Freedom to Learn

Intersectionality has quietly become the unseen driver behind today’s divisive education policies, anti-American sentiments, and campus radicalization. This week on Freedom to Learn, we are re-releasing our episode featuring William A. Jacobson, Cornell Law School professor and founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation. He sounds the alarm on this dangerous ideological “mother’s milk” that feeds critical ...

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark victory for women and girls, ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox that schools may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex without violating Title IX or the Constitution.

DFI filed an amicus brief supporting West Virginia and Idaho and has been at the forefront of the fight to restore Title IX to its origina...

A new federal tax credit could dramatically expand educational opportunities for millions of students next year. Jim Blew of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Coalition and Peter Murphy of the Invest in Education Coalition join the podcast to describe how the new “Education Freedom Tax Credit” will incentivize private donations to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs), empowering parents to choose the schools and s...

Over a million Florida K-12 students attend a school of choice through magnet programs, open enrollment, career and technical academies, and charter and lab schools. Over 500,000 Florida students participate in the state’s education savings account and tax credit scholarship programs. Ron Matus, director of Research & Special Projects at Step Up for Students, joins the podcast to share the stories of the families and educ...

Teacher unions have long dominated education politics, but their influence is waning. Amber Northern of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute joins Freedom to Learn to discuss a new report ranking teacher union strength across all 50 states. She explains why union membership declined in almost every state, which states remain union strongholds, and how the growing number of school choice advocates, parent groups, and education reform org...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush joins Freedom to Learn to discuss the Florida teachers union's latest lawsuit targeting the state's education freedom programs and why he believes it is destined to fail. Governor Bush reflects on the bold reforms that transformed Florida from one of the nation's lowest-performing education systems into a national leader in student achievement and parental choice. He also makes the case for returnin...

Assistant Secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education Kirsten Baesler joins the podcast to discuss what “returning education to the states” looks like in practice. With Iowa and Louisiana receiving waivers to consolidate state activities funds and about ten more states in discussions with the U.S. Department of Education, we dig into the opportunities provided by the waivers and how the iterative appl...

New York City spends $42,000 per pupil, but student outcomes are mediocre and families are fleeing the system. Danyela Souza Egorov joins Freedom to Learn to discuss the city’s shrinking enrollment, increasingly empty school buildings, and soaring spending. Danyela urges city leaders to make responsible decisions, tackle the city’s chronic absenteeism crisis, and prioritize students and families rather than powerful uni...

Intersectionality has quietly become the unseen driver behind today’s divisive education policies, anti-American sentiments, and campus radicalization. William A. Jacobson, Cornell Law School professor and founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, joins the podcast to sound the alarm on this dangerous ideological “mother’s milk” that feeds critical race theory, DEI, and even some acts of domestic extremi...

Sarah Parshall Perry of Defending Education joins Freedom to Learn for a fast-moving conversation on the biggest legal and policy fights in education today. We cover the launch of Defending Education’s new litigation center, the power of accrediting bodies like the American Bar Association, and what’s at stake for free speech and parental rights in K–12 and higher ed. We also get into gender secrecy policies, teac...

Arkansas is streamlining the K-12 education bureaucracy, investing in educators, and expanding families’ options. On today’s episode of Freedom to Learn, Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva covers the rollout of the transformative LEARNS Act and its impact. He explains how Arkansas expanded Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) from targeted eligibility to universal access, and what it took to launch the statewide c...

The Classic Learning Test is disrupting the standardized testing status quo. Michael Torres, CLT’s Director of Legislative Strategy, explains how this fast-growing exam is quietly challenging the SAT/ACT duopoly, offering a rigorous alternative with longer reading passages, no-calculator math, and a focus on true college readiness. He traces CLT’s 10-year rise from a niche option for homeschool and classical school stud...

What does it actually look like to unwind federal control of education? Keri D. Ingraham, Director of the Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education, joins the podcast to discuss the first year of efforts to scale back the U.S. Department of Education and return authority to states and families. Drawing on her experience as a teacher and administrator, she argues that downsizing bureaucracy can drive eff...

What if the real education crisis isn’t falling test scores, but a generation losing the ability to focus deeply, think critically, or even just read an entire book? In this episode, Dr. Kathleen O’Toole of Hillsdale College explains why today’s students are less cognitively developed, and how classical education offers a powerful alternative. From the failures of literacy instruction and colleges of education to ...

Bipartisanship may be rare in Washington, but it still exists! This week, Christy Wolfe of the Bipartisan Policy Center joins us to discuss the Commission on the American Workforce’s sweeping new blueprint to connect education to opportunity and BPC’s federal education policy action items. We cover why federal programs remain stubbornly siloed, why Congress hasn’t reauthorized major education laws, and whether the...

In this week’s episode, Tiffany Hoben, a former teacher and administrator, exposes the deep, recurring failures in school governance and accountability revealed in her analysis of West Virginia’s Special Circumstance Reviews of districts and schools. Tiffany highlights the interconnected “braid” of financial mismanagement, inconsistent academic standards, and discipline chaos that cause school systems to bre...

Graduate student unions are supposed to advocate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, but according to a new report, “The Radicalism of Graduate Student Unions Affiliated with the Teacher Unions,” some have become tools for foreign political agendas and radical ideologies. DFI senior fellow Jay Greene joins the podcast to discuss his research exposing union radicalism. He details how these graduate labor ...

“How should states invest limited education dollars to raise student achievement at scale?” New research from the American Federation for Children asked this question and found that Florida’s school choice investment was 11 times more cost-effective than increasing public school spending. Patrick Graff, Senior Fellow with the American Federation for Children, compared the best research in the competitive effects o...

Despite the existence of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law that has been in place for 50 years, many parents face acrimonious, heartwrenching, and expensive fights to ensure that their children’s unique needs are met. Debra Tisler, founder of Emergent Literacy and an educator with 30 years of experience, joins the podcast to talk about the obstacles that parents face, the hostile and litigi...