DC Summer Scholars Program

Session 1 Course Dates and Times

June 4 - June 29, 2024
T/Th: 6:30 PM to 10:00 PM EST
Sat: 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM EST

Course Description

A graduate introduction to American domestic and foreign policy, its historical development, and present-day debates. Historians and political scientists tend to talk as though the individuals and institutions shaping US policies, at home and abroad, were detached from moral concepts and religious ideals. Though useful in some ways, the secular approach to studying American public policy is inadequate for understanding many of the most important moments in US political and diplomatic history.

This class will explore the main themes that have characterized America's domestic policy debates, from the abolition movement to the Civil Rights movement to debates over abortion and marriage policy. Scholars will also explore America's engagement in the world, focusing on the 20th century and concluding with the administration of President Donald Trump. Special attention will be given to how cultural and religious factors have served as a motivator of US policy and as an instrument of policy. This is important for at least two reasons: First, there always has been an intimate bond between religion and America's sense of its democratic character and mission in the world. Second, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 demonstrate that religious forces will play a significant role in defining US foreign policy objectives for the foreseeable future—whether we like it or not.

Concepts Covered

• How faith movements shape American domestic policy
• The unique role religion has played in American civil society
• The varying roles religion has played in American politics
• How religion has been used to define America's role in the world
• Religion in an "Age of Terror"

Faculty

Elizabeth Spalding

Senior Fellow Elizabeth Spalding is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War. She has contributed to several volumes on the presidency and US foreign policy, and her articles have been published in Orbis, The Wilson Quarterly, and The American Mind. She was an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. Spalding currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, DC and is on the advisory council for the Pepperdine School of Public Policy American Project.

Charmaine Yoest

Dr. Charmaine Yoest serves as executive director of the House Values Action Team, working with Chairman Robert Aderholt and previously served as a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, directing the domestic policy work of the national think tank on issues of health care and welfare reform, education policy, family formation, women’s issues, and religious liberty. Yoest served in the White House as associate director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and also as the assistant secretary for public affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is a national spokesperson, has been published in leading publications, and has provided testimony in front of Congress on multiple occasions. She is the author of Mother in the Middle, an examination of childcare policy.
 

Session 2 Course Dates and Times

July 1 - July 27, 2024
T/Th: 6:30 PM to 10:00 PM EST
Sat: 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM EST

Course Description

Like few other areas of public policy, the COVID crisis has placed a focused lens on America’s K-12 school systems. Americans have long cared about preserving a tradition of liberal arts education, seeing it as key to a free society of citizens with both the knowledge and virtue to sustain self-governance and to advance social order and prosperity. This graduate introduction to the philosophical debates that have shaped the goals and practices of American educational policies, curricula, and institutions will ask scholars to identify challenges and opportunities for revitalizing American educational systems and culture.

In a class that combines the philosophical with the latest public policy debates, Dr. Lindsey Burke will explore foundational concepts and their impact on current events. Using the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, Paolo Freire, John Dewey, Paul DiMaggio, Walter Powell, and Milton Friedman, this class will explore a variety of competing debates in philosophy of education, connecting these theories of human nature and the roles of society and government to educational curricula and policy. Students will be asked to question the role education policy, curricula, and institutions play in shaping culture and politics and promoting human progress in a diverse society founded on freedoms of religion, conscience, speech, and association. Students will also understand foundational research methods approaches and their use in education policy and program evaluation.

Concepts covered

• The philosophical underpinnings of today's education system
• How differing views of human nature affect the way we teach
• Current debates on roles of the public and government institutions
• Economics of education
• How do funding policies impact education policy
• Research methods in education policy

Faculty

Lindsey Burke

As director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, Lindsey Burke oversees Heritage’s research and policy on issues pertaining to preschool, K-12, and higher education reform. Burke’s research has been presented at academic conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals including Social Science Quarterly, Educational Research and Evaluation, and the Journal of School Choice, and her commentary and op-eds have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers. She is a frequent guest on radio and television shows and speaks on education reform issues across the country and internationally. She has published evaluations of education choice options for public policy foundations across the country and has done extensive work shaping and evaluating education savings accounts (ESAs).

In 2021, Burke was tapped to join Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin’s transition steering committee and was also appointed to serve on the Youngkin landing team for education. Burke was also appointed by Governor Youngkin to serve on the Board of Visitors for George Mason University. Her term runs from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2026.  

Burke also serves as a fellow at EdChoice, the namesake foundation of Milton and Rose Friedman, on the national advisory board of Learn4Life, a network of public charter schools serving “opportunity youth,” on the board of the Educational Freedom Institute, and on the advisory board of the Independent Women’s Forum’s Education Freedom Center.

In 2022, Burke was honored to receive The Heritage Foundation's President's Award for striving to build an enduring organization. In 2015, Burke won Heritage’s prestigious W. Glenn and Rita Ricardo Campbell Award in recognition of her work fighting for expanded education choice options. The award is given annually to a policy expert who has made “an outstanding contribution to the analysis and promotion of a free society.”

Burke holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, and a master of teaching degree in foreign language education from the University of Virginia. She earned her Ph.D. in education policy from George Mason University, where she examined the intersection of education choice and institutional theory.