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- [00:07]
John J. Miller
From the historic campus of Hillsdale College.
- [00:10]
Scott Bertram
In Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the.
- [00:13]
John J. Miller
True and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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Jonathan Butcher
The results found that parents and the general public do not like the idea that young children would have access to explicit content on school library shelves. And there's a lot of discussion today that any attempt to remove such books from school libraries is an effort at censorship or that you're banning books. I think that's nonsense.
- [00:46]
Scott Bertram
This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Jonathan Butcher, author of the recent book the Polarization Myth of America's Surprising consensus on race, schools and sex. We go in depth later on in today's program with Jonathan about what we really agree on. First, we're joined by John J. Miller. He is director of the Dow Journalism program here at Hillsdale College. John, thanks for joining us.
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John J. Miller
Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me on the show.
- [01:20]
Scott Bertram
Also, author of a recent essay over@WordPress.org and it's titled the news is where you look. And that's also the first line of this essay. John, what does that mean to you in practice? How does it shape news coverage at various outlets?
- [01:37]
John J. Miller
It's something a friend of mine said, a fellow journalist said recently, the news is where you look. And what I loved about that line is that it captures the most powerful force in media content, in other words, story selection, how you determine what is the news, what angle you take, how you determine what's not the news. And so much of it is where you look. It's where you look for news. It's what you think is news. And, and one of the implications, of course, is where are you not looking for news or things happening there? But this idea of the news is where you look I think captures this this important factor in terms of in terms of what our media tells us. It has implications for media bias, all kinds of things. But I like that phrase, the news is where you look.
- [02:24]
Scott Bertram
Now, the where is important. The who is important to why is it so important? Why does it matter who is doing this looking?
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John J. Miller
In journalism, we all have our blind spots, of course, and we're prone to look in certain places and not in others. And maybe we can't even see into others. But it's a reminder that there's so much subjectivity in journalism in terms of determining what is the news and who's deciding well, it's editors, it's writers, and they don't walk into the office or get an email every morning saying, well, here's the news of the day. I mean, they might, but someone's putting that together. If they are. The news is a series of independent judgments made by editors and producers and writers and more about what is the news. And so how do they come up with that? And it starts off with, where are you looking? Let's imagine a reporter who covers Congress. And so you're on Capitol Hill, and you can, you can look for the press release that, that the member of the House puts out, and that's a perfectly good place to look for news. You can see the press release that a committee puts out. You can also attend the committee hearing in person and see what people say, hear what people say, observe the different actors. Maybe, maybe you wind up sitting down next to somebody who has a stake in the debate, and you meet a source that way. So you're always looking around for the.
- [03:52]
Scott Bertram
And.
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John J. Miller
And it depends on what situations you put yourself in, how, well, how aggressive you are in terms of looking for them. Do you just take the press release and repeat it? And sometimes you do, because you can't make it to every meeting. But, but maybe you do go to the committee meeting. Maybe you see something that nobody else has seen because you, you were the one who was looking there at that moment.
- [04:10]
Scott Bertram
This essay over@WORDONFIRE.org suggests that curiosity is the most important quality in a journalist, which I was very happy to read, because independently, I've been saying the same thing to people about here at Hillsdale for a number of years. How does curiosity lead to a better media?
- [04:29]
John J. Miller
I get this question all the time, Scott, of course, from students, also from parents, really from everybody. You know, what is the most important quality in a journalist? There are lots of important qualities, but I always say curiosity. You need to be curious about the world. You want to be a person who wants to learn about the world we live in and then go tell true stories about it. That's what journalism really is. It's telling true stories about the world we live in. And so as you're looking around to figure out what is the news, it helps be curious person. Someone asks questions and asks, you know, why is it that way? How, you know, what, why it used to be a different way? Why has it changed? Or why. Why does this senator say this thing? You know, just, just ask questions all the time. And so, so you got it. You got to have a kind of curiosity, wanting to ask those questions. Then I say the second most important quality is humility, because you've got to recognize that you don't know everything. There are people who know a lot more than you do about really every topic, and you need to go find them when you're, when you're writing on it. You need to be persons. You need curiosity. So, yes, questions and then humility, where you go and talk to people who know more than you do, and you go into it knowing they know more than you do, and you want it. You want to learn from them, hear what they have to say. You can question them. You don't have to believe everything they say, and probably you shouldn't. It helps to have some skepticism along with all this. But. But the idea of humility, which is that. Which is that there are people who know a lot more than you do about what's going on in, you know, behind closed doors, what's going on in a different country, why a business makes a certain decision, et cetera. Go find them. So curiosity and then, and then humility. And finally there's a sense of service, which is go tell a story that people want to hear.
