Stacy Hock joins the Students Over Systems podcast to discuss the possibility and opportunity to expand education freedom in the Lone Star State this year. She explains the open enrollment, charter, and magnet school policies in Texas, and lays out her vision for creating K-12 education savings accounts for families. We address the need for Texas lawmakers to respect and recognize the voices of parents who are seeking expanded educational choices and flexibility.
Stacy Hock is a philanthropist and public policy advocate who serves on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the University of Austin Board of Advisors. She received her B.S. in computer science and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her MBA from the University of Texas in Austin. Stacy is a sixth-generation Texan and lives with her husband, Joel, and their four sons in Austin, Texas.
TRANSCRIPT
Ginny Gentles:
Today on Students Over Systems, we’re celebrating education freedom in Texas.
Welcome to Students Over Systems, a podcast that celebrates education freedom. I’m your host, Ginny Gentles. At Students Over Systems, we talk with the creators, advocates, and beneficiaries of education freedom. Our guests empower parents with more leverage over their children’s educational path. On today’s episode, we’ll be focusing on education freedom in the Lone Star state and I’m very pleased to be joined today by Stacy Hock for this important conversation. Stacy Hock is a private investor, philanthropist and conservative public policy advocate. She serves on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the African Dream Initiative, and the University of Austin Board of Advisors.
She previously served on the Texas GOP 2020 Victory Committee and she was vice chair of the Texas Commission on the Next Generation Assessment and Accountability. Stacy is an amazing woman. She received her BS in computer science and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her MBA from the University of Texas in Austin. Stacy is a sixth generation Texan and she lives with her husband Joel and their four children, four sons in Austin, Texas. Stacy, thank you so much for joining us for an early episode of Students Over Systems.
Stacy Hock:
Thanks for having me, Ginny.
Ginny Gentles:
So Stacy, I am by nature just so excited to forge ahead and talk about the current school choice movement and what’s going on with education savings out accounts in Texas. But let’s set that aside for a later part of our conversation. I’d love to know more about your history of getting involved in education in Texas and beyond and why you’re such a supporter of education freedom and school choice.
Stacy Hock:
Well for me, school choice is kind of two important worlds colliding. I’ve always cared a lot about good government policy. I would say historically more at the federal level, focusing on economic policy and a light regulatory environment, predictable trade and tax policy. When I moved back to Texas, my husband and I had been in New York for a while and Senator Phil Graham reached out and he encouraged me, knowing I would be in Austin, to lean in on state policy. And I, from my perspective, thought gosh, Texas is in such a good place. We don’t have an income tax, we have a balanced budget amendment, it’s a reasonable regulatory environment.
What is there to focus on? And he said, well just look into it. And sure enough, I was surprised to find that the climate in Texas wasn’t as receptive as I expected it to be to school choice. I had been focusing on it from a philanthropic perspective, supporting charter schools and charter expansion. We actually did have a really good charter law in Texas at that time. It was about 10 years ago that I was moving back, but there was no private school choice program and there was also no big leader championing that from the outside and where I would be coming from. We kind of had some political leaders on that on the inside legislatively, but there wasn’t broad support for it in the legislature and there wasn’t really a coordinated or led effort from the outside to push for that. There had been in the past and it had fallen just short and I think that had lost some steam. So I decided to lean in on that and 10 years later we’re still working on it.
Ginny Gentles:
You are still working on it. So you mentioned that there’s a charter law that’s in place in Texas and there are quite a few charters. What are the range of existing options for choice for families in Texas?
Stacy Hock:
Well, that’s a great question because Texas has a lot going for it. I would say in the public sector, one of the best things is our charter law. We have a lot of great high-performing charters that are able to expand and grow in Texas. And so that landscape is robust. We have 300,000 kids in charter schools, we have 60,000 kids on wait lists and I know that charters are trying to expand as the demand warrants. So those with the larger wait list can really justify getting some capital investment from philanthropists and others to open up new campuses because they can demonstrate their demand. Also, charters that don’t succeed, whether it’s academically or because families aren’t drawn to their options, fail and close. And so that market has been functioning in Texas as you would hope it would for the past 25 years. And we’ve gotten to a pretty mature place as far as the charter market is concerned. There are some barriers for charters.
