again, it's, it's not like there's a lot of wiggle room there. That's a pretty explicit. We are a Democratic Republic. People will often say we're not a democracy. We're a Republic. Well, we are structured as a Republic. We are constituted as a Republic.  And. If the demotes, the people. Are not there. Then you might have Democratic institutions. But you don't have a democracy. You have the, the analogy I would use as I remember walking in the woods once and seeing the trunk of a dead white birch. But it was still standing and I was a little tired and I went to lean on it. And it fell over and broke apart. And it was nothing but saw dust inside.  And I fear that, that, that we could find ourselves to, and we can argue over the extent to which we found ourselves, find ourselves in that position already, but one of the original purposes of public education. If we go back to the 19th century, Horace Mann and early founders of public education, one of the purposes is to equip people to support themselves. It's true to prepare people for their lives. But one of the purposes, one of the original purposes of public education is to prepare citizens. To educate citizens as to what our, the public is, how it works, how it operates. So I would, what the bill does is quite simply, it says that, that a, sets up a study of civics as a requirement for a high school student to be able to use civics as a form of formal formal and the passing of a test. That one understands the fundamentals of American civics. Now exactly what that curriculum would look like, I think would probably be a, a, a subject of debate. Just a little war story here. I tried this about 25 years ago. I introduced this very bill, And then the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Shumlin, and the Senate Republican Leader, Senator Bloomer, agreed that the bill should not see the light of day because it would be hitting a hornet's nest. It would just be too controversial. And my answer then and my answer now is bring it on. I think it would be an exciting and important debate. And yes, some people will come out of the woodwork with muddy ideas, but again, speaking of democracy, I trust that in the end, we would arrive at a reasonable curriculum. I think I could personally write it in a couple of hours, but I'm not asking for it to do that. But I mean, you wanna know how we are constituted, which is why we call that document the Constitution. What people don't know are things like, what are the three branches of government? What is the separation of powers? What is checks and balances? How does the bill, what rights does the bill of rights in the 14th Amendment protect? And then also, where have we articulated noble concepts but failed to live up to them? And what are the problems attendant to our ideals? And that will cause some controversy because there are people who would say, you don't wanna dwell on the negative that undermines patriotism. And then there are other people who will say, as long as the darker side exists, our noble ideals are just hypocritical lies. And I can tell you as a teacher of history and a teacher of government, I have been accused both of promulgating and perpetuating our racist, imperialist, sexist, exploitational founding myths. And I've been accused of undermining patriotism and running our country down. Actually, for me as a teacher, my goal was to tell the truth. And the truth is the Declaration of Independence says what it says, it's inspiring, except when it's not. And it was written by a slave holder. Both statements are true. And what we do with that contradiction is one of the things that we as Americans have to deal with. I don't think the, I think Jefferson's being a slave holder may under my discredit him, it does not fully discredit the Declaration of Independence. He somehow managed to articulate not an original or revolutionary political philosophy. It was boilerplate in 1776. Jefferson said he wrote a document that he expected every educated man in Europe would find obviously true. But nevertheless, it articulates a good philosophy of government. And our citizens should know what the Declaration of Independence our citizens should know what the Declaration of Independence says and where it comes from. And also know where the contradictions are. I guess that's my quick answer on what the bill does. Thank you. And I hope the committee can go someplace with it. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate knowing that the genesis of it and committee questions for Senator McCormick. Senator Taranzini. Thank you, Senator Campion. Thank you, Senator McCormick for being here. Nice to see you. I am one of the co-sponsors of this bill. One of the actually first bills I've been able to co-sponsor as a new Senator. And I appreciate the opportunity to sign on. I think you started off correctly. If you look at the number of co-sponsors and the vast differences and beliefs of those co-sponsors, it says something about the integrity and worthiness of this bill. And I think it's important in this day and age, especially in this day and age, where we have a country so divided and people on the left and people on the right are so passionate about their beliefs. And they have dug in their heels so much that we just don't see that balance and that cooperation that I believe the Constitution was designed for, the checks and balances that you talk about, Senator McCormick. I fear that many of our young adults and teenagers today learn about American history on their favorite social media platform versus in the classroom from a non-bias perspective. And I think it's critical that civic education is back in the schools and people, just what you said as simple as understanding the three branches of the government and their responsibilities, knowing how our Constitution came to be and the importance of it and so on. So I'm proud to have been able to attach my name to this and I certainly hope that this bill becomes legislation and sees the light of day. So thank you for being here, Senator McCormick, and thank you to Chair Campion for allowing me to speak a few minutes this morning. This afternoon. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator Taranzini. Thank you, Senator. Senator Hooker and then Senator Lyons. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Senator McCormick, for bringing this up again. I'm just, my question is a requirement for graduation, but you mentioned seventh grade. And I'm wondering if you have any preference for when something, of course, of this type would be offered. I am happy to leave that to the Education Committee. All right, I remember being president of my civics club in eighth grade and then there was no other, well, there were off and on civics courses, but one of the things that I, is a little disheartening, two things actually. One was living in England for a year and realizing how much more young people knew about their country and their government than it seemed some of the kids that I knew about our government and our country. And the second thing was watching the late show with, especially with Jay Leno, when he'd go out on the streets and ask questions about government and being amazed at some of the answers that he got. So I think you're on the right track and I too am happy to cosponsor this bill. Thank you, Senator. And I was grateful for your support, Senator. Senator Lyons. Thank you and thank you, Senator McCormick. This is such a timely topic. It's not just today, but it's every day and every part of our history. So I guess I have some very practical questions to ask and what your experience, of course, I remember when this was taken up when you introduced it years ago and the majority leader or the minority leader and the pro tem put a cap on it. But I do not, and I know that the house introduced a bill similar or like this bill in 2018. I don't know whether it was the same one or not, but they had 79 or 80 or so sponsors equal to what we're seeing here with your bill. In other words, a distribution of political beliefs, which I think is absolutely terrific. I guess my question boils down to how this requirement affects local control issues. So going, you know, we all have, I think we're all well steeped in the need for civics and democratic education. We really are, and I think, you know, we see some of it, but I know what the, I also know what it means to be on a school board when people are telling you what you have to do and what you have to teach. And even with the student individual learning plans that we put in place, there was pushback at first and then everybody loved it. So I don't know, have you thought at all, given your experience with this about the effect that this is going to have at the local level, is it gonna be seen as some heavy handed top down edict or is it going to be seen as really reinforcing democracy? I can imagine things really going off the rails town by town. If, you know, if the state doesn't give some guidance as to what it is we're looking for, we do leave a lot to local control, but we already have state curriculum requirements. And what I'm looking for, where I'm seeing ignorance is not controversial or extreme stuff. It is things like what are the three branches of government? What are their different powers? And, you know, if you really want to get into it, also why this branch has this power and that branch has that power and so on. My sense is that we could find a curriculum that pretty much everyone agrees on. I would hope we could. By the way, I want to correct something. I misspoke when I said 25 years ago, the majority leader and the minority leader conspired. Actually, it was the pro tem Shumlin and the minority leader, Senator Bloomer. I was the majority leader. Oh. And crashed. I supported my own bill. But, you know, in any case, I think I understand the possibility, two possibilities. One is that it would be seen as heavy handed governing from Montpelier. And secondly, it could be seen as you could have some mayhem out there depending on the town, depending on who decides to come to the school board meetings and work on the curriculum. I think what we have to do is really, and this is why I think we'll make a good discussion, is identify what are the areas that my Republican colleagues and I agree on. Because there are a lot. And that's the kind of stuff that we need to emphasize. So we have two folks from the Agency of Education. Senator Lyons, did you have a follow up? No, I was just gonna say that my son-in-law went through citizenship. And he had a great fun quizzing me about what he knew. I answered all the questions, just so you know. But- I was just gonna ask. It was Nip and Tuck. How many members of Congress are there? Right. Go for that one. Anyway, thank you. Great. Senator Chinden, you're muted, Senator. I think it's your end. Try it again. For me now. Yes, perfect. My apologies. So I completely agrees that it should be in every high school curriculum. I know I think fondly of my PWOT, Public and International World Affairs class from South Burlington High School. The only pause I had in why I didn't respond to your email looking for co-sponsors is, I just don't know if politicians should be deciding curriculum. And I'm new to this role. That's why I'm really glad that the Department of Education is coming on next and they can give us an idea of how curriculum standards and requirements are usually established. And to make sure the right people around the room are seeing how this fits and balances with all of our school guidance that we offer in the state. That's a perfect introduction. Thank you, Senator. I am going to now move it to our two colleagues in the Agency of Education. Martha, wonderful to see you. Jess, great to see you. Very grateful that you're both here with us today. And what we're hoping, as I believe we mentioned in our introductory comments in our outreaches, is an understanding of what's happening right now throughout our schools as it relates to civic education and educating for a democracy. Pre-K through 12, what's out there? What's happening? What kinds of standards exist? It also to Senator Chittenden's good question, in general, how do these things get established? How is it that one might alter a civic education curriculum? And then just your general thoughts on the bill itself. But I'd like to start by having you both introduce yourselves to the committee. Hi, I'm Martha Dice. I'm the Global Citizenship Specialist at the Agency of Education. So I oversee social studies, world language and financial literacy. Thank you for having me. Hi, and for the record, I'm Jessica Carolus. I'm Division Director of Student Pathways Division, which oversees personalized learning, proficiency-based learning and coordinated curriculum, local comprehensive assessment systems, career technical education, flexible pathways, summer and after-school programs, adult education, education technology and remote and continuity of learning. Thank you both. I'll let the two of you take it from here in terms of which of you would like to begin the conversation? Sure, and we did actually have a question for you Chair Campion, which is do you want us to display the materials we sent over or do folks have those in front of them? Committee, do you have them in front of you? Is that convenient? Senator Chenzi, do you have them also? I just wanna make sure everybody has them. All right, so let's display them so we all have them if that's okay. That would be great. Thank you. I think Jess is gonna display them and I'll start. And I'm not gonna read them verbatim to you since you do have access to them, but I'm gonna highlight some of the things that we've been doing over the last three plus years within the agency to support strong social studies and civic education, K-12. I'm not seeing, all right, as anybody else.  