- [06:11]
Scott Bertram
John J. Miller is with us, director of the Dow Journalism Program here at Hillsdale College. His essay@WordPress.org the news is where you look. You tell the story. In the essay about seeing reports, reporters collaborate on a narrative, a takeaway narrative after a debate, which makes me question, why would a journalist want to have the same story as everyone else? Why not something different?
- [06:38]
John J. Miller
Yeah. From rival news organizations. And the story is this. I was a number of years ago covering a Senate campaign for a national magazine. And it was a profile. I was writing a profile of one of the candidates. But during my travels, as I was following this candidate around, going to different events and having interviews and all that, there was a debate of the normal sort where the candidates get together and they have their little stump speeches. There's a moderator asking questions, there's some exchanges. I mean, you know, the format, it's a familiar thing. And in this instance, I was watching the debate and I was in a room with fellow reporters, and we were just in the audience. We're just observers. We were not moderators. We're not participating in any way. But here we are, we're covering the debate, which is being broadcast on television. And we're in the room, and when the debate ended after, you know, 60 Minutes or whatever, the candidates left. And then the reporters from the different newspapers around the state, which had several media markets I saw them all cluster together and they did right in front of me. They clustered together and talked about what is the news, what is the story here? And they had a little give and take and they all settled on the same thing, which because they're political reporters, it happened to be something the Republicans said that they regarded as controversial. And so this is what went out as the report in all these different newspapers in the state because they gathered together and had this kind of hive mind moment. You know, this is this herd mentality really on display. And I was astonished. And of course you see this all the time where actually, you know, they don't have to gather to do this kind of thing. But, but here it was in front of me, they're actually doing it and kind of linking arms to make sure that readers had the same story from all of them.
- [08:33]
Scott Bertram
Media bias often comes from ideology, but it also can come from a place of ignorance, which is where the curiosity helps out. Are there types of stories or perspectives that tend to be overlooked as a result of that ignorance?
- [08:48]
John J. Miller
Yeah, there's a lot of ignorance. And ignorance is a tough word. There can also be a kind of innocence to it. I mean, I'm ignorant, you know, I'm ignorant of a lot of things, but. And this is the blind spots I mentioned. You know, if the news is where you look, you know, you can see different things, you can observe them, but you know, we all have blind spots. Like you're driving a car, there are blind spots, things you're not going to see. And in journalism there are some common blind spots, I think. And one of the points I made in this piece is that religion is one of them. You know, a lot of our so called mainstream media organizations are just populated by people, entire newsrooms full of people who never walk inside a church. And so they don't think about faith. It just doesn't even occur to them. It is an actual blind spot. They don't think about these kinds of things and so they don't cover them. It just isn't a part of their world. This is ignorance and it might be willful, it might actually be there might be some hostility involved. I'm sure all that is true, but I think a lot of it is just. They don't even ever think about it. And we all, you know, we all have our blind spots. I have mine, but this is a common one. And so when you think about, you know, liberal, liberal media bias, a lot of it is ideological, people wanting to make certain kinds of points and having kinds of commitments that they want to exercise in their journalism, often irresponsibly. Ignorance is a lot of it and can contribute to a kind of liberal media bias.
