Trial by Teenager, Part 2

the speakers. Leave of the love of John Dark. Please take up your draft and throw it away because we were clean in first tool, do a three and many tool. Pick up your trash. Please, let's clean this place up. We've come here to high school to clean up American politics, where the trash that needs picking up is a pile

of lies. And it also it is just long to your raft there and make others up a Welcome to the Last Archive High School Edition, Part two, the second phase of our experiment and using high school students to find out what's true and what's not. Someone's got to do it, why not them? Last episode we conducted phase one of our experiment to solve the problem of lies in political ads. Our solution ask high school students to form juries and decide whether an ad is true enough

to get posted on social media. We got this idea from Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, and we tried it out in a big urban public high school outside of Boston over a single class session. Resounding success. But we wondered what if that was a one off? So we wanted to try it again on a much bigger scale. This time, we're stepping things up, meeting with forty students in two schools in two states over three days evaluating four ads. Got it. Forty students, two states, three days,

four ads. Day one we met, everyone learned about political ads with them. Day two the students started fact checking. Over the weekend, everyone did homework. Monday, Day three was the big game day. The students from both schools met over Zoom for jury deliberations. The two states we chose, New Hampshire and Vermont, are right next door to one another. They've got lots in common, but they've also got striking differences. We started out in New Hampshire, a tiny state in

northern New England. It's a place where the first presidential primary has been held for decades, so there are huge political stakes in this little state. It's a kind of place where the candidates will come, sit at a diner, talked to voters. Where in any election season political ads play on television and on radio. Non stock Perhapshire is a battleground state. It's not red, it's more purplish. We went to a knocked about little town population nine thousand.

The town's called where Where Where. It's kind of a who's on first problem? White clavered houses, a lot of Democratic voters, also a lot of Trump flags and Biden sucks signs. We walked up to the high school Skirtland and I will be your tour guide. So this is the sivixth classroommate and obviously the APUs history. Quinn is a junior at John Stark Regional High School in where New Hampshire. She would not say this herself, but we

got tipped off that she's kind of a polyglot. I speak Chinese, Japanese, English, French, a town allion, Spanish, Tagalog, a little bit of Korean and Vietnamese. Wow right, wow, quinns gave me in benatour in English. This hallway is kind of the ap hallway so that's where we have ap English, APUs history, and honor civics as well as regular civics, because it's a required course. John Stark is a sprawling brick and glass high school up on a hill.

If you've been to a public high school with about a thousand kids in it anytime between nineteen fifty and the year two thousand, you can picture John Stark White Hallway's murals on the walls. The school is named after this guy, General John Stark, a revolutionary somebody. That's pretty much my extent of the knowledge I later discovered. John Stark is the guy who said live free or die,

which is New Hampshire's motto. Anyway, Quince took us down to the cafetorium told us it was Chicken Patty Day. Everybody looks forward to Chicken Patty Day, I've heard. So I'm a vegetarian, so I don't know, but I've heard great things about it. So okay. So that's John Stark, our purple State School in New Hampshire, Live for or die baby for a blue state, we chose Vermont, New Hampshire's neighbor to the west, home of Bernie Sanders. If you draw a rectangle and then draw it diagonally a

squiggly line through the middle. Vermont is on the left and New Hampshire is on the right, and that's how their politics work out too. Vermont has a Republican governor, but it's pretty much a lock for the Democrats in any national election, so national candidates rarely travel there. A Republican hasn't won the state since nineteen eighty eight, when

George H. W. Bush beat Massachusetts Governor Michael Ducaucus. Campaigns do not spend money trying to win over Vermonters, and the ads that do play tend to be much more local. We finished up our tour with quins and jumped in the car. Who's time to drive across the Connecticut River in you're drawing that's quiggly line? Is that river all right? Soak it up? Soak up every last drop of New