Okay, sure. All right, so I'm sure you know, Title 16, chapter 23 talks about the learning experiences that should be provided in a minimum course of study, which includes citizenship, history, and government in the United States and Vermont. And it defines a minimum course of study as a learning experience that's adapted to students' age and ability. So it's a learning experience. And then education quality standards, 21, 20.5. And then education quality standards, 21, 20.5. Enumerates the content that should be addressed annually. It should be rigorous and relevant and comprehensive learning opportunities. And global citizenship is one of those items enumerated and it's broken down into, I think, five areas with civics being one of them specifically called out. Moving down with these initiatives and leadership and right when I started at the Agency of Education, I was asked to present for adoption new national standards to the State Board of Education which I did. The State Board adopted the College, Career, and Civic Life C3 framework for social studies state standards around, I think it was October of 2017. It's a framework that's divided into four dimensions with inquiry, disciplinary concepts, sources, and action as the four specific dimensions. Within the disciplinary concepts, they specifically call out civics and three particular areas, civic and political institutions, applying civic virtues and democratic principles and understanding processes, rules, and laws. And this particular dimension would be the area where items specifically enumerated in the bill would be addressed. For example, the writings of Montesquieu and Hobbs and Locke, the principles of rule of law and popular sovereignty and federalism, students' understandings of the rights and responsibilities afforded within the Constitution to themselves and others. So that content piece falls right into that dimension too. I also wanted to add that's not specifically addressed in here is right after these standards were adopted, the 712 Social Studies Teacher Endorsement was revised in 2018, and they utilized the C3 standards to base the endorsement for teacher licensure and specifically called out civics within that endorsement, I think it's 3.3. So our universities, besides teacher licensing, our universities are supposed to update their syllabi with, and I believe it's two years to reflect that endorsement for any social studies teachers. Moving along Act 77, 2013 to Act 77 allowed educational experiences and different learning opportunities and flexible pathways for students. And along with the proficiency-based requirements within education quality standards, in December of 2017, I had approximately 40 K16 Vermont educators volunteer to develop K12 proficiency-based graduation requirements and indicators that are now, they were put up on the Agency of Education's website for any SUs and SDs to utilize when they developed their proficiency-based graduation requirements. They specifically called out a civics proficiency and it's right there in italics for you, Students Act as productive citizens by understanding the history principles and foundations of our American democracy and by acquiring the ability to become engaged in civic and democratic processes. So that is, as a graduation requirement, students are supposed to show evidence of civics proficiency. We also included a link to a document of a survey that was done of SUs and SDs to show their proficiency-based graduation requirements and personalized learning plans. So you have a link for that document. We also highlighted transferable skills as part of civic work that we've done in civic education because you can't learn a concept in a vacuum. The students need to actually put it into action. Transferable skills are identified within 2120.5, also in education quality standards. Within that description of skills is responsible and involves citizenship. We've provided for you a sample of scoring criteria and a sample of a transferable skill graduation proficiency. About two years ago, the Agency of Education led the development of the Vermont Portrait of a Graduate, approximately 300 members of the community. It was students, educators and members of the community who worked on this idea that's now a sort of, it's a document on our website, but they determined the six attributes that Vermont graduates should be proficient in upon graduation. Learner, agency, global citizenship is there and they identified it as students have the ability to exercise their rights in a democratic society. Okay, so those two, academic proficiency, communication, critical thinking and well-being. The agency content specialists have taken it a step further and we've all developed portraits of a graduate within our own discipline. So I share with you a link to the social studies portrait of a graduate. So within those six attributes, I've identified specific areas like civic virtue, bias assessment, argumentation, tolerance, civic engagement and deliberation that are all part of social studies. And really, as a former civics teacher, they are front and center within civics education. I bulleted some areas from the document such as students construct arguments, they become cognizant of bias and value the dissonance of opinion. They learn to practice tolerance and face when they're faced with different opinions, points of views, color, cultures, religions and understanding of gender. Within a civics class, they have the ability to analyze evidence that allows them to assess credibility of resources that represent multiple points of view with the understanding that sources may collide and differing viewpoints may alter how this data is perceived. So careful analysis demonstrates that words can communicate bias and students will be skilled at recognizing such partiality.  We also have a document to support that idea with called continuity of learning digital literacy and screen time. So you have a link to that as well. In 2018, I was asked to be a member of a civics task force made up of educators, administrators, curriculum directors, higher education, members from the executive and legislative branch. The focus of this group was to sort of look at the state of civics education within Vermont. Several of the task members had the opportunity to present a module at the 2019 Vermont annual Social Studies Alliance Conference. We were very well received from educators and members of the public that attended the conference. Great questions were asked and we actually picked up people that wanted to be part of this task force. COVID kind of curtailed the subsequent meeting, but hopefully we'll be getting that back together. We the people is a program from the Center for Civic Education. It's where students have the opportunity to work in teams, to present four minute response to civic related questions. They are then asked six minutes of impromptu questions. I brought this program back to Vermont. I'm not quite sure how long it had been in hiatus, but in March of 2020, we had three schools, two of which received resources from a grant provided from the agency of education. So three schools, Williamstown, Pultney and St. John'sbury competed. We had one legislator and 15 members of the Vermont Bar Association serving as judges. I have a pretty amazing quote that I gleaned from one of the participants on how these kids took their content knowledge and sort of tied it to their everyday life in Vermont and in the nation. Both Pultney and St. John'sbury qualified to compete at the national finals, but COVID unfortunately ended that opportunity. I was not, and I think due to COVID I wasn't able to pick up any Vermont teams this year, but I did get great interest from the judges that participated offering to help prepare teams in the future. Finally, late in late spring 2020, I was approached by a nonprofit in Charlotte, North Carolina where I taught civics and education, civics and financial literacy and civic education for 20 years. I guess because of how I see civics as really community involvement, I was sort of seen as the civics guru in that system and within that community. So I was approached with the idea of developing US history and civics modules tied with peace education. So Secretary French, well, my division director and Secretary French both gave me the opportunity to continue this work. So I have been utilizing the C3 standards and working with teachers in Alabama and North Carolina and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte as well as the New Gen Peace Builders to develop eight inquiry modules based off of the Institute of Economics and Pieces Eight Pillars of Peace. Like of a well-functioning government and acceptance of the rights of others and acceptance of neighbors or some of the pillars that we worked off of. We developed modules and I have a couple of names there. Can harm be mended? Did the civil rights movement end? Has the US lived up to the creed inscribed on the Statue of Liberty? This beta PD professional development will launches on January 28 where teachers from both Alabama and Vermont will be working together through this professional development that will culminate in May. And I guess that's it. I covered the six ideas that were in the document that we've provided for you. Thank you. Before we move on, let's take questions on this section. And if I might, can you just say something about when civic education starts? Is this something that starts in high school, middle school, primary school? We look at it across the K-12 continuum and to be completely honest with you, I was asked to tie the C3 standards with the Vermont, it's the Vells, Vermont early learning standards because it starts in kindergarten or earlier to be a good citizen. It's not something that you wait until you get to high school. Senator Perslick, please. Thank you. And thank you, Ms. Deist, for the presentation. I think you're doing great work. I'm really interested in hearing your collaboration with our colleagues to the south on the peace modules. And one of the reasons I didn't sign on to this bill is because my experience with my own kids going through Vermont's programs is that they are getting a lot of civics. And it seems like A&E have been doing a lot of work on civics. And so I just, it seems with what you didn't say, but what I take away from your presentation is it's kind of a solution in search of a problem. Would you agree? All right, Martha, you don't mind if I take this. And Senator Campion, I'm not sure. Do you want us to present the second portion, which I think answers a second question you'd asked around, what are schools doing and an evaluation of the bill? Sure. Is there anybody that has any questions before we move on anything for any recent pause right now? Otherwise, we'll go ahead. Okay, please go ahead. Thanks. Because I think it will address Senator Pertlick's question. And I might go ahead and just share my screen again. Can folks see that? And Jeannie, a process question. Someone's in the waiting room. Do you want me to let them in? Jeannie will take care of that. Thank you, though. I'm just not sure if I have the screen if she can. That's okay. They can. Okay, so great. So, you know, I think a quick scan of available data from fiscal year 20, and we would just want to caveat it that it's not exhaustive. We were hustling to get some things together for you in a short period of time. And this would require a little bit more time to pull together. But in 2018, I believe, I had a scan of websites just to take a look at what high schools might be offering when it comes to civics classes. And I think it's important to recognize that when we're talking about classes, we're not talking about proficiency-based graduation requirements or proficiencies or standards in a student-centered learning state. So I believe she found 14 schools require civics class or credit for graduation, and 17 schools offer some variation of a civics class, but it's not required. A scan of our SEC data, so that's what we pull up through the SLDS for fiscal year 20. And again, this was a very quick scan with using a very rough estimate just based on naming conventions. We found 45% of SUSSDs offer a total of 305 course sections representing approximately at a low end, close to 3,700 students participating in what would be termed a civics class. But of note, this doesn't include general social study course codes, which is primarily those grades one through eight. So that's not reflected in this data. This primarily reflects 11th and 12th grade course taking. So again, we'd really wanna do a more thorough scan and we could do that and come back to the committee if folks were looking for some specific data related to this. But I think in thinking about the technical components of the bill, a survey of classes is not reflective of teaching content and practice in a student-centered learning education system that's personalized proficiency-based with flexible pathways to graduation. And I think that's important to note, particularly when we're thinking about what does it appear to be happening in the education world and what might actually be happening? Additionally, as Martha's already reviewed, Title 16, Section 165 outlines the obligations of the Vermont Public Schools and CT Centers to ensure that students are afforded educational opportunities that are substantially equal in quality. And that is inclusive of the State Board of Education Rule Series 2000, which further explicates the above statute and details that each school shall enable students to engage annually in rigorous, relevant and comprehensive learning opportunities that allows them to demonstrate proficiency in subsection D, global citizenship, which is inclusive of civics, economics, geography, world language, cultural studies and history concepts. Because our education system is proficiency-based, using terminology consistent with existing statute and rules will be important and an example would be demonstrating proficiency versus passing grade. By having even a language mismatch, you might run into some difficulties and challenges as we have a system that's still engaged in the process of implementing proficiency-based graduation requirements and suddenly we're disrupting that with a different expectation. Currently, for students to graduate, they must meet their school's PBGRs. So the PBGRs, which are standards-based and developed in accordance to Board Rule, standards such as C3, are the foundation for graduation requirements. So in many respects, we have systems in place in which students have to demonstrate mastery competency or in the state proficiency. I think just an area worthy of reflection in looking at some of the language of the bill, particularly section B, the exclusion of special education students or public students attending private schools could be construed as counter to section 165 as far as affording educational opportunities that are substantially equal to all Vermont children and is counter to or in conflict with IDAs purpose to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education. And certainly in December of 2015 with the reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act, Congress's intent was that disability is a natural part of the human experience and in no way diminishes the right of individuals to participate and contribute to society and specifically that our national policy is to ensure a quality of opportunity and full participation. And so perhaps revisiting that section where special education students are excluded would be worthy. Finally, mandating courses could contribute to disrupting systems. And in this case, talking about the education system that I think we can all recognize has already been weathering a pretty profound disruption and further exacerbate equity gaps for student groups. But I think what we can all agree on and what I was hearing is that we all firmly believe in the value of public education system, the importance of civil