- [10:17]
Scott Bertram
That's John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program here at Hillsdale College. We'll talk more about his essay in a moment. But first, an opportunity, a wonderful way to start the new year. There's a brand new Hillsdale College online course, the History of Classical Chopin through Gershwin. It's part two of the History of Classical Music. Your professor once again, Hyperion Knight. Look, classical music is beautiful. Hyperion Knight is talented and engaging. You might have heard him here on the program previously. You get to sit beside his piano as he plays excerpts from some of the greatest achievements of Western civilization and also tell us the stories of the great men who composed them. It's a rare joy and a great opportunity. This course picks up where the first course left off. Hyperion Night has great energy, great charisma, and helps to open the enjoyment of classical music to absolutely everyone. Find it now at hillsdale.edu newcourse n e w C O U. It's a wonderful way to start the year. The History of Classical Music, Chopin through Gershwin. The new Hillsdale Online course. Sign up today, hillsdale. Edu newcourse hillsdale.edu newcourse. We continue with John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism program here at Hillsdale College and also author of the recent essay. Over at wordonfire.org, the news is where you look. John, you pick up on this split in polling between journalists and regular Americans about whether stories should always strive to give every side equal coverage. And perhaps you've heard talk about this like there's no need to give the opposite side of climate change. It's settled science. There's no need to have a response. Why would journalists in these cases be more likely to say that it's not a priority to give equal coverage?
- [12:19]
John J. Miller
Yeah, that's amazing. There's a poll that says most Americans would like their news stories to cover the different sides of a debate. And the same poll says most journalists disagree with this. They don't think that's important. And it's exactly what you say, which is that journalists have decided that they are experts. This is the opposite of humility. They've decided that they're the experts and they don't need to give equal space to untrue things to class. Climate skepticism, climate change skepticism is a perfect example of that. They view this as just beyond question or, you know, questioning the results of an Election, for instance, you know, you know, now we're increasingly seeing in the last five years, you know, someone makes a claim without evidence. We hear all, you know, this is like, this is now inserted into news stories all the time. So you get this sort of, you know, journalist wanting to have, quote, unquote, expert judgment all the time rather than just saying, this is what the person said, and then you presenting what evidence there is, or maybe not if there isn't any, or whatever. But there's a kind of sense among a lot of journalists, I think, that they are the experts and they can now tell us the truth and they're going to protect us from what they view as maybe harmful ideas. And I will say, at a certain level, we do want a kind of expertise in journalism. We all want to rely on editors and reporters and producers who exercise judgment and good judgment on what is the news. And, you know, I can't keep track of everything that's happening in the world. And I, you know, I try pretty hard as the director of a journalism program. I read a lot of news every day, but I can't keep track of everything that's going on in the world. And I require, I depend on these people in the media to make good decisions about what I should know. And then they present it and, you know, and I read some things and not others. So you do need journalists with, with good judgment. What you don't need are these ones who, who, who. Well, they lack humility.
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Scott Bertram
Yeah.
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John J. Miller
And they say, well, there's certain things we're not even going to discuss, or if we do discuss it, we're going to make clear that, you know, we disagree with it and think it's a horrible idea.
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Scott Bertram
Talking with John J. Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program here at Hillsdale College. His essay@WORDONFIRE.ORG, the news is where you look. We have seen one of the major newspapers in the country, the Washington Post, make some wholesale changes to the op ed pages, but also among its reporting staff. Now, we did hear after 2016, too, media outlets trying to find and understand Trump supporters and change the tenor of COVID That didn't really take hold. Have you seen a general shift in approach among the media? No.
- [15:11]
John J. Miller
I mean, there was, I think after the 2024 election, there was another round of we need to do a better job of understanding the country. In other words, you know, a kind of, a kind of honest liberal saying, we don't understand what's going on out there. And you saw this after 2016 and some, you Know, gestures towards doing a better job of covering the rest of the country and you know, a few efforts made in that direction but then quickly abandoned because, you know, Trump is awful or whatever. And I, there were some moments like that post 2024 as well, but I think they've essentially reverted to form. The Washington Post, though, is an interesting case which you mentioned, which is changing its editorial perspective, which for years has been just conventional liberalism, basically a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party in all the ways you would expect a liberal newspaper to be. It was just that it was really the sort of conventional wisdom of liberal Washington. Was the washing Post's stance. Well, Jeff Bezos is the owner. He's not, you know, he didn't buy it last year. He's owned it for a number of years. But he's, he's, he finally is starting to exercise some of his control over the Washington Post and saying we need to change this and make the page a little more interesting and we're going to commit ourselves to, to, you know, the idea of freedom in, in every sense. And, and, and, and so they're reorienting the page a little bit. There have been some interesting staff changes there. We're just starting to see some of the changes. It'll be shakes out in the months, in the months ahead. There will be some controversies about departures already have been and hirings and et cetera, et cetera. But you know, the first, the first signal of this was last fall when, when Bezos essentially spiked the Washington Post endorsement of, of Kamala Harris and he said we're not going to endorse for president. And this, this caused a kind of, I don't know, staff revolt is, is, is, is too big of a. A term. But there's a lot of discomfort with that in the newsroom because they all wanted to endorse K. And Bezos was like, look, you know, when we endorse Kamala Harris, it confuses a lot of readers who think our news coverage is one sided, even though very often it is. But he says it creates confusion among readers and I think he's right about that. At any rate, they're making a lot of changes there and I'm interested to see what happens next. I think it's going to be a better opinion section in the Washington Post.
