← The Report Card with Nat Malkus
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- [00:12]
A
Welcome to the Report Card with Nat Malkus, the Education Policy Podcast from the American Enterprise Institute. In a few short days, we'll be celebrating America's 250th birthday. But rather than feeling uniformly triumphant and celebratory, America's semiquincentennial comes at a time when many worry about the state of our democracy and civic culture. Schools are central to this worry. Many are concerned that civic education in American schools is insufficient or misguided, and that schools are not doing enough to prepare the next generation of Americans for self governance. But what would better civic education look like? What subject matter should it consist of? What should its aims be, and how much of it should happen in schools? To discuss these questions and more, I invited Yuval Levin onto the podcast. Yuval Levin is a Senior Fellow here at aei, where he is the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy, Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies. An editor in chief of National Affairs, Yuval is also the author of several books, including American how the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again. Yuval Levin, welcome to the Report Card.
- [01:32]
B
Thank you very much for having me, Yuval.
- [01:35]
A
Most subjects in school are defined by their subject matter. So algebra 2 is a class where you learn certain topics in math, US History, you learn about US History. By contrast, civic education seems defined not so much by subject matter, but by having a particular goal. You might call it forming good citizens. Do you think that observation is right, and if so, what do you think the main goal of civic education should be?
- [02:04]
B
I think that is right, and it's a challenge, because forming good citizens might be a way to describe a lot of what education is for and a lot of what we do in the rest of education, too. I think the the challenge of forming good citizens has to start with some sense of what a citizen is and what's required of a citizen. And these are deep, controversial questions. It seems to me that civics starts from the strange fact that every society forms its citizens and every society needs a certain kind of citizen. And the challenge is how do we align those things? How do we form the kind of people we need, rather than forming the sort of people who aren't good for our society or failing to form the sort that are. This does make civics very different. And it's not like math, it's not like reading. It has to begin from some agreed upon sense of what our society is and what it requires, and that's why it's very controversial and very hard to do.
- [03:05]
A
So a lot of people will say well, we need better civics education in schools. Often. I think it's motivated by this view. Well, if we had better civics education, then students wouldn't support this politician that I am really I don't like. It might be Trump, it might be Mom, Donnie, whoever. What do you make of this idea that civic education can or should affect who students vote for when they become adults?
- [03:32]
B
Yeah, I think that's a misguided way to think about what civics will do. It's in a sense a way of saying this politician I'm talking about is illegitimate, is a kind of person who shouldn't exist in our society. And if we knew what the right kind of citizenship was, we wouldn't be talking about these ideas. I'm sure there are boundaries like that, but I don't think that our contemporary politicians are really outside of them. And we should recognize that helping people see the nature of our civic life and our society wouldn't really put much of what we do out of bounds. American politics is mostly fought within the 40 yard lines. That's still true. The people we call socialists and fascists in our politics are not actually socialists and fascists. They're pretty generic Americans with ideas that are a little bit off kilter or off center. In Europe, they'd fit pretty much in the middle in most of the democracies. And you know, we shouldn't expect civics education to lead to voters choosing our party unless we intend to make civics education just a matter of simple political preaching, which everyone at least claims isn't what they want to do. So we have to have a sense of what it is that shaping citizens is for. It's for understanding the nature of our society, the nature of our political system, taking responsibility for it, taking ownership of the kinds of choices we have to make as citizens. None of that leads to throwing either of our parties out of bounds. I think it ultimately is a way of forming judgment which is hard to do but can't be relied on to do the work of political persuasion for us. And by the way, I should say, Nat, I think the idea that we're now in a place where we're uniquely terrible at forming citizens isn't quite right. I don't think there's been a time in American history when middle aged people have been happy with how younger people think about politics. And the sense that, well, it used to be the case that 18 year olds were really great at making political judgments just isn't right. We always drive ourselves crazy with these polls that say 19 year olds are not proud of being Americans. Yeah. Okay. If you look at that polling today, the people who are most proud of being Americans are people in their 70s. People in their 70s were 19 in the late 1960s. Were they proud of being Americans then? Not in large numbers. There is really just something about civic responsibility and youth that don't align well. And the fact that teenagers don't seem like great citizens isn't really evidence against what we're doing. I do think we need more focus on teaching people American history, on teaching people the core of civics, which is a kind of practical sense of what our responsibilities are to one another. But I don't think we should expect that to make teenagers impressive citizens. That's not an achievable goal.
- [06:40]
A
One idea here in civic education is that it can give students better tools to make political decisions. But at some point, is it not the role of civics education to make some political ideas unpalatable to American students?
