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♪ buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> welcome back. joining us now, our guest to discuss efforts to expand school choice and some of his organization's recent work. welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> why don't you start by telling me about ed choice, its mission. >> no problem at all. it was founded in 1996 with a simple purpose -- we wanted to improve the quality of k-12 education by allowing parents to choose the schools that were

best for them. in 2016, we changed our name to ed choice. we do policy, research, and legal and litigation work, so our goal is to help support parents in their ability to choose the schools that work best for them. >> explain the type of school choice programs and how they are different from each other. guest: there is no one-size-fits-all. the first type of choice is housing choice. then there's choices like vouchers, which are basically public money set aside for k-12 education. and then a new product for scholarship accounts allows families to customize their education are not just about attending a private school, but attending any kind of

environment that works best for your kid. you want to go halftime to a school that is great math you want to do english on your own. it is allowing parents the freedom of an educational environment. host: there is also a difference between the school choice program that your organization works on as well as charter schools and magnet schools. how are those different? guest: i love that you bring that up. we look at educational choice share, how many families are choosing all of the different types across america? magnet schools are in one way selecting public schools and districts. you have to test in or there is a certain skill, like arts or something like that. they are traditional public schools but a more selective environment. charter schools are independently run public schools managed by different organizations or individuals. they are more traditional

schools, but are quite different than private schools. i like to put it this way. public schools are publicly funded government-run schools. charter schools are publicly funded independently run schools. private schools are publicly funded privately run school choice program. what we are seeing with school choice in the esa form is you now have publicly funded parent-directed education. host: how many students are using -- are enrolled in the school choice programs? who is using them? what type of student? guest: great question. outside of the charter school in public school choice sectors, in the private school choice programs we have topped the one million mark. 2020 four, there are more than one million children using public funds to attend a public or private independent school of their choice or customizing their school of choice.it is a huge number

. we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of kids eligible. fully 40% of tilden in america are eligible to go to a private school on a school choice program. we are seeing one million kids, about 2% of the overall population. we are seeing a ton more kids being eligible. host: we want to invite our audience to join in the discussion. the phone lines are little different. if you are a parent or a student, (202) 748-8000. if you are an educator or administration, your line is (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. robert, you talked about the number hitting over one million. what factors are driving enrollment in school choice programs? guest: great question. one of the things that we know,

we have been doing edchoice pollin sinceg february 2020, right before the pandemic. we have been researching parents views and issues every month since 2020. parents are very frustrated with how their schools are treating relating to bullying, stress, academic rigor. there is a great desire for families to have more customization. almost half of families would be ok with their child being educated outside of a school building once a week. you are seeing a lot more if we are calling family-friendly family policies. we think that families are telling schools, you have to give us something different. more options, more flexibility, and for god's sake have our kids stop being bullied. host: if a parent or guardian decides to pursue a school choice option as opposed to public school, what is the process?

what qualifications? does it guarantee that a student would be able to enroll in one? caller: every state has -- guest: every state has a program that is different. there are programs in 33 states, the district of columbia, and puerto rico and they are all different. the last two years, every child is eligible. just like a public school, if you have a child you have an option. 12 states have that option, including places like florida, arizona, west virginia, iowa, indiana, ohio, and states like that. the goal is to say that there is no difference about where you go. your school type should not matter to your educational process. what matters is that you can choose. the goal is to allow families to choose. there are different reasons for people choosing, but in those 12 states everyone can choose. in other states, for the large

majority, the private school movement was only for low income families. the movement started in 1990, the modern movement, in milwaukee, wisconsin when you had a bipartisan group say we want to help low income children get out of schools that are not working for them. that was the dominant theme of the school choice movement until more recently. the primary beneficiaries of the programs have always been lower income families. all we are really trying to say is that we want the same thing public schools have. we want all families to be free to choose. we don't care where you go. host: we have added from philadelphia on the educator line, our first caller for the segment. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call today. i am an educator and have been for some time. i actually have experience teaching in the charter school and public school systems. i am familiar with the organization, and i was interested to see this gentleman

