EdChoice president and CEO Robert Enlow joins the Students Over Systems podcast to explain Milton Friedman’s vision for the role of government in education. Robert reviews the history of the school choice movement and EdChoice’s role in expanding education freedom through research, polling, and training. We discuss the importance of informing parents about their options now that numerous states have created universal or near-universal education savings account (ESA) programs.


TRANSCRIPT

Ginny Gentles:

Today on Students Over Systems we’re celebrating School Choice’s undeniable momentum. EdChoice President, Robert Enlow, joins us to discuss Milton Friedman’s School Choice Revolution. Welcome to Students Over Systems 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. On today’s episode, we’re joined by Robert Enlow. Robert is the president and CEO of EdChoice, an organization that was once known as the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. Under his leadership, EdChoice advocates for educational choice and parental freedom through research, training, and seminars. Robert has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and op-eds that have appeared in journals, books, and papers across the country. Robert, thank you so much for joining us.

Robert Enlow:

And Ginny, thanks so much for having me. I’m so glad to be here and it’s so great to see you.

Ginny Gentles:

Well, I’m looking forward to this conversation because we have a lot to celebrate and all that has happened with School Choice this year. But let’s start with the foundation and the idea of School Choice. There was a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal called Milton Friedman’s School Choice Revolution, and in that op-ed, the Wall Street Journal editorial staff said, “The Nobel Prize winning economist has been dead for nearly two decades, but the moment has come for the idea that may prove his greatest legacy. Parents should decide where the public funds for educating their children go.” So what was Milton Friedman’s vision for educational choice?

Robert Enlow:

That’s a great question. So Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, established the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice with a simple purpose; that every dollar should follow every child to whatever learning opportunity works best for them. His theory was very simple, that we needed to separate the government financing of education from the government running of schools. And give parents true freedom and let the ability to have options flourish in America. And so our organization was set up to do that in 1996. I think we were one of the original and still the longest serving organizations promoting universal choice in America. We’ve been doing it now for 27 years, and I’ve been there ever since.

And we do three things. We do research and thought leadership, so if you want to know how School Choice is doing, you just pull this book up and look at the ABCs of School Choice. We do training and outreach, so how do policy makers and the advocates on the ground and school leaders understand the pros and cons of School Choice and how it’s working and how it’s not? So we’ve trained over a thousand partners and state legislators in the last five years. And then of course, we do policy and advocacy work. We want to make sure that states are supported in their work to give parents greater educational freedom. So Milton’s idea was very simple from the very beginning. It is fairer and more equitable to fund a system of students rather than funding a system of schools.

Ginny Gentles:

Some people think that Corey DeAngelis created School Choice. Well, I think it’s always helpful in this podcast to go back to the beginning of the idea, and you are the right person to take us there. So Milton Freidman wrote, what was it? An essay or a book? The Role of Government in Education.

Robert Enlow:

Milton wrote, in 1955, in a publication called The Public Interest, an essay called The Role of Government in Education. That then became part of his award-winning book, “Free to Choose.” It was also [inaudible] of the status quo, so it’s actually had an evolution over time, but it became part of the 1980 PBS series of the same name, Free to Choose. So Milton was the original godfather of universal choice. What’s really interesting about today and what you’re seeing today, think about it this way, people are seeing a beautiful tip of the iceberg. They’re seeing incredible stuff move, and all of a sudden, you’re seeing this incredible success. But underneath that tip of the iceberg is a giant mountain of work that’s going on for the last 25 years, including people like yourself who’ve been involved in this for many, many years.

Or parents who’ve been working and the school leaders who have been working at it. So what you’re seeing now, and when Corey’s out there saying universal choice, that’s great. We love that because Milton Friedman did it first, and the more we can do it, the better it can be. Now, Milton would argue that he didn’t do it first, people like Adams did it first and people like the classical liberals did it first. And so this is a tradition of individual freedom that’s been carrying on for a long time. And finally, in education, it’s breaking through a system that has been really quite unhelpful for many, many families. So we’re excited to see this growth and know that it has come after years and years and years of work from people on the ground and groups like yourself.