- [06:58]
B
Yes, I think there is a function that can be served by civics that can help us see broadly what belongs and what doesn't belong in our kind of political life. But I think when we approach the question of the purpose of civics, we have to see that forming citizens is a complicated task, that shaping civic life is a broad and complicated task. And that means that civics has to do a lot of things, and it has to do different things at different ages, which is also worth thinking about. And ultimately, it's connected to the question of what our society requires of its people, which is a complicated question in a democratic republic. And so I think the debate about what civics should involve can't really be simplified into a partisan dispute about whether we should only say great things about our history or should only say terrible things about our history. We have to recognize that if the goal is forming citizens, we have to start from some sense of what a citizen is, what's required of a citizen. For me, that begins from the premise that an American citizen is not a natural phenomenon. Citizens don't grow on trees. An American citizen is a social achievement, and ultimately, not only the education system is responsible for that achievement, but it has an important role to play in shaping people's judgments, in shaping people's perception of the society they're growing into. That's a complicated task. And I don't think that there's any simple list of things people have to know that can ultimately be enough to form our sense of what civics is for. I think in younger ages, civics has to start with building some appreciation of the country we have, of the traditions we have. Gradually, as you approach later ages, it has to build knowledge, knowledge of history, knowledge of the questions that have shaped our society. And finally, ultimately, it has to build skills because citizenship is an active pursuit. That's hard. That's hard work. And so I don't think we should ever be surprised that civics doesn't live up to all of our expectations, but we should take those goals seriously and do our best.
- [09:36]
A
I want to follow up on two parts of that question, but the first one is about particular issues. You said there's no short list that you can come, you know. Yeah, up with. However, there are some political issues that, that get amplified. So you can look back over the past 15, 20 years and see climate change has had sort of an outsized role in, I think, civics instruction. Do you think that's appropriate? And I don't mean to focus on the climate change issue particularly, but that's more of a modern concern that might take more of the market share of civics. Does that worry you?
- [10:16]
B
Yeah, it does worry me. I think that it suggests that there's a kind of faddishness in what we think is required of citizens. And there's a way that civics has to always be a little bit old fashioned because it's not about one particular issue of the day or another. It is about the formation of the kind of person that is capable of making complicated judgments in society. I think this may be the hardest thing about it, is that civics, to be done well, ultimately has to take seriously the task of formation. The idea is to form a kind of person rather than just to teach a specific set of skills or bits of knowledge. That's an old fashioned way of thinking about education. And so I think it inevitably creates controversies about its own fundamental purpose. Because if the goal is to form judgment, you know what, what the kind of thing that classical philosophy really called practical wisdom, then this is not only the question is not only what are the things we should teach. The question of how we should approach the teaching of civics gets at some really controversial questions in education. And you know, I'm a conservative on these questions. I think that character formation is ultimately the purpose of education in general. That's obviously not everybody's view.
- [11:37]
A
One other thing I wanted to follow up on. You said being a citizen is a skill. Some of the civics has to transmit skills. One popular form or stream of civics education is action civics. And that's where, well, let's get students involved in a local issue or state issue, get them to exercise their political muscles on a particular case. Let's give them a case study to act out. What do you make of Action Civics?
- [12:04]
B
I think that can work if you've done the work before. You turn to Action Civics has to start, I think, with a sense of appreciation of the country, which for younger students should involve learning about some great heroes in our history, all kinds of people in the American story who can shape a sense of appreciation of the country. It has to start with some civic habits and practices. I think that the Pledge of Allegiance makes sense not because it's substantively all that impressive, but because it's a way of taking seriously your place as a citizen on an everyday basis. Gradually, as students get older, I think they have to learn history and basic knowledge of the American story. And then I think it does make sense to get students some experience in civic action. And I do think it makes sense to do that in a local way. What worries me about Action Civics is that it functions as a substitute for everything else. It suggests that all you need is essentially activism. And it takes for granted the existence of knowledge and appreciation which actually aren't there or sometimes even denies the need for those. I don't think that citizenship is activism. And if we haven't been formed in a way that gives us a sense of our responsibilities to one another and to the country, that gives us a sense of the political order we're inheriting and building on, then I don't think we're really ready to be activists. And so Action Civics as the only way to do civics doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But if we've done it well, then certainly as we approach the end of high school, some experience in actually being engaged in your community, understanding how decisions are made, how rules are made and changed, what it means to be a citizen in practice is essential. Citizenship is practical. It's not just a matter of knowledge.
- [14:01]
A
Yuval, most of my questions so far, sort of in political leaning. You've already talked about this. Civics should be more than sort of just politics and just government. But I want you to flesh that out rather.
- [14:17]
B
How.
- [14:18]
A
How should the conception of civics be beyond just, well, you're a political animal, and here's how you should behave.
- [14:25]
B
I think of civics as kind of meta political. It's. It's about the. The framework that's necessary for politics to be able to happen in a healthy way. And so that means it's not just about having opinions about controversial political issues. It's about having a sense of what a citizen is and does, what a public official is and does. What have been the big questions in our history? How have they been fought out and why? I think all of that creates a framework where it's then possible for us to have constructive political disagreement. That disagreement needs to happen. It's substantive. There are things we actually argue about when it comes to thinking about the direction of our country, and we need to be able to do those. But civics isn't just a way to get you into those fights directly. It's a way to form the habits and skills that make you capable of making judgments on that front. And so I think it has to precede direct political engagement and help to teach people what their role is as a citizen. Ultimately, we all have a role to play in a free society, not just those of us who run for office or somehow get involved in politics in a professional way. Something's expected of everybody in a free society. And that's not obvious, it's not self evident. And I think we have to teach people what that is and what it looks like before they can really be involved in everyday political disputes.
- [15:51]
A
So one role of civic education is making sure the next generation of students has the character required for self governance. Do you think schools, either in theory or in practice, can improve students character and make them better equipped for governance? I mean, it seems like a big job to put on schools.