- [17:40]
Scott Bertram
John J. Miller leads the journalism program here at Hillsdale College. And the program emphasizes learning by doing. And journalism here at Hillsdale is a minor and not a major. So why is that? And how do students who are interested in journalism grow through the hands on work they do here.
- [18:01]
John J. Miller
We're a liberal arts college, small l liberal arts college, which means we think our students should major in traditional academic disciplines, major in history and biology, in English, whatever, focus your studies there. We also do journalism and we do have some courses on journalism. It is a minor and you can, you can get a minor in journalism here. But the biggest emphasis we have within this journalism program is the hands on learning. The fact that we have a campus newspaper, that we have a campus radio station, which. Scott, you and I are sitting in a studio at the campus radio station right now. And the way you learn journalism is by doing it. I can teach students some things in a classroom, I can tell them stuff, but ultimately you've got to go report stories, write articles, lay them out on a page, do all the production. It's like shooting free throws. I can, I can describe to you how to shoot a free throw. You know, bend your knees and you know, put your toes on the line and you know, don't cross the line. You can say a lot of things about that, and that's even valuable information. But ultimately you got to go shoot a bunch of free throws. And if you shoot them, you'll get pretty good at them, or at least you have a chance of getting pretty good at them. So in journalism here, we have students work on the campus newspaper. They put out a paper every week. It's a student run publication. We have faculty advisors, we try and train them, but they're putting out a newspaper every week. And we have a radio station which is a spoken word format. We have hours and hours of student programming every day. And it's like the applied art of rhetoric, right? You want to learn how to communicate? Well, how about sitting in front of a microphone and sounding good for 10 minutes and having a monologue that is actually interesting? How do you do that? It's, it's harder than it sounds. And, and you know, the great ones make it sound easy, but it takes practice, it takes discernment, and that's what we teach. And you learn it by doing it.
- [19:54]
Scott Bertram
We have graduates who are entering the world of journalism. Where have they ended up over the years and what kind of perspectives, what kind of work have they been able to accomplish in mainstream media outlets or faith based media outlets or elsewhere?
- [20:11]
John J. Miller
We have amazing alumni in journalism and they are everywhere. They are in the White House press pool today. We have several on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. They are at National Review, the Detroit News, the Tennessean. They are all over the place. These Hillsdale alumni, and they have different kinds of interest, these different students. Some go into news, some go into opinion. There is a faith element. As you mentioned, we have alumni at First Things, which is a journal of religion and public life. We have alumni at the Catholic News Agency, which is a kind of wire service that provides Catholic news. And they go into all these different kinds of places. And so a lot of diversity. You know, Hillsdale has a reputation being a conservative school and a lot of our students are in fact conservative. But there are a lot of flavors of that. And they come in different forms and different levels of interest in things like politics and religion. And they go into all kinds of places and they are flourishing. And one of the things I love to say to students and one of the things I love to say is if you're interested in a career in journalism or in the media, being a professional, if you do the minor here at Hillsdale College, you will get a job and you'll have a shot at having a great career in that field.
- [21:27]
Scott Bertram
John J. Miller is the director of the Dow Journalism program at Hillsdale College. You can read his essay@WordPress.org titled the News is where you look. You also now can find him writing in the Wall Street Journal in free expression and newsletter focused opinion brand. You can find that@WSJ.com John, thanks for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [21:52]
John J. Miller
Thank you, Scott.
