November 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Newt talks with Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice about the 2025 edition of EdChoice's Schooling in America Survey. The survey examines trends in public opinion on K-12 education, parent experiences and school choice. This year, the survey reveals significant dissatisfaction with K-12 education in the United States, with over two-thirds of Americans believing it is on the wrong track. Now in its 13th year, the survey highlights concerns about school safety, bullying, and the effective use of educational funding. Despite these issues, there has been a notable increase in school choice options, with 19 states now offering universal choice programs. This shift is attributed to a growing demand for educational reform and parental choice, driven by dissatisfaction with traditional public schools. The report suggests that increased awareness and understanding of educational choice options, such as vouchers and education savings accounts, significantly boost public support for these initiatives. The findings indicate a potential renaissance in educational approaches, emphasizing customization and innovation, such as micro schools and competency-based learning, to better meet diverse student needs.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of News World, what do Americans really
think about K through twelve education? Each year, ED Choices
Schooling and America Survey provides one of the most comprehensive
answers to that question. They released the twenty twenty five edition,
their thirteenth annual nationally representative look at parents and the
(00:25):
public's views on everything from school satisfaction and funding to
educational choice policies and the row of government. Over the
course of the survey's thirteen year history, they've asked a
set of recurring questions focusing on the direction of K
through twelve education, parents schooling preferences, parents satisfaction with their
children's schooling experiences, and public feelings towards educational choice policies.
(00:51):
Here to discuss their twenty twenty five survey, I am
really pleased to welcome my guests, Robert Enlow. He is
the President and CEO of ED Choice. Before the formation
of ed Choice in twenty sixteen, Robert was an integral
part of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational
Choice from its launch in nineteen ninety six. Under his leadership,
(01:15):
d Choice has become one of the nation's most respected
and successful advocates for educational choice working in dozens of
states to advance parental freedom and education. Robert, Welcome and
(01:40):
thank you for joining me again on Newtsworld.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Nice mind pleasure, mister speaker, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You know I have to ask you your new Schooling
in America report shows that more than two thirds of
Americans believe K through twelve education is on the wrong track.
Why do you think public confidence in education is so low.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's our thirteenth year of doing this survey. I wish
I could say it was lucky number thirteen for our
government run schools, but it's not. It's the second highest
dissatisfaction that we've ever seen. And I think the answer
for that is simple. Parents are telling us that these
schools are not safe. My kids are getting bullied, my
kids are mentally anxious, and they're not doing a good
job of educating my kids. And on top of that,
(02:21):
they're spending a ton of money that they don't know
how it's being used. So parents are frustrated with what's
going on in K twelve education around the country.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Why hasn't there been a faster moved to a really
serious reform.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So the fast move to serious reform has been through
school choice. Finally, So starting after COVID, we had zero
states that had universal choice. Now we have nineteen states
that have universal choice. We had less than I think
about four hundred thousand kids were in school choice by
twenty nineteen. Now there's one point three million. So there
is a massive growth in the private school choice sector.
(02:55):
And the theory, of course of Milton Friedman is if
you allow massive te you're going to create more competition
and the public school is going to have to improve.
I think we're to that tipping point in mister speaker,
where we're to the point where there's enough choice in
states like Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, where the public schools
are either going to have to reform or adapt or
die as they used to say.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well Man, yet your own survey says that only thirty
one percent of Americans believe K through twelve education is
headed in the right direction, and that that is an
eleven point declined since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Again, that's why people are going to choice at all sorts.
So that's why you're seeing continued absenteeism, You're seeing continued
migration to charter schools and private schools and choice programs.
This dissatisfaction is why you're seeing homeschooling dramatically on the
rise since COVID. So this dissatisfaction is leading to people
making new choices.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know, and one of those actually was a real
surprise to me. A majority of Republican school parents say
education isn't the right track, but only a minority of
Democrats and independence degree. Why is there this part of difference.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
My guess is the partisan difference in the right track
is because many Republicans are choosing more of their education,
whether it's a traditional public school, by moving to a
home district or not. You know, we see changes in
the survey when presidents come. So the first Trump presidency
you saw a greater level of dissatisfaction at the beginning
with schooling, and the end of it you saw greater support.
(04:22):
And so I think Republicans are just ahead of this
trend when it comes to the idea of being more
satisfied with their options and their choices.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Well, and you make the point in your report that
private school parents are much more positive. About forty nine
percent of private school parents feel very satisfied with their
child school compared to thirty two percent of public school parents.
I mean, that's a big difference. It's almost a fifty
percent differential.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's a huge difference. And that's also true like if
you look at charter schools and home schooling, so all
the school types parents that are choosing are happier and
more satisfied, and it's the traditional public school where people
are feeling like they have to be assigned. Later in
the study, there's a question about why are parents choosing
these schools, and it's very interesting to see the difference.
So parents who are choosing private schools are doing so
(05:11):
for academics, for safety, and for moral values. Parents who
are choosing charter schools are doing so for academics, safety,
and close to home. Parents who are choosing public schools
are doing so for three reasons. It's close to their home,
socializing their kids, and it's their assigned school. What's very
interesting is that mere fact of choice between charter and
(05:31):
private schools is driving the conversation to quality, to safety,
and to moral values. And the more families that can
choose from public schools, the better our society is going
to be.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Frankly, I'm amazed at the number of people who are
concerned about safety in school, not just physical safety, but
also bullying and a whole sense of this is not
a good environment. Do you find that across the country.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
We do find that across the country, and we of
course do another survey that's a monthly survey that is
done in partnership with Morning Consul, and it has been
a consistent trend over five years that parents are tired
of their kids getting bullied in school. This sort of
bullying is a huge issue for parents, their child's mental
health and anxiety. There's a lot of worry from families
(06:16):
about their children having too much anxiety at a school,
particularly to public school where there's not a lot of safety.
