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A discussion of school choice and educational freedom with noted subject matter expert Corey DeAngelis. For more about Corey: https://www.federationforchildren.org/00:00:00 [ALLEN WEST]Hey, greetings, everyone. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West and welcome to Steadfast and Loyal.[MUSIC]00:00:52 [ALLEN WEST]Hey, folks. Welcome back to Steadfast and Loyal. Without a doubt, education, freedom and educational policy is going to be one of the big issues when we look around, especially in our inner city communities.And you see young people that cannot do math or reading at grade level, that does not set them up for success. And it's interesting that we just had this decision from the Supreme Court on affirmative action.Well, we need to get back to teaching our kids the right way because that's how you open up the doors of the equality of opportunity.So here to talk to us on this issue of school choice, educational freedom, parental choices, Corey de Angelis, Corey is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children. He is also the executive director at the Educational Freedom Institute and Angel, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a senior fellow at Reason Foundation, and a board member at Liberty Justice Center. Corey received his PhD in education policy from the University of Arkansas, Whoop Sui. He holds a BA and an MA in economics from the University of Texas at San Antonio.Corey, thanks so much for joining us here at Steadfast and Loyal. You know, I think that this is going to be one of the preeminent issues going into the 2024 election. And I believe what elevated education as an issue was out of COVID when all of a sudden parents looked down and said, what is going on because the kids and the parents were locked in the house together.And then you have the buffoon Terry McAuliffe in Virginia who said that parents do not have a right and deciding what their children are being taught. And that activated mothers and fathers to get out and be involved in school board meetings. How do you see this issue continue to play out?00:02:44 [COREY DEANGELIS]Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.The teachers unions overplayed their hand and awakened the sleeping giant, which happens to be parents who just want more of a say in their own kids education.I mean, you had the teachers unions threatening safety strikes in 2020. Yeah. You had them deleting tweets saying that the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.You had the Chicago Teachers Union doing interpretive dance.Videos about how it was not safe enough to go back to work, even though their board member was in vacationing in Puerto Rico in person while railing against going back to work.I mean, it just became so obvious the hypocrisy in front of everybody's eyes for several years, but I think it's deeper than that. It's parents like you mentioned started to see that there was another dimension of school quality that is much more important, arguably more important than anything that could be captured by a standardized test, which is whether the school's curriculum aligns with families, values, kids, families don't want to send their kids to institutions where they feel like they're being brainwashed for 13 years, and to hate their parents and to hate their country.And so these parents, a lot of them who had their kids in a rated public schools started to say, hold on a second here. I'm gonna push back at the school board meetings. And I'm going to make my voice heard. And you know what they found out when they did that? They don't want to be like the the school boards don't want to listen. They're going to label them as domestic terrorists for pushing back at the school board meetings.I mean, the Biden administration colluded with the National School Boards Association to send a letter to the UN, to the DOJ to investigate parents. They did create an FBI threat tag for parents at school board meetings as domestic terrorists. No, the better answer is from the bottom up. School choice allowing families to vote with their feet to schools that are aligned with their values.That creates more competition for the public schools to actually listen to parents instead of labeling them as terrorists. And the study after study has shown 26 to 29 studies find that private school choice competition. Allowing the money to follow the child is a rising tide that lifts all boats, leads to better outcomes in the public schools, and now we've had nine states in two years, all states controlled by the Republican Party in both.No picking winners and losers. Everybody's eligible, regardless of income background, regardless of ZIP code. You can take your kids education dollars to a public school if you want. If you like your public school. If you can keep your public school, unlike with your doctor. But if not, you can take that money to a private school charter school or home school. And I think this is going to continue because it's the right thing to do.The polling has shown that it's it's surged in recent times, with 71% of support. American supporting school choice in June of 2023, up seven points since April of 2020. And it's become a political winner, too, and it's become a GOP litmus test issue. Red states are going all in on school choice.00:05:46 [ALLEN WEST]Well, it's interesting because when you go back and look at Ron de Santis's first run at the gubernatorial election down in Florida, where he barely won, I mean less than 1% against the former mayor there in in Tallahassee, it was the educational freedom.It was the school choice that made the difference in the cross tabs afterwards. The exit polls showed that. There were single Black mothers who voted for Ron DeSantis because he said I will not relegate your child to a failed public school.So let's talk about some of these states. Because why is it then, you know, you and I here in Texas and you know what I'm about to ask you?We've got a Republican legislature, we got a Republican governor who continues to say that school choice is a priority for him. But we just finished the legislative session and and it did not get any type of attention.00:06:34 [COREY DEANGELIS]That it's because the house has historically had too many rhinos that have been bought off by HB and the teachers unions.To oppose educational freedom and their main so look, the Senate in Texas in 2017, they passed an education savings account before it was cool to do so before the whole battles about CRT and politically divisive concepts in the classroom before COVID Texas Senate, they passed what I what I want to say is I believe it was Universal Education savings account. And it was blocked by the house then as well.And then in the regular session, the house was the Chamber again to block school choice. The argument that they put forward is totally ridiculous. They say that, well, we have rural areas in Texas and because we