discourse as well as civil discord, which I really appreciate people attending to as well as the importance of preparing our students to be an informed component of our citizenry. So, in thinking about achieving the intent of S17, certainly students demonstrating proficiency and meeting proficiency-based graduation requirements shouldn't necessarily be constrained by an organizational structure like a class because we know that in this state, our education system is driven by student-centered learning principles. We know that interdisciplinary approaches, project-based learning, community-based learning, flexible pathways are all robust avenues to developing proficiency and engendering civic literacy in a manner that's consistent with learning theory which is learning as memory that persists and that's in addition to courses. So you can offer courses, but students who are engaged in community organizing and work-based learning activities, I'm just thinking about the pages at the State House. Schools are at the intersection of humanity and I think that's important now more than ever when we think about the events of January 6th, when we think about the global pandemic, health and wellness, mental health, social skills, nutrition and predictable meals, workforce development, academic learning, equity and social justice, you could go on. How we serve and support our students as humans holistically informs as global citizens who are civically engaged in literate and that's why we mention that the role of transferable skills, the role of a portrait of a graduate, the role of the social-emotional learning competencies. Again, when we think about civil discourse, it's not just about understanding constitutional principles, but it's also about developing those social skills. I think it's also important to note that engagement strategies can often be in conflict with mandates and I think a question was raised, what might the response of school systems be? And certainly school systems that have been managing a lot, particularly now and are still in the throes of implementing previous unfunded mandates that to switch up a structure may be challenging and may not achieve the goals of S17. And then finally, I would just say, supplement supporting implementation of existing statute and role through professional learning, through coherence making through the grant funding that Martha described is really an effective means of achieving stability and positive student outcomes such as students who have civic literacy and are engaged in the citizenry. So I'm gonna stop sharing now. Thank you. So I was very relieved to hear that Center for Purchase of Children were educated well in terms of civic education. Is that true throughout the state? Is what's, you know, are we, do we have that same robust experience would you say in all of our schools or are there areas that schools that might not be receiving that robust experience that Center for Purchase of Children received and are there areas that I think in general I'm just wondering if folks were to look at Vermont and say are the schools, are we in terms of education doing our part, you know, to foster this strong democracy realizing that there are other issues around healthcare, you know, equity workforce, those kinds of things. But would you both, I'm trying to get a sense of how you would assess us and are there things that you would recommend that we might need to do going forward? Yeah, I think it's a legitimate question and, you know, one would be engaging in hubris if you said, yes, because we're a local control state, right? So there is by design variability. I think what would be helpful is to at least be afforded the opportunity to do a thoughtful scan, one in which we know that we've got folks who have been engaged in equity literacy work or media literacy work, which by the way, draws in some of these same principles and concepts. And so to the degree that you would run the risk of saying, this school is not doing anything, but because they're doing it and it's couched or phrased or described in a different manner. And so I think that that's what we're hoping to do. One through a sort of quantitative analysis, which is like how can we pull up from the set codes, do an analysis of that and then get you some better data related to that. But I think also having that opportunity to say, what are all the other things that schools are doing and how they're communicating what it is that they're doing that really gets at this? Because I think we're all in agreement, right? I mean, we wanna see this happen. What I wouldn't wanna see happen is that we, one of the dangers of putting things in a class is that it can become something that you complete or you check off, right? We know that that was a risk with PLPs as opposed to infusing it through curriculum, interdisciplinary approaches, through the activities, right? Those extracurricular activities, those afterschool spaces. So that students understand that being engaged as a citizen is more than taking a class, but it's an orientation to how you behave in the world. And so that would just be a concern that in attempting to be able to measure it more easily, we would lose the richness of those interdisciplinary approaches. I appreciate that. And going back to what Senator McCormick just wanna remind us, I think he gave a sort of a starting point, if you will, a way to have a conversation, a way to dialogue on what is, I think, you know, there are, you know, I think everyone here would agree that we do need to foster as much as we can this democracy. And it is gonna take a very holistic approach in our schools and in other committees to be working on this kind of thing. So I appreciate that. Other thoughts, please send our lines. Thank you both for all the information. When all this started, I wrote down a little phrase and I said, no, I better not say it, but it really is what you just said, Jess, that is passing a course doesn't build internalization and understanding. So, and listen, my kids were so well-educated in the system, it was great. And I won't tell you about the first fistfight I got into, so that in third grade, it was related. But I do wanna say that we are at a teachable moment. So I think this is very high in people's minds. And it's teachable in two ways. One, we look at what's happening or did happen in Washington DC is a real extreme. And then we look at Vermont, where we had one person standing in front of the state house and we don't have the same thing. That says something to me about an understanding of civics and behavior. So I guess my question for you all is, I have a couple of questions, but one is, if we were to do anything right now as a legislature to ensure that civics education received it's due, what would be your suggestion? How would we, look at your smile. We don't have money in this committee, but what would you do? What would be your suggestion to promote the type of understanding you've been talking about? Well, two things. One, I would say, I appreciate you giving me the parameters. So I'm taking one thing right out of the table. And two, I would say, I hope we can offer some suggestions now, but I know I would appreciate being able to go back and do some more thinking because it's such a great question. I wouldn't wanna miss the opportunity to add some things, but I do think that programs like We the People are a way, because it's not just about delivery of content, because you can have students take, I took a civics course, you can take that course, but if you're not engaged, right? If you don't feel tied to it, you're not internalizing, you're not consolidating. And I think activities like We the People in which you have intergenerational exposure and kids are within contexts that are real and genuine and excite them, those are really unparalleled opportunities to engage students and create that consolidation and have them continue to be engaged and wanting to have those conversations even outside of some sort of formal process. I think also bringing together and elevating, and these are things that, well, they don't require a lot of money, require some money, but pulling together educators too so that they can share principles and also connect each other's students. COVID and the global pandemic has certainly rocked all of us to our core, but it has also surfaced opportunities. The fact that I think people have actually internalized using education technology more in the classroom provides opportunities where schools can connect virtually, different classrooms can connect and have those debates and start to interact because we know that part of learning is also a pro-social process and that the socialization piece really informs and expands the learning opportunity and the internalization of those discipline and those concepts. I'm gonna have this, I'm not going to have it. I'm gonna demonstrate some self-control and I'm gonna turn over to Martha because I know that Martha has some ideas. Martha, we're having- You're muted. We're finding that sometimes people, there you go. Okay. There you go. Well, I can't help but reiterate Jess's sort of talking about the We The People program. I've been involved with it in North Carolina. I've been asked to participate in the national finals. My students hated me when I asked them to do it, asked them to participate. And then three months later in the yearbook when they were asked about their favorite things in school, what are they writing about? We the people. I had the opportunity for now North Carolina Supreme Court Justice who was so amazed that I competed with sophomores against all the other schools in North Carolina that had seniors and juniors. He was so amazed that he actually came and just hung out at our school just to meet the kids and see what was happening in a super 2000 student high school in an urban area refugee school where a program can so inspire kids to civic action. I mean, some of the things that happened in our school happened because of this program. I mean, you've seen my former school in the news for really cool things that happened within the Charlotte community. So that's a small plug for that. I think- I'll just interrupt quickly if you don't mind. Is we the people, is that a sort of a curriculum that you can use through the entire class or is it more of a competition? Can you say briefly, remind me?  Sorry, it's both. It's a curriculum. It's all students. It is. Yeah, and then the kids have the opportunity of participating in a congressional hearing and that's what makes it super cool bringing the community together to see the learning that happened with these kids and the fact that, you know, the hardest part is the six minutes of the impromptu questions. Sure. All right. One of the other things that I was gonna say- I'm sorry. I just wanna ask how it compares with girl state and boy state in terms of their experience that they get when they come into the state house? I have to defer because I'm not really familiar. Sorry, I've only been here for four years. I'm not familiar. Don't worry about it. Sorry. And I'm not, I don't have expertise in that but I do think that as we just said, we the people is for all students. So it's not a competitive process. You know, you're not selected. I believe boy state and girl state, it's not open to all, right? Do you have to apply? Okay, that is a huge difference then because all students within the class participate and that's a real important piece of this because I had, you know, my special education students that were in my class participated in We the People and the collaboration and the relationships that were developed because of being on a team with kids that you probably would never have spoken to was what really makes it a powerful program. Senator Hooker and then Senator Chittenden. So thank you, Martha and Jess. I'm impressed with everything that you've said and the opportunities that are afforded especially for professional development for teachers. And with regard to We the People, it sounds like a course. It sounds like a course to me. And I mean, I know I participated when I was teaching. I went to Yale with a group of kids from Model UN.  But it was just, in that case, it was just kids who chose to do it. But Martha, from what I'm hearing are all your sophomores expected to take this course? And then whomever has a desire can go on to the competition. Is that what I'm understanding? No, the whole class goes on to the competition. That was one of the things that really drew me to it. And yes, it could be a course. I infused it in my North Carolina state sophomore required civics and econ class, but I also was able to utilize it with my student Congress, which is, I guess, what you would call student government. So that was with 11th and 12th graders. But yeah, I mean, I think, I don't know that it was a specific civics class that she had in Pultney. And I don't think Williamstown did either. I think St. Johnsbury was a class. Yeah, and I think what we were highlighting is we provided grant funding to allow for some of those schools to participate in the competition and pay for them having the experience. And so I think continue to provide that kind of support. It is a class. And I think what we would be looking for is, and people, there are classes, there's programs of study and course catalogs and all of our schools. But what we wouldn't want to impinge is the ability for a student who participates in boys or girls state to also demonstrate proficiency through that extended learning opportunity or experience. And that, I guess the driving question that I have is, are all of the kids going to get the opportunities? And I think Senator Campion asked that about schools, but I'm thinking in a school, will all of the kids have the opportunity to have at least some connection and some exposure to what government is, what social responsibility means. And I appreciate, Jess, that you're saying infusing it across the curriculum. And I think that that's the way to do it. And I don't think that it should be one class that you take and you get a grade on. And that satisfies your responsibility, but are your requirement. But I do wonder without having some kind of guidance or program, are all of the kids going to be able to have the advantage of learning about democracy? Okay, it's a great question. Martha? I just wanted to clarify, all of the students are in a class. When I said it wasn't a class, it wasn't, I don't think that they were specifically civics classes. They were a cohesive class on the teacher's roster. Not to belabor that we the people point, but we put out the agency put out a grant for schools. Any schools to participate and they would be able to have competitions within the schools if more than one group wanted to do it. And then that's how we ended up with, we had three from the state decide, normally you only get one representative school to