I think folks who are against having real choices in the public arena have been trying to thwart charter groups’ ability to expand. So there’s still fight to be done and our application process in Texas is arguably the hardest to get through in the country and we’ve had extremely good charters be denied through some of the kind of loopholes that advocates have been able to shut down that expansion. So there’s still work to be done, but the charter school’s very good. We also in districts allow choices. So districts have flexibility on if they let kids apply to go to different campuses within their district, you can apply to go to a different district school and typically a neighboring district if it has an offering that you’re really interested in. And we have magnet schools that have been extremely successful academically and what we’ve found is recently haven’t been getting in many cases as much support at the district level.
So those have not grown to the demand that they have or to the number of qualified students who would be able to go there so a lot of kids kind of get left on the table for those offerings.
Ginny Gentles:
Could you describe a little bit what a magnet school or a magnet program offers?
Stacy Hock:
Magnet schools normally specialize in a certain area of academics. So for example, you might have a school that is more intense or aggressive in math and science curriculum. That’s a magnet school that I went to and they are selective typically. So you normally have to apply, maybe take a test and demonstrate academic acumen to be accepted to the school depending on how selective they are, some more than others. But I was really grateful for my magnet school high school experience. I felt like I found my people, I had a lot of teachers who were excited to pour into me. It stretched me much further than I think I would’ve gone otherwise. And I was extremely prepared when I showed up at MIT and not everyone can say that. So I benefited from public choice hugely. So I think it made me really receptive to how much middle class families need options in the public arena and beyond.
Ginny Gentles:
All right, so we’ve talked about public school choice in Texas, the charter schools, which are public schools that have some freedom from the regulations that the district schools have and then magnet schools that offer these specialized programs for students where that’s a good fit. Let’s shift to private school choice in Texas. What options exist now?
Stacy Hock:
Well, real quick, I just want to clarify that all districts in Texas have the exact same option to operate under the charter law. So charters have no fewer regulations than districts do. Districts choose to operate under a pretty extensive contracting code, but they could opt out of that just like charters. So there is nothing available to charters that districts don’t have. And in fact, there are things available to districts that charters don’t have like bond issuance for facilities funding for example, or other kinds of entitlements that districts get, but private school choice, I apologize. Tell me your question again.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, I was asking what kind of options do Texans have as far as private school choice? And I wouldn’t say it’s a trick question, but I think I know the answer.
Stacy Hock:
Well, it is a bit of a blight on a state that is otherwise really crushing it in a lot of areas. I’ve had families move here from states like Florida and Arizona and reach out and want to know how they enroll their child with special needs or other things in our private school choice program in Texas. And I’ve had to explain to them, we do not have that and a lot of times I’ll get the response, no, my child has special needs, so they qualify and I have to explain to them that even children with special needs, no one in Texas is eligible for a private school choice program. We just don’t have anything like that which people are really surprised to hear when they move here.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, it is a strange and surprising thing given that over 30 states do have private school choice programs. There are 65 plus private school choice programs, so many of these states have multiple programs, and a state like Florida that you mentioned has had them in place for a really long time. In the past it was called the McKay Scholarship Program that would allow special needs children to take their education funding over to a school that can meet their needs. And then there was another program for students with low income households. The options abound in other states, they’re certainly in place in all of the red states and in all the southern states, but not in Texas.
But things have shifted recently and that’s a big reason why I wanted to have this conversation early in the life of the Students Over Systems podcast because we’re coming up on state legislative sessions, including Texas, and there have been conversations around a proposal called Education Savings Accounts in the past years in Texas, and there’s going to be another one this year. So education savings accounts, briefly, that means that parents have direct access to a portion of the state funding for education for their child and they can access accounts with that funding and direct it for pre-approved expenses, education expenses including tuition, therapy, textbooks, even transportation in some places and technology. So that’s how ESA work in 10 other states. Tell us what your vision is for education freedom in Texas and does it include these education savings accounts?
Stacy Hock:
Yes, absolutely. Education savings accounts and sometimes referred to as education spendings accounts are certainly the vehicle of choice. There’s been an evolution in how best to support these public funds to be utilized to the benefit of children’s education and what we’ve found is this model which works just like a healthcare spending or savings account that many of us are familiar with or the SNAP program, the food stamp modern day program where families receive a card that is used for specific expenses both in the private arena are for the benefit or the express purpose of healthcare or in the case of food stamps, food. That is a really robust model to do both things, be very targeted in what the money can be used for but give the most personalization and flexibility and it’s easy to audit on the backend. So this is what we have found is the optimal to both maintain accountability but also really in allow a marketplace and families to make choices for themselves.
Ginny Gentles:
So why doesn’t Texas have an ESA already? You all have had this legislative discussion in past years. What are the barriers to passing something that seems like a really straightforward and obvious next step for expanding education freedom in the state?
