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Liberty + Leadership Podcast – Debbie Henney on Teaching Economics

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Debbie Henney serves as director of curriculum for TFAS’s high school programs, the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE). She is also an economics professor and the director of the honors program at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. For over 25 years, Debbie has been on the front lines teaching economics to both teachers and students of all ages. She holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and economics and master’s degree in curriculum design from Northern Arizona University.

In this week’s episode of the Liberty and Leadership Podcast, TFAS President Roger Ream ’76 and Debbie take an in-depth look into how economics is taught, discussing the power of experiential learning in the classroom, how using the “economic way of thinking” helps us understand that the policy choices we make should result in the policy outcomes we want, and how sometimes economics teachers need a refresher on how to teach economics.


Episode Transcript

The transcript below is lightly edited for clarity.

Roger Ream [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I’m Roger Ream and this is the Liberty and Leadership Podcast, a conversation with TFAS alumni, supporters, faculty and friends who are making a real impact in public policy, business, philanthropy, law and journalism. Today, I’m joined by Debbie Henney, the director of curriculum for FTE, an organization that became part of The Fund for American Studies in 2013. Debbie is an economics professor and director of the Honors Program at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. Debbie started her teaching career after spending ten years teaching economics in high school. This is her 15th year teaching college students. When she isn’t teaching, she feeds her passion for economic literacy by writing K-12 lessons and curriculum units for economics classrooms and presenting programs, workshops and in-service trainings for schools, teachers and students around the world. Debbie, it’s a pleasure to have you with me today. Over here in Amelia Island, Florida, for a TFAS donor conference, and you ran a great session this morning for our supporters on economics and the environment, and I hope we can talk a little bit about that curriculum and how you’ve transformed it now from being just a teacher curriculum to when we’re going to try this summer with high school students. But first, let me ask you about what attracted you to the profession of economics and economic education in the first place.

Debbie Henney [00:01:33] Actually, I thought I wanted to be a math teacher when I entered college and I found myself sitting in an economics classroom with an amazing economics teacher. His name was Greg Pratt, and then a second economics class. Harold Cranswick taught that one, and it just opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about the world that I had never experienced before. And so, I quickly realized that that teaching economics was for me. And math, you know, I still have a place in my heart for math, but it quickly became about economics. But what was really sad to learn was that there were very few spots for teaching economics, so I had to wait my time. I did become qualified to teach social studies, which is a much broader subject, and then once I got into the high school classroom and became a social studies teacher, I learned most people don’t want to teach economics. So, I didn’t have to wait long before I had my own spot in an economics classroom.

Roger Ream [00:02:29] Well, that’s great to give a shout out to economics professors by name. That doesn’t happen as often as it probably should, and maybe I’ll get into a little bit about the way economics is taught in colleges and universities. But speaking to the point you just made, I imagine it’s not very often that teachers trained in most teaching schools are planning to go become teachers, take any economics in college, is that right?

Debbie Henney [00:02:56] Yeah.

Roger Ream [00:02:57] So, even if they’re going into social studies?

Debbie Henney [00:02:59] Yes. In fact, I know this because of my work with the Foundation for Teaching Economics and other organizations like that, that most teachers who are assigned to teach economics because they’re the social studies teacher, or they’re the newest teacher in. And so, they come to FTE programs because they have nothing. You know, they don’t know what to do. “I’m oh, my gosh, I’ve been assigned to teach economics, please help me, I need something.” And because of that, we have a hungry audience and great resources, and we prepare them and once they leave our programs, they’re excited to teach economics. So, that’s the good news. There are resources out there. It’s getting the word out and letting them know that they don’t have to do it alone, that it’s not a death sentence, you know, being sentenced to teach economics. It’s because they come in very scared, they don’t know anything about an economics. Often their only experience maybe they had an economics class in college and usually, you know, it wasn’t a good experience. So, they don’t come usually excited to teach it, but we change that.

