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An EHS Class Analyzes Election 2020 Like the Pros Do
Several times a week, 11 Republicans, Democrats, and independents gather in a room in Townsend Hall. Technically, they are attending a meeting of an advanced U.S. government class, but during virtually every election cycle, teacher Peter Goodnow transforms his students into politicos who analyze the presidential election as political scientists and campaign strategists might. This year, they are conducting focus groups, evaluating polling, and studying how voters prioritize issues in 2020.
Goodnow encourages students to bring their own political viewpoints to the work, just as they would in careers in government or politics. “It's important to me that the students are doing the analysis on their own terms,” he says. “I want them to feel empowered by their beliefs, whatever those are. I only require that if we don't agree, we remain civil with each other.”
Goodnow, a former CIA analyst, has been immersing EHS students in real-world government and politics for more than two decades, tapping what he calls the “goldmine” of Washington resources. For his trial effort, he assigned students to analyze the lobbying, Capitol Hill maneuvering, and Department of Defense work behind a new class of U.S. Navy destroyers. Hoping to find an expert to whom students could present their findings, he cold-called officials at the Pentagon, and through chance and persistence, arranged for the class to meet an officer in the Navy’s surface warfare division. That officer turned out to be Admiral Michael Mullen, who would go on to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Mullen later wrote to Goodnow that the students’ analysis “withstood scrutiny” by his staff and “received favorable endorsements from all reviews.”
With that first success, Goodnow started folding similar Harvard Business Review-like case studies into his courses, often recruiting experts from Washington’s political and government ranks to evaluate the students’ findings. “Instead of students going and listening to someone talk, they brief these experts on their research and get feedback from someone who has a real-world perspective,” he says. Once, a Marine Corps general joked that the students’ proposed non-military solution to a foreign-policy problem was going to put him out of business.
In addition to Mullen, his students have presented to such big names as Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency, as well as members of Congress. They also have briefed officials and experts at the CIA, the Departments of Defense and State, and various NGOs.
In recent years, students met with two senior analysts at the National Counter Terrorism Center to discuss their research on a terrorism group in Bahrain. Another class put together lobbying pitches on fracking — one pro and one con — and presented to an energy lobbyist.
For this year’s advanced government course, the class is doing extensive analysis of data from a focus group of 69 adults inside and outside the EHS community, equally divided among Democrats and Republicans, plus a few independents. The focus group has answered questions on their candidate preferences, the debates, and key issues such as the economy, the pandemic, and social justice. The class also has studied journalism for bias and evaluated the influence of the presidential race on congressional elections.
Liv Hunt ’21 says the class has been her favorite at Episcopal — a chance to get beyond political theory and history, dig into issues of the moment, and better understand her own views. Her parents have joined the class focus group, and she’s thrown herself into papers on the 2017 tax cut and the electoral college.
Liv describes herself as a conservative and says her views, while not always welcome in her California hometown, are respected in Goodnow-led discussions. “I feel like his classroom is a very safe space where no one's going to judge me,” she says.
Goodnow says he sees the payoff for such work in that his students enter their voting years with a more sophisticated understanding of both the theory and machinery of government. The projects have helped launch some into careers in government, the foreign service, and the military, including Davis White ’99, a former political operative who’s gone on to work in policy operations for Google and Uber; Sarah Vance Trentman ’06, a professional staffer on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee; Grace Chesson ’08, an analyst with the Department of Defense.
“My biggest success stories are when students go into public service. “That is when I think, Yeah, I've done my job.”
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Goodnow encourages students to bring their own political viewpoints to the work, just as they would in careers in government or politics. “It's important to me that the students are doing the analysis on their own terms,” he says. “I want them to feel empowered by their beliefs, whatever those are. I only require that if we don't agree, we remain civil with each other.”
Goodnow, a former CIA analyst, has been immersing EHS students in real-world government and politics for more than two decades, tapping what he calls the “goldmine” of Washington resources. For his trial effort, he assigned students to analyze the lobbying, Capitol Hill maneuvering, and Department of Defense work behind a new class of U.S. Navy destroyers. Hoping to find an expert to whom students could present their findings, he cold-called officials at the Pentagon, and through chance and persistence, arranged for the class to meet an officer in the Navy’s surface warfare division. That officer turned out to be Admiral Michael Mullen, who would go on to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Mullen later wrote to Goodnow that the students’ analysis “withstood scrutiny” by his staff and “received favorable endorsements from all reviews.”
With that first success, Goodnow started folding similar Harvard Business Review-like case studies into his courses, often recruiting experts from Washington’s political and government ranks to evaluate the students’ findings. “Instead of students going and listening to someone talk, they brief these experts on their research and get feedback from someone who has a real-world perspective,” he says. Once, a Marine Corps general joked that the students’ proposed non-military solution to a foreign-policy problem was going to put him out of business.
In addition to Mullen, his students have presented to such big names as Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency, as well as members of Congress. They also have briefed officials and experts at the CIA, the Departments of Defense and State, and various NGOs.
In recent years, students met with two senior analysts at the National Counter Terrorism Center to discuss their research on a terrorism group in Bahrain. Another class put together lobbying pitches on fracking — one pro and one con — and presented to an energy lobbyist.
For this year’s advanced government course, the class is doing extensive analysis of data from a focus group of 69 adults inside and outside the EHS community, equally divided among Democrats and Republicans, plus a few independents. The focus group has answered questions on their candidate preferences, the debates, and key issues such as the economy, the pandemic, and social justice. The class also has studied journalism for bias and evaluated the influence of the presidential race on congressional elections.
Liv Hunt ’21 says the class has been her favorite at Episcopal — a chance to get beyond political theory and history, dig into issues of the moment, and better understand her own views. Her parents have joined the class focus group, and she’s thrown herself into papers on the 2017 tax cut and the electoral college.
Liv describes herself as a conservative and says her views, while not always welcome in her California hometown, are respected in Goodnow-led discussions. “I feel like his classroom is a very safe space where no one's going to judge me,” she says.
Goodnow says he sees the payoff for such work in that his students enter their voting years with a more sophisticated understanding of both the theory and machinery of government. The projects have helped launch some into careers in government, the foreign service, and the military, including Davis White ’99, a former political operative who’s gone on to work in policy operations for Google and Uber; Sarah Vance Trentman ’06, a professional staffer on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee; Grace Chesson ’08, an analyst with the Department of Defense.
“My biggest success stories are when students go into public service. “That is when I think, Yeah, I've done my job.”