The parents are also at higher rates saying that we
were worried about shooting. These issues where public schools are
not responding effectively to a child's bullying and a child's
anxiety is really having an impact on parents, and they're
saying that my kid's not safe, and they're looking at
(06:38):
safety in a broader thing from just sort of physical safety,
it's also emotional and mental safety.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
A very large number of Americans, well over a majority,
underestimate how much money we're already spending on public schools
in their states. Baltimore City Schools, which are the third
most expensive in the country, are among the worst schools
in the entire country. So it's not a coral right
now between how much we spend and what kind of
(07:05):
education we're getting.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
The idea that money has anything to do with quality
of education is not the case, and the more money
you see is often in the worst performing schools. Parents, however,
in the public, really just don't have a knowledge of
how much we spend on kte of education. They've been
lied to for so long about how much we spend,
they underestimate it to the tune of like somewhere between
seven and ten thousand dollars. It's crazy how much they
(07:29):
underestimate how much you spend on public education. Now, when
you tell them how much you spend, right, their idea
of it being too low goes way down by about
a third, right, So it's interesting when you actually inform
them how much the average spending is, the number of
parents that are saying that we don't spend enough goes
down by a third. I think that's why information is
so important, and parents just don't have a clue about
(07:50):
how much we spend, they really don't.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Utah is the least expensive state in the country purstudent,
but his outcomes are radically better then Baltimore or New
York or Chicago, all of which spend I think maybe
at least three times as much as Utah.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
There could be many reasons so that. One of those
reasons would be it's one of the highest homeschooling states
in the country, so they have a number of families
who are homeschooling and getting better results. It could also
be that it is a state that has some of
the lowest minority demographics. And there's all sorts of different
reasons for why it could be ed Ford. But Utah
definitely has proven that you don't need to spend a
lot of money in order to get a quality education.
(08:31):
And if you look at a state like Indiana or
Florida or Arizona, where there's choice programs that are really broad,
you are seeing the families are doing better on NAPE
and the NAPE scores that came out, the private schools
did better, and the private schools in Arizona, Florida, and
Indiana did better than the public schools.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
What's fascinating is one We do know that private schools
that have discipline and that have parental involvement do dramatically
better than public schools that are run by unions and
bureaucracies that are not paying attention. I saw one study
recently that Mississippi now scores higher than Minnesota in mathematics,
(09:27):
which has to be an enormous shock to Minnesota's.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Well, you know, it is shocking by going back to
those basics of reading, writing at arithmetic in Minnesota like foning.
They call it the science of reading, but you know,
we know it back in the day is phonics. In
many ways, their scores went through the roof. You know,
so just some basic reforms that require traditional public schools
to go back to the way they taught couldn't have impact.
We all know that choices having impact. The data is
(09:52):
really clear on this. In states where there's school choice,
public schools do better than the states without school choice.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
There's a recent Open the Books report their title the
Public School Crisis. Higher payrolls associated with worse student performance,
and they argue it Open the Books that as payrolls
increased in public schools, student performance decreased. That is the
opposite of a healthy system.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Well, part of that could be that is totally true,
and Milton Freeman, I think would call that the machinery
of a monopoly at work. The study that we've done
shows that between nineteen fifty and twenty fifteen, and we've
continued this study going forward, the number of kids and
rolled in schools went up one hundred percent, the number
of teachers went up two hundred and fifty percent or so,
and the number of non teachers went up seven hundred
(10:41):
and nine percent. So think of what happened. School districts
brought in seven times the number of non teaching staff
for the enrollment, and there's just no way you can
actually increase the quality of education because those are all administrators,
those are all bureaucrats adding to the system. They're now
more non teachers in NK twelve education than our teachers.
And so it's no wonder why places like Baltimore that
(11:03):
have high pay rolls mostly probably for administrators or having
a challenge in teaching kids.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And this particular report from Opening the Books, they point
out that they're over eighty eight hundred public school employees
earning more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. How
about almost none of those are.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Teachers, probably not by probably a little counterintuitive on this,
we talk about superintendents of large school districts making over
two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand dollars. You know,
I look at my home city of Indianapolis. It's district
is about seven hundred and fifty million or so a year.
I don't know of many companies that would pay their
CEO two hundred and fifty thousand on a seven hundred
and fifty million dollar budget. Maybe if we started treating
(11:43):
these districts more like actual businesses, holding the superintendent's to
true account, we might get different level of talent and
be willing to pay it more. Right So, I think
one of the challenges that the incentives in the system
is not set up to make sure we're getting the
best possible talent in there, particularly the administrator side of my.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
From a Florida perspective, Miami Dade and Hillsboro get top
exam scores while spending less on payroll and employing very
few high sourid staff. Los Angeles Unified, which is an
enormous system, spent more for pupil and had many high
paid staff, but ranked lower. What do you think is
the contrast between the Los Angeles approach and the Miami
(12:23):
Hillsboro approach.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is a very simple anstitute. Miami Dade has one
of the most robust choice environments in the country. The
actual school district will charter schools in its own district.
It actually has robust charter schools. It has a tremendous
number of kids on private schools, on the choice program.
It has a number of kids going to a scholarship
program or the taxpayer scholarship. It is a robust environment
(12:46):
of choice in Miami Dade. And you know what it
doesn't have in LA. A robust environment of choice.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Well, in fact, I assume that Los Angeles unified bureaucrats
and unions would fight at the barricades to preserve their monopoly.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yes they are, and they don't even want any kind
of charter schools, which you know many people think charter
schools or public schools, and they don't even want any
kind of reform that would allow charter schools in places
like LA. It's tragic that so many kids in the
largest school districts are being held captive by folks who
don't want a little competition.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
What do you think has been the key to the
really post COVID explosion of interest and the number of
people migrating towards school choice and the number of state
legislatures and governors who have been supporting school choice. What
do you think is happening that led to this transition.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So I think there was a lot of work going
into sort of building to this point before twenty twenty,
and a lot of good effort building and educating and
getting a lot of advocates understanding what was going on.