Roger Ream [00:04:08] Well, despite the fact that you had some background in economics, you still chose when you were a teacher to do an FTE program. What led you to do that and tell me what that experience was like?

Debbie Henney [00:04:19] So, like I mentioned I love math and I thought all my students would love math like I did. So, there’s a part of economics that involves math and it’s very mechanical and there are beautiful graphs and tables. And I was shocked that my high school students didn’t love the graphs and the math, and the charts and you know, as much as I did. And so, I wanted ways to make economics more fun. And I actually had a teacher in my department who had been to an FTE program who said: “You should go to this program.” It was a program, I think it was one of the “Environment and the Economy” programs and they were going to be in Tucson, Arizona. So, I went to that program. I was looking for ways to spice up my classroom, and once again, it changed my life. You know, I realized that it introduced me to an interactive way of teaching, experiential learning where I could use activities and make my classroom engaging, and so it didn’t have to be about the math and the graphs, and I didn’t have to make the students love that. And they learned economics. So, there’s a part of me, you know, I taught AP economics for years and my students could get fives on their AP exam. But I look back and I wonder, but did they leave? You know, my earliest students, did they really appreciate those fundamental principles of economics, like the students who had me later, after I’d had a lot of FTE programs? So, I kept going to other programs and soaking up all that FTE had, and then one day I got a call asking: “Would you be interested in teaching FTE programs?” I think they asked for some recommendations, and somebody passed my name along and I was excited to throw my hat in the ring and try my hand at teaching FTE programs.

Roger Ream [00:06:09] And the rest, as they say, it’s history. Well, the activities-based methods that FTE prides itself in using and teaching and training teachers to use, what is the advantage of those? Do you think it leaves it as a stickier thing that it stays with students longer if they’ve learned by doing? What do you think about that?

Debbie Henney [00:06:30] We as teachers love lectures, students don’t remember those lectures the same way as they do experiences. And so, if you can create those experiences in the classroom, they remember those learning experiences. You know, I have this one story that I remember of running into a student I had years later. He had grown up, gotten married, had four children by this point, and he ran into me and one of my kids was with me at the time back when he was really little, and he said: “Your mom is a great teacher.” So, I remember thanking him for that because, you know, it’s not often that somebody will tell your kids.

Roger Ream [00:07:08] Yeah.

Debbie Henney [00:07:10] But then he proceeded to say: “Do you still do that activity with a stick of gum?” and I didn’t really recall the activity at first, and he goes: “You know, you passed out sticks of gum in the classroom, and we had different towns and we were selling the sticks of gum back to you, and in the town with lots of sellers of sticks of gum the price was really low, but in the town where there’s only one seller of stick gum the price was really high” and there was a huge light bulb, a light bulb went on above my head like that: “This is the power of those activities because years had gone by and not only did he remember the activity, but he remembered the lesson that went with the activity. He didn’t remember a single thing I lectured on, right? But he remembered that lesson of how powerful competition is and that consumers benefit from competition because it means lower prices. And so that stuck with me, I remember that. Now, that activity, it was okay, but it wasn’t good enough to keep this slot of activities I do. I had passed it up for other better activities, but it worked enough that, you know, it’s stuck with him. And that reminded me of why I do those activities. Because they stick, they remember, and the learning happens because they discover the lesson through their own experience. It’s not just me telling them: “Here’s this thing you should know.” It’s them discovering and having that aha moment on their own. So as teachers, we can create this common learning experience and then the discussion, and the lessons and the things come from that.

Roger Ream [00:08:53] Well, in the programs we do for students, the “Economics for Leaders programs,” they’re roughly six days long. In the summer, we do about 20 on college campuses. Can you just kind of walk through those days and how they’re used in a high-level way, the kinds of activities and concepts you’re getting across?