Hampshire you can. Recording six class periods and two schools over three days required a lot of driving between states, me plus all three of the last archives producers, Ben, Sophie and Lucy in teams of two. Thankfully, it's not a long drive from John Stark in where New Hampshire to Green Mountain Union in Chester, Vermont, and we made it. We have across the river here we go to Vermont. Yes, wow,

so everything feels super different. So okay, the differences between New Hampshire and Vermont are in some ways so small that it's easy to make fun of state pride. I'm wide awake and warmer. We're past the cold river new sights. Still there are real differences. Vermont is very very liberal. New Hampshire is more conservative. And then there's the matter

of the ice cream. What are maple creamies? Creamies are like a special kind of vermine soft served and I have to try that favored ones For the blue state end of our experiment, We've chosen Green Mountain High School in Chester, a beautiful, gleaming high school that sits on a hill. Every wall inside is covered with student art. Incredible edgy, thrilling student art. Like the high school we visited in New Hampshire, this one serves a mostly white,

mostly rural community, farming towns a green Mountain. Two students volunteered to give us a tour around the place. All right, I'm Liam, by the way. Nate's a freshman and Liam's a junior. He's on the school baseball team plays second base. Are a Red Sox fan. I'm a Yankees fan. Oh no, but why my dad likes loss to like? There used to be lots to like about the Red Sox too, but now they stink. Anyway, we had our two schools

in two states, with two different teachers. In New Hampshire, at John Stark High School, we're going to be going to Dan Marcus's ap us history class. And here at Green Mountain and Chester Vermont, we're going to be going to Melissa Palmer's eighth period Civics class. We're at their schools to get verdicts on four political ads from twenty twenty two to stage a kind of Civics Olympiad after

the bell. I've told you a little bit about our two schools, John Stark in New Hampshire, Green Mountain and Vermont are actually the students have told you about their schools. Now I want to introduce you to their teachers. Melissa Palmer teaches Civics and history at Green Mountain. Her classrooms on the third floor. It's like a treehouse up there,

the branches all but bursting through the windows. She got wonder woman stuff all over the place, Wonder Woman mug on the desk, Wonder Woman posters on the walls, signs that read I teach What's your superpower? And she does have a superpower. She's a genius teacher. When I first got to the classroom, she was trying to build up

her student's confidence. They were nervous about this experiment. In particular, they were scared that at the end of it they were going to be meeting with students from New Hampshire. This is the way I always look at things. You're going to be working with students you don't know, yes, but are you ever going to see them again? People? Right, don't be shy, like, don't worry. Okay. Something important to note here, Melissa Palmer. Students at Green Mountain were mostly

freshmen taking a required Civics course. Their counterparts in New Hampshire were ap history students, mainly juniors, some seniors. The Vermont kids were a little intimidated by that. Would they hold their own in this jury of peers? But that's okay, because if this spread nationwide, the classrooms might not be matched exactly. And I wanted to know in that case, would it still work we'll find out soon enough, but first let me tell you a little bit more about

our new Hampshire teacher, Dan Marcus. He's got a giant facsimile of the four pages of the parchment Constitution on the walls of his classroom, and portraits of political philosophers along an ideological continuum. John Locke at one end with a sign that reads trust the People, and Thomas Hobbes at the other end with a sign that says trust government. In a minute, i'll tell you, guys your groups and really what you're going to be doing is you're gonna

be charged with sort of a two step process. The first step is going to be to decide what your methodology is going to be. How are you going? Dan Marcus gives the impression of being more buttoned up than Melissa Palmer. He's a little bit reserved at first, but don't be fooled. It took a while for this to come out and talking with him, but it turns out that he writes and records songs for his students to help them study, like this one about the Constitution. Extra

extra read all about seven articles of the CASSA. Two sons think about how generous This was of these teachers and their students to let us swarm into their classrooms with microphones and recorders and this whole crazy, intricate lesson plan and a section A in a new The Rates Congresses,

Powers and Limitations. The more I got to know these teachers, the clearer it came to me that even though we'd come to these schools to teach something, ah, that was really happening was that we were learning how great American high school teaching can be. But it was time to get started first with a little fact checking warm up. How are you going to decide whether a AD an AD or you're AD the one you're going to ultimately work with should be something that Facebook or some other

social media site should allow to be posted. A man attacked me in a parking garage, tried to stab me with an eight inch knife, but I carry a pistol. I fight back. That's an AD made by the NR in twenty sixteen about gun rights in the Second Amendment. Just to be clear here for a minute, the stuff about guns, it's not abstract for high school students, or even elementary school students, even kindergarteners. It's not abstract for kids in any school in the country, given the plague

of mass shootings. These kids can't vote, but the consequences of the political choices made by people who can vote, These students bear those consequences in these buildings, within these halls, underneath these desks. In mister Marcus's classroom, Lydia and Rose, two eleventh graders, were dubious about the n a ads claims did that woman kill someone? Because what she said was they tried to stab you with an eight inchike?