talk today. i guess i will try to be polite and would like to point out that the founder of edchoice was milton freeman, an economist who had interesting ideas about privatizing every part of our society. if there is a reason why public schools are struggling, it is because of people like this gentleman here. if you look into edchoice and the amount of people who receive a lot of these vouchers, especially in states like ohio and indiana, they open it up so people who make more than $200,000 a year can use these vouchers for their kids to attend religious schools that they were going to attend anyway.a lot of the stuff is miscommunication and misdirection, it costs a lot of people a lot of money, and it costs kids the education, which is the most important part. not everything should be commercialized. some things are done for public good. thank you. guest: i would like to say thank you so much for being a teacher, first of all.

in our country, if you are a wealthy person and you buy a house you get a free public education. we are paying people who are wealthy already to go to traditional public schools.all we want is the ability are all families to get money set aside for their kids. what we know from recent data, we published the 1, 2, 3 school choice, our goal is to find out if the programs are working. do they help families? are they more satisfied? are the kids doing better on test scores? how are the kids in public school doing when you have a choice program? how are the physical effects? our public schools losing money? there are 180 eight high-quality studies that we have tracked, really high-quality studies. very few done by groups like ours. they were done by an independent academic. 188 have been done and in 94% of those studies are showing positive or neutral effects.

meaning that there is no harm or there are positive benefits. i appreciate ed's point and concern. we do believe that public education is a public good, but that is different from saying government-run schools. we believe educating the public is an important good in america, but that doesn't need to be done merely in government-run schools. host: mickey in chicago on the others line. can you turn down your television in the background? caller: absolutely. i meant to do that. how do i do this? i wanted to ask -- ok, how will project 2025 affect the department of education if

trump does get in? it seems as though he wants to eliminate it. i assume that would eliminate efforts to expand school choice as well? guest: project 2025 is something that edchoice had nothing to do with. in many ways on the education side it is older ideas such as eliminating the department of education, which has been around for a long time. the reality in america is it is a state-run effort. of the $800 billion or so we spend on education, a massive amount is from state dollars. in every state, about 50% of your tax dollars go to k-12 education, 30% to 40% of your local dollars. if you look at k-12 education from the federal government, 9% to 11%. the driver of k-12 education is the states, and that is where we believe it should stay. host: rex in andover, minnesota,

also an educator. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span and i really like the job you are doing. you are amazing. all of the hosts on c-span are amazing. i am thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to call. it is actually andover, minnesota, 20 miles north of the city's. i am a retired educator. i taught school for 20 years. i started my teaching career in milwaukee and was part of the historical thing that the gentleman was talking about where private interests became the prevailing theme for moving low income children out of the failing -- they called them failing schools, etc., etc. i was one of the building representatives for one of the schools where parents came in and represented a private concern and succeeded in gutting the school of veteran teachers.

it was a very unfortunate circumstance. i was part of it. i had to deal with the blowback. i will never forget it. it was a life-changing experience for me. the idea that i'm talking about here is if we go back a few years to where george floyd had the problem in minneapolis, all of a sudden people started crying defund the police. there were reasons for that. if you look at the way that things have been going since roughly 1990, what has the republican agenda been? defund the education system, defund the schools. you don't like it when people say defund the police because that distracts us from the real issues of the funding that we need to maintain the systems that are in place to help people, to help society, to move society forward. you start talking about defunding schools and privatizing things, shifting the responsibilities for funding these things away from the

public, where most of the taxpayers are involved, and start going more private, that is where we start to have the problem. it is not the failing school that's the problem. it is the lack of resources being put into those schools. i would like your gentlemen's comment on that. thank you very much. guest: thank you for teaching for so long and i appreciate hearing about your experience in milwaukee. the data on some school funding is straightforward as far as i understand. we spent more on k-12 education than ever before. we continue to spend a ton of money on k-12 education. the question of where the difference lies is we believe in finding students not systems. we believe families should be free to choose, much like what happened in traditional public schools. if i was in one school district and i bought a house in another school district, the money follows me. all we want is the money to follow families to whatever school type works best for their child. we don't put our thumbs on the idea of saying that the school works better for child or that