- [21:53]
Scott Bertram
Up next, Jonathan Butcher joins us. He's the author of the Polarization Myth. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [22:13]
Jonathan Butcher
Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being. And we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College president Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truth. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale Edu. Or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your audio.
- [22:59]
Scott Bertram
You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed Podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives, learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's Unashamed. F O R hillsdale.com to experience the Genesis story alongside the Robertsons. Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Be sure to check out the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. We're joined by Jonathan Butcher. He's the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at the Heritage foundation, also the author of the new book the Polarization America's Surprising Consensus on Race, Schools and Sex. Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us.
- [24:29]
Jonathan Butcher
Great to be with you.
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Scott Bertram
We've heard a lot these past few months, 12 months, maybe about 80, 20 issues, especially pertaining to President Trump. But reading the foreword and introduction, your idea is goes back well before the beginning of this year of 2025 that there were these issues out there that people really agreed on but just didn't know it. What struck you as being unique about that?
- [24:54]
Jonathan Butcher
Well, we are told over and over again by the mainstream media and by, quote, experts that America is polarized and that there's nothing that Americans can agree on. And they're making movies in Hollywood about a civil war and airstrikes being called, you know, on states around the US From Washington, when in reality, Americans actually agree on quite a bit when it comes to the issues. When we talk about things like the use of, say, racial preferences in college admissions or when we talk about teaching the idea of gender to young children, especially in grades K through 3, these are things that Americans agree on. We don't want racial preferences. We want students to be judged based on their actions and behavior. We want young children to be protected from ideas that they're not ready for, that they're not mature enough to understand. And that was just a remarkable thing that our survey uncovered. And I felt like it needed to be written down so that Americans understood we actually really are speaking, speaking the same language culturally on a great many important issues.
- [25:58]
Scott Bertram
And you point out that it's these experts that say we're polarized or we see, yes, movies saying there's a civil war coming or reports saying that we've never been farther apart. Should we, should we trust the experts on this matter?
- [26:12]
Jonathan Butcher
Well, I think when it comes to politics and even politicians, I mean, there's evidence from voting that there's some polarization still. But that doesn't mean that in the daily life that we each lead. Right. Going off to work, sending our kids to school, watching the news and how we interpret the world around us. There's actually quite a bit of agreement that we don't want boys participating in girls sports, for example. We have a majority who doesn't want boys to have access to girls private spaces. Right. I mean, these are things that Americans in our daily lives, we all actually agree on. And that matters because as we participate in community life, as we have policymakers looking to create constituencies to make very sound public policies, they can rest these ideas on this polling. Right. On this perception. Now, there's no single survey that can answer every question or that is representative. Right. They're a snapshot in time. But in my book, I found over and over again supporting surveys that found the same results that I did. I mean, over and over again, I found polling showing that parents don't like the idea that children would be taught that slavery is the most important thing in American history. Right. It found that over and over again. Also found the idea that parents want character and virtue taught in schools. Right. They want schools to be preparing young people to be the kinds of adults who live responsible lives. I mean, these are the kinds of things that we find over the years, and not just in one, one, one survey.
- [27:52]
Scott Bertram
The Polarization Myth is the new book by Jonathan Butcher. Inside there are what, four chapters covering various topics? Five chapters. Check that. And the first one starts with. With dei. And there has been some efforts under the Trump administration to. To eliminate DEI where possible, but it seems to have its. Its fingers stuck very hard into universities and colleges across the country. Why are college officials going to such great lengths to defend dei, to defend racial preferences in admissions, when again, polling. And the polling's all over. The Polarization Myth would say the public doesn't agree with any of that.