Debbie Henney [00:09:12] So, in the mornings it’s econ and they get that active learning with a mentor teacher like me, and then they have a professor who’s the content expert that they get to learn from. But even our professors, we hand-pick professors that are engaging teachers. When people hear I teach economics, the common response I get is: “Oh, oh, I hated that class” or something like that. So, those aren’t the professors like the ones that you might remember from college. We don’t pick those professors; we pick professors that are engaging teachers and even their lectures are activity based. So, they’re engaging the students all along the way in little mini activities. And then they have those activities, those large activities like I was talking about. And that’s what their mornings look like. Then they go to lunch and then they participate in these leadership activities. So, I like to say in the mornings they’re learning about kind of the world around them and how it works and why people do what they do, and how people respond to incentives and learning about the rules of the game, and how they shape why people do what they do. And then in the afternoons when they go and learn about leadership, they’re learning about themselves as a leader and how they work within that world and how they can use their talents and their strengths and their abilities to be an actor in that world. Actually, over the years, it’s been interesting to see how we used to get students that would come and be so excited about the leadership, and it was like: “Oh, and I have to do this economics?” and they’d be really nervous about the economics, and lately we get a lot of students that come and they’re super excited about economics and really nervous about leadership, like engaging with other people, they’re really nervous about that. And so, either way, these are both really important life skills that we think complement each other. So, if we can have students come out of the program understanding the economic way of thinking, being good critical thinkers who are also good leaders that we’re prepping them to be they’re actors in the world in the future. And so that leadership takes up their afternoons, evenings, there’s a little bit of econ sometime in the evenings, they have a fun little event that they usually get to participate in, they make friendships that last a lifetime. You know, my kids went to the programs, my daughter, I’m like: “What are you doing?” “I’m talking to, so-and-so in China from my EFL program. I’m like: “Really? You’re still in touch?” So, they great time.

Roger Ream [00:11:44] That’s after a week-long program.

Debbie Henney [00:11:45] A week-long program. Even the virtual programs we do, the kids by the end of the week are like: “I wish this was longer,” and they have friends that they made. And I’m like: “You just spent a week online, in a virtual program on the computer, and you’ve made friends.” So, it’s amazing. The programs are great. I still love teaching in them, and I’ve sent my own kids and I’ll send my youngest this year. I’m very excited.

Roger Ream [00:12:11] Well, you used a phrase that we use a lot, the economic way of thinking, that we’re teaching. Can you explain what that means?

Debbie Henney [00:12:18] Yes, we have what we call the economic way of thinking is best described, I think, by our economic reasoning propositions. And the first one is that people choose recognizing that individuals are the actors and we’re the decision makers, and that choices result in social outcomes. And so, if we want to better understand, you know, outcomes in the world, we have to understand the individuals that are at the heart of those choices. And then those choices. Every choice that somebody makes, a cost comes with that. And so, as you know, I think about my grandma. She used to say: “Choosing is refusing.” When you choose something, you’re giving something else up. And it’s not like we go through the world choosing good from evil, you know, because that would be easy, right? We’re choosing good things. Most of the time we’re choosing good things from other really good things, you know? Like we’re in this beautiful island and it’s like, do we spend this free time that we have here doing this interview when the beach is right there, right? Two really good options.

Roger Ream [00:13:23] We may have chosen the wrong line, but opportunity cost.

Debbie Henney [00:13:29] Opportunity cost, right? It’s what we call that. So, that’s a principle too. Just remembering to think in terms of alternatives and tradeoffs and cost of our choices. And then the third one is that people respond to incentives in predictable ways. And so, if you want to understand the choices that people make, you have to understand the incentives that they face. So, whether it’s our “Economics for Leaders” program or “Environment and the Economy” program, or our “Economic Forces in American History” program, if we want to understand why people did what they did, even if it’s looking back in history, we have to step into the shoes of those individuals and try to figure out the incentives as they saw them. And related to that, and number four is that institutions matter. And when we talk about institutions and economics, we’re talking about the rules of the game, the formal rules like laws and the informal rules like customs and traditions and social norms, because those shape the choice, the incentives and influence the choices that people make. Those can constrain alternatives that we would even consider. And then the last one is really important. It’s about knowledge and evidence. You know, knowledge and evidence impart value to opinions. So, everybody has an opinion. But if you want to change minds or engage in a debate with somebody or have a conversation, it helps if you can back your opinions up with knowledge.

