And we're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm at Kittle,
Senior Elections correspondent of The Federalist and your experienced Shirba on today's quest for
Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make sure to subscribe
wherever you download your podcast, and of course to the premium version of our
website as well. I'm joined today by Robert Emlow, President and CEO of
ed Choice in Indianapolis based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to advancing educational freedom and
choice for all as a pathway to successful lives and a stronger societ. That's
their mission statement, and I can think of no more important mission statement and
mission. In fact, they've been quite successful at what they have been able
to accomplish over the last many, many years the One Million Kids Campaign,
over one million American kids and counting are now enrolled in school choice programs.
Thank you so much for being here, Robert, and take about that's an
impressive number for sure. Well, thanks so much for having me. I
really appreciate it. And you know, your great state of Iowa helped us
get over the finish line for the million and will certainly take us to the
next manion I hope too. That's absolutely right. Yes, I'm from the
Des Moines area. That's where I work in covering all of the election stuff
and what have you, from the greater Metro Des Moines area. And just
about a year or so ago, the governor of this state signed in one
of the more expansive universal school choice programs in the country. And let's start
there. Will that send a message to other states? Will that in bold
in other states to do what Iowa has done with its savings accounts, So
I think it already has. And if you go back to twenty twenty,
the first state which I think really did take us over the top to pass
universal choice in America was little the state of West Virginia. Yes, and
West Virginia was a state that no one thought would go broad in universal and
it did and it's still a model. And that led almost immediately to Arizona
and Florida, and then right after that to Iowa. And now we have
had twelve states in the last three years that have passed programs for universal eligibility
right its meaning every family is eligible. Now, whether that's truly universal choice
because every family is eligible, but they don't have enough money for it.
Another question? Right, twelve states, And look, this is not surprising,
right, COVID really supercharged school choice. Right. Families saw what happened
during the pandemic and said we want something different, whether that's more charter schools,
more homeschooling, more small schools, more micro schools, even more public
school choice. Right. They just wanted more choice and they're demanding it.
And that's why we got to a million plus kids, no doubt. And
as you mentioned, I think COVID, I think we all agree COVID the
pandemic was an eye opener. I remember, you know, parents talking to
me as a reporter saying in Madison, Wisconsin, hey were tuned into the
so called remote learning where they have things like asymmetrical learning models. And I
didn't know what asymmetrical meant until we found out that it was basically kids in
the Madison school district who were playing video games on their phones all day because
the teachers didn't bother to show up to educate them. We lost a year
plus of education, the lost year plus in America, of course, But
how much did that. What are the numbers showing us in terms of parents
saying enough is enough, I'm ready to make the move. I'm going to
choose a different path of education from my child. Oh look, school choice
has been going on for twenty five years before that, But really, what
happened? Think about this way. You know, there have been a million
kids dropping out in America schools every year for the last twenty years. But
all of a sudden on March thirteenth, twenty twenty, everyone became a teacher,
and everyone became an educator, and they were looking over their kids' shoulder
watching what the schools were giving them or send them or not send them in
their backpacks. And I think parents said, we've had enough, right,
we want something different. And one way to tell of that success is one
the growth in homeschooling is of fifty one percent increase since the pandemic. Most
of that, by the way, quite a large trunk of that is among
black single mothers who were saying I want to homeschool, educate my kids.
Both of these things called micro schools is amazing. No matter how we slice
the data, we're hearing that somewhere between eight and ten percent of families are
already in these sort of small school environments. So what you're finding here is
that families are saying, let's try something different. And another way you can
judge this is look by the number of bills introduced. So in twenty nineteen
there were probably forty or fifty bills introduced for school choice. Twenty twenty three,
there were one hundred and twenty five bills. And this year, you
know, and often during as you know, during years where there are elections,
you have smaller numbers of choice bills or any bills introduced. There were
actually almost ninety bills introduced this year, so you could see the growth in
just both the legislative impact and the family desires. I think that says a
lot about the success of school choice the movement in America, and we'll talk
about that in just a moment, but to stay on COVID for another moment.