school. we think that families should be free to decide. they should have the choice. the dollars should follow them, just like it does when it goes from one public school to another. the logic of the argument being made is if we believe that parents should not be free to choose, then we should not allow families to buy a house at another district because that would ultimately defund a public school that a child needs and goes to. or we believe in funding students, not systems. this is where it gets tragic. we have a system like we have in america now, the traditional government-run system. you have more non-teachers in education than teachers. that is made at local school districts across the country about staff. all we want is the money to follow families to go to the schools that work best for their kids. if that is a great public school, we think it's fantastic. charter school, also great. we want dollars to follow kids like they do in traditional

schools. host: tim in pebbles, ohio on the other line. caller: good morning to you. i wanted to say, i am totally and unalterably to giving all of this money to private schools and religious schools. i am in ohio. they do that in ohio. because of that, i stopped voting for school levies and will never vote for school levy again. i am a property owner, but i will never vote for school levy again as long as they do this giveaway. that's just me. guest: i appreciate that. you are one of the states that has had school choice the longest. two points that i would make about that, when families are choosing in their independent

choice to go to a nonpublic school that happens to be religious in nature, what happens to their civic values and tolerance? there is a belief that somehow if we are in a traditional system the kids would be more tolerant, more open to different ideas. unfortunately, the data shows that the opposite is true. if you're sending your kid to a religious private school, the data shows that they are more tolerant of other people's opinions and ideas. it is possibly counterintuitive, but the data is interesting. particularly a recently done meta-analysis by the university of arkansas showing families in these programs and religious schools have better civic results. the second point is, look, again, we believe families should be free to choose and have the money follow them. there are lots of government programs out there now that allow families and individuals to choose. think about how we choose food stamps. milton used to make this

argument all the time. we get families in need the ability to get groceries and use them for food stuffs, but we do not run government-run grocery stores. in the same way, we are saying family should be free to choose whatever school and they don't have to run the schools. our argument is simple. there are a ton of government programs that operate like school vouchers do in ohio and no one seems to have a problem with those. we should have a problem withschool vouchers, in my opinion . -- shouldn't have a problem school vouchers, in my opinion. host: good morning, mike. caller: i taught in the akron school system for over 30 years. i substitute taught. as a young person i attended public and private schools. public until eighth grade and private after that. i wondered if you could answer this one question. many people to your point of view will compare a private school and public school one or

two blocks from each other. the private school has a lower income average and perhaps more non-white students yet they do better than the public school nearby. do you know the number one reason why one school is better than the other? it has nothing to do with income or racial makeup. there is one other factor. do you know the factor that determines whether or not the school is failing? if you don't know, let me tell you. it is the mobility rate. most private schools have a mobility rate of less than 5%. even in the inner city it is less than 5%. maybe up to 10%, possibly. at the public school a few blocks away the mobility rate is 50%, 80%, sometimes 100%. that is the number one factor. not the racial makeup or average income, mobility rate. i had friends who taught grade school. i taught junior high.

in grade school is easier to see because you have the same kids all day long. teachers in grade school say that they have 25 kids in september and by june only five of them are left, 20 of them are brand-new. you don't see that at private schools. guest: mobility rate is very important, and that is an argument for school choice. the idea of a school, the ability to meet that child, and the child will say -- if you say they are coming from the same low income background because they aren't moving, that says something about the school type for that child. we should be trying to find an education where every child can fit in. we should get every child to fit in, get in where they fit in. if that is in a private school, that's great. a charter school, that's also great. the goal is to provide enough options for another family so that the mobility rate is near 0%. host: robert, earlier this year during the 2024 state of the

state address, the alabama governor kay ivey spoke about the efforts in that state to increase school choice programs. we want to hear from her and then get your response on the others. [video clip] gov. ivey: school choice is a spectrum. we realize to expand our options in alabama we had to first improve our existing options. charter schools and the alabama accountability act. you accomplished that. thank you. next, the next step now is to provide our parents, beginning with those most in need, education savings accounts, which will further us on our journey to become the most school-choice-finley state in the nation -- school-choice-friendly state in