Roger Ream [00:14:59] With some evidence.

Debbie Henney [00:15:00] Have some evidence, yeah. Take something from an opinion to knowledge. And so, we always tell the students: “Don’t just believe what I say. Look for evidence to back it up. Go look it up. Always be asking, where’s the evidence to back this up?” We want our students to always be lifelong learners, always be questioning, always be looking for new evidence. I consider myself a lifelong learner. I can give lots of examples of things I’ve changed my mind on when confronted with new evidence. And I think that’s something important.

Roger Ream [00:15:36] Not enough people do that.

Debbie Henney [00:15:36] Not enough people do that.

Roger Ream [00:15:36] That’s right. So, from these economic reasoning principles you outlined the five. You can then teach students about the role of prices in directing resources to highly valued activities. You can talk about comparative advantage and trade and exchange, and you move on from that to these other concepts?

Debbie Henney [00:15:58] It teaches them to be critical thinkers and to be able to look at policies, for example. For example, something like minimum wage. Instead of taking something like minimum wage and having a debate about: Is it right, is it wrong? It became something we can all get. You know, what is minimum wage about? We want better outcomes for the people at the bottom. And so, we can look at that policy and say: “Does it give us the outcomes we want? And if it doesn’t, is there is there a better way to get those outcomes?” Everybody can get behind better outcomes, and that’s what these this, you know, critical thinking does. It allows them to examine policies and say: “Can we get a better outcome?” And that’s not divisive. Like all the students in the program, they all want better outcomes. You know, we all care about poor people, we all care about human element, we want better outcomes. So, how can we use our scarce resources to get better outcomes?

Roger Ream [00:16:54] Well, I’ve watched many of these activities and the students just get really engaged in it. You do the trading game, which has been used in FTE programs for many years and the students are out of their chairs training first with maybe someone right across from them and then with a group, and then the whole classroom. It looks like chaos as they run around trying to improve their situation and you show them at the end of that activity how everyone’s, almost everyone at least, their satisfaction is increased through extended markets and trading. And I’ve seen you do the property rights exercises where they’re fishing in a pond and talk a little bit about those activities that are used.

Debbie Henney [00:17:35] Yeah, like the second one you mentioned that tragedy of the common’s activity. Just, it doesn’t matter. I’ve done that with wealthy board members, you know.

Roger Ream [00:17:46] Yeah, and our kids.

Debbie Henney [00:17:48] And they respond the same way high school students or high school teachers do. And you say go and the fish are valuable, and everybody grabs them before the first round even ends. And the second time you change the rules of the game, and you institute some form of property rights, and it changes their behavior. They didn’t inherently change; they didn’t care about the environment differently. It’s the rules of the game changed, and they changed their behavior. And so, we use examples like that. Those experiential kind of things. So, they can see in action, they can discover, it’s the same people. They’re just responding to different incentives, different rules of the game, and it creates different outcomes. And in that case, changing the rules of the game, it creates an incentive for people to conserve when we do the next round where they’re their property rights, all of a sudden, they’re like: “Oh, I don’t I don’t want to harvest my fish early and sell them. I want to wait till they’re more valuable.”