- [16:12]
B
Yeah, it's a big job to put on schools. I certainly don't think they can do it on their own. But yes, schools form character, and schools form character whether we want them to or not. So I think the question for us is not whether we engage in citizen formation, it's whether we engage in it well or poorly. We're going to do it. If we convey to students that it doesn't matter. That's actually a way of forming their attitudes about citizenship too. It's a way of teaching them that citizenship doesn't matter. So I think there's no choice but to take on this task. Now. It's not only a task for schools, obviously, it's a task for our entire society. But I would say in the 21st century, we're living in a moment when a lot of our formative institutions are losing their capacity to form because they're losing their other purposes. They're losing their ability to serve a real role for us. The market and the state have taken over a lot of roles that Community institutions had played in the past, that families had played in the past, were left in a much more kind of individualistic place. There are very few institutions that. That we approach with a real need and a real sense of what they can do for us, and therefore with an openness to their forming us. Schools still are in that place. Schools are among the only local institutions that we know we need. And in a sense, we don't let institutions form us unless we know we need them. That used to be true of a lot more civic institutions. It's now true almost only of schools. And so there's no avoiding the absolutely pivotal formative role that schools play. We don't have to like it, but we can't pretend it isn't happening. And as I say, ultimately, to pretend it doesn't happen is to be careless about how it happens, because it does and it will. Teachers form students. I don't see how it's possible to deny that. And so I think teachers should think about how they form students and to what end.
- [18:20]
A
I know you're not an expert on the actual curriculum that happens in schools. It's very hard to assess what gets taught. But you talk a lot about institutions, and we can talk about government, and that's one big one that's going to occupy a lot of civics instruction. How much of a sense do you have about the importance of other institutions in civics education, their importance, and whether students even understand what institutions are as they come through civics and their importance in America?
- [19:00]
B
Yeah, look, what institutions are is a very hard question. And I don't think it's only students or children in our society or in any society that don't walk around with a clear conception of what that is. I also think it's particularly true in a free society that we like to imagine we don't need institutions, and so we don't want to think about them too much. We think of ourselves as independent individuals. Institutions might serve our needs, but they don't strike us as something essential. And that's a challenge for everybody. That's not only a challenge for educators. They help students to see. So I do think it makes sense to focus civics largely on government. Obviously, it would be great if students also had a deep awareness of the character of American civil society. If we could form little tocquevillians in middle school and high school. That really is a lot to ask. And I think at the very least, we should start with a grasp of American government and civic life, public life. I certainly think that It's a challenge for all of us to think concretely and clearly about civil society in American life. That's something I try to do in my own work, but I don't expect most people to walk around with a clearly developed conception of what institutions are. So I have plenty of criticisms of American civic education, but that they don't delve deeply into into the theory of institutions seems to me too much to expect.
- [20:35]
A
One of the Department of Education's priorities in the second Trump administration is patriotic education. The words patriotic education ring alarm bells for a lot of folks. Why do you think that is?
- [20:47]
B
Well, look, I think the Trump administration has a unique talent for turning good ideas into trolling, and this is an example of that. They know that using the term patriotic education is a way to set people off. And what they're saying is civics education. I think it's okay sometimes to use terms that people can live with, and that can allow us to approach a controversial issue in a constructive way rather than to do it in the most confrontational possible way. But I agree with them. I think patriotic education is very important. And what I mean by that is an education that enables us to appreciate our society, not to love it blindly. That's not the right way to appreciate anything. To know our society has to mean knowing its strengths and its weaknesses, knowing the dark parts of its history as well as the bright parts of its history. But I would say that we are in a place where the emphasis on patriotism and love of country is necessary as a balance to the way in which young Americans tend to be approached about their country. I think that civics education has to take seriously the task of helping people understand what our country has done wrong over the years, but it also has to help them understand what is done right and what an extraordinarily successful and impressive society this really is. We do less of that than helping people see the wrong. And so it seems appropriate to me to focus on patriotism, but that doesn't mean that we have to do it in a way that's as politically off putting as possible. And I do worry sometimes we on the right tend to do that.
- [22:32]
A
How much do you think patriotism is a natural byproduct of teaching things like government and U.S. history? And how much do you think it actually needs to be purposefully instilled?
- [22:44]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it can be a natural byproduct of. Of teaching the full story, or as full of story as we reasonably can. I think the American story is Very impressive. And for students to know that this is what they're inheriting and to understand how our society began, how serious the commitment to some core ideals was at the outset, which is something that does stand out about the United States. A deeper knowledge of that, I think, would incline students to take their country more seriously than they're otherwise inclined to. And so certainly there's a way that doing history right can point students in the direction of a certain kind of patriotism. But, you know, we shouldn't be afraid of just understanding that work as the work of shaping citizens who are grateful for their society. I. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
- [23:45]
A
One way of thinking about patriotism is that patriotism is attachment to country. How do you think students become attached to America? I mean, is it mainly through education or through other means?