the nation. [applause] passing an education savings account bill that works for families and for alabamians is my number one legislative priority. i am proud to have an education -- the choose act. once we get this legislation across the finish line, we will prepare for the program to begin in 2025-2026 academic year. it's first two years will be helping families who might not otherwise have the option to afford to send their children to the school of their choice through these $7,000 education savings accounts. for the third year and beyond,

all families will be eligible for the program. as additional families choose to participate in the program, and as our revenues increase, we can grow the program responsibly so that it can be fully universal. host: robert, what do expansion efforts look like across the country? where is it having success? where is it not moving as much? guest: that is a great question. i love hearing from governor ivey. her comments were well received in the school choice community. to make sure they have all the skills and accountability they need to improve their existing system and give families options. i think they are getting universal. it will be an exciting program. the data shows that public schools and schools in states with school choice get better faster. we are excited by that. this is going on with florida

with governor desantis and in arkansas with governor huckabee sanders. there is a ton of movement around the country. if you look at west virginia, which will be universal done under governor justice. north carolina, even with a democrat governor they have universal choice. we are beginning to see school choice is getting bigger and broader everywhere. even pennsylvania, governor shapiro has expressed support for families having more options. it is happening across the country. 12 states have gotten universal eligibility in the last two years, and we expect that to increase. we expect states like texas, idaho, and others will join the fray. the goal is getting family choice, join the family. it is happening all over the country. it is happening in blue states,

too. california is one of the most charter-rich states in the country, massachusetts, new york.the goal is to give families greater options, and i think that's working. host: arizona became the first state in the country in 2022 to enact universal school voucher programs.how many have it now ? guest: 12. i don't mean to correct you but it was tiny west virginia who did it first in 2021. i think that west virginia was the spark that lifted the movement nationally with senator patricia rucker who is a hero in school choice. she said even in west virginia we can get these programs passed. the next year arizona did it, then florida, and now 12 states have universal eligibility and we expect at least two to three more in the next years. host: arizona has it, and i went to get your reaction to this statement from the national education association. a statement that they had i

february on universal school vouchera portion of a per-pupil educationunding is put into an account parents can into and pay for a generously approved private school tuition. ansis revealed the most universal recipients in arizona live irea with median income ranges from $81,000 to $178,000. 5% come from zip codes where the dianncome is under $49,000. a cany institute report found 80% of applicants did not attend a pscho meeting, thewere already attending private school or being homescho arizona's voucher program is projected to cost $950 million next year. $320 of which -- $320 million of which is not budgeted.

guest: i hear that all the time about arizona. if the cost is busting the budget in arizona, why is the department of education releasing data that they have a surplus? the esa money in arizona comes on the department of education. that budget is being told was for the superintendent that they are in a surplus. it is not budget busting if the department of education has a surplus. that's a factual conversation. the 80% conversation about whether kids are going to be in private school or getting in the private school is a much more nuanced and important conversation to have. in the state of indiana where i live there is a robust voucher program. it serves about 6% of kids. if you surveyed the families you would hear i want a voucher and i have gone to private school. they would say that kid has

always been in private school. they are not asking whether the child would attend a private school without the program. we know the answer to that. the answer is they wouldn't. if you're looking at the data based on in the last year have you attended a public school and they have been on the choice program from the beginning and that it held the access choices, of course they will be an existing private school student. does it matter? we want our families to be educated. that is the goal, to make sure kids are educated in america and they are being educated in america. who knows that most is families. in our most recent poll families were telling us they are the most pessimistic about k-12 education than they have ever been. only 32% think the public education is going on the right track. we can have debates and discussions which i do every day about the right thing to do is. when families are telling us is not working we need to do something else.

