 Good afternoon, hello. How are you? All right. So I'm going to do something that I always thought I would do. I promise myself I'm going to do this, but I'm going to start with a quote. I always hate when people do that, but here we are. Thomas Jefferson said that it was a duty for all of us to be a participator in the government of affairs. And he said the way we could do that was to create a way to spread it. And I'm going to talk about the future of knowledge, a public education system. In fact, I went to visit his grave two years ago, the faculty of the President of the United States, he's not on his tube stone. The fact that he created the University of Virginia is on his tube stone. It was important to him, it was important to that generation, and it should be important to us. So to be said that the primary debates that we're seeing on CNN and Fox News are discussing actual issues. And he said that they discussed public education. They're not talking about public education as a way to build the citizenry necessary to engage a robust public debate. They're talking about public education as a way to develop our workforce. And workforce development is an important component of our public education system. It's an increasingly digital, increasingly low-mised world, and we need that. But we also need to remember that the only way that a democratic society can govern itself is if people are informal and engaged. That's why I'm glad UCSA created the Center for Civic Engagement. That's why I'm glad we're having this time. So we can talk about all the different ways that we can improve participation in our democracy. So speaking of public education, I'm thinking back to my high school days when I was preparing for this talk and I was a high-level education. I remember we talked about learning things in politics in one or two ways. The second way was a teacher would go to one student and say, you're pro-government control. The teacher would go to the other student and say, you're anti-government control. Please, you can try to debate and discuss. You know, that was a perfect. The second way was come up and decide, again, it's very direct for me, and come out and decide what the constitution is for me. I think that we can all agree that that is a fundamental failure when it comes to Jefferson's vision. And what we need, I don't know, is schools for engaging in the kind of debates that we're trying to engage on. These aren't like topics. Nuclear fuel involved. Collective argument in the city. How are we going to fund our public education system in Texas? Criminal justice reform. It goes a little bit further than presiding the free and multi-constitution. And then students graduate from high school and they come to places like UTSA, they do a lot of education, and they graduate from places like UTSA. So they see a series of institutional papers. They see Enron, they see 9-11, they see a financial process. They're drowning the student debt with a limited job process, right? To what to engage in a society that's institutions fail to do, that has promised you something that is not deliberate. This is a real problem, as far as I'm concerned. I think we all recognize it's a problem throughout the year. There's a kind of thing across a couple of years ago. He's a fellow at Harvard University in the fellow National Constitution Center. And he says that the best way to give people to engage in public debate is not making a list of pronouns. It's not a CPI definition of some arcane passage. It's people coming together and having a conversation in a civil way about the issues we face. His name's Christopher Phillips and he created an entity called Democracy Cafe. Democracy Cafe is an entity that I've had the pleasure of serving the board on for quite some time. Dr. Phillips goes around all the country and he hosts these seminars, and he brings people in little roundtable discussions about current events, about constitutional issues, and about philosophical issues. And it's not about winning the debate. It's not about scoring points. It's about exploration. It's about discovery. So I thought that was a pretty fascinating idea. I mean, we all have witnessed this hyper-partisan media culture that has defined our lives. It incentivizes offensive comments about menstrual cycles and disincentivizes any kind of substantive debate at all. But I think everybody in this room is probably interested in that. But I think it starts to ground up. It starts at a public education level. So there's a woman who kind of recognizes herself. Intuitively, she works in curriculum instruction in the school district. Now I don't know how many of you live in Bear County or San Antonio, but East Central Independent School District is on the east of their county. It's very rural, lower socioeconomic status. They don't have the best college attendance rates and aren't the best SAP sports. They don't have the best SAP sports. They would not be traditionally viewed as a model school district for Bear County. But I think they should be. Patty Reyes, like I said, she started Constitution Cafe at East Central High School. And it's eight people at a table with a facilitator. So you imagine this room and a facilitator like me up here, around tables, eight people at each table. Each table has several adults and several students discussing in ground table format constitutional issues as equals. So these issues they're discussing are first amendment issues like can you wear a light-hearted band and protect the war? Can you give as much money as you want to a political candidate? They're discussing the Patient Protection in the Fourth World Care Act. It's such a complex issue. When I sat in on one, they discussed it and they actually had pretty good insights. They're discussing privacy and social media. They're discussing these issues in a way that is compelling, that matters, and that's why they're discussing the law service discourse. So they started having these Constitution cafes at East Central High School and a few dozen students would show up at a little before school. There was a kind of students who would kind of imagine to show up on these things. The kids that are going to go to UT, the kids that are going to go to UTSA, the kids that are going to do well. But then it grew. And the demand grew. Roland Tostado was a superintendent, Shayna Cates of Prince Walney Central. They decided to incorporate this Constitution cafe into their school day. So you have these Constitution cafes now about once a month. You have a waiting list. Hundreds of students hungry to talk about current events. And when you think about that, that's pretty amazing because when you think about high school kids these days, you think about Kim Kardashian and you think about things like Kim Kardashian, right? But they want to talk about privacy and social media. They want to talk about the first amendment. They want to talk about the equal pressure clause. They want to talk about all these things. They want to be asked. They don't want to be told. And they want to have a conversation. They don't want to have a debate. 