go to nationals, but we were selected with a wild card to be able to send two. And going back to the original question about suggestions, and I think whomever asked, you asked, I think specifically, how could we help promote? And I think that is sort of key to this. And I guess it's just because this is my thing. And I get so frustrated when I hear about, I see the commercials on TV for, I couldn't go anywhere without math and science. And you can't get anywhere without civic education. So I just think that just the fact that we're having this conversation is really important and it helps elevate the importance of civic education. So more conversations and more people involved in sharing this, I think is super important. I appreciate that and I appreciate your passion for this, I really do. And I appreciate also your willingness to take some more time and come back to us with that, with, again, what is it that you all believe after connecting with folks even more on the ground? What are the kinds of things that you need from us and what kinds of things can we be doing as a legislature to foster again this educating people for democracy? I do wanna be respectful to our next witnesses, Senator Chittenden, do you have a closing question? Really quick, I just wanna say just two things you said echo my original concern, which is the line 15 referring to a passing grade might not be the right kind of language when we need to have proficiencies and then item B regarding special education. So I don't know if there are precedent for setting standards or curricular specifics through a legislative act like this, but with this current language, I really want somebody like Jess saying this is the language that's gonna fit best with the Department of Education standards and how we can steer and guide curriculum. So those are my pauses and thank you for the presentation. Absolutely and those are great closing points. So if the two of you would be willing to again come back to us, take some time. We're taking this afternoon, as you know, to just broadly look at this topic. We have the Snelling Center in the waiting room and they're going to be joining us. And then we have two other witnesses just to again be asking ourselves across the board what are we doing? What can we be doing to foster democracy in Vermont? In this country, in our schools, et cetera. So if you don't mind, we'll leave it there. Thank you both very much. Great seeing both of you again. You appreciate your partnership and your passion for this and you know how to reach us and we'll be in touch and let's find some time to have you come back in after you've had an opportunity to assess and really look at what your needs are. Great, thanks so much everyone. Thank you very much. Great. I see our next two witnesses. Mr. Snelling, great to see you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. And is it pronounced Mr. Freed? Yes, Jerry Freed, yeah. Thanks for having us. Mr. Snelling, I probably needs no introduction but I will give him one. He's Diane Snelling's brother. That's true. Many of us have served with Senator Snelling over the years and are big fans of her. So Mark, it's great having you here as well as you Jody. You know, we are looking at civic education, educating for democracy this afternoon. We just heard from the Agency of Education around some of the things they're doing and we thought it would be important to hear from the Snelling Center around the kinds of things that you're all doing either in our schools, out of our schools, for legislators, for adults around this issue. So with that, I'll turn it over to the two of you and thanks for joining us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Delightful to see you all here today, all in your habitats. I had a screen background, but I realized just before I came on that it was of the house and that that probably would not go over well in the red carpet room. So I decided against that and went with the state flag, but delighted to be here. You know, I spent about a half an hour listening to your previous testimony and we're really involved in a very different animal than what you're specifically discussing. And hopefully there's some insights and some pieces of that that will blend over for you as you look at S17. But we don't really work with students. We work with adults. And so it's a different animal. The Snelling Center was founded in 1992 as a memorial to my father. Later added my mother's name to it. And the idea was instead of naming a bridge or a building or a road after him that we would try to espouse some of the principles that he felt were really important and that he learned in his work. And the mission of the Snelling Center is to foster responsible and ethical civic leadership, encourage public service by private citizens and promote informed citizen participation in shaping public policy in Vermont. So it's very much what you're talking about and trying to apply to students primarily I gather in high school. So we're sort of a different animal but working the same side of the street with people that are a little bit older. We over a thousand graduates. I'm proud to say that I live in Addison County and have for 43 years. Both of my senators are graduates of one of our programs. Suzanne Young, the secretary of administration is a graduate of one of our programs. Dan French, the secretary of the agency of education is a graduate of one of our programs along with 14 or 15 other members of the legislature. So we have three core programs. One is the Vermont Leadership Institute and you'll hear from Jody a little bit but Jody is the director of that program. That's for a general program, serves business people, non-profit, really a wide range of people, government employees and so on. We also have the Vermont School Leadership Project and that serves primarily principals and superintendents of schools and almost every school at Vermont has someone that has gone through the Vermont School Leadership Project. We also have done five years of an early childhood leadership institute which takes people involved in the early childhood area and gives them some of the same kinds of training that we do in the other programs. Our programs tend to be almost exclusively overnight retreats where people are able to get away from their normal day-to-day. And I would suggest that and when thinking about S17 that one of the core pieces that I've learned after 11 years of being the volunteer president of the Stirling Center is that our participants are away from their normal routines. They don't have cell phones with them. They don't have contact. And they feel as though they're in a safe space. And being in a safe space enables them to look carefully at who they are and how they want to engage in civic participation and leadership work. Most of our programs run six to eight or nine sessions. So there are weekend sessions where people primarily, you know, you have two eight hour days but you're learning a lot from the people that you're with. The friendships, the bonds, the camaraderie. And if I were looking back at S17, I would say one of the core pieces has to be finding a way to provide a different feeling than students have all day long as they run around from class to class, that the safe space feeling to try and figure out who you are, how you interact, how you might engage more in the civics of your area. That's a challenge. It's a very tough challenge. It's easier for us to do. One of the other things is we look at an arc of leadership and that arc of leadership really starts out saying, who are you? You know, we do 360 reviews where people, I don't know what the number is, 10 or 15 of your colleagues, some that work for you, some that you work for, review you and speak to your skills, your approach and how you interact with them and so on so that you can learn that feedback. We then go on to talk more about one whole session is called Know Thyself so that people focus on who they are. We then go on to talk about core values of your organization and of individuals so that you can try and elevate what's important to you. We then look at systems work. What we come to Montpelier and talk about how the systems of government work and a number of you have participated in that in the past and we hope in the future you'll be able to again when the world opens up a little bit but all of those pieces through the puzzle are an arc of leadership as someone comes to know themselves, know how the system work and see how they can get engaged. And so for S17, trying to find a way that students can find a spot to get engaged and feel comfortable doing it, I think is a key. And my prejudice is that it's hard to be a class in our school system but that's one of the other pieces that sort of has been core for me over the years is we don't try and teach everything there is about leadership, one could not do that. And so almost every class is reminded that there are nibbles and nuggets and that we try to give them little pieces that as responsible adults, they can go on and dig into further with the world of the internet that exists today. If you have a little nibble or a nugget, you can go dig it out for yourself. I wanna introduce Jody Freed who is the director of our Vermont Leadership Institute. I've been doing it for a couple of years. He also sidelines as the executive director of Catamount Arts. So he has an arts background, a business background and a leadership background. And I'm delighted to have him with us today. Thanks Mark and thank you for inviting me to join. You know, as I looked through the S17 and as I thought about the lenses that I could bring perhaps to your discussion, a couple of key things come to mind. One is dealing with the age group that you're dealing with at high school which I believe is where this is intended. I think the key is gonna be engagement. And finding a program or figuring out a way to keep the kids engaged, which is part of what Mark was talking about.  I don't know that that's gonna be realistic in public schools, but there might be some strategies that could be brought to bear there. I've seen programs and this relates directly to some of the art stuff that we've worked with over the years where there's mock trials. There's mock build creation. There's actually putting the students into the different roles and allowing them to essentially fulfill the different roles of government or civic positions where their voice is actually heard and they learn what those roles are and they actually act those out. And I think those are very effective. My son is actually UVM and he's part of the mock trial club right now at UVM. And it's incredible how much they're learning through that process in terms of the legal system. And I've seen programs in different high schools where they've done similar things where again, you're actually rather than just doing just textbook instruction or a download of information to students, you're actually engaging them in the process. And maybe that could be culminated with, in this day and age, video conferences with people who are actually doing this work, maybe people on this committee, it could be culminated with actually attending town meeting and having assignments or perhaps the different teams of the students could then go out and engage directly within their town or their local community. So that engagement piece and giving voice, I think is gonna be key to this age group. And Mark and I have had a lot of conversations about the fact that what we feel is missing in Vermont, that this could really help create is the pipeline to programs like the Vermont leadership. And getting people started earlier, allowing them in their local communities to then engage and perhaps having some leadership training at a civic or municipal level that could then create the next level of Vermont Leadership Institute or similar programs at the higher level, which then could work towards folks that would go on to serve in the legislature. And so you could create a pathway for people who everybody could engage at the level where they feel comfortable. And they could learn what those levels are and there could be different stages. So I think that this is, I think what you're doing is really important is if we don't start this at the younger ages to think that it's just gonna start on its own as we move up the age bracket, I think we're gonna completely miss the boat. And so the only other thing I would bring up is just one of the biggest focuses in leadership training right now as it relates to civics is around the interconnectivity and the complexity of the world that we're living in. And I think that that's a really important piece of this that can be demonstrated through exercises again and learned experience rather than just talking about it through a textbook instruction. So having a business person talk about what takes place in Montpelier affects their business and having a business person talk to the high school students, having one of the educators talk about the impact but relating the complexity across sectors because I think the kids will really get that and it will resonate and it will then become more relevant to them than just the, again, categorizing folks is either being involved with politics or not. So those are my thoughts in terms of having looked at what you guys are working on and how it would relate to our program and just generally thinking. One other just quick note is we are participating Catamount Arts right now in the why it matters civics and electoral participation program through the Vermont Humanities Council. The Vermont Humanities Council received a $50,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation which gave out a million dollars in grants across the country and between now and May, these programs are running all across the country to engage in civic participation. And I just, I wonder, given that that pathway has already started that this kind of a conversation picking that up with the Mellon Foundation could be an interesting. And speaking with Christopher at the Vermont Humanities Council who happens to be a VLI graduate, it might be a really nice place to find some alignment in what's being talked about right now. I might also add to Jody's statements that for 26 years and I've done the historical study, we have included a piece on diversity, equity and inclusion. And we started with about an hour of 26 years ago out of nine weekends. It was about an hour. Over the last seven or eight years, we've done an entire two-day session on diversity, equity and inclusion. Of the last three years, we have woven a thread. We've continued that two-day session, but we've also woven a thread through the entire program so that that is a core piece of going through our Vermont Leadership Institute. And I think in Vermont, as we look forward to civic participation, that that absolutely has to be a core