Ginny Gentles:

Well, we have been spending the early episodes of the Students Over Systems podcast talking about that foundation. Talking about the decades of work that have been put in. And we also occasionally do mention Corey and we say that we are very thankful for his very effective messaging. He is a very strong advocate for education freedom and does a great job of putting that message out there. But we do want to remind everybody that this Role of Government in Education essay has been out there since 1955. This idea has been out there and the work has been underway. So let’s talk a little bit about … Oh, go ahead.

Robert Enlow:

Sorry to interrupt, this is a really important comment and I’m a huge fan, friend of Corey’s, love him to death. So this is not about anything like that. You know that most people aren’t on Twitter, so only 23% of the population are on Twitter. And of those 23%, 97% of the content is controlled by 6% of the people. And so what you’re getting is a small subsection, and it’s great and it’s important, but I’m thinking about the everyday family whose kid is bullied in Fowler, Indiana.

I’m thinking about the everyday family in suburban Rensselaer in Indiana. Or thousands of other places that don’t understand the advocates game, that don’t understand Twitter, that don’t see what’s going on in this blogosphere. What I think they need is real options and real voices. And when you’re looking at a state where I live, where 60% of the families still don’t know they have the options, I think it’s really important we start sharing with families the information they need. And while I think it’s great that we continue to elevate and talk on Twitter and talk on the blogs and talk on media, that’s fantastic and super important. I think we need to be thinking about where we really need to have our voices, which is among the parents.

Ginny Gentles:

Well, let’s dig in on that a little bit because I think you’re right. Twitter and the media is very effective at reaching state legislators, and that’s where a lot of the conversation around School Choice has been effective. On those platforms, because the state legislators are tuned in and they’re listening and they’re learning. At Independent Women’s Forum, I feel very strongly that we need to speak to the mothers and we need to give them hope. We need to give them options. We don’t want them to feel hopeless when they are so frustrated with what’s happening in their traditional public schools.

We don’t want them to feel trapped and we definitely want to make sure that they know that they can have leverage and a voice if they have these educational options. So there’s two things that I think are, well, there are a lot of things that EdChoice does that’s helpful, but let’s go back to two things. One is that book that you held up, and let’s talk about what that is and how that can empower parents and inform them about their options. It’s not a book about the story of School Choice. It breaks down, state by state, exactly what the options are, right?

Robert Enlow:

Yes. So the ABCs of School Choice was first done, I believe, in 2002. It was a brainchild of mine. I said, “Hey, you know what? We should start chronicling all the data and what the actual programs say they do. Who’s eligible? How many kids take it up over time? How much money do they get?” And so we’ve compiled, every year since then, all the information about the programs that pass. So again, how many families are eligible? What type of families are eligible? What type of schools can participate? What are the regulations on those schools? How much money does the family get and when can they get it?

And then, over time, you could say how much have we seen growth in those programs? And over time, we’ve moved from just being vouchers to vouchers and tax credit scholarships. Vouchers, tax credit scholarships, and ESAs. It was a book that grew from 22 pages to now 192 pages and it’s a go-to guide for families. And look, my belief is that families aren’t stupid. They’re capable of understanding language beyond the emotional appeals, which is important. And so they need to be armed with the data and the facts and this book does it for them.

Ginny Gentles:

And you take a version of that information and put it on the EdChoice website. So there’s an interactive state map that parents can search, and policymakers and people like me who want to write about programs, can you tell us a little bit about the website resource?

Robert Enlow:

Yeah, so edchoice.org, if you look at School Choice in America, it goes through every single state and you can look at every single program. And it even has a calculator to see if you qualify for those programs. And then it would send you to the either state-based group that’s working on that or the DOE in your state to see if you want to apply. So the website is full of all this information, and we even have a smaller guide for parents, which is a little less dense, of all of the data. And a little bit more just top line on where the programs stand and what they’re offering. But our website is really important because it is one of the most trafficked websites for School Choice in America, and we have hundreds of thousands of views on each of these pages every year. So parents are looking at it and they’re getting information, and then they’re beginning to make their choices.

Ginny Gentles:

So Robert, that website is real time? When you’re talking about, I think six states, who have passed significant expansions to School Choice this year. That information is already up on the website, right? So if parents in Iowa want to find out what that ESA program is, that passed earlier this year, they can go to the website, right?

Robert Enlow:

If you’re in Iowa, if you’re in Arkansas, if you’re in Indiana, if you’re in Utah, if you’re in Arizona, all those programs, every one that’s been passed this year so far, has been updated on our website. We have an amazing research and policy staff that get things going quickly.

