Transcript
Kevin: More than 30,000 students across the country are using education savings account programs. Supporters say these programs give families the freedom to pursue education options best suited for their children's needs. Others say ESAs siphon dollars out of an already struggling public school system. But what exactly are ESAs? What do they mean for families and for education as a whole? And how can ESAs help families find the best learning environment for their children?
This is "What I Want to Know." And today, I'm joined by Robert Enlow to find out.
Robert: What we've seen in the last 10 years is a movement away from this idea of just merely school to schooling, this idea from a brick-and-mortar to this idea of a family choosing, and this cultural idea of a family being able to take back the power that was always locked in their home value for such a long time.
Kevin: More than 30,000 students across the country are using education savings account programs. Supporters say these programs give families the freedom to pursue education options best suited for their children's needs. Others say ESAs siphon dollars out of an already struggling public school system. But what exactly are ESAs? What do they mean for families and for education as a whole? And how can ESAs help families find the best learning environment for their children?
This is "What I Want to Know." And today, I'm joined by Robert Enlow to find out. Robert Enlow is the President and CEO of EdChoice. EdChoice is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that advocates for school choice. Prior to his work with EdChoice, Robert was an integral part of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Today, Robert joins me to discuss what families need to know about ESAs.
Robert Enlow, boy, it is so good to have you on the show. Welcome to "What I Want to Know."
Robert: Thanks, Kevin. I really appreciate you having me.
Kevin: So we've known each other a long time. And I want to talk about, you know, EdChoice and the Parent Empowerment Movement, ESAs. But first, you know, because we know each other, I haven't really done research on you, and I decided I was going to do research on you. And so I found out that one of your favorite subjects was English literature.
Robert: Yes, sir.
Kevin: And you had a favorite instructor. Talk about that because I just didn't know that you had that in you, my friend.
Robert: So I was very lucky. After going to public school, I got sent to a school out in Long Island, a boarding school out in Long Island. And there was a professor there named Russell Witherspoon. It was a wonderful, tall Black man with these incredible tapered fingers that would just talk you through a story. And having literature taught by . . . I mean, I still get shakes thinking about Atticus Finch and the way he taught about that whole story, or the way he taught a separate piece and all this.
Russell Witherspoon was a massive influence on my life, and I really . . . I often think about him. He's, I think, now at Exeter. But he was an amazing man, and I love literature. And one of my favorite poems or poets is Thomas Hardy. And he wrote a poem called "Hap," which is a fantastic poem I encourage you to look at.
Kevin: Well, I will. And the reason why I was struck by that, Robert, you don't know that when I was at Wabash, my favorite professor, I had some great professors in political science, was a professor named Robert Harvey, who was in his 80s at the time. And he taught a short story class that was mainly made up of seniors. And he offered it at 2:00 on Fridays for two hours, and no one missed the class.
Robert: Wow.
Kevin: And he would read short stories to us. And at the end of the day, our final exam was to write our own short story. And it was because of that experience that I realized I at least had a knack for writing. It's pretty powerful when you think about it.
Robert: Yeah. It's amazing. I think I love literature. I wish all of our kids would know more literature, frankly. And I don't care if it's the classics or not the classics, I want them just to know more literature.
Kevin: Did that experience contribute to your interest? You're involved a little bit in politics. You're involved, obviously, with Milton Friedman. But did that experience help sort of guide your foray, which became a career in education?
Robert: So getting sent to a boarding school in Long Island in 1979 from Indiana, you might imagine what my nickname was. It was the Hick from French Lick, obviously. It was a shocking experience because it made me see that people were getting access to something amazing, but not everyone. And it struck me really early on that this just seemed patently unfair, right, and that we should not just, by virtue of household income or housing, have the access to this kind of schooling and these kind of teachers.
And so, from the beginning, I always wanted to start a boarding school for inner city kids. That was my dream. I'm glad to see that SEED has done that. It struck me that we've got to do something to change how we deliver education because of that experience. And so I've basically dedicated my life to trying to upend the nature of how families can access education.