the other think about the median income conversation is, why not have this argument about traditional schools? if we believe families who have money or getting a private school education and that's wrong and we shouldn't allow that, why are we allowing families of money to get a free public education often at two times the amount we are spending on a private school education? we need to stop focusing on the dollars and start focusing on the kids. the kids need to be educated. we don't care where they get educated. we care that they get educated. host: let's hear from a parent, michelle in wisconsin. go ahead, michelle. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question to you, sir, all i keep hearing from the republican side is they went -- want to privatize education with private schools and stuff. my question to you is, what about the special needs children who need the education, who rightfully have the right to

education and where i live the private schools do not have special ed programs or special needs children in their schools. what happens to those children going through school when the schools do not offer any programs for those kids who still have the right to an education? guest: i love that question. i think it is super important question to ask. i am the father of a special needs son and was lucky to get an education that works best for him. making sure we are handling special needs families in a way that is both respectful and dignified and they get the education that works best for them, that is number one. that's one of the reasons why the largest growth in the voucher program in the mid to thousands was for special-needs

families -- 2000's was for special-needs families. if you look at the voucher programs in the mid to thousands, they were -- 2000's, they were to make sure special-needs had options. we want to make sure traditional schools are able to educate the kids that need it the most in terms of special-needs. we want to make sure families have options. a lot of times a traditional school does not work, like it did not work for me. this is what esa has been in special-needs communities. that is what we want. to make sure kids get the opportunity to get into a system that works best for them. in states like indiana, private schools that have not traditionally done special-needs services, as i have got more open to the choice in the state they are beginning to serve more special-needs kids. the goal here is to get the child the education that works best for them. we don't care it is. we care that they get it. host: tim in delaware, and

educator. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: you are on. caller: i'm an art school teacher. i love my kids. it's a pleasure to give back to people and see them light up and start to get it. i have been on hold for a little while. my point has changed. i would like to say i think it's unfortunate we are pretending this tournament who was a salesman, not an educator is doing anything but talking in circles. that woman who called asked a reasonable question and he did not answer it. these people are auctioning off -- why did kay ivey say that esa's were a primary goal? why doesn't just go straight to the schools? why don't we adequately fund education? earlier i heard this to them and say people had choice, like they could pick up and move and buy another house and another school district.

you use some kind of convoluted backwards logic. the people that are down here, who stay there, they also deserve an education. no matter what their kids are. some people have no choice. these vouchers, there is no evidence that they work. this is a scam. this man is a scam artist. guest: i appreciate your opinion and everyone has the right to their ideas. let me answer that this way. one of the reasons i do what i do is because i think the idea that a family can't move and can't afford to move and to low income to find a school district is terrible. the idea that we will have a kid forced to go to a school where we say it will get better in five years were given more money and let's figure it out, i think that is a terrible thing to do to families. i do. i'm in this program.

if it's a great school and works for the family, that's fantastic. if they can't afford to move, why should the income and their zip code determine the quality of education? i get passionate about this part of the conversation. it is one thing to say i have an opinion or i have a point of view. i do, but there are millions of families that are stuck in schools that don't work for them. i think it's terrible to say you keep trying. keep hoping you gets better. we do believe competition might actually improve it. i think competition will improve it. i think the data on the whole shows it works. if anyone looks at the data, look at yourself. go read the studies as i have. is a perfect? nothing is perfect. families need options. it is disingenuous to say keep waiting around. let's keep trying to add more money even though we added more money than ever before and hopefully it might get better for the family who can't afford

to move. we need to do it now. our kids are not getting educated now. i will do everything i can to make sure all families have the freedom to choose. host: jeff in spring hill, florida, a parent. good morning caller: thank you for taking my call. i agree with 100% with tim. first of all, what makes a private school private? the answer is money. what you are doing is taking money from the public collection to keep the entire child raising of education, that he has a way to get that education. you are giving money to the rich so it cuts the cost of private school in half. guest: to be honest with you, that is not what is happening in

educational choice for the last 25 years. i challenge you to look at the data. look at your logic. if you're saying the same thing, you would not support food stamps or food vouchers going to anything except government run grocery stores. the reality is families have all sorts of different options through different government programs. you don't have a government running the schools. our argument is simple. it works better when families have choices. we know it does. it is why florida has seen great improvement in its results. it is what arizona has seen great improvements in its results. there's a connection between the ability to choose and the ability to get better results. if you are saying it's a scam, let me ask you why is a black child in indianapolis who goes to the indianapolis public schools -- $15,000 to go to a traditional third-grade classroom. it's $8,000 to $9,000 to go to a charter school and get a choice program.