400 students at the last one. And now they included the culinary program there. The culinary program catered for both things. They incorporated the audio-visual students who put on audio-visual stuff. And they got to be thinking about a lot of things. The first of which is is there a long-term effect of this on these students? I mean kind of intuitively here, if it's right, you would think. Or it turns out that the students who have participated thus far and have graduated have higher SAT scores. They're more likely to go to college and they're more likely to meet whatever college readiness standard there is. My boss who some of you I think heard speak today, worked at the NMR Public Policy Center for almost ten years. And this is what he studied. He studied engagement in schools. And he found through quantitative studies that students were engaged for two semesters in this way. Or a way like this. Have higher end voters who are now four years out have even higher end voters who are now eight years out. So it's long-term consequences for civic engagement. Now voters who are now this great are all four now. But what Patty said, I called her this morning and told her I was going to be giving her a little shout out here, what Patty said was it's not just that they're voting. It's that they're not reciting the Fox News or the MSNBC talking points anymore. They think critically about what they're told. And I know some people here are educators at the TSA, I am. And I know that's a problem with our students. They're not thinking critically about anything. They're debating about current issues in a meaningful way in our public schools. And I think that this model of conversation can help us achieve that. And that's pretty much what I have as far as preparing remarks though I'm more of a group discussion kind of guy clearly. So if anybody wants to get to that. So what type of material is made available to them to then prepare for these discussions? So what type of material is made available? It's actually not as much as you would think. What I've seen is usually a couple of articles about an issue from a publication like The Washington Journal or The New York Times and you'll see sort of a fact-based sort of objective reporting and you'll see a couple of opinion pieces. So they're sort of familiar with the facts just the facts and they're familiar with sort of the spin on both sides of what they're walking. So they're not walking in line but they're not also walking in with a bunch of people filling their head with information about it. Dr. Rivera. Thank you. That's really interesting. How much do they or do you think maybe they could in the future bring the discussion into their own neighborhood and their part of the city? Because I think that's really interesting too. So I guess it could be in two ways that say that if they're talking about the first that they think about how that might play out in terms of like you said like what they can do in their own neighborhood or their own school but so there's that part of it do they bring that to understanding of their immediate context but then also would there be a way to expand this model so you could think a little bit more about city politics and maybe you can get kids interested in the pipeline where they could be on board of information to rent our office at a fairly young age. I think that's the question is how to expand the scope of this so I would say to think that's the hope as far as I'm concerned that students will graduate from high school with an education like this and they'll come to UTSA and do that here and they'll go out in their communities and engage in this discourse in their neighborhood associations. That's the hope. Sort of the full side of that is constitution and democracy that they were not in public schools and that's sort of the fascinating thing to me about it because you go to a coffee shop or a public library in Oakland or Milwaukee or Newark and you probably find a group of people talking about this stuff on Friday night so the answer is people are doing this in their communities yes and we want these students to take that out of their communities and then we should probably design it in such a way where they're more empowered to do so So that's the hope. I hope that answers your question. Next. The pre-K for SA was a successful initiative. I can remember a couple of times during the debate the previous student winning the election they were asked about public school education and most of the panel said the candidates said that's out of our control and we can't do anything and that was at the state level but they got pre-K for SA which is a huge thing especially for the underserved populations and even the most and I'm happy to be sharing this with you Central but how can locals make it happen at the state level at the public school level without going through the state system and they don't have to be a magnet student. That's a good question. So how many times have I heard politicians say this issue is not my jurisdiction you know I heard I really do and it's sad. I'm going to plug my boss a little bit to answer your question so he started an initiative called the kids town hall so he goes into a school a middle school or a richer school and he goes into town hall meetings where you have a bunch of kids sitting across the lane on the floor and they're all really unconscious so I want to talk about Garcia Middle School