In twenty twenty, a movement that is based on parents
became led by parents, And what ended up happening is
I think this common cultural experience that we used to
have of K twelve education, my mom sent me to
(13:57):
a public school. I walked to public school, You walked
to public stoo was changed and subverted and the common
experience was what's going over a kid's shoulder when they're
watching them on the internet right watching a teacher doing
a classroom during COVID, That common experience made parents really
angry and they saw that there's something different that was needed,
and all of a sudden, parents were saying, we don't
(14:18):
care what it is we want something different, and legislators
finally had a voice to say, this isn't a fight
about public or private schools. This is a fight about
how I can help my parents in my district. And
that shift of the conversation is the reason why legislators
are now flocking to the idea of the essays all
across the country because it's no longer a charter versus public,
a charter versus private, or private versus public, and say
(14:40):
I'm going to do whatever I can to give parents
a choice and option. If they choose public schools, great,
If they don't, find we're just going to give them
more choices.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So in that context is based on your work, the
more people understand about the choices. For example, vouchers support
jumps like fifteen points once you expl what they are
and how they work.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, our surveys over the last thirteen you have been
very clear by this. If you ask a parent or
anyone just a cold question, do you support school vouchers,
it's now over fifty percent. But if you say a
a school voucher is a voucher for a family to
attend a non public or private school of your choice,
that number just jumps. The support just jumps. That is
true across the board for essays and for tax credit scholarships.
(15:24):
What's interesting on the ESA number what we call a
cold thing, Right, do you support essays? You know who
the highest number supporters are for the cold teachers. Teachers
love the idea of essays. That's part of the reason
why micro schools are growing effectively. Right. Teachers are frustrated,
they're tired, and they want to try something new, and
they look at education savidan accounts as a way to
(15:45):
do so. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Part of that also is when you explain refundable tax
credits for education expenses, it becomes very popular.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, people like getting their own money back. It's shocking, right,
they'd rather spend it the sells rather than the government. Look,
all of these things whatever, it's a refundable tax credit,
it's a charter school, it's a voucher, it's an education
savings account. Whenever you provide a tiny bit of an explanation,
that support from all demographics jumps across the board. It's
interesting when you look at the support, for example, of
(16:18):
education savings counts, which demographics supported the most. Right, So
there's a ton of support for education savings counts from
Hispanic families. They love the concept of the essays in
school vouchers. African American families love the concept of school vouchers.
It's interesting how you can look at different types and
different and different demographics have different support.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
But in every case you're seeing a support for a
fundamental change from the monopoly of the last one hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Years one hundred percent. And legislators have basically said, and
I think Democrats are going to have to come around. Look,
the tax credit bill that was passed as part of
the one Big Beautiful bill in the Congress last year
is going to have to put some pre sure on
Democrat governors. Are they going to allow their state to
participate in a tax credit program that will allow public
(17:07):
schools to get scholarships, private schools to get scholarships, in
charter schools to get scholarships. It's going to put pressure
on them to say, hey, we want to give parents choices.
Even in these blue states.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
There are some people, for example, children who are physically
or mentally challenged, where you have to think about that
that costs more, and you almost have to think about
can we design models where If that's the circumstance, then
the voucher's bigger or the opportunities bigger than just people
(17:55):
who are coming in who are totally prepared. What's your
thinking on them?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So most states, in their public school funding from you
already give weights to different types of kids. So if
you have a special needs kid in Indiana, you're getting
higher amounts of money. The reality of all we want
is we just want families to be able to get
the money that would have been set aside for them
to go to whatever school. So the Arizona Choice Program
started as a special needs scholarship program. It started for
(18:21):
families a special needs group. In my state of Indiana,
there isn't program just for special needs kids. What you're
finding is the families who have children with special unique
abilities want more options and would like the dollars to
follow the kids. Traditional public schools in Florida and in
Arizona have high amounts of money. Like in Texas, the
bill that passed, you could get up to thirty thousand
(18:42):
dollars for your kid to get an education savans acount
if they qualify under the special needs category. So the
goal here is whatever dollars are set aside for your
child is what you should be able to get.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's not like moving away from the current bureaucratic school
system is necessarily going to leave behind the most challenged students.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No fact that the vast majority of the students in
Florida and Arizona at the beginning were special needs students.
This makes a lot of sense because as a parent
of a specially needs student myself, there was no way
that the district was going to get their hands on
my kid. Just to be blunt, my son needed something different. Thankfully,
I had the ability to pay for private schools, but
there are so many parents like me that don't, and
(19:24):
when choice comes in, that's exactly what happens. They start
taking advantage of that. Like what's happening in Arizona right now,
mister speaker. They're these cool little micro schools where families
are going to houses that are specifically set up ADA
compliant and they're teaching them horse equine therapy, They're teaching
them how to farm, They're teaching maths skills and reading
skills through these kind of physical activities, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Describe this concept of a micro school. I understand the words,
but I want to understand the concept.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
A micro school sometimes is hard to define in the
sense that it's typically a smaller setting in a non
sort of building of vironment that is offered between one
and four days a week. It's not a full time school.
It's typically smaller with a number of kids. It's typically
also very unique in its delivery. So there's one micro
school called Surf Skates sandwhich I love to talk about.