piece of anything that's being done is for people to come to understand the diversity and the benefits of diversity that can be in Vermont's future. So I would just add that as a piece of looking at S17 and saying that's an important thread to weave in there. And it's pretty easy to do and it is very, very rewarding. We refer to it as part of our core DNA now, but it's a part of everything we do and we look through that DEI lens as we address every single subject as we get people go through the VLI experience. Midi, questions, please Senator Chinden. I just want to say, I try to live my life without regrets. One regret I have is not going through VLI. I have some great friends that have gone through, they speak very highly of it. They tried to get me in a previous class but I just couldn't squeeze it in. But I know you do great work and the alumni of your network are a testament to how great of a program you have. So thanks for testifying today. Is it possible, and I'm not sure if this is for you, Mr. Freed or Mr. Snowling, are there ways for you to engage high school students? Are there ways, are you engaging high school students in any way at this point? Would it take state funding? I'm just curious, it seems as Mr. Freed mentioned, there's sort of this possibility to cultivate this next group of SI graduates, et cetera. And I'm wondering if there are partnerships with our high schools that might make sense. I would suggest that it's certainly possible. It's technically possible. Financially, the world that we live in is scraping for every penny as a nonprofit this year in particular. That our programs are not cheap and we have really ended up particularly as we've wanted to continue the program and to make sure that as we look at diversity, equity, inclusion that we don't have finance as a method of selecting, that we end up with a tremendous amount of scholarship that has to be applied in order to continue the program. So I think it's really a financial question, Senator. Thank you. I would just chime in that one possibility which also would require some financial for the administration some support, but we do have a huge network that Mark mentioned a thousand people. And so as you move through here, there's a possibility that there could be mentorship programs set up as individuals got identified where we could find members of the our large network of graduates who are involved in civic leadership who could then mentor high school age kids. And that would be an interesting program to explore. I'm guessing we would have a high response rate within our thousand plus network. And for those students that identified themselves as being interested across the state, that would be something that would be important. Great. Good idea, Joni. It is. Yeah. I like that. It's an excellent idea. How do you get young people to select boards in the legislature, having a role, starting their own projects and initiatives in their communities? These are all great ideas. And I think we all as elected officials have to ask ourselves, even as we're doing this, how did, what was the fire in our belly to get us to where we are at? To run, to participate. What are those kinds of things? And are they things that we just experienced growing up and are there ways to instill them in young people today? Senator Hooker, you have a question. Well, I'm just thinking that Senator Lyons talked, I think alluded to the moment and what this discussion is being surrounded by really. And I think that we have to continue to talk about what we are and who we are. And I'm certainly glad to hear that the education is ongoing with adults. I always feel that education is a lifelong experience. And just to make sure that our kids have exposure to various aspects of government and society so that we can make well-rounded citizens of them. And Senator Chittenden, there's probably time for you to take a course. I think there's absolutely. I see a Senate education scholarship being formed soon. Glad to do it. Just need to fit it into my schedule. We have had our youngest participant in our Vermont Leadership Institute was 23. And she worked on Church Street and she was a new Vermont or a new American. And she walked up and down the street and solicited businesses to fund her to go to VLI. And our oldest participant was 77 years old. And so all of those people then go out into back into their world and make hopefully greater contributions because they have improved their skill set. You know, I know we have, and I'm meeting with the Folks from Governors Institute around some other things, but you know, this could, you know, is there a way to either involve our Governors Institutes or have all of you in a way bring, you know, lower the outreach in terms of age to do a high school program at a different cost, at a different, you know, a different kind of experience. Just again, something to think about. Senator Lyons. I'm good, I, you know, having, I completely agree with the need for extracurricular experiences that take people out into the real world and collaborate with mentors or other folks to learn and to really practice what they're learning. I think it's just great. Actually, I do have a question. So one of the things that I get, I have been fully engaged in are free trade agreements and the global changes that we're seeing. And honestly, this state has so many businesses that are also similarly engaged. I just am wondering whether you look at, do any kind of a sort of leadership analysis of what's going on in our local democracy as compared with the effects of free trade agreements on decision making. Cause it's a huge area, but I don't know whether that is something that you incorporate in your thinking or not. No, that's my other job. Good. I run a business that feeds me and what I do is I import copper and brass from Peru.  But no, we don't, Senator. It's more focused on the individual and the engagement of that individual. Terrific. And thank you and thanks for your good work. I appreciate it. Thank you. Senator Hooker, did you have a final question? It's a comment that I think in the times that we're living, we've seen young people rise to the occasion. And I don't know if it's because of social media. I mean, it's certainly a lot easier for kids to be involved now. It last night, I saw a young child really, I don't think she was more than 10 or 11 years old who had started a program to gather things to give to people who were in need. And she started it online and solicited products. And it's a country-wide, a national thing now. And it's amazing what kids can do. And I just, as far as S17 goes, in my estimation or in my desire for it, it's a desire to help our kids learn from a young age what our country is about, what democracy is, and how we can fit into the global scene. And I'm beginning to see it as more, as we speak to people like Mr. Snelling and Mr. Freed and the women from the Department of Education, I'm beginning to see it more like basketball players as opposed to kids taking phys ed. So we want everybody to take phys ed and become physically fit.   But phys ed gives everybody a basic understanding of the needs of the body. It's interesting, I was just thinking to myself, we had a busload of Vermonters that went down to DC two weeks ago. It's probably not even possible to interview, to talk, to say why, to kind of, again, I don't believe a course will fix or have prevented that kind of thing. But it does weigh on me, it does weigh, how can we, as Senator Hooker said, get people to really understand this country, its history, how remarkable much of it is and to kind of treasure that and to, again, foster good democratic values. One might suggest that some of the people on that bus were engaged and that depending on their actions and their motives in going, we might applaud that as a good thing as we did the various marches over the last 50 years for civil rights or for women's rights, any of those kinds of things. We want people to care, we do want them to stand with their flags, we don't want them breaking into buildings and there's a line there that is a pretty clear line and we want people to care and it is a piece of the action and that is part of what our programs, I think, help people to understand is the connection they individually have to changing the world to make it a better place and the skills that they need to bring to bear on the systems and the changes that are needed both in Vermont and country-wide to make it a fairer, more equitable place to live. I'll just chime in back to that intersectionality piece because I think it's so important. If you have the kid living in my neck of the woods in the Northeast Kingdom that's grown up on the farm, working on the dairy farm, then having somebody who is participating in government that is coming from that same background is gonna resonate with that person and with that child. And so, again, figuring out ways where you meet and you provide multiple opportunities to meet the kids where they are at in their lives from so they can find their unique voice and where they can then engage. Because that's, you know, we call it spark at VLI. Where do you find that spark and that energy that allows you to carry forward? And that's the first step in the process and you're not gonna find that in a textbook and not that the textbook part isn't important and that the basic understanding is important to give some competency. But if you're looking for spark and looking for getting people involved and increasing civic participation, that's gonna be the key component in my opinion. Thank you both for joining us. Terrific conversation. And if you do have additional thoughts or additional ideas, of course, we'll welcome you back. But we, I'm afraid, need to leave it there for now. Thank you all very much. Very much appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for all you do. Thanks. We are going to take a 10-minute break if we could just mute and close our videos and look forward to seeing all of you at 3.45. I mean, sorry, 3.30. Seeing that it's 3.30, we should get started again. I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Sargrad. Am I pronouncing your name correctly, Scott? Yes, that's right. Mr. Sargrad is with the Center for American Progress. I reached out to him after reading some of his work and thought that he too might be helpful as we have this afternoon's discussion around educating for democracy, looking at not only what's in our schools in terms of possibilities, but what external things we might be looking at and just kind of again, as I think the direction we're moving in, it's just seeing what's out there. What are the possibilities? What are some of the things that we as the Education Committee can be doing? What other committees might be considering? What we as a state might be considering? So I very much appreciate Mr. Sargrad joining us. And I believe he's joining us from the Southern part of the United States, at least Southern for Vermonters. I believe he's in Maryland. That's right, right outside of Washington, DC in Maryland. So Mr. Sargrad, if you don't mind, I'm going to let you introduce yourself. I sent Mr. Sargrad a copy of the bill that we've reviewed, looking for his just general thoughts in terms of educating for democracy. But first I thought we'd hear a little bit about who he is and the kind of work he does. Great, well, thank you so much for the invitation to come speak with you. I really appreciate the chance to share some of our thinking at CAP and it's exciting to see the work that you all are doing in Vermont on improving civics education. Obviously a key priority and also obviously good timing after the inauguration of new president yesterday. So civics lesson yesterday for all of us. Again, I'm Scott Sargrad. I'm the Vice President for K-12 Education Policy at the Center for American Progress. We're a nonpartisan multi-issue think tank and advocacy organization that's based in Washington DC and we cover a whole range of issues but I lead our K-12 education work. And so I've got some things that I'm happy to cover if that is helpful senators and then happy to have a discussion and answer any questions that you all have. That's great. Great, and so there are a few things that I was hoping to cover in some of my remarks today. One is to talk a little bit about the importance of civics education and some of the current challenges that we see nationwide and sort of show some of these are familiar to you all in Vermont as well. Talk a little bit about the framework that we have developed on what we think a robust civics education can look like both from a policy standpoint and from a classroom standpoint. Talk a little bit about our analysis of the current state of civics education and civics requirements nationwide and then a few additional strategies that we've seen as effective. I guess Senator Campion, you mentioned kind of going beyond the classroom a little bit and beyond some of the traditional approaches to civics education. I think there are a few things that are worth considering as you're talking about a broader view of educating for democracy. And just so there's a little more background myself and I started as a classroom teacher. I spent a few years as a special ed paraprofessional and also as a high school and middle school math teacher. So while not a civics or history teacher, do bring some of my experience as a math teacher and a special ed paraprofessional to the research and the work that I'm doing. And so just to start off and as you all well know civics education is a key part of school's role in equipping students for college, career and civic life. And I think that civic life is important and sometimes lost in our discussions about preparation for college in the future workforce. And obviously civics education provides students with a critical opportunity to participate in a democracy which is just as important as any of these other aspects of schooling. And ideally what civics education needs to do is to help students cultivate that civic knowledge, their skills and their dispositions. And this is both sort of what we talked about as civic literacy and civic engagement. And I think usually civic literacy is what historically we all thought of as civics class. So constitution, bill of rights, branches of government, things like that. But then civic engagement is a little bit broader. Think about things like political activism, community service, national service, volunteering, service learning and those different kinds of engagement that are also important to have a robust civic life. So a few of the challenges that we've identified nationwide. And again, like I mentioned some of these are likely familiar to you all. There's a broad lack of resources for education generally and for civics education specifically. Federal and state funding overall has declined for civics education over time. We've got low