- [24:00]
B
Yeah, I. I think patriotism is a love of home, and a love of home really should come right relatively naturally. You almost have to be educated out of it, and I think we do some of that sometimes. So there is a way in which just a better knowledge of what it is we get to be a part of can point us in a patriotic direction. I think there's also work to be done to help students relate to the past that we don't do enough of in history or in civics to understand that the kinds of problems prior generation dealt with were very much like the kinds of problems we have to deal with now. And we have a lot to learn from them. We can learn from their mistakes, and we can learn from their achievements. And just to know all of those better, to get beyond the kinds of cliches that we otherwise tend to have about our country, can be a service done by civics. But I do think that, generally speaking, people don't have to be carefully taught to take their own home seriously. It's actually just understanding that our country is home, that that's the way to think about it, that's the place to begin. I do think that's part of what civic formation can be. Civics education can be. It comes more naturally to some people than others. I think some. Some of us are inclined to be a little more resistant to kind of accepting what we're given and loving our home on its own terms, but I think a love of home is pretty natural.
- [25:37]
A
Yuval, you're an immigrant to the usa. How did you become attached to America?
- [25:43]
B
That's a good question. I don't have a great answer to that question. I came to the United States when I was 8 years old. And I had the attitude that I think a lot of immigrants who come as children have, which is, this place was de daunting and challenging. I came from a place where I knew a lot of people and knew my way around and knew what I was doing. And here I was in a very, very different place. By the time I became an American citizen, what, 11 years later, I was 19. I was a very patriotic American. I had really gone out of my way to learn about American history, to learn about American government. I was a college student studying political science in Washington and working for a member of Congress when I took the oath of citizenship. I think part of how I got from that first place to the second just had to do with being impressed with America and being fascinated by it. The sheer diversity of American life, the magnitude of it, the. The serious attention to its own principles and ideals. But that's a way of. You know, I'm 49 now, and looking back at myself as a child, I think the answer to your question is just, I don't know. I don't know how I got from a place where I was new here at 8 to a place where I was thoroughly ready to think of it as home by the time I was 20.
- [27:15]
A
I was hoping the answer would be excellent civics instruction.
- [27:18]
B
Yeah, I don't even remember that I had much civics instruction. I learned American history, and I had some great teachers on that front, and I'm certainly grateful to them. And they had a lot to do with who I've become. Did I really learn civics? I don't think so.
- [27:35]
A
You've always been talking about attachment to country in the American context. Let's say you and I are Cubans or Englishmen or Moroccans or North Koreans. Would the answers that you give be the same, or is there something American that we should understand about attachment to America?
- [27:55]
B
It's a great question and a hard question because I think it's hard for us to put ourselves in others shoes, particularly to think about life in a society that just objectively doesn't serve its citizens well. To live in North Korea, I think I would have a hard time telling people just to work their way toward a love of home and of their political tradition. Most of the world is not North Korea. And I do think that civics in free societies, which thankfully are now many in the world probably can look alike. But look, I think the American political tradition is unusually helpful to civics education because it begins with a kind of statement of principles in a very unusual way. And can be understood as a working out of those principles in practice over a very long stretch of time. That's not what most nations history looks like. And so I do think that in some ways the connection between theory and practice is easier to see and to approach in the American political tradition. But it's also the case that our society requires a kind of citizen capable of exercising an enormous amount of freedom responsibly. And forming that kind of person is the work of civics. And that's a hard challenge that takes a lot of work. We don't spend a lot of time kind of hammering it into the minds of younger Americans that they have profound responsibilities to their society. We don't have explicit expectations. We don't have a requirement for military service anymore, for example. And so I do think that that means that civic formation requires more out of schooling and out of kind of explicit educational work. I'm sure it's not the same. You know, no two societies are going to be exactly the same on this front. But the fundamental work of thinking about how do we create the kind of citizen we need is, I think, the work of civics from the start. You can find that challenge in Aristotle, in a very different kind of society.
- [30:11]
A
In a number of societies. Patriotism is sort of rooted in an ethnic identity, a national identity, maybe a blood and soil kind of idea. In America we have a different conception. But you still hear, well, he's a red blooded American, right? These, these ideas. Do you think American patriotism should be rooted in that sort of identity of home? Or should it be have a greater home in American ideals in the Constitution?
- [30:44]
B
I don't think these things can be separated. And in some ways we're engaged now in our politics, in a kind of silly fight about this question of whether to be an American is to believe a set of things or to share in a deep heritage. I don't see how these things can be separated. Our story is the story of a people, a specific people in a particular place, like every other nation, But a people living its national life in light of a set of principles articulated at the outset. I don't think the principles on their own make sense as a civic teaching alone. And I don't think the history alone can be separated from those principles because they're so central to that history. There's a funny way in which Americans sometimes imagine that we're a really young nation. And so really all we have that holds us together are these principles in these documents. But Americans are not a young nation. We're celebrating our 250th anniversary. That's a long time. And in political and civic terms, I think there's a case to be made that the United States is actually the oldest nation in today's world. We're the only country that has the same regime that we had, say, in 1800. You know, there are a few. Maybe the British could say they had institutions with the same names that they had in 1800. Nobody would say they do the same things they did. The United States has had the same civic regime for two centuries, and that gives us a lot to work with. There's a long history to look to. This is, for most Americans, the land where their fathers died. It's home. It's not just a set of ideas, but it's also possible to approach the love of this particular country through the lens of a set of very high philosophical ideals and aspirations. I think that combination should make civics easier for us, not harder. And it's not an either or choice. We are a people. We're not just a set of ideas, but we are a people moved by a set of ideas.
