Corey DeAngelis - Senior Fellow at the American Culture Project Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Corey DeAngelis joins us now. He is the senior Fellow
at the American Culture Project. Corey, it's nice to talk
to you again. How are you hey?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Doing really well, especially after this win in Texas.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Huge win nineteen to twelve. Was the vote in the
Senate that really wasn't the problem. The problem was getting
it past the House. It finally went through this time.
Tell us why this will make such a difference in
the lives of Texas students and their parents.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, this is a nationwide victory. Actually, this is the
biggest day one school choice initiative to pass in US history.
It'll benefit of about one hundred thousand kids initially. We've
seen in other states that once you reach that cap
showed demand for the program, it's much easier to pressure
lawmakers to make it available to everyone. No calfs, no
limit on the budget for the amount of families who

(00:46):
can benefit from the program. So I think that's not
a big problem to have. Is a big start, and
families are the primary decision makers for their kids. If
you see that there's gender ideology in your school or
Marxist critical race theory, or if they're just not living
up to par when it comes to the academics, you
should be able to take your child education dollars. In
this bill, it's about ten thousand dollars per student hire

(01:08):
for students of special needs, and if you're homeschooling, it's
about two thousand dollars per student per year. You can
take that funding to a school that works best for you.
And in the government schools, they spend about eighteen thousand
dollars per kid in Texas per year, so this can
save taxpayer money. You're spending less than you were before.
But it also most importantly allows parents to direct that

(01:31):
money to the school of their choice. And they should
be in the driver's seat, and this is the best
way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Cory. The objections are the standard objections. What about the
kids left behind in those schools. You're taking money away
from them. It's going to weaken their education. One senator
who voted against this said, we're siphoning one billion dollars
out of our already underfunded system to help a tiny
percentage of Texas school children who are mostly already in
private school. That's the statement from Senator Sarah Eckhart.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
How do you respond, it's not underfunded. You spend over
eight teen thousand dollars per kid. It's not a money issue,
it's an incentive issue. The average private school tuition is
about half of what they spent in the government run
schools in Texas. And so if you look at the evidence,
I mean, even the main witness against school choice in Texas,
his name was Josh Cowen, he has admitted that the

(02:18):
evidence on the competitive effects is positive and it's overwhelming.
And even after that hearing, there's been another study that
just came out from the Urban Institute out of Ohio
showing that as they've expanded their voucher program, the public
school outcomes have improved and kids who used the scholarships
they were about fifty percent more likely to graduate from college.

(02:39):
So this is good for the kids who use the scholarships,
but also because of competitive pressures. If now you have
to scratch your head and up your game and do
a better job in that competitive environment, the public schools
benefit to It's a win win solution. It's a rising
tide that lifts all boats. We saw this in Florida too.
They've done this for decades. They used to be at
the bottom of the pack on the nation's report Card.

(03:02):
Since they've gone universal on school choice, they're now ranked
number one on education by US News and World Report.
And it's not because they threw more money at the problem.
They spend far less in Texas, and they spend twenty
seven percent less than the national average. So I expect
Texas to see some better results in the future as well,
because now when you can take your money somewhere else,

(03:23):
the school board is not going to cut off your mic.
They're not going to label you as a domestic terrorist
for objecting to critical race theory. They're going to view
you as a partner in the relationship. They're going to
view you as a customer. And when that happens, you
might not even have to leave anymore because they're listening
to you. Corey.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
I like how you phrased it too. The government schools
are going to have to compete now, they're going to
have to improve because it used to be they could
just get full customers, full rooms full of customers because
of their zip codes. If this is where you live,
this is where you have to go. Now they're going
to have to actually get give better instruction. They're going
to have to have better curriculum, better materials and so
on and so forth. More importantly, I think just a
better vision for educating kids, not indoctrinating them, because that's

(04:03):
why a lot of parents want to get their kids
out right.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, that's why we've seen
so much momentum on school choice over the past few years.
When the unions fought to keep the schools closed, they
thought they were winning out in the short run because
they got a lot of money from taxpayers. They got
one hundred and ninety billion dollars and so called COVID
relief since March of twenty twenty. But they overplayed their hand,
or they stepped on a rake, how everyone to describe it.

(04:28):
They showed families what was happening in some of the
schools over the remote learning, which we should have just
called it remotely learning. There wasn't a lot of learning
going on, but that mobilized parents. They didn't they some
parents who thought their kids were in a great spot academically.
They saw the test scores, they saw the ratings from
the state. Everything looks fine. But until they got to

(04:50):
see the curriculum that disagreed with their values. They they
were okay with the status quo, but no more. Their
eyes have been opened. Families are never going to unsee
what they saw in twenty twenty. And that's why Texas
is now the sixteenth state to go all in on
school choice. They've all been Republican led states. The Democrat Party,

(05:10):
for better or for worse, has been a wholly owned
subsidiary the teachers unions for far too long. And now
maybe the Blue states will come along and learn a
lesson because the Red states are empowering parents. They're behaving
like the laboratories of democracy that the founders intended. And
it's good news for Texas parents. Hopefully at some point

(05:31):
it'll be good news for parents in California and New York.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
When to that, Cory Deangelos, one of the leading school
choice advocates in the country, Senior fellow at the American
Culture Project, Corey, thanks for the time. We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me