RealClear Politics Takeaway Podcast: “Civics Education in America: How Are We Teaching the American Story?”
JMC’s chairman of the board Jack Miller and president Hans Zeiger appeared on RealClear Politics’s Takeaway podcast with Andrew Walworth and Nathan Harden to discuss current trends in civics education, including a look at recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress scores for eighth graders, which reveal a decline in both civics and history. The Jack Miller Center has called the latest test scores “a national wake-up call” that points to the need for improved teaching of citizenship in our nation’s schools and universities.
Listen to the interview at RealClear Politics >>
Jack Miller is founder and chairman of the Jack Miller Center. As a Chicago philanthropist and businessman, he is also founder and chairman of the Jack Miller Family Foundation and a Benida Group partner, a commercial real estate development and investment business. Jack founded the Quill Corporation, which grew to the largest independent direct marketer of office products, employing over 1,300 people prior to its sale to Staples in 1998. He supports a number of Jewish and community causes, medical research and educational advocacy initiatives, and causes that advance education in the ideals that are embodied by the United States and its founding documents.
Jack was inducted into Philanthropy World magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2008 and has received multiple awards, including the Joseph H. Kanter Citizen of the Year Award in 2012 at the annual meeting of the National Conference on Citizenship. Jack is the author of Simply Success and Born to be Free.
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Hans Zeiger is the President of the Jack Miller Center, a nationwide network of scholars and teachers who are committed to advancing the core texts and ideas of the American political tradition. In preparation for the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026, Hans is leading an ambitious campaign to expand the pipeline of scholars who are dedicated to the teaching of America’s founding principles and history, to seed and cultivate university campus centers for the study of the American political tradition, and to expand the teaching of core civic knowledge in America’s K-12 schools.
Hans previously served in state and local government in Washington State, including service as chair of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee and ranking member on the House Higher Education Committee. He gained a reputation as a bipartisan collaborator, being named by the National Institute for Civil Discourse as co-recipient of the Gabrielle Giffords Award for Civility in State Governance in 2015.
Hans led the Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute from 2012 to 2020. He was an adjunct professor of political science at Seattle Pacific University, a Leadership Fellow of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and a Rodel Fellow of the Aspen Institute. Hans was also a trustee of the Washington State Historical Society.
Hans’s writings on public policy, history, and civil society have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review Online, and Seattle Times, among others.
Hans holds a bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College and a master’s in public policy from Pepperdine University. He also studied American politics at Claremont Graduate University. He previously served as a public affairs officer in the Air National Guard. Hans and his wife Erin have two daughters.
Learn more about Hans Zeiger >>
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