I think there were a lot of parents, there are a lot of
parents in this country who have gotten tired of the identity politics injected into their
children's taxpayer funded educations in public pre K through twelve schools. I think they
also got tired of their schools. As I mentioned, before being closed down,
even long after we learned that the pandemic really wasn't impacting our kids,
and the you know, COVID nineteen was really dangerous to a certain population,
a segmented population, not to our kids and most of our teachers. Yet
we had the education industry, the you know, K through twelve public education
industry continuing to shut down schools while private schools other choice schools in the main
went back to school much earlier. How much did that have an impact on
the numbers? Oh, it had a huge impact. I mean the fact
that what families saw that micro schools, pods, private schools, charter schools
were all much more flexible than the traditional system. I think helped make parents
understand that this isn't about public versus private, It's about getting the best thing
for their kids. And look, you know who the biggest people who are
frustrated with the current system are right now. It's their public school teachers.
They're leaving in droves, they're retiring and droves. They want to do something
different, and they support school choice as well. That's why a lot of
them are starting these new micro schools. And as for the values thing,
I think this is an interesting conversation. Look, we believe in pluralism in
America, where we should I think, right, believe in pluralism because that's
part of who we are. And I think what people began to realize is
that traditional schools during the pandemic were actually keeping up the teaching a monolithic style
of values. Now, let's be honest. We want families to associate and
create schools and environments where their kids can learn the most they can learn.
We know that private school choice, by the way, programs, create more
tolerant children than in their traditional public schools. And so what does that mean.
Let's say I'm a family that doesn't believe that the school was teaching history
correctly, it really wasn't teaching history of slavery correctly, which it probably wasn't
right by the way on all accounts, right, But they want to have
more involvement in that kind of curriculum. Great thing about school choices allows that.
What about a family that's saying, hey, you know what, my
child doesn't really need to be teached taught all these issues around gender, right,
we'd like something different. You can go and start a school. There
the whole point of the school choice is you're leading to an opportunity to have
a more pluralistic environment. What is the argument that you hear from the educrats
from the education public education establishment about the funding, the weeping and gnashing of
teeth from public teachers' unions in particular, they're taking all of the money away
and they're putting it into charter schools, and they're putting it into vouchers schools
and all kinds of different schools outside of you know, the watch and control
of the public education establishment. I have looked at this in particular in Wisconsin,
and the numbers to me are astounding, not supporting what the public education
and teachers union systems say. But the argument for school choice, it seems
to me based in Wisconsin in particular, and I think the case replicates itself
across the country and school choice, that parents and students and the community are
getting a much better value under school choice than they are in the public education
system. One hundred percent agree. And look, I'm going to call this
one out because I think our opponents of school choice simply don't tell the truth
about how schools are funded, and arguing that schools don't have enough money is
like saying, I guess the one hundred and ninety billion dollars that were given
in COVID relief fund and the life wasn't enough that they already get seven hundred
and fifty billion dollars a year in traditional public schools, the extra one hundred
and ninety billion really wasn't going to be able to service the kids. They
way that they think that's just ludicrous, right, And I look at it
more from a kid's perspective. So in my home state of Indianapolis, a
child in third grade in Indianapolis public schools will get about fifteen thousand dollars to
go to in state, federal and local money to go to a public school.
That same third grade child, low income third grade child will get about
nine thousand dollars or ten dollars dollars to go to a charter school. And
they'll get some state and they'll get some federal money. That same third grade
child, we'll get about five grand or six grand on average to go to
a private school. I just want to know why that child, that third
grade liv income child is worth nine to ten thousand dollars less just by the
virture of their school site. Reality of this argument that they make is that
they believe all dollars should only go to a public school. If you really
want to talk about who drains money from public schools faster than anything else,
it's other public schools. Right. The largest choice program in America is when
people pick up and buy a house and move from one district to another.