- [28:31]
Jonathan Butcher
Well, and it's not just academia. It's also in the business world. I mean, you have employees being forced to undergo trainings that tell them that they are guilty of some sort of collective guilt or collective oppression just based on the color of their skin. I had the chance to interview a scientist, a chemist at Chevron Phillips, who had to do a DEI training program. And he said, look, I don't understand why you're telling me that George Washington's teeth may have come from slaves. I'm trying to create plastics here out of using oil. This is not helping me for my job. And it's also making me feel highly uncomfortable with the idea that I should think America is irreparably burdened by this idea of racial Oppression. So that was a fascinating interview. And there are many, many, many others like it that you can find in the business sector around the world, around the country. And the same is true in higher education, perhaps even more so. I think some of the more interesting stories that I included in that chapter are from individuals who were DEI trainers themselves, who they. Their job was to conduct these, these programs on college campuses. And they themselves were canceled because in one case, there's a community college professor in Californ dared to say that a diversity of ideas is actually an important thing and, and lost her job because of it. So I think even those who push the DEI agenda have started to see that they're. It's even more narrow than they once once thought it was.
- [30:13]
Scott Bertram
Something I thought is interesting you mentioned it, and I think there's even another study or survey from University of Michigan too, that students, even with these, these DEI programs on campus. Campuses don't necessarily feel more safe, don't necessarily feel more accepted on campus. So what's the end result we get from this?
- [30:34]
Jonathan Butcher
Well, they often put on their websites that they're trying to foster tolerance or they're trying to create acceptance of people from different backgrounds. And really what they've done is they've made people highly insecure about who they are and very divisive over protecting turf when it comes to ethnicity and race. It has not fostered a culture of civility. And as we can see over the last two years, really since the tragedy of October 7th, we can really see that they haven't stopped anti Semitism. I mean, on campuses like Columbia and Harvard and in California, UCLA and others, there have been violence and unrest. Jewish students have not felt safe. They've been chased off of campus. This hasn't been prevented by DEI offices. So what was their purpose in the first place? Right when, when. When it really mattered. Right when protecting students really mattered and defending civil rights really mattered. These offices were nowhere to be seen.
- [31:38]
Scott Bertram
The second chapter in the polarization myth is on Covid student achievement. The reading wars. I love all the surveys. All the, all the, all the numbers in here. I was perhaps most surprised by seeing that 52% of parents are satisfied with K12 education in the country. That seems high considering the number of problems we see in schools all across the country, particularly in K12 education. Were you surprised by that number?
- [32:08]
Jonathan Butcher
I was. And it is true, though, that the approval rates have been going down, especially coming out of the COVID 19 pandemic. And when you look at, at, there are kind of two questions Here one is, do you approve of public schooling in the United States? And I think those numbers are low and have been on the. On a downward trend for several years. And then there's the question of are you happy with your child's education in. At a local school? And parents often say yes. And so I think what we find is that parents tend to be satisfied with the school that they have chosen. And there's probably some selection bias. Right. That helps to explain that.
- [32:43]
John J. Miller
Right.
- [32:44]
Jonathan Butcher
If you've either made the choice or if you've made some sort of commitment to where you send your child to school, you probably have a little bit of bias towards that institution. And that's something that we found across surveys as well, for many years. So to help explain this, I think what we need to see is that about 2 million kids are nowhere to be found on public school roles coming out of the COVID pandemic. We still have kids who simply didn't go back to school or that we can't have no record of. So that's a problem. And we also have seen public school enrollment decline by about 2 1/2% coming out of the pandemic. And so more and more today, parents are making choices about how and where their children learn, whether that's through a private school scholarship or homeschooling or a learning pod or something like that. It's reshaping the whole landscape. And that is truly notable.
- [33:39]
Scott Bertram
There's been recent discussion about the Mississippi miracle and the improvements in K12 education in that state. It's also referenced inside the polarization myth. What's Mississippi doing? Is it repeatable elsewhere?
- [33:52]
Jonathan Butcher
Yeah, they've really invested in improving reading instruction, especially by changing how it's taught. And, you know, there was a terrific podcast that has made the rounds in the last five, seven years called Sold a story that talks about how American schools had been using, using cueing or the whole language method of teaching reading, which is. It's really a part of the progressive movement that dates back more than a hundred years. And we've just found that this is really to blame for the very low reading scores, reading proficiency across the U.S. now, today we have across states. Increasingly, state lawmakers are demanding that educators use what has really become known as, quote, the. The science of reading. And it's not phon only. Right. It's not phonics on its own, but it does reintroduce the teaching of phonics into the classroom. And that's what had been missing. Right. The cueing and whole language methods. Had been taught at the exclusion of phonics. And I think that that is a big change that Mississippi helped introduce. Louisiana is another state that has been doing that. And my book talks about other states where lawmakers are saying, hey, this is important now that we really change the way in which we teach reading for the next step. And the next step is to be able to teach other subjects in a rigorous way. Right. Civics, history, all, you know, those subjects are really what we need to help students become participating members in society.