achievement and outcomes in terms of civic knowledge. Since the late nineties, the test scores on the national assessment of educational progress civics exam have shown that less than a quarter of students are actually proficient in civics as measured by that exam. And there are just as in other subjects disproportionate score gaps between black and Latino students and white students between English language learners and their native speaking peers between lower income students and higher income students and students with disabilities and students without disabilities. And there's also opportunity gaps in civic engagement not just in civic knowledge. Yeah, between black Latino students and white students and others. We know that white youth are twice as likely as African-American youth and three times as likely as Latino youth to contact a public official and students from families with low incomes are 30% less likely to report having experiences with debates or panel discussions in their social studies classes. So there are some clear opportunity gaps that face some of our children and things that we need to address as educators as public officials. And what this has meant is that for communities of color and communities with lower incomes, this disproportionate exclusion from civics education as well as other structural barriers can lead to lower civic participation. And that then continues a cycle where officials in public offices are then less likely to actually fight for the needs of those communities. So having looked at some of these barriers and some of the challenges and some of the research on civics education our view on what a robust approach looks like includes a couple of different factors. So in the research that we've done we've examined the state civics requirements based on a few components. So one is whether states have required a civics or a US government course. And so that's the focus of the bill that you all are thinking about is this idea of a specific course for graduation on civics on civics. The second piece is what's the minimum number of required credits for civics. And that does actually vary from nothing to a half a credit one semester course, a full year, even one and a half credits in one state. And then we look at whether states require students to complete community service as part of their graduation requirements again as part of the civic engagement piece. Then if states require students to take a civics exam as part of their graduation requirements. And then finally whether the civics and government courses include key elements of a rigorous and robust curriculum. And just a little more specifically on this last point which I think is important at the curriculum or course content level we think there are five key elements that should be included in course materials in state standards and in civics education. And those five are one is an explanation or a comparison of democracy. Two is the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Three is public participation. Four is information on state and local voting rules. And then five is media literacy and the role and influence of media. And I think those first two are and usually what we might think of as a typical of a civics course. So would you mind repeating those? Sure. Yeah, please go ahead. And this is also I'll share the link to the report that we've done on this and I can drop that in the chat at some point. I can do that right now actually. And that has the full analysis and the description of all of these. But those in those five elements are an explanation or comparison of democracy, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, public participation, information on state and local voting rules and media literacy and the role and influence of media. And again, so those first two are things that we typically consider part of a civics course. That's kind of the civic literacy part in a lot of ways. And our view is that the other three components are also critical and it's important to again, take this broader view of civics. That's not just the facts of civics education but also this broader piece of engagement. So just a quick overview and I think this is probably useful for you all as you're considering what to do in Vermont but the national picture on this. So thinking about some of our core elements of this robust civics education, there are 39 states plus the District of Columbia that require at least a semester's worth of standalone civics courses and eight states and DC require a full year and Hawaii is the state that requires actually one and a half credits of civics education for graduation. 20 states require some sort of civics exam. 26 states have these five elements of a robust curriculum. Then there are another 12 states that are at four of those five elements. And interestingly, this media literacy standard which is we've done a couple of these types of analyses. This is a new standard that we added given what we've seen in the past few years about the role of media. There are actually 33 states that address that as part of their civics or government requirements which we felt was interesting and promising. And then there are 23 states that offer some type of credit for community service although only Maryland and DC actually mandate community service as part of their graduation requirements. So we get some things to think about for Vermont. And then again, beyond some of these key elements there are some specific strategies that you all might wanna think about at the state level and also might be worth providing information to some of your school districts and schools as you're thinking about this effort to improve civic education, civic literacy and civic engagement. And one state to actually think about as an example happens to be Maryland coincidentally even though this is where I live and where my son is in kindergarten but they've done quite a nice job historically of thinking about all these different elements. So they have civics standards that are codified in their social studies standards all the way from pre-K through 12th grade. So they don't just have kind of a standalone course but they have determined how to incorporate civics education throughout social studies and not just in high school when we typically think of civics but all the way down to pre-K. They also have the required civics course and other graduation requirements. So students have to take at least one year of civics or government. They have to complete 75 hours of community service. They have to pass the Maryland high school assessment in American government. And then they also have service learning of requirements as part of their high school graduation. And the other thing that's really interesting about Maryland is they were, they really focus quite a bit on civic engagement and voter participation. So they were one of the first states in the country to pre-register 16 and 17 year olds to vote. So that teenagers are definitely eligible to cast a ballot when they reach 18. And interestingly, a few cities in Maryland actually allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in local elections. So they've really leaned in on this sort of participation, voter engagement, youth engagement in the political process. And there are a couple of other strategies that I wanted to highlight around civic engagement as well. So one is at the student level and thinking about what students and teachers can do together. There's something that's called Youth Participatory Action Research, which is a form of research where teachers and community members help to train students to develop research questions based around a particular issue in their schools or in their communities. And the students conduct research, they do interviews, data collection, they analyze the results and develop specific solutions for this policy problem. And then they take that information and they advocate for the solutions to decision-making bodies. So that might be school administrators, it might be local policy makers, it might be state officials. And it's a way to really engage students in all aspects of that public policy process. And it's been particularly effective for students of color and for other traditionally marginalized community. So students who identify as LGBTQ. Another interesting strategy is more at the school level and thinking about this idea of news and media literacy education. And this idea of news and media literacy are really important given that students could be inundated with unreliable information from social media, from the internet, and that hurts their ability to effectively engage in key issues when they don't have the right information or they're not sure what the right information is. And these components of news literacy have shown pretty good potential to increase not just knowledge about current events but political efficacy for students and cultivate positive student relationships with civic life. And one state that's done some interesting work here is California and they have legislation that requires the state education department there to offer school districts a list of online media literacy resources, instructional materials and professional development programs for teachers. So it's an interesting approach where the state provides this information and then helps the local school districts, the teachers make use of the professional development resources. And then the last piece I'll highlight is I've been thinking a little bit at the national level and at the state level as well is how to cultivate civic engagement through increasing voter registration and participation. Again, voting is one of the core elements of civic engagement and states like Virginia have things like high school voter registration challenges where high schools compete to register the largest percentage of voting age students. And in Virginia, they get a certificate from the governor if they have the greatest percentage. There are some companies that have done a really nice job on this too with large audiences of young people. So like Snapchat actually added links for voter registration and users profiles and sent reminders and it led to more than 400,000 new voter registrations. So there's some interesting ways that I think at the state level you all could be highlighting voter registration, youth engagement and things like that through a number of different means. So I would say it's really exciting like I said before to see more interest in civics education and civics literacy, civic engagement. And it's really important to think about this as part of a school's broader ambition to prepare students for not just college and career but civic life and engagement in democracy. And so we want students to understand some of these foundations of democracy and the core principles of American government that is foundational but also to have the knowledge and experience needed to participate as full and active citizens. So I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be here with you and happy to answer questions and discuss anything that I've mentioned and hope this is helpful information as you're considering this bill. Thank you very much. Committee, Senator Hooker. It sounds like the full McGillie here. It's great. All of these things combined and it's interesting that you're, I was looking at your charts to see which states have elements of all of those elements. And I also was interested in your chart about the scoring for students from Vermont, which seemed to me to be pretty high for a state that doesn't have that. So I guess kids are learning. I don't know. Maybe it's in the air. But it's good. Yeah, it is. It's interesting. We did look at whether we could find a relationship between those, we looked at the AP, US government and politics exam because that's one of the only state level measures of civic achievement, civics education and achievement. But there isn't really a relationship. And part of that is that this, it's not great data for working across state comparisons honestly, because as you all know, not every student takes the AP government and politics exam and not every school even offers that type of exam. So it's one measure. And as you said, the students in Vermont who take that exam do very well, but it's hard to know what that means compared to other states. So I guess a question I have is, do you have recommendations for ways to affect these learning opportunities for kids? And you talked about preschool, pre-K through high school. So what would you suggest of a way of infusing exposure, I guess is the only word I can come up with to civics and government and learning about all of these facets of our society throughout students education? And one thing that I think might be useful is for, it would likely be your department of education to examine the standards that are currently in place. I think both on the reading language arts side and on the social studies side to see where there might be opportunities to infuse some of these concepts earlier on. So that could be at the middle school level making sure that students are reading some of these founding documents at the appropriate level at the appropriate time. It could be at the elementary school level as part of social studies classes or electives and having some sort of civic engagement projects or community engagement projects or ways to just start to understand what it means to be part of a community who are the members of the community, those sorts of things. So looking at those standards across K through 12 and just figuring out where some opportunities are.  