Ginny Gentles:

Okay, so that’s one thing. You’ve got the ABCs of School Choice that breaks down each of the programs, and then you’ve got the online version of it, which is very usable, again to parents, but also to policymakers and to policy wonks. You all also are out there doing training, and to be honest, I don’t know a lot about the training that you do. You’d mentioned 1000 people over the last five years? What is it that you’re doing with these training sessions?

Robert Enlow:

Well, so with our partners, I saw you drinking out of a mug of coffee from National School Choice Week. One of my dearest partners and friends, Andrew Campanella, and the people who work with them, with their work support we’ve been doing media training for families and advocates for the last 12 to 15 years. Where you bring in folks to help them understand, how do you learn about School Choice? What are the messages on School Choice? How do you talk about School Choice? These are important things to discuss for families, to make sure that they have access to the right information.

Ginny Gentles:

With this training, again, from an Independent Women’s Forum perspective, where we really want to make sure these messages reach mothers, we know that often mothers hear about programs and opportunities through other parents. So this is really important to make sure that we don’t think that, well, we passed a program and we wrote an op-ed, so we’re done. We’re good. Let’s move on to the next state. No, the implementation work is really important in ensuring that parents find out about options. And then ensuring that parents know how to advocate for those options, because the other side will not rest just because the program has passed. It’s not done for them. They’re going to sue. Yeah, go ahead and speak to the thing that you’re equipping parents to push back on.

Robert Enlow:

Well, this is great, Ginny. I love that you brought this up because this is not just about providing something online, a digital marketing campaign or something where you can try and get someone to sign up. This is about giving parents information over time that they can use in their communities, in their churches, in their neighborhoods, in their school board meetings, to help them understand how to fight back against misinformation. So for example, when you hear, “Oh, parents don’t make good choices.” Well, you could start to show that parents are making good choices and here are the data that shows that. Or that public schools are better than private schools. Well, we don’t care about what school type, but here’s the data on how kids in Choice programs are performing. Or whether it’s going to create religious schools or not and here’s the data. And these families, I think they need to hear it on an ongoing basis.

You and I both have been working for a long time, you know that people need to hear something at least seven times to help them understand what it is, and then be able to be confident in sharing that information. So one of the things that I think is really important about this movement right now is, we’re beginning to realize we’ve got to go back to the old way of looking at organizing. Which is, boots on the ground, talking with people on a regular, ongoing basis, giving them the information in the communities where they live, and helping them understand that it’s not about a public versus private. It’s not about a me versus you. It’s about what parents want. And if you look at the data that’s coming out, and certainly data from our polling that we’ve done. I don’t know if we’re going to get a chance to talk about that, but EdChoice has done …

It just so happened in February of 2020, we decided to start a monthly polling project and then, bang, a pandemic hits. And so we have the most comprehensive state of data for the last three years on parent views of education, starting in February, 2020. And here’s what we know, look, families don’t hate their traditional schools. But also, families want choice. And so these two things coexist in reality and as we think about giving parents options and say, good public schools and good charter schools and good private schools and good micro schools and whatever we think about, it’s not an us versus them for parents. It’s a, I want what’s best for my kids. And so we help parents understand that and help advocates understand that the language isn’t and shouldn’t be about us versus them, it should be about what’s best for parents.

Ginny Gentles:

Let’s talk about the polling a little bit, because you’re not just polling parents. I think that there is a poll of students or teens that came out recently? I mean are you polling everybody?

Robert Enlow:

So every quarter we poll a different subgroup. So we’ve polled teachers, we’ve polled teens, and we’ve polled African Americans. And so what we want to do is make sure that we are getting comprehensive views of various segments of society and make sure we know where they feel. And look, teens are feeling happier in their schools than they were during the pandemic, but they also are very concerned about safety. They’re very concerned about bullying. Which, by the way, is the number one reason families are choosing different options. Our polling that just came out found that that families who are making a switch are doing so because their children have been bullied. And so it’s not just choice for income bases, it’s choice for families whose kids aren’t thriving in a school system, whatever school it may be, where their kids are being bullied. And so we’re trying to learn about how each sector supports this, and what we’re really finding is, it’s young families who love the idea of choice.