- [35:29]
Scott Bertram
Jonathan Butcher with us, the book the Polarization, America's Surprising Consensus on Race, Schools and Sex. One of those other subjects is civics. In fact, the next chapter in the book, and I was unaware of this term until maybe, maybe a year ago when I interviewed someone about the idea of action civics and how the Obama era Department of Education, RD Duncan began inserting action Civics into schools across the country. What is that concept and why isn't it doing a good job of teaching our school children about civics?
- [36:04]
Jonathan Butcher
Right. Well, it's not just what they've introduced, it's what they've removed. I think that they've removed a teaching of, of dates and facts and figures and information about our founding fathers, significant individuals from America's past. And they've replaced it with the encouragement that students use a issue that they are very interested in and become politically active. So lobbying a lawmaker for, you know, not using plastic bags in the grocery store, for example, or holding a walkout that is condoned by the school faculty and leadership to protest gun rights. Right. These are the. They sort of skip the part where we teach students about why there are differing views on these topics and what actually is an appropriate way to consider. Right. Highly charged political topics. Let's just skip to the end. Let's just tell them how to become lobbyists and how to become activists without giving them the ability and the tools and the history, frankly, to be able to determine how to understand these difficult topics. And without that basis, without that grounding students, you know, they're, they're applying more emotion than they are actually thinking critically about why there is such a debate on these questions.
- [37:20]
Scott Bertram
You see, Americans wanted. The polling says Americans want civics to work for the betterment of their children. What kind of things do parents tell us they want to see inside civics clothes class?
- [37:30]
Jonathan Butcher
Well, it's interesting when you look back at Civics textbooks from 100 years ago, I think it's not uncommon. It's actually quite common. I found in civics books to find Ideas of responsibility, of virtue, of courage, of responsibility for your actions. The idea that teachers are their, their best lessons are their personal example how they live their lives. Right? These, these are the things that, that are at the heart of civic behavior and civic activities, right? We should be teaching young people that it matters the way they treat other people, right? It matters how they pay attention to the way they act, the way that they complete their coursework, the way that they are engaged in community life. Right? These, it's, it is an issue of personal responsibility that matters. And I think that's being lost today. And instead you have, as you were saying, this action, civics idea that we all need to be lobbying lawmakers for some sort of pet cause. And I think that's. That's the wrong lesson. I mean, parents want again our survey found and others that I've either done myself or seen parents want virtue and character taught to young people.
- [38:40]
Scott Bertram
Jonathan Butcher with us, his book the Polarization Myth. America's Surprising consensus on Race, schools and Sex. There's a section, well, actually multiple sections have, have questions where you break it down between general public parents of students and then school board members. And the. The sex v. Gender chapter is. The difference is never more stark than there, I think where the school board members, according to the poll, want graphic sexual acts in books. 36% compared to 13% of the general population. Why are the school board members so skewed when compared to the rest of the country?
- [39:21]
Jonathan Butcher
Yeah, our school board survey is not nationally representative. It's a little heavier on the southeast. But I included those results to give people a sense of what those who are serving on district boards are thinking. And I think the comparison is, it is instructive because these are the people who are making decisions about what is on school library shelves. And I think that the results found down that parents and the general public do not like the idea that young children would have access to explicit content on school library shelves. And there's a lot of discussion today that any attempt to remove such books from school libraries is an effort at censorship or that you are banning books. And I think that's nonsense. I mean, I think the reality is that it is the responsibility of adults to determine age appropriate material. Right. That's the job of school board members and parents and educators. And one of our survey questions found that when we asked people who should be making these decisions, the highest response was to a combination of parents and school leaders. So I don't think that the general public is saying we should remove the authority from educators to make these decisions. But at the same time, we should include parents because they do in fact, know their children and they do have interest in what their children are being taught and how, what values are being passed on to them. So I think that this increasingly around the country, especially over the last 18 months, I would say we have seen evidence of states that have taken steps to either include parents in the decision making about what books are used or otherwise take material that has no place in schools off the shelves. And that's not banning it, it just means it's not age appropriate.