Roger Ream [00:18:44] Well, you’re passionate about economics as am I. I know that with my three daughters, when they went off to college, I told them all they had to take a course in economics, which they did. My oldest daughter, double majored in history in economics. My other two took some economics. But let’s talk a little bit about the way economics is taught in college, and maybe it applies to high school as well, because I fear that, well, I think it was Dwight Lee or may it was Paul Hayne who said: “You know, you should teach economics not as if it’s the first course a student will take on their way to get their Ph.D., but if it’s the last course they’ll ever take. So, give them that great overview of what economics, that it’s about choices people make. It’s about the way the world works.” But that’s not always the case, at least. And I think students who take that first psych course or sociology course say: “Oh, this is really neat. I’m going to major in psychology or sociology.” And of course, a lot of economics is about psychology, but you have some thoughts I know on the way economics is taught in college. Could you share those?

Debbie Henney [00:19:48] I’m definitely a believer of that Paul Hayne perspective, and I look at my students and I think: “This is maybe the only economics class they ever have.” And it’s not so important that they be able to use the lingo or memorize the shift cost curves there. I want them to walk away with just that basic economic way of thinking. And so that wherever they go, they can they can be that critical thinker. And unfortunately, as you mention, though, that is not the way it’s taught in most college classrooms. And I think that in part, this is my impression, my theory is that most people that teach economics, they don’t have a background in teaching. They have a background in taking economics classes from other people who taught economics, other professors. And so, they just do what they’ve seen, right? And so, they lecture, they talk about economics. I think there’s also this philosophy of needing to weed people out, you know? We need to make those beginning classes really hard so that we can we thin out the people who want to major in economics. What one of the things I love is when you look at the most profitable majors, economics is always top of the list. When you look at the return on investment, and so I think that some economists don’t like that. They don’t want the competition. So, economists love talking about competition and how wonderful it, but not for themselves. And so, I think, there’s part of that, you know, we need to make it hard and then there’s just that. So, I’m going to lecture them and make it really hard like it was when I took economics. You need to endure this like a boot camp or something. And it just persists, right? And so, I often get students that take my class, and they have low expectations, they don’t even know what the class is. It’s often a requirement for another major or something, and they’re pleasantly surprised. That’s usually the case. Because I’m at a community college, I rarely get students that are majoring economics. Occasionally, I’ll get a couple that might change their major but it’s not my goal to turn them into economists. My goal is just to, I want economic thinkers out there in the world, no matter what field they’re in. And I wish we could have more professors in economics who just understood teaching and the pedagogy of teaching. You know, it’s not just about lecturing.

Roger Ream [00:22:13] Well, you’re the curriculum director for our FTE programs. What does it involve?

Debbie Henney [00:22:20] We have curriculum and keeping that updated. And we’ve always got new ideas for new curriculum. One of our more recent programs that we’ve written a curriculum for is on the federal budget debt and deficit. And so that’s one that always needs updating because as I was updating it this year with the most recent released federal budget data, our tax revenue, I learned, is even exceeds our mandatory spending or our mandatory spending is even larger than our tax revenue that we bring in. So, we have this penny’s activity that teachers do, so we have to rewrite that whole thing because there’s not even enough pennies to cover mandatory spending. So, things like that that, you know, it involves that. But then writing those curriculum units, but then teaching and teaching other people that can train teachers on those curriculum units is a big part of the job as well. We have a whole team of people like me who go out and teach in the programs. And then for our professors, they have academic freedom in our programs. But we like to, we want the similar kind of experience when students go to programs. And so, we give them kind of a curriculum framework and like I mentioned, we help them. We want their activities to be mini lectures and be engaging. And so, we give them ideas and tips and mini activities they can use, and they can incorporate into their lectures on the different topics. And so, we prepare and keep all those current every year for all of those lessons.

Roger Ream [00:24:02] Well, in 2020 we hit the COVID pandemic and the lockdowns, and suddenly we had to shift all of these programs to a virtual format. How do you manage that?

Debbie Henney [00:24:15] I forgot all about that, but you’re right. We knew nothing about that. I attended a zoom meeting. I had never even heard about zoom and then Ted was like: “We’re going forward with programing this year.”

Roger Ream [00:24:29] And you have two months to get it done.