- [32:48]
A
YUVAL in today's political landscape, politics, partisanship, ideological conflict can complicate, make it difficult for teachers who want to celebrate America's 250th with their students without sort of infecting it with those ideological overtones. I think the vast majority of civics teachers are sort of ideological non combatants, if you will. Where would you ask those teachers to focus if they want to provide their students with a rationale to celebrate this anniversary that escapes the taint of division?
- [33:31]
B
Yeah, I think there are a lot of ways to do that, and I agree with you. There are also a lot of teachers who are clearly trying to do that and succeeding in doing that. The 250th is, in part just a celebration. It's a birthday party for our country. And there's a way to approach it by, you know, with fireworks and birthday candles. And we're going to do some of that. A lot of the national celebration looks like that, and that's appropriate up to a point. But it is also, I think, well understood as a kind of anniversary, as a moment to mark the duration of our union and of our national life. That gives us a reason to look back to the beginning. That gives us a reason to think about what we've been through together as a people and to look forward to the ways in which a recommitment to these principles and to our identity can help us have a strong Future together. I think all of that gives teachers a lot of opportunities. The American story provides a lot of interesting figures to study of interesting stories to study complicated figures and stories. None of them are perfect. None of them are perfectly terrible. And there are a lot of different sorts of lessons we can draw from the substance of our shared history and the promise of our shared future. I think the hardest thing to do when we think about that civic purpose is to help Americans think of ourselves as one people, to think about the national identity we have as, in fact, holding us together, and to avoid talking about America as us and them. To just stick to us, to just stick to we. To help students to see that the American political tradition begins with that we. Right. We is the first word of the Constitution. It's the first word of that extraordinary second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths. To be capable of saying we and meaning all Americans is a lot of the work of civic formation. I think teachers have a lot of resources to work with in getting there.
- [35:47]
A
All right, Yuval, it's time for grade it. You give a grade on a topic and a brief explanation. Are you ready?
- [35:54]
B
Sure.
- [35:55]
A
Having your portrait painted by a US President.
- [36:00]
B
I don't know how to grade that. That's the weirdest experience I've ever had. President George W. Bush is a painter. In his retirement, he created a book of paintings of immigrants to the country who are also people he knows personally. He asked me to be one of those. I used to work for him, and it was weird, but kind of awesome. I give it an A. I should say. What am I saying? It's an amazing experience.
- [36:32]
A
Primary elections as practiced in America.
- [36:35]
B
Primary elections get a D from me. I think they're a very, very poor fit for contemporary American political culture. They don't serve the parties well. They don't serve the country well. We got to find another way.
- [36:48]
A
Silicon Valley's influence on U.S. politics.
- [36:53]
B
I give it a C. I think it's appropriate that the companies driving our economy should have some role. But I think they're approaching politics in a way that doesn't suggest a deep knowledge of civics so far. And it needs work.
- [37:10]
A
Think tanks.
- [37:12]
B
Ooh, that's a hard one.
- [37:15]
A
Present company excluded, of course.
- [37:16]
B
Okay, well, if we exclude present company, then I'm free to give think tanks something like a B. I think they have an important role to play. But think tanks often tend to understand themselves too politically and not enough as. As fundamentally civic and even educational institutions. And so if we exclude present company, that makes my Life a little easier and I give them a B.
- [37:41]
A
School boards,
- [37:44]
B
it's hard to give a general grade, but boy, the idea of school board gets an A for me. I think a highly decentralized education system serves our country very well. And I'm impressed with people who run for school board and generally speaking, with what they do.
- [37:59]
A
Of course, not always Congress, our current Congress,
- [38:05]
B
our current Congress gets a D for me. But that's because the idea of Congress in our system gets an A plus. And the way in which Congress now operates is through thoroughly disconnected from that idea. I think Congress is the biggest constitutional problem we have and the place that needs the most work in our system.
- [38:24]
A
The Tea Party. In hindsight,
- [38:29]
B
that's a great question. I give the Tea Party a B minus. I think that it was an expression to begin with of some very healthy political instincts and concerns. Ultimately, it became too disillusioned with the American political system and too quickly. And so I would have given it an A in its first year or two. In retrospect, not quite.
- [38:56]
A
Congressional staffer pay.
- [38:58]
B
Oh, that's an F. Congressional staffer pay is way too low. Member pay too. And the politics of this makes it impossible for Congress to do anything about it. But Congress needs to be able to staff up much more effectively than it does. And that means it needs to pay people what they're worth, which it isn't doing.
- [39:18]
A
If you had to make a prediction, and I'm asking you to AI's effects in the coming decades on the health of our civic climate
- [39:29]
B
as a grade, that's hard to say. I guess I'd say a C. I think it's likely to make us more passive as citizens. That's what technological revolutions have done in my lifetime. They've all started with a lot of excitement about how they're going to make us more active and ended with a lot of worry about how they've made us more passive. And I think AI is shaping out to be that way too. But it's impossible to say. I would not pretend if you didn't force me to know where this is going.
- [40:04]
A
Our maintenance of America's political institutions.