which is a district 8 school so the student said we have this problem with crosswalks and sidewalks in our right and he said you know what we can do let's talk about transportation you know what happened in six months sidewalks were fixed so I would say listen with you engaged you're going to get what you want back I think that as far as the jurisdiction go I'm sure the city does not fund the public schools right it doesn't have the authority to deal with public schools but you can do little things on the margins like that and have a profound impact on our public schools and teach students lessons in a sort of indirect way that's really meaningful and impactful to their lives in my opinion I hope that answers your question can you give to the city council to answer that too following up on that actually because I'm in this district I have someone in a elementary school elementary and then also someone next door at Clark High School I want to church else the way that I would could council council person to conduct like a training perhaps with a population in the community that would be able to approach schools and go in and do a half a similar conversation because he's one person how can he that's a great idea and I don't want to make him do anything especially on camera but I think he would be very interested in that idea so let's connect after this and we can talk about it anybody else yes I guess that's okay oh it's okay I was just curious do some of the kids emerge more in the years in these discussions than we have yeah so we have several kinds of students in these states and that's what we're going to do to watch you have the kid who's already running for president he or she is 15 years old they have an RGC and they've read Alex Smith and John Block and they're ready to go and then you have the kids who aren't running for president right now every kind student there but the way it's done is in such a respectful way that you listen to the kid and then you listen to the kid who you've never thought about this because she wasn't alive and you can learn from both yes you have different kinds of students that participate and different kind of people in the democracy campaign and the constitution campaigns are adults all different educational backgrounds yes Sam so what's the role of the organization is it to crack numbers right and I should go on to more of them when I turn to Mark so sorry so you have a pillar campaign coming up I'm going to introduce a comment so I want to say as a pillar here I would say Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission these are the issues having to do with money and speech and political campaigns do corporations have the right to write checks in support of candidates and then you have several round tables you know many people at each round table and round tables with facilitators on the discussions for 30, 45 minutes then you report out to a big group so if anybody can say to a big group they can kind of say their piece that the real conversation happens among the same people diversified people and are teachers facilitating taking studies? they're kind of self-assilitated where the ones I went to adults have been very careful not to try and drive the train of the conversation so if you want to see the incredibly of the girls talking about cities everything in the White House where people recycle their questions I'm sorry but one of my skills I forgot to plug the SES you have to be incredibly bored with this I'm involved in the Northeast Independent School District I graduated from the school as I'm involved in their bond to oversight committee I'm working on behalf of their bond but I'm very troubled by the way they handle a certain situation I want to juxtapose what East Central is doing in terms of fostering debate encouraging dissent almost in a very healthy way to what Northeast did and I know that Charles Lambiel's passion about this we already know the formal shooting of the churches several months ago the Confederate flag kind of debate popped up again now we live in Texas there are several Confederate symbols here including Robert E. Lee High School in Northeast Independent School District and another woman who is currently a student of Robert E. Lee High School which got rid of the Confederate flag in 1991 so good for them on that you've got a hundred signatures from the petition to change the name Robert E. Lee High School and the district said we're not going to have that discussion here here what are they teaching this student what are they teaching this student to sign the petition why would you if you were gay to your 17 years old you're told no sorry we're not going to let you challenge the power structure at all you won't have to change the name I feel like the people have an exception I feel like it's a powerful juxtaposition on this border of the ISD I don't think Robert E. Lee High School should be saying that they need to have competition as far as I'm concerned anybody else Kate well so my mom actually creates for people to sign ISD but no I guess to me is more of a mindset rather than a prescribed curriculum it's a mindset of we need people having conversations and we need to encourage exploration I don't really support personally a curriculum but I do support a curriculum that first person thinks I don't completely disagree with you but there is a program called ISD that's the other that's all school districts are on anybody else short and sweet I guess thank you all for coming yes Michelle I was just curious about something I just wanted to know your thoughts on do you think that technology has contributed to the little border turnouts here do you think we need to go back to traditional ways you know what you're talking about seems something that a lot of people can view and implement in schools do you think we'll align too much on technology and social media and digital marketing to try to get people to encourage them to go out and go meet I would say that digital communication is a double-edged sword because it definitely accelerates this trend toward 140 character solidites you can't discuss the Iran nuclear deal in 140 characters if you can you're smarter than everybody ever did and that digital can be a great tool to communicate to people