Ginny Gentles:

I would think that young families are going to be more open to it than maybe families who only have the experience of going to the traditional public school down the street growing up. There are more and more millennials and Gen Z individuals who have benefited from School Choice themselves. So they get it. They experienced it in their own lives. So let’s talk a little bit about the programs that have already been in place before this legislative session and then we’ll touch on the amazing things that have happened in the last few months. That ABCs of School Choice, you mentioned that the length of the book has significantly increased. What was the total number of programs that we were up to?

Robert Enlow:

Oh, that’s a great question. So I always say this, when we started as an organization at EdChoice, there were six programs operating in six states. That’s all there were. And some of those programs were really small. So when we started, there were two programs, one in Maine and Vermont that were started in the 1860s or in the early 1870s. No one really looks at those as Choice programs, but we do. Then there were the programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland, the two city-based Choice programs, and then a couple tax credit programs beyond that. But since then, we’re now up to 73 programs that are working in 32 states and DC and Puerto Rico. It’s growing like leaps and bounds. For a long time the programs were really limited. So EdChoice in 2008 was the first to publish a study called Grading School Choice, which basically criticized the income bases of Choice programs because we wanted to get to Milton Friedman’s idea of School Choice, not means testing.

Again, Milton thought that the biggest beneficiaries of Choice would be those who are in the greatest need, but that program for the poor was ultimately a poor program. And so we believe that universal Choice was the most important thing to do. And so we started compiling data on whether those programs are meeting Milton’s vision or not. And that’s part of the reason why we are here where we are today. So many of the groups and discussions we’ve had over the years where people are saying, “Oh, well, we need to just help some kids.” And our group is always saying, “Let’s help all kids.” And so what we’ve found is the growth over time has been from Choice programs, voucher programs for cities that worked, and then you had the Florida program that got ruled unconstitutional. Then you had the growth of tax credit programs.

Then in 2011, with Indiana, you had the growth of voucher programs again and now you’ve had the growth of ESA programs. Along the way, each step, you’ve seen more and more families get involved. More and more income limits be increased. And so we are to a point now where we have about 12 states that have universal eligibility, but I think three states that have universal eligibility and universal funding. So if you’re in Indiana, Florida, and Arizona, if you have a Choice, you have a dollar. And if you’re in Utah, if you have a Choice, you have a choice, but the state is capping the amount of funds that are there. And so it’s great that we’re now to universal eligibility, now we need to get to universal eligibility and universal dollars following the families. And so this is the next battle for Educational Choice, but it’s amazing to see the growth.

Ginny Gentles:

Okay, can you explain how that happens? How there’s a disconnect between what the program seems to be promising, which is universal choice, and the limitation in the funding?

Robert Enlow:

Yeah, so states will pass a program, like the State of Utah, which is amazing. So it’s a very expansive Choice program that basically says everyone is eligible. But then what it says is, “Well, we’re going to cap the amount of money that we can spend on that program to a certain amount or to a certain number of kids.” They either cap it to be a financial amount or a child amount. And so you can only have a certain number of students or you can only have a certain number of students in year one in and year two, which is fine. But the goal here is ultimately to say that every family deserves every dollar to go to every environment.

We make this conversation quite a bit, why should a child in Indiana, who’s a third grader, who goes to a traditional public school … Third grade kid and goes to one of the toughest city schools, gets 16 or $17,000. That same kid goes to a charter school and gets $8,500. And that same kid goes to one of the non-public schools of the program and gets $5,500. I need to understand why that child is worth $10,000 less. And the fact is, it’s not. And so, until you actually have dollars following kids, we think it’s great that everyone’s eligible, but we want to make sure everyone has dollars to follow them.

Ginny Gentles:

All right. And when we’re talking about universal eligibility and the growth of ESAs, I wonder if we could be honest about which programs are truly universal ESAs and which ones aren’t. So we were so excited by what happened in Iowa earlier this year. There was incredible leadership from the governor and a swift movement on the part of the legislature. But if we’re being honest, that program that’s being implemented right now is kind of a voucher program for the most part. Am I wrong in saying that?

Robert Enlow:

It is an ESA program with limited uses. So the way we’re terming it is, it’s currently an ESA program with limited uses and the goal is obviously to have mixed uses. So you can use it for private school tuition and other fees, and even therapies around it, but you have to be in a private school. So yeah, it’s an ESA with limited uses at this point in time. Doesn’t make it any less valuable, but it actually, let’s be honest, it is actually have limited uses. That is not the case in Arizona or New Hampshire where it’s a lot more open and expansive to the number of uses that families can have. Or West Virginia, for example.