By their logic, if a person moves from a district A to district B,
they're taking money away from public schools. It's going from one public school
to another. So I think the question here that our opponents are really not
wanting to honestly grapple with is they're okay if you spend the money in the
government run school system, but not if you allow families to have taxpayer dollars
that, by the way, they've put in to the system to go to
a school that better for them and a choice system. Yes, indeed,
and as you mentioned, they're arguing against even though they don't want that to
be part of their argument or known part of their argument. The school choice
movement within public school systems, as you say, better school systems, or
at least believed to be by families, and it's their choice to make.
Of course, that's what we're arguing about here, That's what we're you know,
school choice proponents defend. But yet you have, you know, you
have a big labor in the teachers' unions, and you have the public education
system, you know, arguing if they could, they would take that option
away from from families and students as well. Yeah, so it's ironic that
the people who oppose school choice, who say they're the most let's say progressive,
let's use that term, right, the most progressive, are the very
ones keeping in place a system that is created and more income segregation and more
racial segregation than our country's ever seen. So the argument that these folks are
making against school choices basically saying, I'm okay with folks who have money picking
up and buying a house and a gated, segregated, income, segregated community.
We're good with that, right, don't take that money anywhere else,
don't go to a private school, don't go to a charter school, don't
have choices. Just let's just keep this system in place. And we know
this system is built on a Prussian ideology. Right, if you go back
to the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties, when it came up to be.
It came from Prussia, which is a militaristic background. We wanted to create
a public school system that was basically preparing people to be manufacturers, to be
ready. And I always asked this question, do you know why that there
was a school bell between classes? Originally because they wanted to get kids used
to the factory whistle. Oh, isn't that interesting? So these folks who
appos school choice are actually supporting a system that is tremendously oppressive. That's it.
Yeah, you never hear that, of course from the public education defenders
or the opponents of school choice. More so, my history behind the school
bell is of course with Ralphie from a Christmas story where por Flick is goaded
into putting his tongue on the frozen poll, right, and then he's stuck
there and the bell rings, and Ralph Ralphie's argument for leaving poor Flick is
the bell rang. And I think that drives home the point what he just
said. You know, the kids in the nineteen thirties and forties, just
like kids throughout the last one hundred and fifty years in this country, have
responded to the bell ringing. The bell rang and what you you have said
is interesting because that was all tied into preparing for a future of manufacturing,
and one could argue being indoctrinated into a particular system. And that is exactly
why a lot of parents are saying no more of that for us, Thank
you very much. That's right, because no kid is average, right,
There's no such thing as an average kid, and every school district tries to
create average kids. And the whole point of education should be about making sure
a child can get in where they fit in, making sure they could learn
as they need, individualizing a structure that will actually help them to become the
best citizens possible. You just can't do that in a top down, one
size fits all system. And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking
about busting up this system that has just not worked over time. I mean,
you use the analogy of Ralphie I like that. By our opponents of
school choice basically say oh, you've got to support public schools. We need
more money, support us and we'll get better. And they say that every
time they pull the football out from Charlie Brown's foot. Yeah right, yeah,
keep pulling the football out. Oh, give us more money and then
they pull it away. Give us more money, we'll get better. The
reality is that if you want to hold public schools to account, then they
need to be held to the same account of the ability to parents to leave
right, which we don't hold them accountable at all despite all this regulation on
them. Robert Denlow, President and CEO of ed Choice, an Indianapolis based
nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to advancing educational freedom and choice for all as a
pathway to successful lives in a stronger society, joining us on this edition of
the Federalist Radio Hour. Let's go back in time because this was the vision
of Milton and Rose Friedman, of course, wonderful people who founded ed Choice
many many years ago, I believe back in nineteen ninety six, so you're
coming up on thirty years. And they had, as you note on your
website, a very clear vision that every family would have the ability to choose
a personalized education for their children. I think more nothing less you note on
your website. Today, they would be proud to learn that this vision is
becoming a reality. As we mentioned at the outset of this episode, over
one million children now participating in private school choice programs. Across the country when
all of this started. And I remember when this started because I was reporting
on it in the state of Wisconsin once again. Governor Tommy Thompson, Republican
governor at that time, had made Milwaukee one of the first testing grounds to
see if Milton Friedman's vision would work, if it would be successful. And
I can tell you this thirty plus years later, it definitely has been successful,
not only in Milwaukee, but now expanded first into Racine, Wisconsin and
now statewide. What do you think about the origins from whence you came and
where you are today. Wow, that's a great question. And thanks for
reminding me of how long I've been in this movement. I appreciate you.