hey look there's a bond that's great but I think that it does have the effect of sometimes distilling complex issues into 140 character solidites first of all and second of all creates sort of an echo chamber where you only follow people that you agree with and there's this confirmation bias which means that you only really agree you only really accept people that you agree with and tweet and stuff I would say that social media is a double-edged sword and the final analysis is a good thing and I should say that the essential they do engage on social media with the students who aren't there so they can practice making a conversation so it can be utilized absolutely but it can't be in my view they're replacing it because there's nothing in this world that meets face-to-face conversation in my view thank you for saying that you're welcome again I was just looking at the time as I noticed you had more time for me can you tell us generally your thoughts about that and how the city has contributed or helped toward relieving that crisis well I know that a very good person came in here today and advocated for changing the election date from May which there's been some debate about even since then it's tough it's really tough I know that in our office we'll be able to go out with the community and do a block walk even at houses that aren't voters and we'll try to get them to engage with us but we're undergoing this essay tomorrow it's a comprehensive plan that Mayor Taylor announced where we're trying to align all of our policies including water, transportation, sustainability, everything and a big component of the successful comprehensive plan is engagement and we're out there begging people to engage and they aren't they have to meet a pathway that people have to meet there's only so much to do but you do need to take every correct measure you can to remove barriers so the civic engagement crisis in San Antonio and my view is we don't have enough people applying to boards and commissions wherever it is I don't think in our time financial disclosures whatever it is UTSA student body president and Billy Allen's office my boss appointed her to the ethics review board and said we want a 22 year old making decisions about ethics policy in San Antonio we need the council members to do that we need more willing people willing to step up so we can get to the crisis in San Antonio in my view and I learned from an advocate that was a lot more than that it's about people really thinking about this rich pipeline we collected bargaining agreement in an equal way it's about people signing up for boards and commissions it's about people who don't have a financial interest in issues speaking about issues because I'll tell you the only people I hear from people who have a financial interest in it and then there's like Dr. Romero is great because she doesn't have a financial interest in anything but she's thoughtful about it and she doesn't want people like that so the city of New York crisis is not just quantitative it's also qualitative and we're trying to and a lot of politicians are listening and a lot of politicians are listening to people they create a misunderstanding they create a misunderstanding to even speak up but as you said like the student probably in high school probably fell for it to some degree I don't know or I don't know how she fell for it by the way I felt like the world I am there's no I know a lot of people kill that way of interacting with the government there are just simple things we can do more news on social more newsletters going out in communities more but it's very very critical so we're trying to I'm very full of the question of where you're down and you're in a deferred site market and on camera it's what we understand do you have an opinion about a strong city manager versus a strong lawyer I think she's giving us a a triple of longer than seven years in a row and that's all I'll say it's her let me get back to the discussion of social media because it's a great point so traveling a lot listening to intelligence-query debates and there one of the folks who are making the case that through social media we have what's called an illusion of freedom whereas through social media though our efforts are good intention they never actually serve as a catalyst for the change that we want to see so is that a problem in social media that you see TJ where folks who can lambast their value criticize their public policy but that's to the extent in which it goes where it'll suddenly stop and no change is ever seen and furthermore on that note how do you think the city of San Antonio should approach that issue Councilman Aaron Burr had shared that the Essays Tomorrow Plan although it is a plan perhaps maybe it could be something more more of a platform for initiating change, encouraging civic engagement to make sure that Essays Tomorrow is always the tomorrow that we chase and never something that just stops so the question is the question is how do we correct the social media I guess issue where folks engage in social media discuss and then it stops there and the policy or the civic engagement component doesn't actually come to fruition in quote-unquote real-world well I feel like it's simple engaging the tool and tool box in these media the tool and tool box needs to be used such so there are people that go and speak in person at every city council meeting I'm sure you know who they are I'm sure anybody who's been to one of these meetings knows who they are and they're responding seriously they're trolls, that's what they are they're like, you have trolls on social media too serious people at Goodwill can't make a change there are enough of them that dance together to do so and they can do it for a Leatherite campaign they can do it for showing out about somebody's door they can do it for social media and what I've found because I've been to social media accounts to my boss is that there are people at Goodwill and people at Goodwill are people that get things done so my basic point is good hearted people who are thinking about the issues and an open minded way of that change no matter what their tool is in my experience but I mean being the soul of it and everything is that I have finished so thank you for your convincing