(20:14):
They teach kids how to surf and skate, and while
doing some they teach them geometry and algebra because you
have vectors and all of that stuff when you do
that right, So they teach them about ways and motions
and sound and so schools like that are being created
to be really unique delivery models for kids who learn
in different ways.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Do they then tend to get paired up with other
schools through the three or four days.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
No, they go two or three days, and that satisfies it, right,
And it's a pay as you go situation. So my
friend in Arizona sends her kids to a public school
that runs a micro school. So she is enrolled in
a public micro school that the kids go to one
day a week and the rest they learn at home.
So it's this customization, mister speaker that's really starting to
happen around the country.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
That's sort of amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, and teachers loving it. In Arizona and Florida and
places like West Virginia and now New Hampshire, they're the
ones leading away on this kind of customization. This makes sense, right,
So when you create a market, the first thing that
happens is market segmentation and specialization. Right, You're allowing yourself
to build new ideas for families who need it. And
that's exactly what's happening in these states. It's really intriguing
(21:23):
and really unique.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Tell me just for a second. It seems to me
that while people are very worried about education, and while
conservatives would focus their own happiness on the Department of Education,
there's still a majority of Americans who oppose closing the
department and only about a third supporter. How do you
(21:45):
evaluate the Department of Education's role in all this?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So what we found in our survey is that parents
are saying in public, are saying, look, we don't want
it to be closed, but we do understand it should
be limited. Right, So when you ask them what roles
it should have fund kids, make sure special needs kids
are taken care of, make sure low income kids have
the funding they need, and then leave the rest aside.
The support for idea of going into classroom with mandates,
with testing, with curriculum goes way down. So the public,
(22:13):
I think, understands that you need the government to have
some role, but that role needs to be limited in
terms related to funding and making sure the kids have
the right needs for the right kids or right kids
with right needs.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I was at public events in nineteen eighty three when
the regular administration launched a Nation at Risk, a study
which said that if a foreign government did to our
children what we are doing to our children, we would
consider it an act of war. And I watched us
(22:47):
flounder and not be able to come to grips with it.
And then in the late nineteen eighties, I was with
Governor Tommy Thompson when a former Jesse jack Since state
chair who had been a social worker, Polly Williams there
was a state legislator one time was the longest serving
state legislator in Wisconsin history, was a state legislator and
(23:10):
she wanted school choice. Now in her case, she actually
wanted it specifically in Milwaukee, where she felt it was
the poor children who were being robbed. Tommy picked this
up and I tried to help them. At the time,
I was like voices in the wilderness. You could hardly
imagine either the indifference. The business community was not prepared
(23:31):
to think this boldly, and it seemed like a strange idea.
It has gradually taken off, and in that sense, it
seems to me we may be at the edge of
a period of real renaissance and real invention, and ten
or fifteen years from now we may be in a
remarkably diverse and intriguing and experimental learning system onlike anything
(23:53):
we currently have.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I couldn't agree more. I think what was one's voices
in the wilderness is now a chorus of people saying,
try something different. What was once voice is saying let's
just fix our traditional system. It's now a wide orchestra
saying we need to do something different. And my biggest
fear is that in twenty to twenty five years from
now will have gone through all of this and schooling
will be delivered the same way. It will look and
(24:17):
feel the same way. And if that's the case, then
we haven't succeeded. But my guess is based on what
I'm saying now, the dynamism, the real movement towards private schools,
towards new types of schools, public schools going four days
a week because they don't need to go five days
a week, the idea of having to go five days
a week to learn, if you can learn in four days,
This stuff is happening, and I think it's going to
(24:37):
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Let's assume that moving forward we're going to solve this,
we're going to still have forty or fifty million adults
who have been cheated, many of whom are functionally illiterate,
can't do math. How do we take the lessons we're
currently learning and develop an adult learning capacity? But nobody
(25:00):
is permanently trapped if they're willing to learn and willing
to show some initiative.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Really appreciate you saying forty to fifty million adults. The
staff That really gets me every year is every single
year since I moved back to this country in nineteen
ninety six, between one and one point three million kids
have dropped out of school. That's just too many, right,
It's just done in our economy and our society and
handle it. What I'm hoping is you'll see the micro
school movement and the small school movement and the private
(25:27):
school movement start to say, hey, and here's why it's cool.
We can take the money in the ESA programs and
put it into college. So why can't a child who
gets an ESA program, let's say, and gets into a
college and get scholarship, but they have money left in
their account. Why can't that go to a parent who
needs to get more education. There's ways to do this
(25:47):
to create and stimulate new learning, their dropout prevention schools
and charter schools. That could also be done in the
private sector. So I think there's a lot going on
and we need to move into that audience. There's no
doubt we.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Could be on the edge of having new learning about
learning correct. I think that's right, and that could in
fact liberate us in lots of different ways to solve
our problems and make us once again the most dynamic
and the most competitive country in the world.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yes, when you think about the idea of moving from
seat time to competency as your metric, right from five
days a week to whatever works for a kid, for
my son, for example, we went to one of the
best charter schools in the state. He could have tested
out of English in this freshman year. Why did he
need to take English for four years? Well, because the
States told him he had right What if he didn't
have to, What if he could learn actually something different
(26:36):
in those four years. So there's got to be a customization.
I think that's what's happening right, It's really dynamic.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
This is very exciting. I want to thank you for
joining me. Your new ed Choice Report twenty twenty five
Schooling in America, examining trends in public opinion on K
twelve education, parent experiences and school choice is available now
at EdChoice dot org. And the work you're doing is
probably the most significant nationwide effort to continually monitor what's
(27:06):
happening and to help people move in the right direction.
So I think, Robert, that your dedicated commitment has made
a real difference in America.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Thank you, mister speaker. Ed you were there at the beginning.