Know. Milton said something that keeps me in this movement all the time.
He basically said, the tragedy and irony is that the system that was set
up, the system of public schools, was set up to create a common
set of values a and educate our children, should in fact exacerbate the stratification
of society. For those of us who are been in this movement for a
long time, the idea of school choice is a way to create a less
stratified society, a society where everyone had the same opportunity to advance, regardless
of where you lived or how much money you had. And I think that
was what with the origins some of the origins of the Milwaukee program. Look,
I was there in some of the beginning, not in the beginning beginning,
but Howard Fuller, it was and is a good friend of mine,
and he was the one who, with Polly Williams and Tommy Thompson, helped
create that program. And you know, doctor Fuller and Polly Williams, they
what people don't realize is when they started the Milwaukee voucher program, that wasn't
what they wanted at the Milwaukee level. What they wanted was a black led,
black run school district because the school system wasn't serving black kids and is,
by the way, it still isn't today. Right. Yes, the
more things changed, the more they stayed the same in Milwaukee, unfortunately.
Yeah, But doctor Folly said, Okay, well I can't do that,
then let's try this thing called vouchers. And Tommy Thompson said, this is
a great idea. Milton Freeman, here's the idea. And it worked,
right, it's working and it continues to work, because the idea is you
need to be able to create choice and exit. You need to be able
to make sure that families have the ability to vote with their feet. And
that's what happened in Milwaukee in nineteen ninety five when nineteen ninety then expanded in
nineteen ninety five, and then it has gone across the country. Remember,
the goal of this is not just to simply allow families to choose private schools.
The goal of this whole effort that Milton Freeman started way back in the
day in the fifties was to create an educational system, to restructure it so
that we actually get to the kind of quality education that every child deserves.
You know, in America today, less than only forty percent of kids can
read on grade level. That's black, white, and everyone, right,
only forty percent. If you're black, it's like eighteen percent. That's unacceptable,
right. We cannot continue to support any kind of system that allows that,
and so we have to radically restructure that. And that was the goal
that Milton Freeman said, let's radically restructure our education system in a more competitive
way to create better results. I guess the big question here, you know,
the billion plus times billion. Question, because how much money we have
we have spent in the education system in America is why why do we have
kids at you know, with only forty percent all kids proficient in reading and
writing, less than that I believe proficient in mathematics. Why is it that
our minority communities, our black communities, our Hispanic communities are testing so much
lower on that front. We're falling so far, so much farther behind from
other industrialized First world nations. Why is that with so much money involved.
All those nations, by the way, have universal choice, right, Like
you think about this, Every European nation that you know actually allows public dollars
to flow to private schools and has done for years. Right, And that's
just the reality of the way education works across across the world except here.
What Milton said, what doctor Freeman said, is we basically have connected to
things the public funding of education with a government running of schools. And his
argument was very simple, to separate the government funding of education from the government
running of schools would be more effective, more efficient, and more and better
for kids. So we know from our traditional public school system. Here's one
of my favorite comments I make, and I don't often say I like this
comment, but it's true. Whyatt, I've never seen a imagine Amazon blames
every consumer that uses Amazon for a failure of the product that they deliver.
Right, So, like, it's the only system in America where public schools
get to blame the user of the product for a failure of the product,
right, meaning public schools blame parents for how bad their education system is.