Kevin: One of the forerunners in this and visionary thought leaders was Milton Friedman, and you worked with him. Talk about that experience and how that impacted.
Robert: Didn't even really know who Milton Friedman was. It was 1996, and the president was a family friend. And I get this job and I write a brochure. And our president goes, "Robert, you're going to meet Milton and Rose for dinner, and they're going to go over the brochure with you." And I'm like, "Okay, that's fine. I'm used to it. I'm a social worker. That's what I've been doing, you know, can handle people."
I get to the meeting, and it took me like two seconds to feel really small because of this guy's giant intellect, you know? His first comment to me, Kevin was, "Son, I think you need an English language dictionary." And at that point, my heart fell. I thought I was getting fired. But it became a wonderful chance to get to know Dr.Friedman and his wife Rose. And they were intellectual equals and partners. I don't know if you know this, but they were married and together longer than the average lifespan of a man, a long time.
Kevin: Based on your experience with them and then moving beyond as you work now as the CEO of EdChoice, you've been one of the nation's foremost leaders in educational choice, educational freedom, parental choice, school choice. It's been called different names over the years, but the basic thrust of it is parent empowerment, where parents are in a position to make sure they choose the right school that fits for their child or individual child or children. How have you seen the movement in EdChoice change over the last 10 years or so?
Robert: So that's a great question, one that would take a little bit of while to unpack. And Kevin, to be honest, I think you're a hero in this movement too. I mean, I got to know you first in D.C. when we were going through the D.C. Scholarship Bill fight. And we didn't always agree on the policy, but we always agreed to be with each other and fight the fight for families together, even when you guys were out trying to circle the building and stop them from coming in, which I loved.
You know, the thing that guides me, and more and more and I think we're getting back to this. So the child is not the mere creature of the state. That was the 1925 ruling in Pierce v. Society of the Sisters. And I think parents are beginning to realize that. And so what's happened for me in the last 10 years, in 2011 when Indiana passed its big, huge voucher bill here with Governor Daniels, we called it the Year of School Choice because families were getting more access to schools.
In 2021, when West Virginia passed its ESA program, which was nearly universal, we called it the Year of Educational Choice because it wasn't just about families accessing a school. It was about families accessing an educational environment that they can personalize, whether that's one school, two schools, computers, or curriculum like they have at Stride, which is amazing, you know, this ability to customize.
And this year, we're calling it the Year of Universal Choice because basically now one in seven families, because of what these things are education savings accounts, families can choose to customize their child's education. So what we've seen in the last 10 years is a movement away from this idea of just merely school to schooling, this idea from a brick-and-mortar to this idea of a family choosing, and this cultural idea of a family being able to take back the power that was always locked in their home value for such a long time.
Kevin: Yeah. And I want to talk about education savings accounts, but before I do, one of the big challenges with the whole notion of educational choice and even the educational freedom associated with schooling or schools is institutional, that school systems, school leaders, school boards have always said that this is a challenge to our core structure of American public education. How would you respond to that? Because a lot of superintendents are listening, should they be afraid of the educational choice movement?
Robert: No, I think they're at the forefront of the educational choice movement if it's done right. I have heard so many superintendents, particularly in rural areas, say, "Oh, my God, if my families had more freedom, if I had more freedom from bureaucracy and from the constraints of what the state puts on me at the budget level, if I had the kind of freedom to do what you guys are thinking about with the education savings accounts or vouchers, we would be doing so much." And I think that's right. I think there's a lot of opportunity out there for traditional school districts.
Now, look, traditional school districts, not teachers, have got some challenges that they've got to deal with, right, as we all know. And one of those is the very structure of the way they're set up. When you're set up where something is free at the point of delivery, where you have to go, and when you're forced to go to where they tell you to, it creates a little bit of a disincentive for families. It doesn't mean that the teachers aren't great. It doesn't mean the schools don't love their kids. It just means the way the structure is set up sometimes is challenging.