Whose bay? And when did this happen? And She's like, but I was safe because I carried it, because I carry a gun. And if you carry a gun, you can also protect yourself from the nameless people who attacked. Yeah, because who attacked her? One thing I was learning fast. Nothing gets past these kids. And if you live with high schoolers, you probably know what this feels like to

watch them nail someone to the wall. As I'd been reminded in visiting Benji Cohen's class in our last episode, teenagers are born fact checkers, and I think correlation is not equal causation. That kind of sense, because someone wants gun, Okay, what would you check? You'd check to see if the policy is actually to take away your gun. Yeah. Day one was mainly this kind of stuff, just talking about

facts versus claims. Day two we formed the student juries to judge ads from the twenty twenty two election season. We had two ads from New Hampshire and two from Vermont in both classrooms. The students in their four groups got right to it. The easiest to add to handle turned out to be a pretty straightforward issue ad about ranked choice voting. It was an ad from Vermont across America. Our voice is at stake. The threat to our democracy is real, but this is mt We're not about to

give in. It's time to make your voice count with ranked choice vote, ranked choice voting, with ranked choice voting with Miss Palmer's students in Vermont. Charissa explained how her group picked out what parts to check. So we highlighted that it can strengthen our says it can strengthen our democracy with written choice voting, and that it's a simple reform and that it gives more voters, more choice and

more voice. They got to googling. It's just like first doing an Internet search and trying to find like reliable sources to fact check it. They made a list of pros and cons of ranked choice voting, settling into the work of figuring out if the ad was fair. While they're slogging that out, let's move on to the official campaign ad of Kecia ram Hinsdale of Vermont Or, who is at the time running for Congress. Her AD's pretty

much a love letter to the state. I came to the University of Vermont with a suitcase and found my home. Vermont is a place where we lift each other up, where we measure success not by how many cars you have, but by how many cars you have pulled out of a ditch. That's the Vermont Way. In Melissa Palmer's classroom in Vermont, Liam and Nate, the students who'd taken me on a tour, started going through the transcript of Hinsdale's ad line by line. Yeah, it's not claim, is it like?

That's just a statement. There's one thing that was really cool to see is how thoughtful the students were about the sources they were using to check facts. I just lays your dough Vermont dot gov. It's one of the ones that miss Palmer gave to us. People about Miss Palmer, suggestive for us so I think that's a trusted Also, it looks like it has a lot of information. Valuating the reliability of sources got really interesting, especially in the

groups that had to judge. In New Hampshire ad about abortion. It's one of the most restrictive abortion bands in New Hampshire history. There are no exceptions if the fetus can't survive, no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, and doctors could face up to seven years in jail. Learn more at SUNUW abortion band dot com. In mister Marcus's class Lydia, a junior let a deliberation about whether anything in this

ad violated the standards of students were creating. It's weird to think about, like saying, telling adults to not cyberbule each other, it's kind of funny. Most of the students found it easiest to debate fairness. It took a bit of urging to get them to dig into whether the claims and the ads were true. Brandon, a friendly sophomore in Vermont, realized his group would need to figure out

what the New Hampshire abortion bill actually said. But what we were able to find out is we could just look at the actual writing of the bill itself and then see if these are actually in here, and if they're not, then that will be our fact checking. Right, thanklets seems who do we want to fact checks? This not the most responsible human being. But I probably could get on Mike and beers. Yeah, I'll do five through seven. I'll fact check those and then you guys can one,

you can do three or four. You guys can choose your Pappas assigning his friend's homework. I love that. Another ad from New Hampshire was an attack on Chris Pappas, a Democrat running for reelection and the first openly gay man from the Granite State to serve in Congress. This was an attack ed put out by a conservative group called American Action Network. It worked by time Congressman Pappas to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. First, Nancy

Pelosi said she'd raise taxes. Now She's coming for whatever you've got left, doubt pay for trillions in new spending. Pelosi wants the government to spy on nearly every American bank account looking for new money to spend your deposits, payments, bank balance. Under Pelosi's plan, the government monitors them call Chris Pappas, tell him to stop Pelosi's spending spree and

keep government out of your bank account. The Vermont students were sort of floored by the intensity of New Hampshire politics. More vitriol, more national focus, and a lot less let's help your neighbor pull their truck out of a ditch. Yeah, so Nancy Pelosi said she would raise taxes. So that's something that you would be able to bactcheck right. All right, what else? Now she's coming for whatever you've got left

to help pay for trillions in new spending. Pelosi wants the government to spy on nearly every American bank account. Is that a claim? Yeah. Once the students in Vermont figured out what those claims were, the next step was trying to figure out where those claims came from and how to check them. The students in New Hampshire we're

doing the very same thing. One of the forces list is pretty frequently is Fox News and then YouTube says that's why we raise up authoritative voices, including sources like CNN and Fox News. There's like the doc client because that's a secondary right and you're in history class, you know primary sources. What would be sore, trying to find out what what was Pelosi talking about when she said this thing? What would be a farmer's It would be the best primer her. They found a phone number for