It's early in DC, so thank you very much for
everything you've done.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Thank you to my guest, Robert Enlow. You can get
a link to the head Choice Report twenty twenty five
schooling in America on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
Newtworld is produced by Englishy sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley special
(27:46):
thanks to the team of the University sixty. If you've
been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll get Apple Podcasts and
both rate us with five stars and give us a
review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,
listeners of Newtsworld, sign up for my three free weekly
columns at Gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.
(28:07):
This is Neutsworld.
On this episode of News World, what do Americans really
think about K through twelve education? Each year, ED Choices
Schooling and America Survey provides one of the most comprehensive
answers to that question. They released the twenty twenty five edition,
their thirteenth annual nationally representative look at parents and the
(00:25):
public's views on everything from school satisfaction and funding to
educational choice policies and the row of government. Over the
course of the survey's thirteen year history, they've asked a
set of recurring questions focusing on the direction of K
through twelve education, parents schooling preferences, parents satisfaction with their
children's schooling experiences, and public feelings towards educational choice policies.
(00:51):
Here to discuss their twenty twenty five survey, I am
really pleased to welcome my guests, Robert Enlow. He is
the President and CEO of ED Choice. Before the formation
of ed Choice in twenty sixteen, Robert was an integral
part of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation for Educational
Choice from its launch in nineteen ninety six. Under his leadership,
(01:15):
d Choice has become one of the nation's most respected
and successful advocates for educational choice working in dozens of
states to advance parental freedom and education. Robert, Welcome and
(01:40):
thank you for joining me again on Newtsworld.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Nice mind pleasure, mister speaker, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
You know I have to ask you your new Schooling
in America report shows that more than two thirds of
Americans believe K through twelve education is on the wrong track.
Why do you think public confidence in education is so low.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
It's our thirteenth year of doing this survey. I wish
I could say it was lucky number thirteen for our
government run schools, but it's not. It's the second highest
dissatisfaction that we've ever seen. And I think the answer
for that is simple. Parents are telling us that these
schools are not safe. My kids are getting bullied, my
kids are mentally anxious, and they're not doing a good
job of educating my kids. And on top of that,
(02:21):
they're spending a ton of money that they don't know
how it's being used. So parents are frustrated with what's
going on in K twelve education around the country.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Why hasn't there been a faster moved to a really
serious reform.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So the fast move to serious reform has been through
school choice. Finally, So starting after COVID, we had zero
states that had universal choice. Now we have nineteen states
that have universal choice. We had less than I think
about four hundred thousand kids were in school choice by
twenty nineteen. Now there's one point three million. So there
is a massive growth in the private school choice sector.
(02:55):
And the theory, of course of Milton Friedman is if
you allow massive te you're going to create more competition
and the public school is going to have to improve.
I think we're to that tipping point in mister speaker,
where we're to the point where there's enough choice in
states like Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, where the public schools
are either going to have to reform or adapt or
die as they used to say.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Well Man, yet your own survey says that only thirty
one percent of Americans believe K through twelve education is
headed in the right direction, and that that is an
eleven point declined since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Again, that's why people are going to choice at all sorts.
So that's why you're seeing continued absenteeism, You're seeing continued
migration to charter schools and private schools and choice programs.
This dissatisfaction is why you're seeing homeschooling dramatically on the
rise since COVID. So this dissatisfaction is leading to people
making new choices.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
You know, and one of those actually was a real
surprise to me. A majority of Republican school parents say
education isn't the right track, but only a minority of
Democrats and independence degree. Why is there this part of difference.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
My guess is the partisan difference in the right track
is because many Republicans are choosing more of their education,
whether it's a traditional public school, by moving to a
home district or not. You know, we see changes in
the survey when presidents come. So the first Trump presidency
you saw a greater level of dissatisfaction at the beginning
with schooling, and the end of it you saw greater support.
(04:22):
And so I think Republicans are just ahead of this
trend when it comes to the idea of being more
satisfied with their options and their choices.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Well, and you make the point in your report that
private school parents are much more positive. About forty nine
percent of private school parents feel very satisfied with their
child school compared to thirty two percent of public school parents.
I mean, that's a big difference. It's almost a fifty
percent differential.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It's a huge difference. And that's also true like if
you look at charter schools and home schooling, so all
the school types parents that are choosing are happier and
more satisfied, and it's the traditional public school where people
are feeling like they have to be assigned. Later in
the study, there's a question about why are parents choosing
these schools, and it's very interesting to see the difference.
So parents who are choosing private schools are doing so
(05:11):
for academics, for safety, and for moral values. Parents who
are choosing charter schools are doing so for academics, safety,
and close to home. Parents who are choosing public schools
are doing so for three reasons. It's close to their home,
socializing their kids, and it's their assigned school. What's very
interesting is that mere fact of choice between charter and
(05:31):
private schools is driving the conversation to quality, to safety,
and to moral values. And the more families that can
choose from public schools, the better our society is going
to be.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Frankly, I'm amazed at the number of people who are
concerned about safety in school, not just physical safety, but
also bullying and a whole sense of this is not
a good environment. Do you find that across the country.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
We do find that across the country, and we of
course do another survey that's a monthly survey that is
done in partnership with Morning Consul, and it has been
a consistent trend over five years that parents are tired
of their kids getting bullied in school. This sort of
bullying is a huge issue for parents, their child's mental
health and anxiety. There's a lot of worry from families
(06:16):
about their children having too much anxiety at a school,
particularly to public school where there's not a lot of safety.