We have more non teachers than teachers in schools. We've given billions more in
K twelve funding than ever before, and yet it's continually said, well,
these kids are so hard to educate. It's these bad families. How about
maybe the system is it working enough for failings? Oh? Yes, I
think that has been increasingly clear if it wasn't clear decades ago. But you
know, that's the bottom line issue. And if you take a look at
the numbers, the school choice movement, the education choice movement in America has
made significant, substantial strides. But let's put it in perspective. You're at
over a million kids in counting involved in school choice programs. That's out of
what fifty million kids nationally. There's a lot of ground to cover. There's
a lot of work to do, and yet you have you know, so
many government institutions and so many politicians and policymakers fighting against a system that has
shown to be very successful. Yeah, no doubt. And look, I
want to be clear, this isn't really ultimately and it shouldn't be about whether
public versus private, or charter versus private. Really, this is ultimately what
do families need, right. It is my hope that a system of choice
will make our public schools better. We know that the data shows that,
right, if you have a school choice program, public schools get better faster.
That's what we're looking for here, improvement over time. Right, And
we now know on the positive side, we only have a million kids in
the program, which is a great milestone, but almost forty percent of all
kids in America eligible now. So what we've got to do now is make
sure that they know they have their options, that they have the freedom to
choose, and make sure they can go ahead and do that. That's an
excellent point. You've expanded the universe, and that universe was very limited,
you know, a decade ago. A lot of work has been accomplished,
as you note, and as you noted, over the last five six years
in this country alone. Again, much work needs to be done on this
front. And as you say, it's it's not the vision of school choice
proponents to you know, decide what is you know, ultimately the schools,
the education systems where parents, where families direct their time and energy. I
mean that undercuts exactly what the argument of school choice is. So I guess
the question is when you talk about school choice making public schools better, are
they making public schools better? Because we see the results, of course,
especially in the COVID and post COVID years, have been very dismal, very
believedb COVID results are going to, you know, shift the whole They're going
to skew the whole data set for a little while, to be honest with
you. But the reality we know from in states like there's been research into
how does school choice programs affect public school test scores in Milwaukee, for example,
what happens when there's a public school in a high choice so like let's
say down there in South Milwaukee, where there's a lot of choice schools and
there's some public schools, what happens to those public schools in those areas where
families have a lot of different choices. What we've learned is that those public
schools around those really choice environments get better faster. Now, this is the
data we have that competitive effects works, but that's only because we've been doing
it and studying in Wisconsin, in Florida and a couple of the states.
What's going to be interesting going forward will be what will the broad choice programs
in Florida, Arizona and these twelve other states. What will they do to
public schools? Will they actually force them to get better? Now, I
will tell you that in a place like Arizona, there's a reason why the
NATE scores for Hispanic kids are the highest and why they're doing very well compared
to other states, because they actually have a competitive educational environment and it works
very well for them. It's interesting to take a look at school choice over
time. As we've talked about Milton Friedman really leading this whole movement, Tommy
Thompson, other governors like him, you know, the governor of Louisiana early
on involved in this. But at every step of the way, you've had,
particularly almost exclusively from liberal or Democrat administrations, you've had, you know,
a resistance to this, not just you know, we object on philosophical
grounds, but in the Obama administration, you had a weaponized that's a term
we hear often used in politics today, but it really was a weaponized Department
of Justice in their Dear Colleague letters, I know, trying to shut down
school choice in Wisconsin, where you had a liberal governor in Tony Evers who
worked with the Department of Justice to do that. And I assure you that's
help happened elsewhere. How do you how do you fight back against a federal
government? And I would imagine the Biden administration is no better no Homa administration
on this run, But how do you fight back against that kind of weaponization
targeting school choice schools? Well, the first and most important way to fight
back is to make sure that parents are front and center of the conversation.
Right. This revolution that we're in is a parent based revolution. That's happening
since COVID and parents are done with basically saying you can mess around with my
kids education. And it's becoming a litmus test for a lot of legislative fights,
right, and not in just legislative fights, for a lot of politics.
Right. So you saw in Florida governors were elected by school choice supporters.