Nancy Pelosi's office in Washington. I feel like we should call it Zion. Colin would be fine, Colin would be okays. They decided to give Nancy Pelosi's office the chance to answer the charges leveled in the ad They found the tiny corner of the classroom with cell service dot Mister Marcus borrowed his phone value from you us to this

menu and English. Please stay on the line. If you would like to voice your opinion, share feedback, or pass along a personal story to Speaker Pelosi, please press one. Welcome to Congress in action pleas two. If you have questions about Speaker Pelosi's policy physician, please press three. If you are to get the latest news on the issues that are report to you, please visit our website at www dot speaker dot com. Mister Marcus was listening in maybe Hi, UM, I'm a student doing a project on

um what Nancy Pelosi meant in a political advertisement? And I just have a few questions. UM sure if it was the political advertisement. Our government office wouldn't be the best place to call. It would probably want to call the campaign office. Because of how BADIG rules epic rules, we can't really answer or to talk about the campaign size of things. Um, do you have a number for

the campaign office? I can't legally direct you. The poor young staffer who finally answered the phone, he couldn't have been much older than the students themselves. He was patient with them, but he couldn't really help. I'm happy to talk about her policy more definitely, or redirect you to think. Okay, so it said she um was spending money and we were just wondering where that spending money was coming from that we saw in the ad. You'd have to be

a little more. I think that she'd had a lot of press teaments on life but redirected her website um in terms of like specific films that she's passed and things like the Omnibus. But um it was saying that there was lots of that she was raising taxes and then taxes for like homeowners and things like that. Yeah, I don't want to think on behalf of the speaker on any particular issue because I'm not an official took person or the speaker, but like she's put statement on

every funding bill online. But I think that'd probably be the best place. Oh well, it turns out it's hard, maybe even impossible to check facts directly with elected officials if you're a high school student. I think, aren't they supposed to answer questions? Though? I think I just learned about the civics, so they're supposed to answer questions, like you're supposed to be able to call no. That's an actual thing in the I think it was Hobbes and Locke.

They said, like, if you ever have a problem with your government, you should be able to take it upon yourself to like talk to the government and get those answers of the question. We all died a little in that moment, I guess, except that it was so great to watch them go for it. Plus she cited Hobbes and Locke. By the way you were thank you was a little bit. Yeah, you're awesome to talk to a representative who wouldn't give me any answer. That was day

one and day two. They were good days, great days. The kids dug In really put in the work. It was easy almost to lose sight of what it was all for. But I don't think the students last sight of that you could tell how seriously they were taking it, thinking about what if this actually worked, what if this really became a national program. Everyone went home with assignments

over the weekend. Monday, they'd be back for jury service after the break Monday Day three game day, where the students in Vermont and New Hampshire would meet together by zoom for jury duty in breakout rooms and together they'd come up with their verdicts on four political ads, two from each state. Can you describe for me after you're wearing and why you're wearing? Oilver At John Stark High School in New Hampshire, in Dan Marcus's classroom, the junior

named Jackson was dressed for success. I'm wearing a suit today for the sole purpose of this podcast. I want to look good big camera. Guy. Jackson's on the volleyball team. Last season, they hadn't won a single game, and this was the first day of the new season. But there was something of a different vibe over in Vermont at Green Mountain Union, where Melissa Palmer had written on the board four and a half days till vacation, sixty and sunny.

I'm going swimming. Give me my swim shorts. The kids in Miss Palmer's class were a little nervous about meeting their New Hampshire peers. Brandon was fidgeting in his seat. I don't want this, Brandon, You totally can do this. I have complete and utter faith in you. A lot of pressure. It's not the math Olympiad, but it felt big and a little scary to everyone, including me. I was in Vermont. Most of the rest of the production

team was in New Hampshire. We connected by zoom. I'll just say you, guys, I've met everybody now in both classes. I'm Jillipour. We are the last Archive producing team. We are so grateful to you and your teachers for doing this, and everyone here and Chester Vermont is very excited. So we'll start off by learning about the classroom on the other side of the river. At the start, there was just a lot of shuffling and stammer as we got the laptops hooked up to zoom. Then Quince the Polyglot

spoke up. Okay, hi, um, we are John Stark, We're located in We're in New Hampshire and this is the a push history class and we're excited to hear what you guys have to say and collaborate with you. Awesome, Thank you all right Chester, do you guys have someone to volunteers. We're a green Mountain. We're located in southern Vermont. We're seven through twelve, and we're pretty small. I guess.