And by the way, that’s another state where dollars follow kids. That’s one of the great states that helped pass as well. So the key thing here is that you have to grow the number of eligible options and one of the challenges with ESAs right now has been implementation in Arizona. As you’ve grown into a universal program, it is showing the limitations of government bureaucrats and their inability to actually create systems that are serving parents fast enough. And so I think it’s a really important focus when we go forward, as we grow these programs, to make sure that parents have easy access and easy use and that bureaucrats don’t get in the way.

Ginny Gentles:

Well, I appreciate all that you’re doing to make sure that parents are informed and I hope that we can continue to work together to make sure we’re spreading the information. Because it doesn’t matter if these programs were passed if parents don’t find out about them and they don’t understand them and they don’t know how to take the steps to enroll and to benefit from them. So this implementation, these years ahead of us, I think are going to be really important and the partners in this space need to be working together. As we wrap up, I like to ask our guests what their favorite School Choice myth is. And when I say favorite, I mean the one that bothers you the most and you’d like to dispel today.

Robert Enlow:

Well, everyone who knows me knows the one that bothers me the most is that we’re going to drain money from our cash strapped public school system. The evidence for that, let’s just take a look at it philosophically first. Any child who moves from one public school district to another public school district drains money from a public school [inaudible]. So this concept that, somehow, if you move from one public school to a private school, you’re draining money. But if you move from one public school to another, you’re not draining money. The reality is they call them per-pupil funding formulas for a reason, because at the state-based level, the money follows the kids to different schools. And so philosophically, in Indiana for example, there are 83,000 kids that are going across district lines to a school of their choice. A public school of their choice. Are those public schools draining money from other public schools? Clearly not. So philosophically, the idea that you’re draining money presumes the system owns the money and not the families or the taxpayers. And that’s the number one point.

The number two point here is, there is just no way, unless I misunderstand math, which I may because I’m old and we use old math. But if a child is getting $15,000 to go to a school, and they’re getting $15,000 from federal, state and local funds, all in, and they only take the state, then the child goes to a Choice program and they only get the state funds, then the overall pot has to be more for public schools. So if I’m in one public school district and I get a state funded scholarship of 90% of what the state would’ve spent on me, the state’s not spending 10% on my kid, and all the local dollars are staying in the school districts from your property tax. So it’s just shocking to me that you see people saying you’re going to drain money from traditional public schools. And then the last thing on this one is, every single state that we have ever studied … And so, one of the biggest things we do is research. We have a Fiscal Research and Education Center run by Dr. Marty Lueken, we call it the Fiscal Bible.

There’s a giant book called The Fiscal Impact of School Choice, it goes over every single state’s program. There has not been a single state that shows not savings from School Choice. That there are savings from School Choice. And then, traditional schools continue to see an increase. So philosophically, it doesn’t make any sense. Dollars should follow kids. We believe in an educated public. Why do they only get educated in one system? The dollars should follow them. Two, the reality is they don’t take anywhere near the total portion, and a lot of it’s left in our traditional system. And three, the evidence is it saves tons of money. So you have to make sure that these folks understand, when they say this, they just don’t understand how school funding formulas work. And by the way, they’re complicated, arcane, and difficult, but simple mathematics will tell you that if one kid’s getting 15,000 all in, and another kid’s getting five, then somewhere there’s 10,000 saved.

Ginny Gentles:

Robert, I feel like this was the right question for you. You’ve got some opinions on this topic and I’m wondering if we’re going to need to schedule another interview just to dig into this more. This is an important myth that absolutely needs to be dispelled, so thank you for the work that EdChoice is doing with the fiscal impact studies. We’ve cited them at IWF. Thank you for all the work that you’re doing and for coming to talk with us today.

Robert Enlow:

Thank you for having me and thanks for all the work you’re doing, I really appreciate it. And great to see you and all the work you continue to do at IWF.

Ginny Gentles:

Great. All right, so we’ve been talking with Robert Enlow, President and CEO of EdChoice. And 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 IWF Education Freedom Center, go to iwf.org/efc. Thank you for listening to Students Over Systems. Until next time, keep celebrating education freedom and brighter futures.