You're seeing all over the country now in state after state legislators being ousted
from their positions because they don't support the idea of school choice. And so
first and foremost it's parents who are making this happen. And the more those
stories get out, the less the government can interfere. How much has the
craziness of the far left, I mean, from my perspective, it is
absolute insanity. It's more than that, it's a war on reality, quite
frankly, but with all kinds of different issues, but particularly you know,
identity politics, and in that subset, particularly the whole trans acceptance movement,
the you know, the DEI movement that is now so inculcated in our public
educational systems. How much has that influenced the expansion of school choice in America.
So there's no doubt that families, and again I think from all different
types of values, that values are becoming important to families, right, And
so I think there is a sense that families think that and by the way,
this is true among black and brown families too, that the system has
gone too far in some of its ideas, right, and particularly in what
they teach kids, and so I think there's a recognition that there are some
legitimate boundaries that should be put in place related to how kids are taught and
what kids are taught. But on the other hand, look, I think
we've got to be very careful here. Look, there are lots of kids
who are bullied because they're special needs. There's lots of kids who are bullied
because they happen to be LGBTQ, right and gay and lesbian. And we
don't want kids to get bullied, right, That's not our goal here.
Our goal here is to make sure there's an environment for them while making sure
that the values are aligned with what families want. And I think that's where
school choice becomes so positive. Right, you can create learning environments that are
aligned with your values. And that's what's happening. You know, in Florida
there have been over seven hundred new private schools starts since they started this program,
a huge number, and a lot of those will be serving families who
say, you know what, I want to make sure my kids are taught
human sexuality in a way that I agree with. Some of those might be
I want to say space for my child who happens to be gay. And
I think when we think about these values based conversation, there's no doubt that
it has had an impact. You're right one about that. But when we
think about America, we have to think about the values we care about,
and one of them is pluralism and one of them is common sense, right,
And I think the public school system has lost its mind some ways when
it comes to common sense. And I think that's what parents are noticing.
And again I think it's parents across all stripes, right, And you're right
that the values war is out there. It is legit. It is a
legitimate situation that's happening. Again, whether that's good or bad. The coal
here is to make sure kids get educated in environment works best for them.
Just a few minutes left, and I'd be remiss if I, obviously if
I didn't ask you what's ahead. But before we get to what's ahead,
what's the current landscape? Like you mentioned earlier on in our conversation that we've
seen a lot of states moving toward universal school choice. You noted the significant
increase in numbers and talk about a million plus students and growing in the school
choice movement. What is on the horizon what's currently in play legislation wise on
school choice. So right now we're to the end of the sessions. There's
Pennsylvania is still in play where they have a lifeline scholarship. I don't know
if you saw this, but jay Z came out and supported school vouchers.
Yes, right, right, And so you're seeing all sorts of movement on
the non parts inside in to make sure that kids have education. So in
Pennsylvania there's an opportunity. Next year, there's going to be a lot of
opportunity. Right, So you're going to look at western states like Montana,
You're to look at places like Idaho. You're going to look like the big
one Texas, right. We hope that Texas will see choice. I think
the key thing though is to remember, Look, it's one thing to say
everyone jeligible. Let's say we pass a program that where everyone's eligible, but
we only say that the program is going to be capped out at one hundred
million dollars. Well, I don't know if you know this, but that's
like five ten thousand kids. So that really doesn't change the system. You
need to make sure that these programs, if you look to the future,
are funded with the formula funding. Right, What I say is, I
just want every family to have the same benefit of public school freedom, which
means if I go from one public school to another, what happens, every
dollar follows my kid. I just want the same thing to happen on a
formula funded way with choice programs. This is why places like West Virginia,
Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas are going to lead the way because they not
only give every kid the ability to choose, they let them take all the
formula funded dollars. And that means, like Indiana, where we see these
programs grow, it will grow consistently and stably over time. And I think
that's really important because the goal here is to make sure that the dollars follow
the kids, just like they do in public schools. That's always the goal,
that's always the mission. Make sure that the dollars follow the kids,
not the buildings, not the institutions. Before I get to my final question,
I'm just curious about where you think some of these states that have been
fighting so long, if that will ultimately change in what we like to consider
many of our deep blue states, you know that are clearly aligned with the
teachers' unions clearly aligned with the public education edocrats all of that. But I
asked this in context. The polling has for a long time and maybe because
of the success ultimately indeed because of the success you had, the polling shows
that Americans, in some cases a vast majority of Americans support school choice.