Once the students got into their breakout rooms, one for each of the four ads, it was hard to hear, and it was hard to see, and everyone was feeling shy. Hot take zoom sucks. Yeah, can you till the screen down a little? Yeah, I cannot hear it. But then miraculously everyone sort of figured it out. I mean, these kids have been through like two years of a pandemic. They know how to use zoom. In the end, it worked. Some groups went out to the hallway, some went into

a little teacher's kitchen. They found quieter places to zoom from. Hi, guys, sorry, um, we didn't really hear your names. Brandon from Vermont helped get the conversation started with Lydia's group in New Hampshire. They were talking about the abortion ad. I'm Brandon, Yeah, I'm Lydia. I'm Madison I'm Phoebe, I'm Natalie. Nice to

meet you, guys. They worked out a way to decide who would do what, using the tried and true method of every schoolyard okay, wait who okay, um, Shobe's gonna be a poor started to get to know one another, overcoming that high school shyness, they got really into comparing their states. The kids from New Hampshire had notice how different the Vermont ads were from the ones that aired

in their state. Wait, who seems more calm. There's literally like there's a sign outside, like two houses down from mine that says F Joe Biden and F anyone who voted for him, and it's like thank you. So it's it's intense, and this town, specifically sol is hostile. The Vermont kids weren't familiar with this hostility. Yeah, I guess you could say, like different areas of the states are different, but I mean where we are, we're pretty chill. No

one really cares. It's like people think what they think and there's nothing really about it. That must be so nice. But Brandon and Lydia's group also got down to business together, talking about the abortion ad, one of those super intense New Hampshire ads. Remember, these jurors aren't trying to decide if the ad is good or bad. They aren't dealing with tone. They're just trying to answer one question. Is this ad true and enough to be posted on social media.

It's one of the most restrictive abortion bands in New Hampshire history. There are no exceptions, so we should start off with a straw pole. Probably see where we all at with the if we should put it online or not. So raise your hand if you think it should be online, like it should be posted, because that's is the third person in your group raising their hand. Yes, he is, you just can't see it. So oh, so that's unanimous. So everyone's raising their hand. Sweet. That maybe makes it

a little bit easier. Initially, everyone from both schools in the straw pole, so the pro choice ad could go up on social media. Here's Brandon again. I thought it should be online because after all the research I and my group did, we came out to it all being true, Like every claim was true. So we're like, okay, it doesn't violate anything. It's not like spreading misinformation. It was all true at the time. So that's why I think it personally should be online. Then when Lydia summarized New

Hampshire's thinking, things got a little trickier. Okay, um, we found that, similar to what you guys found, that most of it or all of it was true at the time that it was created. The one thing that we did find was that in the AD they said that there were no exceptions made for rape or incest for abortion, and at the time that the AD was made it was true. But after the policy was looked over by the House, they made exceptions for rape and incest as an addition to the bill. So it was all true

at the time. So what we proposed was that in order to fix that, you just put a date on the AD, So you just say that it was made in February of twenty twenty one or November of twenty twenty one, and then that that would be okay. What do you what do you guys Vermont guys think of that? Now that you've said that, I actually agree with that, and I think they should have a date. They did

a second straw pole. They were in unanimous agreement that the ad should not run as is at a date though, and the ad would be good to go This was decidedly not the thinking over in the meeting of the two Nancy Pelosi Chris Pappas groups, where everyone over the weekend had found they just weren't able to verify much of what the ad alleged. It had these authoritative looking citations for each of its claims, but the citations were in fact too vague to back up any claim at all.

