In the season premiere of Cardinal Direction, host Jessi Troyan sits down with American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Angela Rachidi to examine America’s social safety net and why programs intended to help families can sometimes stand in the way of stability and upward mobility.

Drawing on nearly three decades of experience in government, research, and the private sector, Rachidi explains how overlapping programs and conflicting rules create administrative burdens, marriage penalties, benefit cliffs, and disincentives to work. The conversation explores lessons from the landmark welfare reforms of the 1990s, the dignity and nonfinancial benefits of employment, and the role states can play in leading the next generation of reform.

It’s a thoughtful look at how America can transform the safety net from a system that manages poverty into a bridge toward opportunity and self-reliance.

In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky is joined by Brianna Neufer, Chief Operating Officer at Americans for Public Safety, to unpack one of the most polarized issues in American life: public safety.

Brianna shares how her work across the criminal justice landscape, from managing national strategy and grants at Stand Together to helping launch a new organization focused on policy and elections, has shaped her view that public safety is not a partisan talking point, but a foundational public obligation. Together, they discuss how communities can rebuild trust between citizens and law enforcement, why constitutional protections are essential to a fair justice system, and what practical reforms can reduce crime while strengthening the rule of law, including risk-based pretrial detention, smarter policing strategies, and more effective rehabilitation behind bars.

Host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Beverly Sharpe, a former federal prison officer and administrator who spent 30 years inside the corrections system before turning her experience toward reentry and reform through West Virginia’s REACH Initiative. Together, they explore what happens after the sentence ends, when people returning home face hundreds of “collateral consequences” that block housing, work, education, and even basic stability, often setting them up to fail before they’ve had a chance to start over.

Sharpe explains how REACH operates like a “triage nurse” for reentry: meeting people where they are, mobilizing a statewide network of reentry councils and community partners, and cutting through red tape to solve urgent needs in real time. The conversation also digs into the school-to-prison and foster-care-to-prison pipelines, the role employers and the faith community can play in restoring dignity, and why second chances are not soft on accountability—they’re essential to safer, stronger communities.

In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Vikrant Reddy, senior fellow at Stand Together Trust, to explore one of the most consequential and complicated issues in American life: how we punish, how we forgive, and what justice actually requires. Drawing on his experience launching the Right on Crime initiative at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Reddy explains how criminal justice reform can resonate with conservatives and libertarians, especially through the lens of overcriminalization, in which regulatory violations can land ordinary people in the criminal justice system.

The conversation moves from big-picture principles to practical takeaways for states like West Virginia. Reddy argues that public safety and constitutional rights are not competing priorities, but mutually reinforcing ones—and that effective reform starts with “swift and certain” accountability rather than simply harsher sentences. They also discuss policing, rural-versus-urban realities, and why opioid and drug policy challenges should not default to an ever-expanding criminal justice response.

In the final episode of Cardinal Direction’s civics mini-series, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Tiffany Hoben to unpack a problem hiding in plain sight: teachers are expected to deliver strong civics instruction even when many never received deep content training themselves. They explore the difference between teacher prep and effective professional development, why knowledge should come before “action civics,” and how civics, history, economics, and geography work best when taught together. The conversation also tackles a harder reality in West Virginia classrooms: without basic expectations for civility and discipline, it is nearly impossible to build the habits of civil discourse that healthy civic life requires.

In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down again with Tiffany Hoben, Director of Education, Partnerships, and Strategy, to unpack the real battle in K–12 education: not just how we teach, but what we teach. They walk through the difference between standards, curriculum, lesson plans, and instruction, and explain how each piece shapes what students actually learn about civics, government, and economics.

Using side–by–side examples from West Virginia and Florida, Jessica and Tiffany explore what happens when standards are vague, key landmark Supreme Court cases disappear from K–12 expectations, and complex ideological debates are introduced before students even learn basic concepts like supply and demand. They also discuss how to “spiral” content across grade levels, what good civics standards should look like, and how states can build a more coherent, content–rich path from kindergarten through graduation.

In this episode of Cardinal Direction, host Jessica Dobrinsky sits down with Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, Tiffany Hoben, to explore what happens when schools skip over the basic structure of American government. Using West Virginia’s civics standards as a case study and comparing them to states like Florida, Tiffany explains why students need clear, detailed expectations about concepts like rule of law, federalism, separation of powers, and the Bill of Rights long before they are asked to “take action.” They unpack the problems with ideas like “action civics,” calling the Constitution a “living document,” and mislabeling America as a “constitutional democracy,” and discuss how those choices can subtly shift how students think about where their rights come from. Tiffany also shares what high-quality teacher training and resources can look like, and makes the case that the best civics education is grounded in knowledge, primary sources, and great storytelling that helps students understand how our system really works and why it is worth preserving.

How can teachers tell the full truth about slavery, injustice, and national failure without teaching students to hate their own country? In this episode, hosts Jessica Dobrinsky and Tiffany Hoben examine what makes the American founding unique and how its principles have powered reform movements from abolition to civil rights.

Drawing on primary sources like the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, Thomas Paine, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, Jessica and Tiffany explore how American ideals created a moral standard that later generations used to confront the nation’s deepest wrongs. They also discuss critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and gaps in K 12 civics standards, offering practical guidance on how educators can teach hard history with honesty, context, and what Tiffany calls “critical patriotism.”

How did Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson craft one of the most significant documents the world has ever seen? In this episode, hosts Jessica Dobrinsky, Chief of Staff at the Cardinal Institute, and Tiffany Hoben, Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, explore the intellectual foundations that shaped America's Founding Fathers. 

Discover the prior thinkers and ideas that influenced the hearts and minds of the leaders who would build a nation on the principles of freedom. Jessica and Tiffany also analyze West Virginia's K-12 civics standards to examine how these foundational concepts are being taught in classrooms.

Cardinal Direction launches with a conversation about the cornerstone of American society: the republic itself. Host Jessica Dobrinsky welcomes Cardinal's Director of Education Partnerships and Strategy, Tiffany Hoben, to discuss the principles that sustain our republic, the challenges it faces, and the role education plays in preserving it for the next generation.