Are you a resource in different ways if agencies were to reach out to you? We just had a good conversation with our agency, for example and they're going to come back to us in after sort of assessing where we are at and where they think some of our assistance, if you will, the legislature might be needed. How do you work with agencies or even teachers, principals directly? We do work with state education departments. Sometimes we also work with the governors and governor's education policy advisors. Sometimes we'll work with state legislatures and how like yourselves and we do different types of things. So we'll do testimony like this. Sometimes we'll provide technical assistance, memos or analysis to states and often that's what we'll do for say a governor or for a state education commissioner based on some of the research we've done, looking at comparisons across the country and looking at specific aspects of whatever the state is looking at. So we're not a consulting firm. We don't do that kind of work, but we part of our mission is to help enact policy change across the country. And so if we have an opportunity to do that by working directly with the state, we love to be able to do that. Great, center lines. I see, I think you're going to unmute but I could be wrong. Well, I was going to ask questions, but I think Cheryl actually asked the question as I looked through the article that we have on our webpage. And I noticed that Vermont, there were a lot of NAs and not available information for Vermont yet we seem to do quite well. And so I guess here's a question for you. Is there something broken? I mean, how do we determine if we have something broken? Our voter turnout is pretty good in this state, at least it has been. We have younger kids voting. We have pretty good turnout for town meeting, but how do we determine what is broken? I guess that's the question. Yeah, that's a great question. And it's something that's sometimes difficult for us at the national level to figure out, obviously. We have certain data sources that are available and so that's what we look at into things like the AP scores and looking at some of the voter participation rates, some of those youth volunteers and rates. It turns out, as you probably could tell, we don't have data on a couple of those for Vermont, unfortunately, from the Census Bureau and BLS, but there might be additional data that you have available at the state level from your state education department on, say, if there are end-of-course exams in social studies courses or if there's a metrics that you have on different types of community engagement, but are one of the volunteerism rates. You mentioned participation in the community meetings, which is a good one. Are there other sort of local or national service measures that you might want to take a look at? And there might be some other aspects that, again, you have specific data on from the education department that could help shine a light on where the particular gaps are. Well, I think it would be a fascinating relationship between the Department of Education and the Secretary of State to determine the number of volunteers who turn out for vote counting and elections in general. I mean, and even those of us who are justice of the peace, we don't get paid for the work that we do. So we have a very strong volunteer presence. So actually that would be kind of fun to look at and see what difference that makes. And it might be useful to be able to, again, this is something that you might be able to do at the state level that we can't really do at the national level is look at differences across school districts, across communities in the state. And if you're able to figure out where there are communities that are doing this particular well and where there are ones that are struggling and that could be an area to focus resources and attention. And if things might look very positive at the statewide level, but there might be particular places in the state where you really need to focus resources and attention. Thank you. Mr. Sargrat, you were with the agency of education, I believe during the Obama administration. I was, yes. How, you know, and right now things have changed, particularly I think for Vermont where our US Senator Patrick Leahy is the chair of appropriations. Senator Bernie Sanders is overseeing I guess the design and construction of mittens according to everything I've seen on social media. But in all seriousness, you know, how I'm new to being the chair, there are new members to this committee, new members to the Senate. How might we look to partner, a state might look to partner with the agency of education at the federal level. I've always believed Vermont's so perfect for pilot programs to try things that then we could, you know, see how they work and perhaps other states could pick them up. How would you best, and I've been encouraging everyone, Senator Lyons, everyone here recognizes that we might have a particularly unique opportunity with Senator Leahy in this position to try certain things. How would you suggest we as a committee reach out, work with the agency of education at the federal level? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think there are obviously things are changing by the day with the administration coming in. But typically they're the office of elementary and secondary education, which is one of the offices that I worked in when I was there. We've administered most of the major grant programs. And one of the big ones that is related to civics education is, it's called the Title IV block grant. And it's a fairly large amount of money that's fairly flexible for states. And that's, I think, an opportunity to think about priorities in the state. And so if civics education, civics engagement, educating for democracy is a top state priority, I think there might be ways to work with the Department of Education at the federal level to get some technical assistance on best practices, to connect to, they're really good at connecting states with each other who are thinking about some of the same issues. And so they might be able to help with that. And also if there are specific programs that you'd like to be able to fund, say you identify that you want to do something with, say an organization like Generation Citizen or iCivics, whether there are particular sources of funding that can be used for that kind of partnership that maybe your state education department hasn't identified yet. And so that kind of relationship with, ultimately it'll be the assistant secretary for that Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. But there's also other points of contact that worked directly with state and local government officials on all sorts of different issues. But there's gonna be I think good people there who you'll be able to talk to and the career staff there who manage these programs are excellent and are really good at being able to problem solve with states too. Terrific, that's very helpful. I just have actually one final question and then I'm not sure if committee members have others but you did mention media and news literacy. I'm wondering if you might say a little bit more about that, what that kind of work does. And then I'm also wondering if you could just talk about economic literacy if you will. Something that I believe is rooted in some of our needs, I guess some of our perhaps deficits is in understanding sometimes of economics. And I'd like to talk for a moment about the intersection if you will or if you see an intersection between economics and civic education. Very interesting. I think on the news and media literacy side and those are two separate things that are important to think about a little bit differently. Media literacy, we think about as all the different forms of media and particularly now with the rise of a whole different types of social media platforms how do students understand what they're seeing on social media and other forms of media and how to make judgments about the trustworthiness, reliability of different sources. And what does it mean to engage in social media as a student? And that's also something that's important for students to learn not just from a civic engagements standpoint but from a understanding how the world works in the 21st century and what it means to be present online. So that's kind of the media literacy side. And the news literacy is a little bit more specific to different sources of news and different types of news sources and how to judge where the information is coming from and how to process information that might be coming from print news that might be coming from television news and understanding what the different types of distinctions are between news sources as opposed to more broadly thinking about all different sources of media and social media in particular. The economics question is interesting and I'm just a little bit curious. Are you thinking about some of the principles of economics and how that relates to principles of government and how government and the economy work together that sort of thing? Yes, well, I'd say both. How the government and economy, yeah, do work together. How sometimes, yeah, I would leave it there actually how government and the economy work together and understanding broadly generally of economics. I don't know how much it is in our schools but certainly there's a connection there. We know there's a connection between government and money and I don't know how much curriculum there is out there, how much of that connection is being taught. Yeah, I think that's really interesting and I think it's even, I would say it's even a little bit broader than that and the idea of information about the future workforce. I mentioned this very briefly but making sure students have access to information about careers, about how they're going to be able to find a family, a job with a family sustaining wage, what industries are high growth, high wage industries, what career pathways that they could start in high school are able to get them to post-sag their education and training and a good job and I think that is also related to the broader idea of the economy and understanding of economics and how the economy is changing. That's ultimately what is going to impact the student's success and that I think is certainly related to the idea of understanding our system of government, the functions of government, how government impacts and different sectors of the economy and thinking about the regulatory frameworks on sectors of the economy and this is stuff that maybe is a little much for infusing into kindergarten social studies standards but is something that seems important as especially high school students are thinking about their next steps. It's just interesting, a former faculty member and a college educator used to talk about how, well, there are all sorts of, again, things connected. I mean, money, war, the military, all these things are in a way, certainly connected to civic education and how can we just give students this broad important education? You pick up the newspaper every day, there's something on the front page about money, there may be something on the front page about war or military, how do we talk about these things with young people? How do we educate young people so that they can digest and use the material effectively? Yeah, I think coming back, I keep coming back to this idea of engagement and civic engagement, I think that is really key. They want to help students understand that what they do is connected to what they see in the news in their communities and so I think that's why I've been emphasizing how important it is to go beyond just the sort of foundational pieces of your typical civics course and helping students understand how you solve a problem in your community and that's fundamentally civic engagement and that's related to all these things, I think that you're talking about. Great question. Senator Perchlick, anything? Senator Hooker. Just a comment, I think that it's important for us to not segregate history from civics and what's going on today and we tend to, and that's one of the things that I'm beginning to sense and feel that a course in civics is certainly isn't the answer because we can't put it into a silo and unless we understand how history has affected how we got here, then how can we understand what we're doing now? So I think it's important for us to make that connection as well. Thank you. Committee, any other questions or comments? Mr. Sargrat, thank you very much. We owe you at least, I'd say, a court if not more of maple syrup. This has been very helpful and we look forward to continuing as much as you're willing to engage us, engage the state of Vermont, work with us and we will certainly be reaching out to you and you can always say, hey, I've had enough guys. We can, unless I get another thing of maple syrup, I'm not gonna dial in, but I really do immensely. I think we all do appreciate your time and everything you do and have done to improve and make advances in education. Thank you again, this is a great opportunity and I'm really excited to see what you all do. And again, like I mentioned, happy to engage and however is helpful and get my team connected with other folks in Vermont. Great, thank you very much. Thank you so much. All right, bye-bye. Bye. Committee, I hope folks found that interesting. Just again, another perspective, somebody who I think is doing interesting work. We do have one more witness, but I thought we would take a little break. Professor Levinson from Harvard Education, School of Education will be joining us. She's also someone that someone was pointed in my direction. Again, just to have a conversation a little bit for maybe the last 30 minutes or so and see and get some of her thoughts on again continuing the conversation around educating for democracy. And then of course, if we should have a committee discussion at some point in the next day or early next week around the direction after people have had some time to think about this, the direction that you would all like to go in. And I think I appreciate the two witnesses from the Agency of Education and their willingness to kind of take some time, get a sense of where they're at, see what they might need from us, what they believe they might do to improve on these issues and hear from them again. But in the meantime, any thoughts that people have after today, please feel free to, we'll have some committee discussion or you can always bring in extra witnesses, et cetera. But I think it's an interesting time and an interesting topic. So with that, let's just take another stretch and a break and we'll come back at 4.15 for our last witness. Thank you. Hi. How are you? I'm Brian, champion. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you and thank you for joining us. We're just coming back from a break. So we just might need just a few moments. Sure. Yeah, that's totally fine. Are we reaching you in Cambridge, Massachusetts? I live in Jamaica Plain, which is a neighborhood of Boston. Yes, I used to live on Riverway. Oh, yes, we live on the Arborway. All right. Yeah, my partner did graduate work at BU and so we were there for a few years. Uh-huh. Big part of the world. Well, we're so pleased that you were able to join us today for a little while just to discuss civic education. We have been in the thick of it today and trying again, as I mentioned in my email, to try to see what we can do in our committee as well as with our colleagues to foster a strong democracy. I know this is something that you have thought quite a bit about in your life and in your work. And so I just thought we might take just a bit to hear from you, to get some of your thoughts. We are looking at, I think from today's discussion, we certainly realize it is more than just a class, in terms of fostering a democracy. And yet certainly education all the way through and one's family life and other things are key. I know, speaking for myself, the grandfather was a judge and getting engaged. His conversations with us as children was really, really important. And I think without a doubt it helped foster an interest and a commitment to public engagement, civic giving back, et cetera. So with that, welcome to Senate education. It's real to have you. And as you can look around, you have an engaged audience. You have Senator Persalick from the state capital area, Montpelier, Senator Chittenden from Burlington area, Senator Tarenzini and Senator Hooker, both of whom are from the center of the states, Rutland and Senator Lyons, also from Chittenden County near Burlington. So with that, I will turn it over to you and we look forward to hearing from you for a few moments. Great. So I think it will help if I, since I know you can seem to have spent all day on this which seems exhausting. And great, like I'm thrilled that you're spending all day thinking about how to foster kid civic learning, but I also don't wanna like tread ground, that you've already heard tons of times before. And like it will help me if I can just speak to sort of the questions that you have or what's on your mind. So I can just tell you like, the buckets of kinds of things that I could talk to you about. And then maybe, I don't know if you just wanna put in the chat, like among the buckets you mentioned, Mira, these are the things that we're actually like either disagreeing about or haven't heard about yet or would love to hear more about or whatever. So I'm happy to talk about what we know specifically about good curricular based civic education like in a designated civics class like you have in the bill or more broadly like in social studies. I can talk about what we know about kid civic learning within schools more broadly, which as you already noted, Senator Campion is more than just civics class and is also like extracurriculars, co-curricular opportunities, student government and school culture, what happens in the lunch room, things like that. So I can talk about everything related to sort of kid civic learning outside of the formal curriculum. I can talk about what we know about how young people get civically engaged overall like what the chief predictors are, some of which is schooling. But as you've mentioned with your grandfather, the judge and the kinds of conversations you had at the dinner table, a lot of which is outside of school. And so we can talk about that. Or the fourth bucket I can talk about is what we know about sort of who tends to get high quality civic experiences and civic learning and who tends to be more highly civically and politically engaged and empowered and who tends to be less so. This is what I call the Civic Empowerment Gap. So I think I'm happy to talk about any of those, all of those, none of those, just to answer questions. So I don't know, do you mind just like taking a minute and throwing into the chat? We can just have an open conversation. We can just have an open conversation. Yeah. Senator Persley just texted me, he has a seven o'clock firm stop. So we have plenty of, we have about two and a half hours. But no, why don't we begin with, the committee doesn't mind. What are the chief predictors? What are the things that get people engaged, if you will? What are those chief predictors out there? Sure. And Senator Lyons, did you have something you wanted to ask for, Senator Lyons? Yeah, I do, let me just remember what it was exactly. So much of civic engagement revolves around communication skills and interpersonal skills, being able to articulate things in a very, in a meaningful and not a derogatory way. And we've seen enough of that recently. So I guess my question is when there's a conflict between home and learning environments and where is the, which role model wins? I guess is to say, what is your research tell us about the relative importance of family versus school, for example, and how to overcome some of the negative that we see. Great place to start. And Professor, would you mind introducing yourself a little bit more? I just, I didn't really key that up well. Sure. Well, so if you don't mind just saying a few words about yourself. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's fine. And let me just- And then we'll move right to Senator Lyons. Very good question. Sure. Okay, so yeah, I'm Mira Lundson, feel free to call me Mira. And I am a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I have taught since 2007. Before 2007, I was an eighth grade teacher for eight years over a 10-year period. So I taught in the Boston Public Schools for five years. I taught in the Atlanta Public Schools for three years. And actually before I was an eighth grade teacher, I actually did my doctorate in political theory at Oxford and I did a BA in philosophy at Yale before that. So I had a sort of oddly wending thing where I did philosophy and political theory. I wrote my dissertation about education. Then I became an eighth grade teacher because I actually wanted to do something meaningful for the world. And then eventually I went in my way back into academia more or less because my husband convinced me that I could not keep on being a full-time urban eighth grade teacher and a parent to then our two young daughters and try to finish this book and sort of keep an academic life going in the side. So when Harvard gave me a job offer, I thought, well, BPS will take me back but Harvard probably won't pull this out forever. So I took it and then I've been there ever since. And so in, yeah, Senator Hooker. I was curious to know what you taught in eighth grade. Oh yeah, so depending on the year, I taught English, American history, humanities, which was a combination of the two or also I helped Boston develop and pilot their eighth grade civics and action program. So for my last two years in BPS, I taught civics and action. So it sort of depended. And I also sort of on the civic side of the ledger so I mentioned that I taught for eight years over a 10 year period. So I did three years in Atlanta, three years in Boston then I actually had two years of postdocs when I started work on what was on my second book and which ended up becoming No Citizen Left Behind which is a book about the civic empowerment gap as I call it and the ways in which we actually have a civic empowerment gap in this country that's sort of parallel to the academic achievement gap and how as we have taken greater responsibility for the academic achievement gap over the last 25 years or so and no longer just blamed kids or parents or families for the academic achievement gap but have taken on responsibility for that as a system. Similarly, I argue we should take on responsibility for the civic empowerment gap and that it's kind of anti-democratic that we can predict who has civic and political power in this country based on say their level of education or their level of wealth or income or their race and ethnicity which is basically what we can do. So it was wrestling with questions around what it was that I was doing as an eighth grade teacher that sort of led me in the end toward that. I also co-edited a book called Making Civics Count with Rick Hess at the American Natural Price Institute and David Campbell at Notre Dame. And I was one of the civics writers for the C3 frameworks for state social studies and for state standards in history, geography, economics and civics. And I've served on the board of Generation Citizen and on the advisory board for Tish College and I'm on the advisory board for the Democratic Knowledge Project and I've done other sort of civic advisory stuff. I was on the board for the campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, et cetera. So I've sort of had, I guess, for the last 20 years or so some hand in civic education in various ways. I'm now on the board of scholars for Facing History and Ourselves and helped them develop their choosing to participate curriculum and things like that. So that's sort of who I am in relation to the work that you do. Senator Lyons's question is one that I think actually is super important and interesting and really actually complicated to answer. So what makes it, so you sort of said, like who wins between schools and families? And as you might predict, there is no good answer to that question, right? We know, and this is in part actually, when we think about civic learning, it's similar in that respect to other forms of learning, right? So as you probably know, we put a huge amount of emphasis on schools to facilitate kids learning, right? That's where we think of learning happening. We also know that schools as a whole have about like 15%, right? Like, you know, you can sort of, if you're trying to predict who is going to learn and achieve and how much they're going to achieve and so forth, about 15% is on the schools and about 85% is on out of school factors, right? So if you know that a child is poor, you know a lot more about their likely educational trajectory than that you know that they go to vast middle school as opposed to Washington middle school, right? And so in that respect, you know, families play a huge role in terms of civic learning and civic skills and civic engagement just as they play a huge role in terms of academic learning and engagement. And at the same time, the fact that families are super predictive doesn't mean that we like would pull away schools for academic learning, right? Schools are essential. In the absence of schools, we would lose a ton of learning, right? And so in that respect, if we have schools that are actually serious about engaging kids in meaningful, high quality civic learning, including the kind of civic learning that you're talking about, Senator Lyons, with respect to learning certain attitudes and dispositions of tolerance, civility, mutual respect, ability to take multiple perspectives, interest in alternative opinions and a willingness to engage with others as opposed to demonize them or, you know, whatever, right? Schools are incredibly important places for teaching that and schools that teach that well can have a really profound impact on students. So that's why I'm saying it's a hard thing to answer. It's not as if schools aren't dispositive.  You might think of schools as being neither necessary nor sufficient for good civic learning, right? There are kids who can engage in good civic learning at home and they're great. For other kids that it's both necessary and sufficient. And for a lot of kids that will help like tip them over and give them the skills and the dispositions that, you know, their families may wanna give them but aren't going to give them as well as schools can.  And it means that our kids are not exposed to a huge amount of diversity and political opinion, right? You know, they'll hear us debate like the 17% where we don't align, but mostly they are raised to take some things as given and other things as obviously wrong. And so if they were not attending school with kids who are being raised with highly aligned parents on very different, you know, along a very different balance, they wouldn't learn that, right? They wouldn't have the practice of engaging with very different viewpoints and they wouldn't learn actually, you know, helpful. I'm trying to think, like I try to model with our kids a lot of respect for political viewpoints that differ fairly wildly from my own. My husband is somewhat more dismissive of, you know, some of those viewpoints, but even, you know, I think I'm modeling like a spirit of civility and open-mindedness, there's no way that they could learn from me in the absence of engaging with families who have very different, you know, perspectives and values and standpoints, you know, what they do because they go to school. The one other thing I'll say before I either open it up for questions again or turn to the question that you asked, Senator Campion, is that another part of the question that you asked Senator Lyons is not just about like, you know, who wins or what is the impact, but how can schools navigate, right? That the political moment that we are in right now and the political moment that we've been in for the last few years and likely will continue being in for the next few years no matter what happens, you know, even though President Biden has now been inaugurated and no matter what happens with impeachment and conviction, right, that we're right now in a hyperpartisan time with a lot of mutual mistrust, mutual demonization and very, very different sources of news and perspectives on what is simply true, right? So when we are living in very different worlds like that schools are both more essential than ever as places for students to learn to engage civically with one another and in the broader world and also in a more tenuous position than ever because what they say or do is, sorry, I thought I had turned it off but there's some other phone. Oh, I see, hold on, sorry, I don't need to be there. But they're more vulnerable than ever to accusations of themselves being partisan and themselves being political in the wrong way, right? So, for example, schools say five years ago probably relatively rarely would have described themselves as engaging in anti-racist teaching but they probably would have described themselves as trying to have racially inclusive classrooms and teaching their children not to be racially prejudiced, right? Like, and they would have been saying, I have a classroom that doesn't discriminate and I teach my kids not to engage in racial discrimination and we teach about racial equality and that would have seemed totally normal, right? Like there's no question but like that's just one of the basic civic values that one should teach in a classroom, right? Over the last five years, there's been a slight shift in terminology from say teaching about racial equality to teaching anti-racism. There's also been a shift to seeing whether, even if it's actually talking about racial equality to seeing that as being a partisan stand, one that signals say alignment with the left on all sorts of issues. And now teachers who say, you know, talk about trying to create an anti-racist classroom can and are being accused of being partisan and actually anti-inclusive in particular, not including families or children who have views that are more on the right. Now on a sort of logical basis, that's clearly false, right? There's nothing that makes somebody with a more conservative viewpoint excluded by a classroom that's trying to teach racial equality and nobody will make that claim in a sort of logical manner but in the way that the partisan valence of something like anti-racism has become so attached with the left that now teachers don't really, you know, they will come under fire for doing that. They may be aligned with the left, right? They may be teaching about things that, you know, people on the right are actually legitimately upset by or it just may be seen as being this partisan divide. Another example that is like, you know, when I was teaching social studies or civics or whatever I was teaching that, you know, year, it was really easy say if I wanted to do a debate or to addr