The parents are also at higher rates saying that we
were worried about shooting. These issues where public schools are
not responding effectively to a child's bullying and a child's
anxiety is really having an impact on parents, and they're
saying that my kid's not safe, and they're looking at
(06:38):
safety in a broader thing from just sort of physical safety,
it's also emotional and mental safety.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
A very large number of Americans, well over a majority,
underestimate how much money we're already spending on public schools
in their states. Baltimore City Schools, which are the third
most expensive in the country, are among the worst schools
in the entire country. So it's not a coral right
now between how much we spend and what kind of
(07:05):
education we're getting.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
The idea that money has anything to do with quality
of education is not the case, and the more money
you see is often in the worst performing schools. Parents, however,
in the public, really just don't have a knowledge of
how much we spend on kte of education. They've been
lied to for so long about how much we spend,
they underestimate it to the tune of like somewhere between
seven and ten thousand dollars. It's crazy how much they
(07:29):
underestimate how much you spend on public education. Now, when
you tell them how much you spend, right, their idea
of it being too low goes way down by about
a third, right, So it's interesting when you actually inform
them how much the average spending is, the number of
parents that are saying that we don't spend enough goes
down by a third. I think that's why information is
so important, and parents just don't have a clue about
(07:50):
how much we spend, they really don't.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Utah is the least expensive state in the country purstudent,
but his outcomes are radically better then Baltimore or New
York or Chicago, all of which spend I think maybe
at least three times as much as Utah.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
There could be many reasons so that. One of those
reasons would be it's one of the highest homeschooling states
in the country, so they have a number of families
who are homeschooling and getting better results. It could also
be that it is a state that has some of
the lowest minority demographics. And there's all sorts of different
reasons for why it could be ed Ford. But Utah
definitely has proven that you don't need to spend a
lot of money in order to get a quality education.
(08:31):
And if you look at a state like Indiana or
Florida or Arizona, where there's choice programs that are really broad,
you are seeing the families are doing better on NAPE
and the NAPE scores that came out, the private schools
did better, and the private schools in Arizona, Florida, and
Indiana did better than the public schools.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
What's fascinating is one We do know that private schools
that have discipline and that have parental involvement do dramatically
better than public schools that are run by unions and
bureaucracies that are not paying attention. I saw one study
recently that Mississippi now scores higher than Minnesota in mathematics,
(09:27):
which has to be an enormous shock to Minnesota's.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Well, you know, it is shocking by going back to
those basics of reading, writing at arithmetic in Minnesota like foning.
They call it the science of reading, but you know,
we know it back in the day is phonics. In
many ways, their scores went through the roof. You know,
so just some basic reforms that require traditional public schools
to go back to the way they taught couldn't have impact.
We all know that choices having impact. The data is
(09:52):
really clear on this. In states where there's school choice,
public schools do better than the states without school choice.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
There's a recent Open the Books report their title the
Public School Crisis. Higher payrolls associated with worse student performance,
and they argue it Open the Books that as payrolls
increased in public schools, student performance decreased. That is the
opposite of a healthy system.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Well, part of that could be that is totally true,
and Milton Freeman, I think would call that the machinery
of a monopoly at work. The study that we've done
shows that between nineteen fifty and twenty fifteen, and we've
continued this study going forward, the number of kids and
rolled in schools went up one hundred percent, the number
of teachers went up two hundred and fifty percent or so,
and the number of non teachers went up seven hundred
(10:41):
and nine percent. So think of what happened. School districts
brought in seven times the number of non teaching staff
for the enrollment, and there's just no way you can
actually increase the quality of education because those are all administrators,
those are all bureaucrats adding to the system. They're now
more non teachers in NK twelve education than our teachers.
And so it's no wonder why places like Baltimore that
(11:03):
have high pay rolls mostly probably for administrators or having
a challenge in teaching kids.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And this particular report from Opening the Books, they point
out that they're over eighty eight hundred public school employees
earning more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. How
about almost none of those are.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Teachers, probably not by probably a little counterintuitive on this,
we talk about superintendents of large school districts making over
two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand dollars. You know,
I look at my home city of Indianapolis. It's district
is about seven hundred and fifty million or so a year.
I don't know of many companies that would pay their
CEO two hundred and fifty thousand on a seven hundred
and fifty million dollar budget. Maybe if we started treating
(11:43):
these districts more like actual businesses, holding the superintendent's to
true account, we might get different level of talent and
be willing to pay it more. Right So, I think
one of the challenges that the incentives in the system
is not set up to make sure we're getting the
best possible talent in there, particularly the administrator side of my.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
From a Florida perspective, Miami Dade and Hillsboro get top
exam scores while spending less on payroll and employing very
few high sourid staff. Los Angeles Unified, which is an
enormous system, spent more for pupil and had many high
paid staff, but ranked lower. What do you think is
the contrast between the Los Angeles approach and the Miami
(12:23):
Hillsboro approach.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is a very simple anstitute. Miami Dade has one
of the most robust choice environments in the country. The
actual school district will charter schools in its own district.
It actually has robust charter schools. It has a tremendous
number of kids on private schools, on the choice program.
It has a number of kids going to a scholarship
program or the taxpayer scholarship. It is a robust environment
(12:46):
of choice in Miami Dade. And you know what it
doesn't have in LA. A robust environment of choice.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Well, in fact, I assume that Los Angeles unified bureaucrats
and unions would fight at the barricades to preserve their monopoly.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yes they are, and they don't even want any kind
of charter schools, which you know many people think charter
schools or public schools, and they don't even want any
kind of reform that would allow charter schools in places
like LA. It's tragic that so many kids in the
largest school districts are being held captive by folks who
don't want a little competition.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
What do you think has been the key to the
really post COVID explosion of interest and the number of
people migrating towards school choice and the number of state
legislatures and governors who have been supporting school choice. What
do you think is happening that led to this transition.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So I think there was a lot of work going
into sort of building to this point before twenty twenty,
and a lot of good effort building and educating and
getting a lot of advocates understanding what was going on.
