Soledad O'Brien
My name is Soledad O'Brien. And during my day job I am the anchor and special correspondent for CNN. And on behalf of Chicago Ideas Week, I want to welcome you to our discussion, which focuses on education this afternoon. You can join the discussion, by the way, on Twitter at #CIW.edu. I will not feel offended at anytime if you whip out your Blackberries or your iPhones or whatever you need to do, and tweet to your friends. We welcome it.

This afternoon, we're going to explore some of the biggest challenges, some of the biggest problems that face our educational system in this country. We also want to talk about how we can identify them and maybe, most importantly, is talk about how we can change them and define academic success. So we will begin right away with our very first speaker, Sandra Day O'Connor. I'm sure it's someone you all know. She is a retired Associate Justice, was the first female member of the United States Supreme Court nominated by President Reagan. She served as an Associate Justice from 1981 until her retirement from the court in 2006. Before her appointment, she was an elected official in Arizona. Recently, Justice O'Connor launched the iCivics initiative, which was created to offer free civics lessons plans, and interactive video games for middle and high school educators. So please join me in welcoming our first speaker, Justice O'Connor.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Greetings, and thanks for the introduction. Soledad, I became interested in how we were doing about educating young Americans about how our government works so that they can be part of it. I became interested because two thirds of Americans cannot name the three branches of government. Less than one half of our citizens can name a single Supreme Court justice. And about two thirds of Americans can name at least one judge on American Idol. But Supreme Court, not one. Now more than one fourth of Americans do not know who we fought against in the Revolutionary War. I think that recent facts of eighth graders show that less than half of them know the purpose of the Bill of Rights, and it's right there in the name.

You know, that tells me we have a problem. We really do. And I wanted to know what can be done as an outsider to this system to help alleviate that education problem. And today, everything's by computer. I'm not computer literate, particularly. I grew up too soon for that. I do a little, but not as much as any of you. But everybody today is on computers. And we do things in that method. So after consulting with people that we brought together at Georgetown Law School, they have a conference, we tried to bring leaders from around the country to, back to talk about how little Americans knew. The suggestion was we needed some kind of educational program, and how about a web-based program? We ended up ,the people that I assembled and I, in thinking that we could create a web-based program that's interactive, and put it online and maybe do some good. We focused on the early grades up to maybe first year in high school.

You may or may not know that half the states in the United States no longer make the teaching of civics and government requirements. And the only reason we got public schools in this country, we wrote the Constitution, set up the government, we had no public schools, and we got them with people arguing such as Horace Mann did, that we had to have public schools in order to teach our young citizens how the government works and how they can be part of it. That's why we got them. So today to see half the states not make civics a requirement is disturbing.

And that's why we started the website that we have, iCivics, it's found at www.icivics.org. And we do it with games that the young people play, because we also have learned that young people, the age that we're trying to reach, spend, on the average 40 hours a week in front of some kind of a screen. That includes TV as well as computer screens. Now I only need about an hour, so that isn't asking too much. That's what we've started. And I hope that each of you will take a look at the website and the games, I hope that each of you will be interested enough to contact any schools that your children attend, any schools that you know of whether or not your children are in them, and encourage them to plug in and use it. We've kept it free. It costs nothing for the schools to use, it's very teacher-friendly. We meet the standards of every state that has any standards for education. And we'd love your help. And so I'm going to sit down so we can talk a little bit with Soledad about some of these other things.

Wonderful, thank you.

Soledad O'Brien
For you. And open this one for me. You started with some really terrible statistics. And I think because your delivery was funny, we sort of were, you know, laughing about American Idol judges, people can tick them off. And yet you can't actually name any Supreme Court judges. But when you think about that, that's almost terrifying. What do you think has happened? I mean, why are we where we are today?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, that's the question. We're not too sure about it. We're a generation of people that wants to be entertained all the time. And I'm not sure if it were a generation that wants to be educated or then insists on education of our children. What do you think you ought to know?

Soledad O'Brien
Well, you know, I think that's part of it, but I think there's also another part of it. That is, if I had a 15 year old sitting here, they'd say, "Now why do I need to know the name? I need to know the name of the judge on American Idol if I want to, you know, later, email in my favorite contestant. Why does it matter to me that I can name the Supreme Court justices?"