And so I think there's two opportunities here for school districts. One, they should embrace the idea of customization. They should do it better than anyone, and they can do it better than anyone because, as school board leaders, they can do whatever they want, right, basically. They have almost total power. And I think two, they need to deal with the challenges just inherent in the structure that they have. But they're doing it, I hope, in some places. And I believe that school choice and the idea of educational choice or educational freedom will help them do that better. That's certainly what the studies say.
Kevin: Yeah. And more and more school districts are engaging in what they call public school choice and building alternative and creative, innovative schools or school settings or alternative settings that work for kids. But talk about an education savings account, first of all, definitionally, because a lot of people, even in the early days of this, you know, approach were trying to understand it. And you have a way of breaking things down in simplistic, easy-to-understand terms. So talk about what an education savings account is.
Robert: What we think about when we think about education savings accounts is the government is setting aside money for your kids, to educate your kids. That's super important, right? We do that for all schools, for your traditional schools, for your private, if you're in a voucher program, or if you're an ESA program. The government is setting aside money. And what happens with that is, as a parent, you can either use that money if you're going to go to a traditional school, that money just gets sent to the traditional district. If you go to a charter school, that money gets sent to a charter school. Or if you go to a private school using a voucher, that money gets sent to a traditional private school.
What an ESA does is it says, "We're going to put that money into an account and let you, as a parent, go and customize." And it's going to allow you to say, "You know what? I love this idea of this curriculum from Stride," for example. Or, "I love to use the idea of Mathnasium for my math." Or, "I love to use this idea of in-person learning through going to all of the museums in America to learn about everything," right?
So this idea of customization, where parents have the power over each single dollar, is very new, and it's very different. So what we then say about ESAs, ESAs are government-funded support for families that they can use to customize and personalize the delivery of education for their children.
Here's why that's important, Kevin. I'm a special needs parent, let's say, which I actually was. And my child can't thrive in a traditional environment, and in particular, he can't thrive in any environment, charter or private or public. But he really thrives by this wonderful therapy called horse equine therapy. Now, you would think to yourself, "Oh, my gosh, horse equine therapy, why should I pay for that?" Except it's really known to work for children with special needs.
Kevin: It does.
Robert: It's really valuable. So this parent can go and use that, take their kid to that therapy, and then come home and have a tutor help that child with English. And this is the power of the ESA programs. It really does bring the power back directly into the hands of parents who get to be the ones who decide.
Kevin: What stops ESAs, as you described, this customization, which clearly is important for many families and many kids, but what stops it from being the Wild Wild West?
Robert: Great question. One of the reasons that stops it from being the Wild Wild West is because it all has to be done through a digital wallet, right? You can't just sort of throw money around. I mean, someone has to approve the expenditures. Someone has to expend the expenditures, right? And so if you all do this digitally, right, it can't be used inappropriately if the safeguards are in place. So we know that because you're not spending money, you're not sending millions and millions of dollars into a fund that is used by a school or a district. You're actually putting money into a digital wallet that has safeguards that are actually probably safer than the way we spend money now in schools.
Kevin: Well, you know, the first ESA legislation was passed almost 10, 11 years ago, and now we've seen an explosion of ESAs. Talk about where we are in terms of the availability of ESAs and what it means in those states.
Robert: Yeah. So let me just give you some numbers because I've been working on these numbers. So this is the total country numbers. As of May 12th of this year, there have been 104 bills in legislatures relating to education savings accounts, vouchers, tax credit scholarships, or refundable tax credits, right? So 104 bills. Of those bills, 87 of those bills were ESA bills. So ESAs are the kings of the world right now, right?
Now, ESAs come in many different sizes, Kevin, right? So you have the Arizona ESA, which is very wide open. It allows families to choose from a wide array of different options, right? You have the Arkansas ESA, which is a universal ESA, It will be scaled up. Everyone in the state will be able to access this idea of customizing their kids, and they'll be able to use it for therapies, for curriculums, for tutoring, for schools.