Debbie Henney [00:24:31] And then the programs are starting this year, this summer. We didn’t take any time off. So, I had to very quickly learn how to use zoom, we had to teach our professors and our mentor teachers how do you zoom, and then we had to take every one of our lectures and activities and make it something that could be done in a virtual environment. So, I had to seek out tools, parodic and all these interactive resources that could make our lessons interactive. And the great thing was because we acted so quickly, because Ted didn’t let us take any off downtime, we were ready to go for teachers.

Roger Ream [00:25:09] That’s remarkable.

Debbie Henney [00:25:09] And so, teachers that fall, were ready to go to teach. And they were all teaching virtually as well, and they needed help. And so, we were like: “Guess what we learned this summer? We learned how to do this two months before you.” We were ready to teach them. And so, we had workshop after workshop after workshop filled with teachers and all those lessons we converted to virtual lessons, we were just handing them out to teachers that would come to the workshops and the slides to go with them. And so now a lot of our materials are available both for teaching in a traditional classroom environment as well as a virtual environment. And a great takeaway from that is that now the demand for virtual programs is still there, and I don’t think it will ever go away because people have been exposed to it, they’re comfortable with it. It’s allowing us to reach teachers in areas that we haven’t gone to in the past. We have a continual offering of virtual programs alongside of our historical in-person programing. So, it’s really been a great thing.

Roger Ream [00:26:10] Yeah, it was remarkable what you were able to accomplish from like April 1st to June when you were hitting the ground. You had a lot of long nights, but it was great help to teachers all across the country that teaching a really difficult circumstance. Just recently, the previous chairman of FTE, Gerry Hume, passed away. His father, Jack, had founded the organization. It has a remarkable history. I know, with his leadership and also Gary’s Walton, longtime president, they brought in the likes of Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, two great economists, John Taylor from Stanford. I shouldn’t be naming names because there are many others who played a role in this, but did you have the opportunity at all to interact with some of those board members?

Debbie Henney [00:26:58] I did. I remember being in Jerry Hume’s home one time for dinner, and that was an amazing experience. Being at board meeting with him, being with somebody who cared so much about something like economic education, it’s actually not easy to find. So, it was when we found the partnership with TFAS to continue carrying that flag because the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE) has a place in my heart. It did a lot to change my path and my success as a teacher, it’s responsible for making me more effective, and that’s why I’m happy to continue working with the organization and kind of passing that on. Back when I think not enough people even knew what economic education was, I think saw something in the importance of that. And I think we have those founders to thank for the legacy that FTE is. There are a lot of teachers out there who FTE has a name, recognition with those teachers, and even just the way that we do our programing. Milton Friedman, he was the one who said: “You really want to have an impact? You have to go after teachers, you can’t just do student programs because you will only ever reach so many students, but a teacher teaches hundreds of students every year, and if you can go out there and teach teachers, your impact will be far greater.” So, that’s important, and that’s why we teach teachers. They need it, they need help, they need resources, and they deserve it, you know? They’re definitely undervalued.

Roger Ream [00:28:31] I recall shortly after the partnership and FTE became part of TFAS, speaking with Ted Tucker, who oversees these programs, Ted posed a question, something like: “Do you think we should put more emphasis on the student programs or on the teacher programs?” Because we were mindful that the endowment was going to be spent out and we’d have to find new sources of money. And I think my response to him was: “Both, you know, we got to do both.” I love the direct to student programs, there’s a great demand for them. But as you said, with a teacher, you know, that teacher is going to see a lot of students in the classroom in their lifetime. So, it’s a leveraged investment in training a teacher. So, I’m so glad we’re able to do both and continue to do it. And you’ve just done a fabulous job Debbie, running the curriculum, developing the curriculum. So, thank you for all your hard work for FTE and may it continue.

Debbie Henney [00:29:21] Thank you.