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Because you want to be well educated enough to manage to get your government, your county, your city, your state, whatever it is, to carry out the kinds of programs that you want to see carried out. Suppose you live in Chicago, you're somewhat near a park, but there is no facility there for rollerblading, let's say, and you're a roller blader. Or you want to make sure that you get a facility like that. How do you go about it? Well, you need to know how your government works, you need to know how things work, so you can be part of it, to make it work well for you. And so we all have occasions when we want to see our government work. And I think all of us take some pride in our country, and in our state and perhaps our city. And we want to see it do well. So it matters to us how it works.

Soledad O'Brien
There are a whole bunch of Supreme Court justices who, when they retire, they just retire. You have got to tackle something that's big and important. And a lot of work Why?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, many of them die in office, because you go on, there's no retirement age, just keep going. Not the job have to you're going to get paid the same. I mean, you stay in the boat. But you kind of get used to working. But I stepped down because my husband and I, we met in law school, we were married 57 years, and he passed away two years ago from Alzheimer's disease. And he had reached the stage with that disease where he needed care in a care center. I couldn't provide it individually. And at that point, I decided the best place would be if we went back to Phoenix, Arizona, where we spent so many years and where we have two of our three sons and their family so that he can be visited and cared for there. So I thought I had to step down. And that was an easy decision. He had been wonderful about my career. And it was time I did something for him.

Soledad O'Brien
But why tackle it? I mean, you know, when people tackle education, like there are about two million six hundred fifty thousand easier things to take on in retirement.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I know, but I have grandchildren. And I want to make sure. And just my realization that if we don't educate our young people about how our government works, and we help them be part of it, we're giving up the country. And we don't want to do that. We have something to be proud of here. And we have to make it work better and work for and with us.

Soledad O'Brien
Where have you seen in sort of recent history—and maybe Occupy Wall Street is an example, or maybe it's not—where you want it to almost yell at the TV, "You people could use a civics lesson!" Or, "This would really help your cause!" Or what you're saying. I mean, I'm curious to know, if you sometimes look at debates and and realize that people are not knowledgeable about civics that would actually help them?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, every day. I mean, you can pick up the newspaper any day, and you can read about things happening in your community, or your state or even the nation, where you say, gee, this is something that I'd actually like to say something about, or we ought to do this, or bad. And I don't know about you, but when I see that, I want to know how I can weigh in, might push it along and make it more likely to happen.

Soledad O'Brien
My master tester for your site was my 10-year-old daughter, Sophia, because you know, she will be riveted if she loves it. And she will walk away in about eight seconds if she's bored. Right. And she loved it.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I think especially because it's very competitive. I mean, we—the way it's set up, if you guys haven't had a chance to check it out, you just, you know, Google "iCivics," very easy to find out there, great games that are fun to play. That was the idea to make them fun. Because if the young people aren't having a good time, they're going to tune it out as quickly as they can.

Soledad O'Brien
But they're very competitive, you get to divide up money, you get to, she was trying to decide if she should be, you can be president, or you can be a Supreme Court justice casting the deciding vote like their vote kind of matters.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
It shows all the ways that it can matter. And in fact, it's designed so that if you want to compete against a class and another school in your area, to see who does the best on that test, on some of them you can do that. And I know in Arizona, McDonald's has offered free fast speeds, or whatever they call them, for the winners. And that's apparently a winner. So you know, there are ways to make it work for the school.

Soledad O'Brien
I find a real contradiction in the number of Americans who exercise their right to vote, and the angry discourse about fill-in-the-blank topic. You can watch it, and cable TV is guilty of it as anybody, people screaming at each other in the double box, as we like to call it, over an issue. But then when it comes to the actual using your voice to cast a vote, the numbers are ridiculously bad.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
They're not as good as they should be. Many nations have a higher percentage of voters at the polls than we do. And it always disappoints me when I read this statistic, because we can do much better.

Soledad O'Brien
You have a teacher segment as well. And now, you know, how many schools—I mean, what's been the feedback from the teachers?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Very positive, it's wonderful. But teachers are busy. And they don't have time to go out and explore what facilities are available on the web for them to use. They plan for their class. And if they don't know about something, they're not going to use it. So one of the big efforts I've had to make is how to inform schools and teachers about something that they would welcome and use if they knew about it. And that's one of my big efforts.

Soledad O'Brien
Have you found that it's a pretty simple site to navigate?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Yes.

Soledad O'Brien
But have you found the technology aspect of it been daunting for anyone? Because really, I mean...