Stacy Hock:
Well, yes, it certainly is, and the good news is you cannot hold back a good idea when its time is right. Why we don’t have it, it’s a great question to ask lawmakers, but I think change is always hard. There is fear around change. What unintended consequences might there be? What could go wrong here? Our school systems are something we’re very proud of in Texas. They are huge parts of our communities and our economy and lawmakers are well, well connected with their superintendents because they are just pillars of the community. What we need to do is be talking about what are the right solutions for our public dollars and the goals of that, which is educating the next generation and preparing the workforce for the needs of the state. And in both of those areas, we are falling short in Texas, the majority of students are not on grade level academically today and the workforce needs in Texas, we can project huge shortfalls in what we’re going to need in the very, very near future.
So for those reasons alone, it is extremely pragmatic and frankly low-hanging fruit to add one more tool to the toolbox of our public education and allow families more choices if they want to engage in the private arena, like the choices available to them today in the public arena. So that’s the conversation we’re going to be having. The legislative session has just kicked off this week in Texas and the slate of lawmakers have been sworn in both the house and the Senate, and this is going to be on everyone’s mind. The thing that’s different in Texas now is that coming out of COVID a year ago, towards the end of ’21, you could just feel that the parents’ energy around education choice and education freedom was higher than it’s ever been across the board. We see it in every community, urban, rural, suburban, Republican, Democrat, Independent.
It is widely popular and widely supported with everyone and that has become contagious and what we’re hoping is that this is the session where lawmakers align with parents on this even in some cases where it means they aren’t aligned on this issue with their superintendents for whom we have great respect and we have lots of great relationships and they’re very powerful political voice. But it is important that at the end of the day lawmakers align with parents so that parents do have the respect and the transparency and the choice that they need to support their children in their education.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, I appreciate the way you’re explaining that there are these huge employers in these districts for the legislators and these rule superintendents are often at the helm of large organizations in those districts and that is the public K-12, 12 system. So the local legislator is going to be nervous about doing anything that’s going to mess with the employment structure of their constituents, but parents are constituents too.
Stacy Hock:
Absolutely. Parents are constituents and it’s not lost on me that the name of this podcast is Students Over Systems. And you’re right, the school district system in Texas is extensive and it’s not just the largest employer, it’s also the largest purchaser of services and goods. In many cases it’s the largest debt holder because we issue lots and lots of debt to build very nice facilities, which become a really beautiful and wonderful place to go to school and have community gatherings and to work. Where we have passed private school choice, obviously those systems still thrive, and the message has to be that this is a compliment to what they are doing and what we are finding is it only makes these systems better and it’s natural, it’s human nature to not want competition, especially if you have a bit of a castle.
Ginny Gentles:
Absolutely. I hear you saying that, that polling is showing that parents want this. When you ask them, do you want education freedom? They say yes. And I hope that the legislators are hearing that as well. The problem is that the advocates are out here. We’re talking to each other saying, obviously Texas needs to expand education freedom, and the parents are talking to each other and saying, obviously this system has not been meeting my child’s needs. We have a learning loss crisis. Schools were closed for too long, not as long in Texas as other places, but there still is a problem. Texas is famous for not serving students with special needs. There are plenty of parents saying, I want something else, but they can’t get their voices heard over the voices of those power structures that we’re talking about, including these local superintendents.
And so I just want to dig in just a little bit more on these local superintendents, your fellow Texan, Corey DeAngelis, who is a media and Twitter extraordinaire when it comes to sharing the message of school choice and the need for school choice, he recently exposed the huge salaries that many Texas superintendents are making, and I think it would probably surprise even legislators, but definitely would surprise parents when you start breaking down the superintendent’s salaries at, I don’t know where Cypress Fairbanks is, you’ll have to tell me, but that’s-
Stacy Hock:
[inaudible 00:19:38] Houston.
Ginny Gentles:
Okay, that’s $512,000 a year. Duncanville over $400,000 a year. Houston itself only $350,000. I’d imagine that that is a large school district and that’s a big job-
Stacy Hock:
That’s the largest in the nation.
Ginny Gentles:
Yeah. So I understand large salaries when you have a large complicated job, being superintendent is not an easy job. I don’t want to imply that at all, and some of these are quite large systems, but I think it’s something like over a hundred Texas superintendents are making over $200,000 or $250,000 a year, which to an average American, I would imagine, to an average Texan, sounds like a lot of money. So I think we have to keep an eye on what’s going on with the superintendents and the layers of power that our blocking the parent voice from being heard at the state capitol. All right, so what can parents do to help ad advocate for ESAs? I would imagine there’s a campaign underway to make sure that they know what ESAs are and what the potential is. Once you inform them about that and the partners who you’re working with, what are you asking them to do?