In twenty twenty, a movement that is based on parents
became led by parents, And what ended up happening is
I think this common cultural experience that we used to
have of K twelve education, my mom sent me to
(13:57):
a public school. I walked to public school, You walked
to public stoo was changed and subverted and the common
experience was what's going over a kid's shoulder when they're
watching them on the internet right watching a teacher doing
a classroom during COVID, That common experience made parents really
angry and they saw that there's something different that was needed,
and all of a sudden, parents were saying, we don't
(14:18):
care what it is we want something different, and legislators
finally had a voice to say, this isn't a fight
about public or private schools. This is a fight about
how I can help my parents in my district. And
that shift of the conversation is the reason why legislators
are now flocking to the idea of the essays all
across the country because it's no longer a charter versus public,
a charter versus private, or private versus public, and say
(14:40):
I'm going to do whatever I can to give parents
a choice and option. If they choose public schools, great,
If they don't, find we're just going to give them
more choices.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So in that context is based on your work, the
more people understand about the choices. For example, vouchers support
jumps like fifteen points once you expl what they are
and how they work.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, our surveys over the last thirteen you have been
very clear by this. If you ask a parent or
anyone just a cold question, do you support school vouchers,
it's now over fifty percent. But if you say a
a school voucher is a voucher for a family to
attend a non public or private school of your choice,
that number just jumps. The support just jumps. That is
true across the board for essays and for tax credit scholarships.
(15:24):
What's interesting on the ESA number what we call a
cold thing, Right, do you support essays? You know who
the highest number supporters are for the cold teachers. Teachers
love the idea of essays. That's part of the reason
why micro schools are growing effectively. Right. Teachers are frustrated,
they're tired, and they want to try something new, and
they look at education savidan accounts as a way to
(15:45):
do so. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Part of that also is when you explain refundable tax
credits for education expenses, it becomes very popular.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, people like getting their own money back. It's shocking, right,
they'd rather spend it the sells rather than the government. Look,
all of these things whatever, it's a refundable tax credit,
it's a charter school, it's a voucher, it's an education
savings account. Whenever you provide a tiny bit of an explanation,
that support from all demographics jumps across the board. It's
interesting when you look at the support, for example, of
(16:18):
education savings counts, which demographics supported the most. Right, So
there's a ton of support for education savings counts from
Hispanic families. They love the concept of the essays in
school vouchers. African American families love the concept of school vouchers.
It's interesting how you can look at different types and
different and different demographics have different support.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
But in every case you're seeing a support for a
fundamental change from the monopoly of the last one hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Years one hundred percent. And legislators have basically said, and
I think Democrats are going to have to come around. Look,
the tax credit bill that was passed as part of
the one Big Beautiful bill in the Congress last year
is going to have to put some pre sure on
Democrat governors. Are they going to allow their state to
participate in a tax credit program that will allow public
(17:07):
schools to get scholarships, private schools to get scholarships, in
charter schools to get scholarships. It's going to put pressure
on them to say, hey, we want to give parents choices.
Even in these blue states.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
There are some people, for example, children who are physically
or mentally challenged, where you have to think about that
that costs more, and you almost have to think about
can we design models where If that's the circumstance, then
the voucher's bigger or the opportunities bigger than just people
(17:55):
who are coming in who are totally prepared. What's your
thinking on them?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So most states, in their public school funding from you
already give weights to different types of kids. So if
you have a special needs kid in Indiana, you're getting
higher amounts of money. The reality of all we want
is we just want families to be able to get
the money that would have been set aside for them
to go to whatever school. So the Arizona Choice Program
started as a special needs scholarship program. It started for
(18:21):
families a special needs group. In my state of Indiana,
there isn't program just for special needs kids. What you're
finding is the families who have children with special unique
abilities want more options and would like the dollars to
follow the kids. Traditional public schools in Florida and in
Arizona have high amounts of money. Like in Texas, the
bill that passed, you could get up to thirty thousand
(18:42):
dollars for your kid to get an education savans acount
if they qualify under the special needs category. So the
goal here is whatever dollars are set aside for your
child is what you should be able to get.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's not like moving away from the current bureaucratic school
system is necessarily going to leave behind the most challenged students.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
No fact that the vast majority of the students in
Florida and Arizona at the beginning were special needs students.
This makes a lot of sense because as a parent
of a specially needs student myself, there was no way
that the district was going to get their hands on
my kid. Just to be blunt, my son needed something different. Thankfully,
I had the ability to pay for private schools, but
there are so many parents like me that don't, and
(19:24):
when choice comes in, that's exactly what happens. They start
taking advantage of that. Like what's happening in Arizona right now,
mister speaker. They're these cool little micro schools where families
are going to houses that are specifically set up ADA
compliant and they're teaching them horse equine therapy, They're teaching
them how to farm, They're teaching maths skills and reading
skills through these kind of physical activities, and it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Describe this concept of a micro school. I understand the words,
but I want to understand the concept.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
A micro school sometimes is hard to define in the
sense that it's typically a smaller setting in a non
sort of building of vironment that is offered between one
and four days a week. It's not a full time school.
It's typically smaller with a number of kids. It's typically
also very unique in its delivery. So there's one micro
school called Surf Skates sandwhich I love to talk about.
(20:14):
They teach kids how to surf and skate, and while
doing some they teach them geometry and algebra because you
have vectors and all of that stuff when you do
that right, So they teach them about ways and motions
and sound and so schools like that are being created
to be really unique delivery models for kids who learn
in different ways.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Do they then tend to get paired up with other
schools through the three or four days.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
No, they go two or three days, and that satisfies it, right,
And it's a pay as you go situation. So my
friend in Arizona sends her kids to a public school
that runs a micro school. So she is enrolled in
a public micro school that the kids go to one
day a week and the rest they learn at home.