- [40:08]
B
I think we get a B and a B is a high grade for me. Our institutions have endured for 250 years. That's pretty amazing. That's something that almost no society can say. And on the whole I think we've done a decent job in the medium term of keeping them going. At any moment you could point to short term failures. That's certainly true now. But I think that in the somewhat longer run, we've done a pretty good job of reminding ourselves what the Constitution is.
- [40:40]
A
All right, last one. You teed it up. Relative to other constitutions, the U.S. constitution.
- [40:46]
B
Oh, it gets an A plus. I mean, I think by any measure, and to begin it with the fact that it's endured this long, but also with the ways in which it's enabled our society to deal with very, very complicated problems. This sets me apart from political scientists in general. People love to say, you know, Norway does this a lot better. I sure don't think so. And for a mass diverse society, I think the American Constitution is basically a miracle.
- [41:15]
A
All right, that's it for grade it. Thanks, Yuval. I want to get to teaching government a little bit on the specifics. How big of a role do you think instruction on the Constitution that a constitution and the functioning of the US Government should play in civic education?
- [41:30]
B
I think it has a central role. It's one of the things students absolutely have to understand is how does our system work, what does it consist of and what has its history been? So I think teaching government in high school is essential and I actually think we've gotten a little better at this. There is at least as an option, there's government instruction in a lot of places. Now, my experience of it as the parent of a 16 year old who, who took AP government last year, I came into that experience ready to fight the teacher and with boxing gloves on. My daughter had a wonderful teacher and really knows a lot about American government. I think that's very important.
- [42:12]
A
What do you make when you see polls that say I don't know what the numbers are? Only 40% of people can name the three branches of the US government and some of these fundamental ideas are poorly understood across the populace. Does that alarm you?
- [42:29]
B
Yeah, I think it's worrisome. I'm not alarmed in the sense of we used to know it and now we don't. I think the tendency to think about this in terms of decline probably isn't right, though it's hard to know what Americans in the 19th century knew say. But I do think that more of us should know how our government works and what it consists of. And yeah, those are worrying numbers.
- [42:52]
A
Today it seems that instruction on the Constitution is often centered on the Bill of Rights. Do you think that's a mistake?
- [43:00]
B
Yes, I think that's a mistake. I think it's understandable. We went through a very long period in American constitutional practice where the Bill of Rights and the amendments, I would say the Bill of rights and the 14th amendment were at the heart of our big constitutional disputes. We're actually now living in a phase where the structural Constitution really matters. The biggest cases before the Supreme Court in the last few years have been about the separation of powers. They've been about executive power, regulation, administrative law. And it's not just under this president or the last one. So I think it's more important than ever now to know about the original Constitution and the structural constitution. I read the Federalist Papers with students every summer. And I would say my sense now is that the Federalist Papers have never been more relevant in my lifetime than they are today. This is the time to know them because the kinds of questions they're about, which are structural constitutional questions and not at all about rights, are now more relevant and pertinent than they've been in a very, very long time. So we really do have to refocus on the Constitution itself.
- [44:09]
A
Every year right around this time evolved, the Supreme Court will drop some opinions and there's often a lot of sturm and drag around them. Do you think that Americans who have, if, if we had a better understanding of our government that there'd be less suspicion of the court?
- [44:32]
B
No, not really. I think people who know a lot about government are very suspicious of the court too. And you know, you know, the court is designed to arouse suspicion. It's a counter majoritarian institution in a democratic society. That's its purpose, that's its importance. It's what I love about it. But that means there are always going to be a lot of people who are very unhappy. I don't think there's any avoiding that. It's why judges have lifetime tenure. It's why the president can't change their pay. The Constitution was clearly aware of this danger, and I don't think we can educate ourselves out of it. We're not wrong to think that it matters a lot. It does.
- [45:14]
A
If you're a teacher, you could probably give students an understanding of the background of the Constitution and the three branches of government in a week or two. Why do you think it is that there's an advantage to spending more time than that on it? And if so, what would you drive at them understanding?
- [45:34]
B
I think it's very important for students to think about the question of what the Constitution is for. To what question or problem is it really an answer or a solution? And that takes more time and context. The Constitution is an answer to the question how does a diverse, divided society govern itself well and hang together? It's A very relevant, pertinent question. But to see that that's what they were asking requires knowing a fair amount of history, requires understanding a little bit about how politics works and the purposes of it, and requires thinking about how the Constitution has worked and where it succeeded and where it's failed. That's more than a couple of weeks of work.
- [46:15]
A
How big a role do you think classes on US History, which are typically distinct from civics, should play in civics education?
- [46:24]
B
Well, it's central, right? So it is distinct from civics, but I think it's an essential component of civic knowledge and understanding. And so you can't do civics without some serious knowledge of US History. And I think you also can't study US History without, in one way or another, really teaching civics. A lot of our history is about the big debates and controversies that our system of government has been about. So the two are just inevitably interconnected
- [46:53]
A
for the purposes of civic education. Are there specific topics in US History that you would say are sort of. Of paramount, of. Of importance? These are the essentials that you have to know for a good civic education.