why is it $10,000 less? we need to have all the money follow the families wherever, including private schools. host: robert, i want to ask about your organization. 2024 edition of the school choice tell us about the publication and where you're getting information from. guest: what we do as an organization is try to collect resources to find out what is working and what's not working. sometimes choice does not work and we want to be honest about that. we are what are one of the only organizations that will say here is where it is working and here's where it is not working. one of the things that sets organization apart as we don't publish just positive stuff. we want to understand was happening. we take the compilation of all the highest studies we can find, the studies that are basically placebo studies if you think about that.

in a drug trial they give it all the variables except the pill. those of the highest quality studies that you can find. there is matching studies and random assignment samples. we do our best to get all the high-quality studies on a number of topics. how kids doing on test scores? how are kids doing after graduating? are they graduating? how are kids in public schools doing? how are families doing? how are kids behaving? are they behaving different? are they more tolerant of other people's opinions? is it better for public schools or worse for public schools? the preponderance of the evidence is that children are doing better as a whole under choice programs. is that always true? of course not. that's the same in any system. we know it's happening now in america whether education. we know from school choice programs that 180 cities have been done -- studies have been done. 163 found a positive effect and

11 found negative effects. that's a decent race we can learn from. there are places where we have mixed results that we need to figure out. test scores. kids see a slight increase depending on the study look at and when. we will see more over time. indiana will see a study that shows kids have come back from their losses. the goal is to connect and collect all the data necessary to find out whether school choice is working in american education. we believe it is. that is why we are supporting the idea of family freedom. it is a passionate subject. i am passionate about it as well. i think families should be free to choose. host: robert, one of the areas the study you mentioned was the public school students test scores. 29 studies in that category.

26 showed a positive overall impact on public school students. explain why. guest: this is a great question. the thing about milwaukee, you are in a city that has a ton of choice options. private schools serving low income families. they are in a neighborhood that has multiple options. public, private, charter. they found that kids that are going to the traditional public schools in those areas, the public schools improved faster because there's a great deal more competition for the students. the more competition you have for students the better the results are going to be in the traditional public schools. this is one of the things we don't talk about enough. it is one of the findings in the academic findings about school choice that very few people disagree with in the academic world. at the very least school choice is proving to have a positive result on public schools. that in and of itself to be a

positive thing. the reasoning for this is kids in areas where there's lots of competition, the schools have to do more to make sure parents are coming to them, that the qualities is improved and they are getting better communications, their teachers are more responsive. it is all the things you would think need to happen to make sure schools are getting better. host: we have time for one more call. darlene in illinois on the other line. caller: hello. i would like to say i think this is all simply a reason to denigrate the public schools. charter schools are not necessary if we are successful in directing our public schools in the first place. just how much money is going to private religious schools? as far as i know there should be no public money going to religious schools. guest: i appreciate your point.

here is what i say. i don't know how long we can continue to wait. it is not denigrating any kind of school system but we can't wait forever to try to make sure the system that has not been working for a long time . there have been a million kids dropping up for the last 15 years. that is not acceptable. we can say it's about money. it is continuing to happen. this is not about an individual school or individual teacher. it's about whether the system can solve the problem of our country, which is to make sure kids are educated. if you can't read and can't write and can't compute and can't understand history, who will govern the affairs of our country? my goal is to make sure we have a country here in 40 to 50 years and not worry about whether it is done through a system that does or does not work. the last thing i would say is the goal here is not about

whether one school is better than another school. it's about whether kids get educated. we know in school choice there is 2% of kids in america using the funds to go to private schools. that's only 1% of the total money. 1.2% of the total money. the vast majority will be spent on traditional schools. we are arguing over 2% of the kids in america that are using an option to go to what is best for them. they seem to improve public schools. it seems to make sure test scores are better. it makes more cynically tolerant children. i find it -- civically tolerant children. our goal is to improve all the systems. host: our guest robert enlow, president and ceo of edchoice. you can find their work online at edchoicen x