Stacy Hock:
Well, of course the goal is to let the democratic process work where individuals do reach out to their lawmakers and have conversations about what they’re experiencing and what could support them well as parents in supporting the education of their children. We’re seeing that happen, I think especially among parents with children with special needs, but really across every landscape. What we’re starting to hear is just how parents are thinking more broadly about what’s possible, what K-12 could look like. And what we’re finding is so much innovation is happening in the private sector with micro schools, with learning pods. We have an extremely vibrant homeschooling community here in Texas, many hundreds of thousands of kids homeschool. And so people are starting in that space to really think about what can be done privately. We have about 900 private schools in Texas compared to 1200 school districts, so there’s fewer than one private school for every school district.
The traditional private school is not going to meaningfully supplant what’s happening in public schools, but that infusion of what is possible in this modern day is super important. To your point about superintendents and their pay, I’m personally a little less interested in focusing too much on high CEO pay in some cases because to your point, I do think it is a very hard job. There might be a few cases that are outliers that are questionable, but the bigger picture for me is how much the administration has grown overall. So rather than it just being one member, the fact that we often have one superintendent, numerous assistant superintendents, and then half of the spend happening in the administrative piece rather than the teaching piece. One conversation that gets thrown in here sometimes is what about teachers? And is this going to hurt teachers?
And what we’re finding is that this is extremely empowering for our best educators, and we at this point know we have a teacher shortage, and I believe it’s in no small part due to the fact that it has become such a rote and controlled career that it has demoralized the workforce and the desire of people to go into this space. So to the extent that we can get, subject matter experts and passionate individuals about education, a market in which they can flourish and they can try things and they can build out their career around teaching to an audience, and that can look a lot of different ways, people can start to design their lives that work for them and their careers that can lead to being incredibly lucrative while fulfilling their passion for teaching. So a big part of this is just allowing innovation and change in a marketplace that has been really stagnant and risk averse for a very long time, and with the hopes that the good solutions, that’s where the capital flows, that’s where the people flow, which is not just students, but is also the educators.
Ginny Gentles:
I love that we’re benefiting families, parents, students and teachers, and what a positive development that would be in Texas if you are successful expanding education savings accounts and education freedom there. As we wrap up, final questions Stacy, there are so many myths out there about school choice. What is the myth that really bugs you and that you’d like to tackle today?
Stacy Hock:
Well, we just talked a little bit about how this could hurt teachers. I think that’s a terrible myth that drives me crazy. But another that comes up in Texas a lot is that this does nothing for rural communities, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. We hear regularly that we are missing certain specialist teachers all over our rural communities and with more school choice private options could offer access to some of the very best teachers in the whole world. Public arena should be taking advantage of this too but we live in a place and time where people can start to do really high quality instruction virtually as you and I are doing now. And you can make it extremely interactive, very real time and very, very meaningful. So what school can look like in a rural community might be doing core subjects in the morning and working in the afternoon, building out your technical skills, whether it’s in agriculture or in mechanics or in the oil and gas industry here in Texas.
There’s a lot of opportunity when we get away from set attendance and seat time and how instruction has to look and fee,l once we start to send those things up, and ESAs contribute to that in the private sector, and certainly we can do some of those things in the public sector as well. I think this is an opportunity for rural communities to thrive. This is an opportunity for families who want to move to rural communities to not feel that they don’t want to move there because they’re worried about education options for their kids. I think this could just be a real boost in the lifeline and the vibrancy of rural communities, and we’re hearing from families who want to embrace it, and I hope that lawmakers will hear from those families as well.
Ginny Gentles:
Fantastic. Thank you, Stacy, for talking with us today and for all that you’re doing to create and celebrate education freedom opportunities for students and families.
Stacy Hock:
Oh, thanks for having me.
Ginny Gentles:
We hope listeners found today’s conversation informative and encouraging. If you enjoyed this episode of Students Over Systems, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast app and don’t forget to share this episode with your friends. To learn more about the work of the Education Freedom Center, please visit… And that’s at Education Freedom Center at Independent Women’s Forum, please visit iwf.org/efc. That’s iwf.org/efc. Thank you for listening to Students Over Systems, until next time, keep celebrating education freedom and brighter futures.