- [47:07]
B
You know. Yeah. I think that there's a set of questions that have been central to our national life, and they do begin with the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration says that we're all created equal, and that we're all created equal has some implications for the life of a nation. I think, on the one hand, it points in the direction of majority rule. If we're all equal, then no one has natural authority over anybody else, and the only way to really make decisions as a whole is through majority rule. On the other hand, if we're all equal, then we each have some basic rights, whether we're in the majority or the minority. That means that our politics is about how to balance majority rule and minority rights. And that's very, very hard to do. At almost every point of extreme controversy in American life, the question we're asking is, how do we balance majority rule and minority rights? To see that requires some knowledge of the history, requires some knowledge of the Constitution, and I think grasping that will serve a student well throughout their lives as American citizens. There is just a necessity in grasping how important that is and how complicated it is. There are some other issues that have to be, I think, understood to really make sense of America. But at the core is really, I think, that very difficult challenge of balancing majority and minority.
- [48:35]
A
When teaching history, there's often a tension between an idealized version of American history and a focus on America's failures It seems like the middle ground seems to be, well, we should cover the darker chapters, but we should focus on the ways in which America has been a force for good. Do you, you think that approach is basically right? Is there more to say here?
- [48:57]
B
It's just much easier said than done. Right. And so I think the question is, how do you actually go about finding that middle ground? I'll tell you how I think about it. And I'm not a teacher and I wouldn't know how to be a teacher, but the way that I think about it as a citizen relates to how children think about their parents. Right. Where we belong in relation to our inherited tradition has a lot to do with how we think about prior generations. There's a way that very young children think about their parents, a childish way that sort of says, your parents are perfect. They're the people who solve every problem. They can do no wrong. When something goes wrong, you run to mom. Then as you get a little older and you come to realize that actually your parents aren't perfect and they don't really have the same sense of what you want to do that you do. You come to a kind of juvenile way of thinking about your parents, which is they're just wrong about everything. Parents of teenagers can relate to this view. And in that sense, you focus on what they get wrong. You think of yourself as needing to be unlike them, and you think they're in your way all the time. That kind of juvenile way of thinking about them also has a kind of parallel in how we think about our political tradition or our country. But then as you mature, and maybe especially when you have children of your own, you find yourself one day in a place where you're looking at a three year old and telling her not to eat pasta with her hands. And you realize, I just am my parents, I'm doing what they were doing. I can't tell you how many times in my life as a parent, I will hear things come out of my mouth that I remember coming out of my father's mouth and just think, huh, that's what he was doing. He had no idea what he was doing. He was just trying to get through this without somebody getting hurt. That recognition, I am my parents. I'm doing what they were doing, is a way of coming to terms with that middle point between all right and all wrong. And you come to it by realizing, I'm doing what they were doing. That attitude is very necessary in civics education because there is a childish civics that says they can do no Wrong. They're just these perfect figures in marble statues. It's George Washington on his knees with a bird on his shoulder all the way down. That's not right. There is a juvenile way of approaching our history which says it was all wrong. It was slavery from the beginning. All the ideals are hypocrisies. That's not right either. There's a way of thinking about our political tradition that says they were doing what we are doing. They were trying to resolve the same kinds of problems to govern a society full of an incredible diversity of crazy people doing wild things and dynamic things and building a future. And they were looking for ways to have that go well and to govern themselves well. And that's what we're doing, too. They were better than we are in some ways, and we can learn from them. They were worse than we are in some ways, and we can learn from that, too. And you can approach your parents that way. You can see things they did much better than you and try to learn. You can see things that you just wouldn't do that they did, even though you still revere and respect them. That's the attitude we're looking for. It's not easy to do, but I think by connecting ourselves with them rather than separating ourselves from them, by seeing that they were doing what we're doing, they were people, too. You can approach that kind of middle ground, which is so much easier said than done.
- [52:34]
A
Yuval. A lot of my questions have been focused on schools. We're the report card podcast, after all. But there's a question of how much of this burden of civics education schools can bear. So how big of a role should schools play? Should they provide 90% of the civics education that students receive, 50% less? If you had to put a number on it, where would you peg it?
- [53:00]
B
I'm not sure how to think about it in terms of a number. I think schools have a role to play in civics. To the extent that civics can be achieved by formal education, by learning facts and skills, it's a significant extent. I mean, I guess if you force me to come up with a number, it'd be something like 70%, which is a lot. But it's not enough. There has to be civic formation going on in our families, in our religious communities, to some degree, in our actual political life. I think that does happen. Americans are formed into being Americans in almost every way that we engage with each other. We're the people who tend to solve problems by forming committees and electing a treasurer. That's just our natural instinct. And we do that all over our civic life and public life. We form corporations, we start things, we take votes. That kind of habitual civic formation is very important too, but there's no substitute for some learning. And so I do think schools are really critical in civic formation.
- [54:09]
A
Parents certainly have a responsibility here in the civic education of their children. I know you're not a parent, advice columnist or anything, but as my children
- [54:19]
B
could tell you, how would you.
- [54:21]
A
How would you reflect on what parents should think when they're taking on this role?