Roger Ream [00:29:22] I think we’re running short on time, but it’s been a pleasure to be with you. Thanks so much. You did a program this afternoon for some of our TFAS college student alums. I hope that went well. That was on Economics and the Environment?

Debbie Henney [00:29:36] They’re younger, so we had them down on the floor cleaning up a polluted lake. They were great participants.

Roger Ream [00:29:43] Well, just before we conclude on that Economics and the Environment program that we’re extending this summer to the high school level, what are some of the issues you see that come up on the environment when it relates to how does economics play a role in that?

Debbie Henney [00:29:58] We’ve been doing that program with teachers for a long time, but it’s something that students are often even more passionate about than teachers to be honest. And the issues that come up, you know, things like climate change and, pollution in general, species and preservation of species, all of those. The discussion can be elevated when you add in that economic way of thinking and hat critical thinking analysis. And that’s what we hope to bring to those kinds of issues. It’s not about, you know, is it a good thing or a bad thing, or should we be having these conversations? It’s about: can we elevate the level of discussion? Can we find better outcomes? And students are willing participants, they’re excited about it, they care about the environment, they want better outcomes, and they’re going to be the ones having those conversations and sitting around the tables and being the decision makers and being the leaders in the future. So, it’s important that we introduce them to that economic thinking now.

Roger Ream [00:30:57] Yeah, and they understand the choices and the costs involved, and so often that’s ignored.

Debbie Henney [00:31:04] Yes, we rarely are alternatives, and that’s what came up in our discussion with the college students is, is economics reminds us it trains us to think in terms of alternatives. It’s not just, you know, should we do this, it’s what are the opportunity costs? What are the alternatives?

Roger Ream [00:31:23] We’re living in a world of scarcity. We can’t address every problem. So how do we determine which ones to tackle?

Debbie Henney [00:31:29] Right, and if we’re going to clean up, if we’re in the other round of clean up in this lake, you know, where does the money come from? And is what you get for it wort what you’re giving up for it? And as we went to each round of cleanup, they were balancing the marginal benefit and the marginal cost. And you know, not conversations that are often had in government. We like to think about benefits, we don’t like to talk about the costs.

Roger Ream [00:31:53] Well, thank you. My guest today has been Debbie Henney, curriculum director of the Foundation for Teaching Economics. Thank you. Debbie.

Roger Ream [00:32:00] Thank you for listening to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast. Please don’t forget to subscribe, download, like or share the show on Apple, Spotify or YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you like this episode, I ask you to rate and review it. And if you have a comment or question for the show, please drop us an email at podcast@TFAS.org. The Liberty and Leadership Podcast is produced at kglobal studio in Washington, D.C. I’m your host Roger Ream and until next time, show courage in things large and small.


About the Podcast

TFAS has reached more than 46,000 students and professionals through academic programs, fellowships and seminars. Representing more than 140 countries, TFAS alumni are courageous leaders throughout the world forging careers in politics, government, public policy, business, philanthropy, law and the media.

Join TFAS President Roger Ream ’76 as he reconnects with these outstanding alumni to share experiences, swap career stories, and find out what makes their leadership journey unique. With prominent congressmen, judges and journalists among the mix, each episode is sure to excite your interest in what makes TFAS special.

If you have a comment or question for the show, please email podcast@TFAS.org.

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TFAS Announces Launch of Woodhouse Public Policy Fellowship

The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) is pleased to announce a landmark endowment of $1 million to advance and support the TFAS Public Policy Fellowship, which for 15 years has provided professional and academic development to more than 250 of our nation's rising…

Real-Life Applications to Navigating Economic Theory with Peter Boettke

This week, another exceptional guest joins us on the Liberty + Leadership Podcast: Peter Boettke - professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University and former professor for TFAS Prague.

Both Parties Are Abandoning Free Markets. It’s Time for Voters to Push Back by Roger Ream, National Review

Below is an excerpt from an op-ed by Roger Ream that originally appeared in the National Review.