Doubt pay for trillions in new spending. Pelosi wants the government to spy on nearly every American bank account looking for new money to spend. What do you guys think, I don't think the ash rod begins. There's what the ex said, the ad was not very true. Yeah, that's similar to what we said. That one seemed to be a clear no. Next up, the ranked choice voting ad from Vermonts had done a ton of research on ranked

choice voting, of course she had. So there's no real evidence we can find for other than just bait claims, just like the ad itself. No heart evidence one way or the other, more of an opinion, really, But that's all right, and the ad stood, so we'd come to the end of it. Really. Forty students, two schools, two states, four ads, Somehow the four juries had come up with

four different verdicts. The ranked choice voting ad fine to go up, the abortion attack ad only with a date stamp, the New Hampshire ad attacking Nancy Pelosi and Chris Pappas, jury says no. Finally, Kacia rom Hinsdale's campaign ad, the love Letter to Vermont. I'm roscostchusic. I'm a junior and we found that the ad is true enough to be posted on social media. My name is Liam O'Brien. I'm also a junior, and my group also agreed that this ad should be posted and it should be allowed on

the internet. I'll say this, it was a lot more fast paced than actual jury service, where you waited around all day to see if your name is called. This jury day was something between speed dating, taking sat in a ballroom dancing class, frenetic and intellectually and physically exhausting, but also thrilling. The verdicts were in two yeses, one no and one yes. But with a condition faced with complexity, these students answered with complexity. Jury dismissed. Jurors, you are

free to go to the cafetorium. We had one last question for the kids. We thought this experiment worked, but what did the students think? More to the point, did they think this should happen? Should really be a thing where high school students serve as jurors in this way make decisions that will be binding to social media companies? Well, I'm Brandon, you have something I've already Well, I guess yeah,

we should. This is a good idea because like we're learning about it right now, so it's fresh and our memories, so like this would be a good way to like determine if an at should go up because we're like learning about what's good and what's bad about that because you're in a sixth class, like because you guys are

now experts on ads. Sure, Okay, I thought I think it's a good idea too, because I think since we're so young, some people haven't like picked a side that they want to be on, or like some people don't have opinions on these types of things, So it's kind of just like a it's more of like a fact based thing instead of bias. But also it could be sort of the opposite, like if you have kids who don't know a lot, but their parents are like extremely

far fetched one way. It's like they're probably gonna go that way, so they could be unbiased, but it also could be extremely biased. I feel like just because how young we are and how we maybe don't know a ton yet about these kind of things. Brandon, despite being nervous and skeptical of this whole thing at the beginning, shining by the end. He thought the design of the jury selection would correct for any possible bias back to

the point where the kids could be biased. That's why we should do it like we're doing it now, where there's multiple kids different schools, so then it would be a very low chance if everyone is the same bias. So if one person is maybe biased, then there's going to be rejection from the other people, which would cause a debate, and then maybe it would clear out and

have a more productive response. What do you think about the fact that you guys don't vote yet for the most part, does that make you better or less able to assess these things? I think that makes us better, not that high schoolers don't have a motivation to want certain ads on the internet or not, but because we can't vote yet, it wouldn't be any personal gain from having certain parties ads be seen more than others. Like

the fact that we can't vote. I think that means that this is a great opportunity to guess involved in the political process in some kind of way, since we don't have an actual voting kind of involvement at this point. So I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool too. And I couldn't have said it any better. Who better to do this than these kids? Experiment complete except for over in New Hampshire had turned out. The

kids had figured out it was mister Marcus's birthday. Who knew there would be so much singing in this episode? Not me. I also learned that mister Marcus had once written a song about kids voting, high schoolers and their civics obligations. It's a riff on Taylor Swift's song Lover to leave the campaign signs up until November. This is our country, we make the rules. Here's my theory about

why this worked. It worked because of the excellence of public education, one of the last great democratic institutions, a cultivator of civic mindedness. Public school teachers are dedicated public servants. Public school kids are future citizens. So fair warning. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, whoever you want your political odds checked. America's high school kids are ready for you, America's future voters. The Last

Archive is written and hosted by me Jill Lapour. It's produced by Sophie Crane, Ben Natt of Haafrey and Lucy Sullivan. Our editors are Julia Barton and Sophie Crane, and our executive producer is Mia Lobell. Jake Gorsky is our engineer. Fact checking by Amy Gaines, original music Mathias Boss and John Evans of Stellwagen Symfinett. Our research assistant is Mia Hazra. Our full proof player is Robert Ricotta. Many of our sound effects are from Harry Janette Junior and the Star

Jennette Foundation. The Last Archive is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus, offering bonus content like The Last Archivist, a limited series just for subscribers, and add free listening across our network for four ninety nine a month. Look for the Pushkin Plus channel on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. If you like the show, please remember to rate, share,

and review to find more Pushkin podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jill Lapour.