- [54:27]
B
You know, I think like so much of parenting, it's. It's a matter of modeling as much as anything else. You have to show your kids that it matters to you, that you care about the country, that you understand yourself, to have certain responsibilities, that you vote, that you try to follow the news, that you try to be an informed citizen. I think that's a lot of what you can do. You know, I certainly recommend taking your kids on patriotic trips to Civil War battlefields. But if you ask my kids whether that's forming them, I don't know. It's certainly given them some kind of attitude about American history. It evidently can be done to excess, I would say. But just by modeling yourself as a citizen who cares about the country, I think you help your children see that they should care about the country.
- [55:13]
A
And what about this summer? I mean, this is a big summer. This is a big week. It's the 250th.
- [55:18]
B
Yes.
- [55:20]
A
Thoughts on what parents should be thinking.
- [55:22]
B
This is a week to be an unabashed patriot. At least that's my view of it. And to go and see those fireworks and to put a flag out and see what you can learn and read together. That's not everybody's way. I read the Declaration of Independence aloud with my kids every 4th of July. I don't expect everybody to do that. I'm kind of crazy on this front. But if you're ever gonna do it, maybe this is the year to do it on the 4th of July. And again, a lot of that is not about. Well, they're gonna hear the words, and it'll make them think about what Thomas Jefferson believed. It's about seeing their parents take their country seriously. And I think this is certainly a time to. To model that for the rising generation.
- [56:07]
A
Compared to the bicentennial in 1976, when we were both very, very young.
- [56:14]
B
Yes, I was born in 1977, so I was a.
- [56:16]
A
Okay, so, yeah, there you go. I was just one. Well, this year's celebrations reputedly are much lower key. Why do you think that is?
- [56:27]
B
I'll tell you something about this. I have this perception, too. I got to ask the great. Now unfortunately, late American historian Gordon Wood, who just died a few weeks ago, one of the really great scholars of American history who was very involved in the bicentennial celebrations. I got to ask him how they made that work so well and why we were having such trouble. And his answer was, at the time, we thought it was a failure. And more than that, he said to me in 1976, we thought everything was a failure. The 1970s were terrible, he said to me, and that's easy to see. But his sense was the bicentennial was a success in retrospect. It created a very deep interest in American history that led to all of the kind of books about the founders and popular movies here and there, and ultimately, 20 years later, a play by Alexander Hamilton. He thought none of that was imaginable before the bicentennial, but that it wasn't obvious at the time that it was going great. And to a lot of people, and I think to him, it seemed like a lot of it was very kitschy. It was sort of focused on collectibles and silly things. There wasn't a lot of actual historical education. But in retrospect, it got people excited. Now, is this year going to do that? I don't know. My sense is no, I don't think so. I don't think we're doing this very well. I'm very proud of what AEI has done for the bicentennial, which is to put out a collection of eight volumes of essays to be used in civics education in the coming years. I don't know what kind of effect that has, but that's what we're trying to achieve here. The national celebration strikes me as kind of kitschy and lacking substance. But maybe I should take some hope from Gordon woods impression that that was what they did then, too, and it did have some effect. I don't know. I don't know quite how to do this right. We're obviously in a very divided moment, and it's very hard for people to celebrate the country if they don't like the President right now and that sort of thing. And so I think it was always going to be difficult. Whoever the President was, whatever we tried to do. I would say one other thing. We don't have as much of a concerted mainstream culture now as we did in the 1970s. Media is much more fragmented. There's nowhere where you could put an America at 250 show and have 40% of the country see it, because there's nothing 40% of the country does. And so it's hard to know quite how to do this, and it's hard to know how to judge what we're doing.
- [59:11]
A
Do you think Americans love and appreciate America less than they did 50 years ago?
- [59:16]
B
I don't know. I just don't have a way of knowing. And I'm generally pretty allergic to that kind of decline argument that says we used to be really great at X and now we're really terrible at X. I tend to think the problems that a free society has are characteristic problems of a free society. They arise in every generation. They always have to be confronted. And so, you know, was the America of the mid-1970s intensely patriotic? I really don't think so. That's not how I understand the 1970s at all. So I don't despair of this generation. I think we've faced much bigger problems in our history. I think we've faced times of much more intense and deep division. That doesn't mean we don't have very serious problems now. It just means that there are things we can learn from how prior generations dealt with big problems, and it's up to us. So rather than say we're not what we used to be, let's think about what we can be and do the work.
- [60:21]
A
To what extent do you think our current political climate is a result of poor civics education in schools?
- [60:30]
B
Oh, look, I think that the idea that if we did this better, we would all agree all the time and we wouldn't have these divisions probably isn't right. We would benefit from better civics education. I think if people had a sense of how America solves its problems, of what they should expect from politicians and from Congress, and of how much of the important work of civic life has to happen at the local level. We would do better at some of the challenges we have. But is today's politics just a function of ignorance? No, I don't think so. I think it's dealing with some serious problems and we're struggling to take them on in an effective way. And I doubt there's any amount of civics education that would get us to a perfect place on that front.
- [61:23]
A
Yuval Levin, happy 250th and to you. Thank you, and thanks for coming on the report card to talk about it.
- [61:29]
B
Really appreciate it.
- [61:31]
A
Thanks for listening to the report card with Nat Malkus. And special thanks to our guest, Yuval Levin. Also, thanks to our producer, Ellie Lucas, he makes this podcast possible. That's all for this episode.
- [61:43]
B
I'm Matt Malcolm.