And then you have Iowa, which is an ESA sort of with restricted uses, right? It says, "Hey, we're going to give these families a customization ability, but it's really going to be for private school tuition and fees, and a couple other things to start."
So, right now, there have been six states this year that have passed ESA bills or large broad voucher bills, with North Carolina also on the cusp of passing one as well.
Kevin: What is the impact of ESAs, education savings accounts on the following stakeholders? One, talk about students, two, parents and families, and three, the school system as a whole.
Robert: Wow, great question. So we know from the data about parents. So when students get the ability to choose, we know they tend to do slightly better on test scores if you take the test. But what we really know is that they do better in later life outcomes.
So they tend to graduate at higher rates. They tend to matriculate into college at higher rates. They tend to persist in college at higher rates. They tend to make better decisions with their lives. This is amazing student outcomes. They tend to be better civics. So, for example, if you have a child who's receiving choice, the data shows that they're more tolerant of other people's opinions. They're more tolerant of other people's faiths and beliefs. This is something I think is a good thing in a pluralistic democratic society.
As for parents, the data is very strong on this. We do data at EdChoice about when parents choose, what do they do differently. What they tell us, and what we found, is that they report to us that they communicate with their teachers more, they communicate with their schools more, they're getting more involved in their kids' homework, and they actually vote more. So, again, it's a positive democratizing effect.
And then for schools, in general, and for society as a whole, when you look at schools, we know from the data, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that traditional schools in areas where there's lots of choice and lots of competition, they get better a lot faster, which makes a lot of sense in this world because when you have a system that is a monopoly, and I use that term intentionally in this podcast because I think it's important to discuss the oppressive nature of monopolies, right? And so . . .
Kevin: And by monopoly, you're talking about just the sort of traditional school district that is . . .
Robert: Correct.
Kevin: . . . everyone is supposed to go to or historically has gone to.
Robert: Correct. And if you look at . . . Well, I would encourage your listeners to go and read the history of how we got to this system of K-12 education. It didn't start in 1776. It didn't start in 1796. It didn't start in 1820. It started probably in like 1840 and then began to grow. And the father of the modern public education system was a guy who was a pretty avowed . . . he kind of thought the parents should be put in jail if you didn't force them to go to schools and public schools.
And so there is some history about our K-12 education system that I think people need to get educated on. And the reason I say oppressive monopoly is because we need to understand that systems get better when there's competition out there. Systems get better when families have more choices, right? Now, not universally better, not always better, but generally, the environment is better.
And then society as a whole, look, Kevin, our studies have found millions and millions of dollars. I always say it this way. I have a kid in third grade in Indianapolis public schools where I live. He gets $15,000 all in to go to the traditional school. That's through federal, state, and local money. That same kid gets around $8,000 or $9,000 to go to one of our charter schools. And that same kid gets $5,000 to go to get a voucher to go to a private school.
Why did that kid end up being $10,000 less? What's wrong with that kid? Is something wrong with the kid, or is something wrong with the way we fund and structure the system? I think it's patently unfair that we allow that. And I think it's really important to say that the idea of parental choice is a positive idea that will benefit almost every sector if you allow it to work.
Kevin: How does it all get managed? I mean, we talked about the Wild West example as it relates to ESAs. But there are arguments that more is more when it comes to educational choice or educational freedom. But others say that, in some jurisdictions, less is more. How do you balance that?
Robert: Well, first of all, you have to trust parents, right? I mean, if you're going to trust the . . . I've always laughed about this in a sad way. Education is one of the few places that strikes me as we don't really consider the interest and the power of the consumer, i.e., the parent, in determining what product we deliver and how we deliver it, right? It's very, very interesting.
So the first thing I'd say about less is more and more is more is I think I would trust the parents and let them figure it out, because I think they're going to be able to do it. I'm not sure that you need some sort of big, bureaucratizing structure to solve a problem that I think families can help solve for themselves, even those families who are often less well off.