- [41:06]
Scott Bertram
Jonathan in the out of Touch Teachers union chapter, you say if you're not familiar with restorative justice or have yet to form it a opinion, you're in good company, which is great because I've heard the phrase, but I don't fully understand what restorative justice is. Explain for our audience and how does that tie in to the actions of teachers unions across the country, Especially over.
- [41:27]
Jonathan Butcher
The last decade, there's been a lot of attention to how school discipline is handled in classrooms, whether or not students should be suspended or expelled. Those on the radical left have made the argument that there is a school to prison pipeline when you suspend or expel students, that you are setting them up to wind up in jail or in prison. And what that has done is it's allowed schools to adopt policies that keep dangerous, if not just disruptive, students in classrooms, which makes it more difficult for their peers to do well in school. It also allows violent students who frankly need some sort of discipline and oversight to remain in classrooms and it becomes a threat to their peers. Restorative justice is this idea that instead of, of disciplining students, you have a, they call it a restorative circle in some cases, where you go face to face with the person who you have wronged or who you have accused, and you somehow talk it out, have a meeting of the minds, and you resolve the situation and then you get up, shake hands, and everybody's friends again. I, I think it rarely works that way, and nor should it. I think if you leave out the whole discipline part of the exercise, then students have learned that anything restorative justice, it, it, you can trace at least part of it back to an attempt in prison populations to make restitution. The, the original purpose of restorative justice was to restore if something was, you know, damaged with arson, if something was stolen, if a person was injured, the idea was that the guilty party would be a part of a restorative act to resolve what was damaged. And the way it's used in schools is, is simply a talk therapy that removes the discipline part. And I think that's been very, very harmful for young people.
- [43:20]
Scott Bertram
Final question for Jonathan Butcher. His book is the Polarization America's Surprising Consensus on Race, Schools and Sex. At the end, there's a section with conclusion recommendations. Something that you spoke about earlier in the book, bring back here is teaching the success sequence. Tell people what that is. And this is talk about not being polarized. It seemed like, seems like everyone should agree on these very simp things inside the success sequence. So what's controversial about it?
- [43:48]
Jonathan Butcher
So the success sequence has been in the research literature for more than 20 years. And it's the idea from social science that if a student, if a young person finishes high school, enters college or gets a job, enters the workforce, and then gets married before having a child, they are far less likely to live in poverty as an adult. And it turns out in the research that this is true. It is true that Those in their 20s, if you finished high school, got a job, or entered college and got married before you had a child, you were far less likely than your peers to live in poverty, and not just live in poverty, but actually reach middle class, according to research, especially on the millennial generation. So we should, at age appropriate levels, be teaching young people these things, right? I mean, I think this is, it is a, a simple part of the process of character formation where you can tell young people, look, it matters if you finish high school. It matters if you do well. Well, it matters if you, when you are finished, if you enter the workforce and are prepared to take responsibility for yourself, or if you go to college. And then when you choose to get in a relationship, if you get married before having children, you do these three things, these, these three parts of the success sequence, you are far less likely to find yourself in poverty. It's. It's a way to set yourself up for success in your adult life. And we should be teaching young people these things. There are already, in Alabama, Alabama and a couple of other states, lawmakers have considered proposals that would do this, that would require the teaching of the success sequence to young people. And I think that this is a way in which schools can begin to move away from the DEI and identity politics that has so mired school curricula and move to something that would help prepare students to be contributing members of their communities.
- [45:39]
Scott Bertram
Jonathan Butcher is the Will Skillman Fellow in Education at the Heritage foundation and the author of the new book the Polarization America's Surprising consensus on race, schools and sex. Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [45:55]
Jonathan Butcher
Thank you.
- [45:56]
Scott Bertram
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to John Jane Miller from here at Hillsdale College, and Jonathan Butcher, author of the Polarization Myth. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this day. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertrand, and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.