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
No, a synopsis on what you can do anything on a computer, you can do that. It's easy. But it's getting getting acquainted around the country and making schools and teachers aware of it. And that's, I've spent quite a bit of my time in over the last two years trying to do just that. It's free. It's free. Now some of the states are doing really well. I was just in Florida. And they have embraced this quite well, they've passed a Sandra Day O'Connor law down their schools required to use this stuff. I love it. And I think a couple of other states are considering the same thing. So I'm hoping that the word is beginning to circulate.

Soledad O'Brien
Some people might say no one has called it civics in, I think when I was in school. Literally I hadn't called it civics for 10 years. When I was going through school, that why ultimately doesn't matter. I mean, I'm sure you're going to talk about what makes a great citizen. So what is what what is it that makes a great citizen?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, you have to care about what your government does. I do. Don't you? I mean, I care all the way down the line. I live in a city and I want the city not to do stupid things. And they do a certain number of things that make the streets safer, and so forth. I care about what they do. And if they're not doing it well, I want to know how to speak in a way that will be heard. And the same story at the county level. And certainly at the state level. We have a few problems in Arizona right now and better about solving. And so I want to know how to do something that will make a difference. If you, if young people, one thing I want to teach them that I'm worried about at present is how to disagree agreeably. We're having a lot of problems these days. We're yelling at each other when I think we would probably get further if we were agreeable with our disagreements.

Soledad O'Brien
It does seem like the temperature and the tenor in Washington, DC is a just horrible level.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
And at the same time, local levels, too, it seems to have become the norm. And we need to turn that around.

Soledad O'Brien
Why does civil discourse matter? I just say, is it just good good manners, or is there something more than that?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, I just think that's how you get things down. I ended up in Arizona, being in the state senate there at one point. And I was elected Majority Leader of the State Senate, it was the first time in America that a woman had served in a legislative leadership post. Well, I had a majority of one in the Senate for my party majority. One. So that meant any, you know, any two members of my majority could defeat anything I had unless I got votes from the other side of the aisle.

So what did I do? I would make chalupas, that's Mexican food for those of you who don't know, and get a bunch of cold beer and invite everybody of both parties out to my house to celebrate and eat Mexican food and drink beer and get acquainted, get to know each other. Now, I think that made a huge difference. Because if you become friends with people with whom you work, you're going to be much more apt to get things done.

I worry about Congress today. In Congress they don't have enough time to think. The members arrive in Washington, DC week after week. On Tuesday morning, they fly from as far away as Alaska, get there Tuesday morning. They're there Tuesday afternoon, all day Wednesday, and Thursday morning, and then they're gone. That is not enough time to do anything. They may be able to attend the session or two in there in the Senate or the House. And they may be able to go to a committee meeting or two, and maybe even sign some constituent mail. But they don't have time to get to know each other.

In times past this, it didn't work that way. And they'd all stay there for two or three months and then take the big break for Christmas or something like that, and come back. And in the meantime, they'd get to know each other. They might play volleyball together in the gym, or swim or do something where they got to know some of their colleagues. And believe me, it makes a difference. If you have made friends with people, both in your party and across the aisle, you're going to be apt to get some work done. And I wouldn't, if I were there, I'd be proposing a law that made it a requirement that they stay there Monday through Saturday, three weeks a month, and then let them go.

Soledad O'Brien
Your average American voter is often saying, especially if you look at sort of the ratings for our Congresspeople, our elected officials as a whole, "Throw the bums out!" Not the, "Play volleyball together, I wish they would get to know each other better." How do I change that unpleasant discourse?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I think we ought to talk about this problem as constituents, I think we ought to raise the issue and see if we can't get Congress to, in its own rules, make them be together longer intervals of time so they can get to know each other and do the work without yelling and screaming across the aisle, but instead work cooperatively.

Soledad O'Brien
Is there a part of iCivics that is trying to train a generation of young potential leaders to navigate that way, the chalupa way?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I don't stress the civil part in the website. I don't know if we should. Or not perhaps I'm stressing the basics there of how government works and how an individual citizen is part of it. That's what I'm trying to do.

Soledad O'Brien
Is your goal to replace civics lessons in, maybe in some schools that don't have the civics exam? Is it to add on to the conversations that are already happening? Both?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Both. And I think it works effectively, because kids like to play games. And if you make a game of it, they'll probably like it.