You hear this a lot, Kevin. You've heard this for years, right? And I don't know how you handle it. I know how I handle it, but it really annoys me. But when I hear people say, "Oh, you know, poor people, they're just so difficult. They don't know how to make good choices." First of all, I have many things to say about that. But the reality is that's just not true, right? The fact is poor families often, as Milton Friedman said, sacrifice wisely and disinterestedly in their children's future. And so we have to believe in families, right, is first and foremost. That's what I would say.
Kevin: What about the politics? Because all of this is shaped around the politics of education. You know, there's the influence of, in the Democratic Party, the Teachers' Union. But as you know, when it comes to the Republican Party, there's been the influence of rural legislators and the like, that really they're trying to protect the institutions of education, school districts, jobs, the largest employer for many rural counties, our school systems. So it's an interesting kind of challenge in terms of having open-minded conversations. How do we deal with that? And I know COVID has helped shake things up, but that still remains one of the biggest challenges.
Robert: It remains a huge challenge. And in fact, it remains a huge challenge now on the right side of the world as opposed to the left side of the world. Let's be honest about this. So EdChoice has been an organization that will work with any state. And obviously, we work with more red states because more red states are interested in this. And we've been doing that for a number of years now.
And it is true that more red states have passed school choice than blue states. It is also true that more red states have opposed school choice than blue states, right? This year, for example, Georgia, Idaho, and North Dakota, and possibly Texas have all killed school choice. You can't get more red than those states. But they've killed the idea of school choice. So this idea that school choice is only a red state issue is, to me, silly.
I've been saying this trying to quote Milton Friedman. The idea that liberty is a Republican issue, or the idea that liberty is a Democrat issue seems silly. The idea that liberty is a human issue. And if it's a human issue, then we have to work everywhere. So politics is real, though.
So, look, the reality of red states are that you have rural legislators who have been in place with the largest employers in their districts for many years. And that's just a challenge. Or in a place like Texas, they have over . . . I think they have over 1,100 school districts. Eleven hundred school districts, think about that, right? My state has 292, and people think that's too many.
I mean, the reality is you have a lot of structural things that go on in the Republican Party, much less in the Republican states. Now, that said, there are blue states that are starting to consider things like this, states like New Mexico, states like I saw an effort in Washington State this year, right? Now, is it going to go anywhere? Probably not. But the reality is you have to fight the fight for liberty for all, not liberty for some, not liberty that's red, not liberty that's blue, but liberty for everyone.
Kevin: And I think one way to do that is to have open and honest conversations where you can lower the volume and talk honestly. And as it relates to ESAs, what exactly is the overall benefit that you see for the community at large? Because this is one of the things that, you know, opportunities you have to really deal with the misconceptions.
Robert: So I love the way you just framed that in terms of how to have the volume go down. ESAs do that. And I'll tell you how. In the previous iterations of the idea of educational freedom, it was always about a building. It was always about school choice, right? And so it always pitted public schools versus a private school or charter schools versus a private school, or charter schools versus a public school. It always pitted one against the other.
What education savings accounts do is basically allow policymakers and superintendents and school leaders to basically say, "My focus is a parent. I'm coming alongside a parent, and they're doing what they want to do because I believe every parent in my school district, every parent where I work, or every parent where I live has the freedom and ability to choose. So I'm merely trying to come alongside and empower a family." And I think that's super important in terms of how you take the rhetoric down.
We're here for family choice. We're not here for school choice. And I think that's a tremendously important way to go forward. And that ultimately will benefit, I think, all of us. When you can see rural schools in Arizona benefiting from the ESA program, which we know is already happening, or rural schools in Florida benefiting from the ESA program, this is a positive thing.
And by rural schools, I mean public schools or publicly-run schools. You know I always say this, right? They're publicly funded and government-run schools, right? I always make my joke, right? They're publicly-funded, government-run. Charter schools are publicly-funded, independently-run. Private schools can be publicly-funded, privately-run. ESAs are publicly-funded, parent-run. And I think that's the difference.