There's a reason why people in Illinois are leaving and DROs and you know where
they're going, Indiana, And you know why, because they're school choice programs.
One of the main reasons it's always happening Wisconsin to Wisconsin do. The
reality here is is over time, blue states are going to realize that they're
losing families to states that have more opportunity, more options. And I know
that's working because it's working in my home state. So that's number one.
Number two, you're seeing a massive growth in these things called micro schools,
and that is across blue and red states. Right there are tons of families
in blue states that are sort of doing it themselves, low cost private alternatives
in communities of color. It's amazing the vibrancy that's going on. And I
think, so you're building a system from the bottom up in these blue states,
and the next thing I think you're going to see is you're already starting
to see. Finally, the polling has always been that everyone supports choice across
all demographics, but you're finally starting to see the chink between the public support,
let's say, among African Americans, and African American legislative support. So
it is really encouraging. The Louisiana saw six Democrats support school choice. That
in Nebraska you saw some great leaders of color supporting school choice and Democrats.
You're beginning to see this move and I think as it continues to grow,
as you can see you to has states past universal choice, you're going to
see more blue states have to take it up. All right, final question
for you, let me give you the human resources question. Give you the
where does ed choice? Where does the school choice movement in America? Where
do you see it ten years from now? That's a great question. I
think in ten years from now, if we have schooling being delivered in the
exact same way, we're going to be failing. What do I mean by
that? Americans? Tell us we've been I don't know if you know this,
but Edgeway started doing monthly polling. We didn't mean to, but we
started in February twenty twenty, and we've been doing it every month since February
twenty twenty. And since we know what parents are telling us, right,
it's crazy. We've had monthly polling about education for now three years. What
families are telling us is they don't want to be in school five days a
week. So more than half of the families, and certainly more than half
of black families, are saying I would like my kid to learn at home
one to two days a week, or learn in a different setting. And
so if we're just delivering education in a brick and mortar fashion, whether it's
public, private, or charter, in ten years and we're not doing something
that is much different and much more vibrant and much more modern, I think
that is when I think will WILL have failed. It's interesting that you started
that polling just at the you know, the beginning, the origins, if
you will, of COVID nineteen, the upcoming the lockdowns were just a month
away. When you started, you'd have no idea of knowing just how dramatically
this would impact our lives. But there you are. I mean, you
have polling throughout the pandemic and post pandemic. So it is interesting what you're
hearing from people over this very interesting period in America. And it's not just
like one off, it's consistent over time. We'll spend some of our own
money. They're telling us. We like more flexible school hours, we would
like more flexible options, we'd like more curriculum opportunities, they're basically saying.
And this is particularly true of younger families. I'm sure you know they want
to customize. They don't understand why one size fits all system shut down their
throat. And so I think this is coming for blue states where they like
it or not, because the people are getting younger. Yeah, it's funny.
You know, we don't have the one size fits all for all ass
effects of American life, and we still believe ourselves to be free. Why
not move to the freer model in education? And I think that's the question.
Of course, you folks have been asking for a long time and advocating
for. Really do appreciate your time today. It's such an important movement.
We wish you nothing but success moving forward in the next million kids to be
involved in school choice. Thanks so much for having me, really appreciate it
and here's onwards and upwards. As CS Lucy used to say. Indeed,
thanks to my guest today, Robert Mlow, President and CEO of ED Choice,
you've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt
Kittle, Senior correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the frame, earn a
favor, a reason, and then they faded away.