Soledad O'Brien
What's the feedback you've been getting from the teachers and the feedback you've been getting from the students? And maybe even—start with the students. Because sometimes I think, if you have the students, if you have the teachers, but no students, you have no sight.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Older students are more apt to say, "Oh, well, this is fun. Yeah, this is okay. Yeah, I'll do this again. This is good." I started my first, after we first got the first game on the website. I was up in Chautauqua, New York for a few days. And next door to me was this little boy, Charlie, who was about 10. And I'd met Charlie, he was there with his grandparents. And I said, "Charlie, do you use a computer?" "Yeah, I do." I said, "Okay, I'm giving you this website. Now, go try it out tonight and tell me what you think." So Charlie went home. And the next day, I saw him and he ran over and he said, "Oh, I love the website. That was a great game." He said, "I was playing it until my grandma came in, and made me stop and go to bed." So that's what I wanted to hear. That's when I thought, okay, we might have something here.

Soledad O'Brien
But surely, on the payroll. You know, you started your talk by talking about the theory of how public impart, how public schools were founded, which was a sort of focus on educating kids so they could understand how their own government functions, making good citizens.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Right.

Soledad O'Brien
Do you think a lot of what we are seeing, which I think is fair to say, a crisis in education, and again, back to terrible voter numbers, are connected to this lack of understanding of the individual's power?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Absolutely. I mean, if you really understand that many elections are won by a tiny margin. And how important it is that people vote. If they're going to make something happen, it will connect down the line. And I think people will be much more apt to cast their vote.

Soledad O'Brien
In conversations when people talk about school reform, or even when they talk about what a student needs to be learning, it's much more about, well, we've got to prep for a test. Well, STEM STEM, STEM STEM STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math]. Well, reading scores are really important. Almost nobody says, gee, if they would really understand the functions of the three branches of government, that would help us in the long haul. How do you battle that? I mean, isn't that kind of the big looming obstacle for you?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, it is, but I hope that I can persuade enough people that it's important, including the education systems in the 50 states, that we can overcome that. I had civics in high school. Grade school, too. I grew up on a remote ranch in Arizona, New Mexico, I had to go away to school from kindergarten on and went to El Paso, Texas and lived with grandparents. I got so sick and tired of learning about Stephen F. Austin. All Texas talk was Texas, it just drove me wild. Are there any texts on Sirius XM? Yeah, well, maybe they've changed it from in my day, it drove me crazy. But anyway, I think we can make civics more interesting than it was for me when I was young.

Soledad O'Brien
What did you learn and know about civics as a kid that you discovered was completely wrong when you were actually in legislature?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Oh, I don't even remember, I'm sure I didn't learn anything that affected what the legislature was doing when I was in it. But I certainly did learn in the legislature that you have to be to learn how to disagree agreeably. That was number one, because you had many issues in a legislative branch, where you couldn't all agree, and sometimes you felt strongly about an issue. And you were so anxious to see your side prevail, that you tend to get a little too intense about it, and forget that you have to be agreeable in the process. So that's an important lesson, to learn and to remember, in life as well as in the legislature.

Soledad O'Brien
It, many people I think, not only are they not necessarily informed citizens, they also are fearful, I think of the next step, which is they don't really want to serve, you know. And I think those they don't want to serve, I don't think they want to serve.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I think that the bar for being an elected official, with the cameras and, you know, blogging, and...in'- a big step to serve, and I'm not advocating that everybody has to be in government. If you did, we'd be shooting each other to get into the legislature. And that's not going to happen. And

Soledad O'Brien
we're going to say so that

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
They have to be interested enough to care about, for whom should I vote? Who would be the most helpful person to vote for in this particular election? And goodness, I look at my ballot every time and I don't always know the people in a certain race where I have to cast a vote. And that's disturbing. You need to have some confidence that when you go in there, you're going to be able to cast the right vote. One of the worst areas is in the states that still elect their judges. And that's a bad thing to do. They, we should have a merit selection system. We're the only country in the world that still elects judges.

Soledad O'Brien
Now my time's up, so it is going to ask you, the last question would be, when do you see success? At what point do you see it? Is it when someone starts mandating civics for children in school? Is it when we have voting numbers that are in the 70, 80 percentile? What is it?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, for me personally, I want to see the numbers way up. I can tell you how many hits there on our, on the computer, any given day using my website and I want them way up there in the sky. That will please me. The other thing is that I want to see the statistics for voting increase, that more people turn out to vote on election day than in the past. And you don't even have to go to the polls anymore. You mail it, and it's a mail-in ballot in most states. So it couldn't be easier. We have to get that up.

Soledad O'Brien
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Nice to have you .