So it's this customization, mister speaker that's really starting to
happen around the country.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
That's sort of amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, and teachers loving it. In Arizona and Florida and
places like West Virginia and now New Hampshire, they're the
ones leading away on this kind of customization. This makes sense, right,
So when you create a market, the first thing that
happens is market segmentation and specialization. Right, You're allowing yourself
to build new ideas for families who need it. And
that's exactly what's happening in these states. It's really intriguing
(21:23):
and really unique.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Tell me just for a second. It seems to me
that while people are very worried about education, and while
conservatives would focus their own happiness on the Department of Education,
there's still a majority of Americans who oppose closing the
department and only about a third supporter. How do you
(21:45):
evaluate the Department of Education's role in all this?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So what we found in our survey is that parents
are saying in public, are saying, look, we don't want
it to be closed, but we do understand it should
be limited. Right, So when you ask them what roles
it should have fund kids, make sure special needs kids
are taken care of, make sure low income kids have
the funding they need, and then leave the rest aside.
The support for idea of going into classroom with mandates,
with testing, with curriculum goes way down. So the public,
(22:13):
I think, understands that you need the government to have
some role, but that role needs to be limited in
terms related to funding and making sure the kids have
the right needs for the right kids or right kids
with right needs.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
I was at public events in nineteen eighty three when
the regular administration launched a Nation at Risk, a study
which said that if a foreign government did to our
children what we are doing to our children, we would
consider it an act of war. And I watched us
(22:47):
flounder and not be able to come to grips with it.
And then in the late nineteen eighties, I was with
Governor Tommy Thompson when a former Jesse jack Since state
chair who had been a social worker, Polly Williams there
was a state legislator one time was the longest serving
state legislator in Wisconsin history, was a state legislator and
(23:10):
she wanted school choice. Now in her case, she actually
wanted it specifically in Milwaukee, where she felt it was
the poor children who were being robbed. Tommy picked this
up and I tried to help them. At the time,
I was like voices in the wilderness. You could hardly
imagine either the indifference. The business community was not prepared
(23:31):
to think this boldly, and it seemed like a strange idea.
It has gradually taken off, and in that sense, it
seems to me we may be at the edge of
a period of real renaissance and real invention, and ten
or fifteen years from now we may be in a
remarkably diverse and intriguing and experimental learning system onlike anything
(23:53):
we currently have.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I couldn't agree more. I think what was one's voices
in the wilderness is now a chorus of people saying,
try something different. What was once voice is saying let's
just fix our traditional system. It's now a wide orchestra
saying we need to do something different. And my biggest
fear is that in twenty to twenty five years from
now will have gone through all of this and schooling
will be delivered the same way. It will look and
(24:17):
feel the same way. And if that's the case, then
we haven't succeeded. But my guess is based on what
I'm saying now, the dynamism, the real movement towards private schools,
towards new types of schools, public schools going four days
a week because they don't need to go five days
a week, the idea of having to go five days
a week to learn, if you can learn in four days,
This stuff is happening, and I think it's going to
(24:37):
make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Let's assume that moving forward we're going to solve this,
we're going to still have forty or fifty million adults
who have been cheated, many of whom are functionally illiterate,
can't do math. How do we take the lessons we're
currently learning and develop an adult learning capacity? But nobody
(25:00):
is permanently trapped if they're willing to learn and willing
to show some initiative.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Really appreciate you saying forty to fifty million adults. The
staff That really gets me every year is every single
year since I moved back to this country in nineteen
ninety six, between one and one point three million kids
have dropped out of school. That's just too many, right,
It's just done in our economy and our society and
handle it. What I'm hoping is you'll see the micro
school movement and the small school movement and the private
(25:27):
school movement start to say, hey, and here's why it's cool.
We can take the money in the ESA programs and
put it into college. So why can't a child who
gets an ESA program, let's say, and gets into a
college and get scholarship, but they have money left in
their account. Why can't that go to a parent who
needs to get more education. There's ways to do this
(25:47):
to create and stimulate new learning, their dropout prevention schools
and charter schools. That could also be done in the
private sector. So I think there's a lot going on
and we need to move into that audience. There's no
doubt we.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Could be on the edge of having new learning about
learning correct. I think that's right, and that could in
fact liberate us in lots of different ways to solve
our problems and make us once again the most dynamic
and the most competitive country in the world.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yes, when you think about the idea of moving from
seat time to competency as your metric, right from five
days a week to whatever works for a kid, for
my son, for example, we went to one of the
best charter schools in the state. He could have tested
out of English in this freshman year. Why did he
need to take English for four years? Well, because the
States told him he had right What if he didn't
have to, What if he could learn actually something different
(26:36):
in those four years. So there's got to be a customization.
I think that's what's happening right, It's really dynamic.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
This is very exciting. I want to thank you for
joining me. Your new ed Choice Report twenty twenty five
Schooling in America, examining trends in public opinion on K
twelve education, parent experiences and school choice is available now
at EdChoice dot org. And the work you're doing is
probably the most significant nationwide effort to continually monitor what's
(27:06):
happening and to help people move in the right direction.
So I think, Robert, that your dedicated commitment has made
a real difference in America.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Thank you, mister speaker. Ed you were there at the beginning.
It's early in DC, so thank you very much for
everything you've done.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Thank you to my guest, Robert Enlow. You can get
a link to the head Choice Report twenty twenty five
schooling in America on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
Newtworld is produced by Englishy sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley special
(27:46):
thanks to the team of the University sixty. If you've
been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll get Apple Podcasts and
both rate us with five stars and give us a
review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,
listeners of Newtsworld, sign up for my three free weekly
columns at Gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich.
(28:07):
This is Neutsworld.
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