Kevin: Now that leads to really the big question, and this is what I really want to know, Robert. How do you see ESAs impacting education in the future? And I say that recognizing that that transition that you alluded to, going from, you know, the focus on buildings and school choice, charter schools and moving into the purpose of schooling and how those funds are applied, the fact that there are 84 out of 107 bills around the country that are related to ESAs. They've become more and more popular. We're going to see more and more legislation. What will be the future impact overall?
Robert: Well, that's a great question and one that will depend on a couple things. First of all, we need to be patient with the implementation of these bills because they're a unique thing that no one has ever tried before, right? And so, I mean, the closest iteration we have for this is literally Ma Bell or the cellphone industry, right, cellphone industry or the airline deregulation. This is the closest iteration we have to that. And it took a while for those things to sort themselves out.
So ESAs, as legislators and policymakers and advocates, we really need to be patient with the implementation, right, and make sure that we understand that we're not going to know everything right away on how to implement these things.
Two, we need to implement these things with competence. And I use that word intentionally because I think there's a lot of folks out there that are saying we can implement this stuff using, you know, one program off-the-shelf or another program off-the-shelf or another typical government bureaucrat style. That's not the way it's going to work, right? We really need to make sure that these programs are implemented in a way that shows . . .
Like we have Medicaid programs that are billions of dollars programs. You don't have tons of government entities around them, right? You have good government, competent vendors, right? And that's what we need to make sure we have.
So implementing it well through competence, giving ourselves a little patience, I think, is . . . Those two things, if we do them right, then the future will be 100% customization, right? And ultimately, what that means is school district central offices and purchasing will have to look a different way. Ultimately, I don't think schools will look all that different, but I think the way we purchase goods and services will look different, right? That I think is a big deal.
Kevin: And also, does that mean that the traditional public school district will still exist?
Robert: I don't see why it can't exist. I just don't know why you'd have the central office stuff that we have in the same way, right? To me, every single school and every single district becomes a zone . . .
Kevin: I guess I mean publicly-run schools.
Robert: Yeah. I think, well, at that point, the argument would be every school is a family-run school, right, and it's publicly funded, right? So that's the goal, right, publicly-funded, family-run entities, right? Whether they're run by the government, which is fine.
I actually say that this is the only argument I might have won with Milton Friedman. When we were having a discussion about, you know, what the future of school choice looks like in a universal voucher program, he said, "Well, there wouldn't be no government schools." I said, "But Milton, you said a marketplace has to have every entrant into the market. So that has to allow the government, right?"
Kevin: Yes, that's the point I was getting at.
Robert: And he looked at me and he said, "Yes, so long as it's truly a fair-playing field," right? And I said, "I agree with that," right? So if everyone is operating under the same exact amount of resources, the same exact rules, that would be great. Now, the challenge with that is our traditional schools will say, "Well, we can't have schools like private or charter or independent schools that don't operate on our level playing field."
And my argument back to that is that level playing field has been poor at best and not worked at all for the most part. So why do we want to actually have every school do that? Our goal isn't in school choice and educational choice to have all schools look the same. It's to actually have all families have access to all options.
Kevin: It's going to be interesting to see how it turns out. Robert Enlow, I thank you so much for joining us. And thanks again for coming on the show. This is "What I Want to Know."
Robert: Thank you.
Kevin: Thanks for listening to "What I Want to Know." Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education, and write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That's #WIWTK.
For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I'm your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining "What I Want to Know."
Meet Robert
Robert Enlow is president and CEO of EdChoice. EdChoice is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has become one of the nation's most respected and successful educational choice advocates.
Before his work with EdChoice, Robert was integral to the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.
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What I Want to Know
In this podcast, you will hear from leaders in education as we talk through learning solutions for homeschool, online school, education pathways, and topics tailored specifically to online students and parents.