have rural areas, that gives us an excuse to vote against our party platform issue and to and to vote to trap kids in failing government schools, even though Texas in 2022 and their March the March primaries, they put it school choice on the ballot Proposition 9.Yeah, 88% of Texas Republican primary voters supporting school choice. And that was up 9 percentage points since they last did it in 2018.So the Texas Republicans have surged in support of school choice. It's always been monumental support, but it's become a breaking point recently where I think legislators are gonna have to react.And during the special session, that's expected, that's going to be called by Governor Greg Abbott, who's made it an emergency item this year. And he's also campaigned across the state and pushed in dozens of cities to support education, freedom and to to call for education savings accounts to be passed. He's calling for a special session that's expected to come. Sometime soon the the fake Republicans in the Texas House are going to have primary candidates breathing down their necks.I hope they just do the right thing and vote for parents to support education freedom. But the argument that they lay out is that one they'll say because I'm in a rural area, the public school is the only option, they'll say.But then in the next sentence, in the next breath with a straight face, they'll try to tell you that this will decimate and destroy our fantastic rural public schools.Well, you know what? If they're so fantastic, you should have nothing to worry about.But then two. If the public school is the only option and public schools are funded based on how many people are the kids are there, you should be the last person making this argument.No one's going to leave if it's. If it's true that you only have public schools in your area well.You should be the last person saying that's going to defund your schools, because if the if the kids aren't going to go anywhere else.The worst case scenario for you is that nothing. Changes, but the reality is you pull voters in Texas, University of Houston, University of Texas, Austin. They've split it down between rural, suburban and urban. And if anything, the rural voters are most supportive of school choice policies, including vouchers, including education savings accounts.The UT Austin polling found a 16% percentage point jump in support since June of 2017 to June of 2023.So there's a huge shift in Texas legislators should respond to that shift, even though it's it's always been popular.It's just so enormously popular now that we've reached a breaking point that Texas needs to get it done this year, especially with the governor on board the Senate easily passing the Bill 18 to 13 in the regular session.I think the the temperature in the capital is that the House needs to do something. Hopefully they go all in too and do universal school choice. But anything would be a victory if it includes the mass, the vast majority of Texas families.00:10:22 [ALLEN WEST]Yeah, because in a way, you kind of get that sensing that, you know, Governor Abbott says that I'm all in for this school choice thing.But I got my little henchman over here and the speaker of the House of the Texas House and you know, he's the reason why we can't get it done to me.If you're the governor, you should be able to look at this figure house that you know, point the finger.You, you're going to make this happen, you're going to get it done.Now, one of the concerns and maybe you can help us understand this, a lot of parents are saying we don't want the government intervention to follow the money. Is that a concern that you have?00:10:55 [COREY DEANGELIS]Yeah, I have a couple of responses to that and I actually got into school choice as a liberal with libertarian tendencies where I don't want government intervention in the private sector.And my quick response to that is this is the very definition of making perfect the enemy of the good. The government can already regulate private and home education.They have historically and in Oregon in 1922, in Oregon, they outlawed private education. You had to go to the government school to get your kids indoctrinated with the leftist ideology at the time. Thankfully, in 1925, the US Supreme Court and Pierce versus Society of Sisters struck down that bigoted law where the court famously said, thankfully, that the child is not the mere creature of the state.Only if Joe Biden could figure that out. The kids don't belong to the government.mThe child is not the mere creature of the state.So we have Supreme Court precedent on that, but that wasn't because of a school choice program that they that they called it in home and private education. It was because they had authoritarian people, politicians who are authoritarian, authoritarian tendencies in office, who passed policies to restrict the individual liberties of of parents and to attack parental rights.And so with school choice, you you strike against the likelihood of those things happening in at least three ways. One you have fewer kids in the government school system being indoctrinated to like big government socialism, those kids might vote to regulate home schooling tomorrow if they if we don't have school choice.So this is an exit. It's a it's a opening, the floodgates allowing for some exit options. To maybe have kids be educated in religious schools or other more conservative schools, but then two, when you have more people using private and home education through school choice politics is all about organized special interest, right? And coalitions. Well, if you have more people benefiting from the program, well now you.You can fight against those future calls for regulation and the best way to do so is if you have a lot of people on your side fighting against any authoritarian overreach, and I think this is part of the Florida story that you pointed out, that DeSantis barely win won in 20/20/18 in this first memorial race.00:13:10 [ALLEN WEST]Yeah, I guess Angie Gilliam.00:13:11 [COREY DEANGELIS]Because of school choice moms and why? Because partially because Florida already had a tax credit scholarship program for low income.Families disproportionately were minority families. Disproportionately were lower income families. I think the average household income for families using that program was only about $30,000 a year, and those same parents came out in support of DeSantis because his opponent Gilliam, didn't support that program.And so that really school choice can turn voters into single issue voters. And who would have historically not voted for the Republicans who are more likely to embrace freedom of expression and well, that now you have a political center that can turn into a a safeguard against authoritarian overreach in the future, and that worked for Florida and Florida. You have to santis Fast forward to 20221 by 20.Just imagine if Gilliam was in charge of Florida, it would have been closed down. You wouldn't have had as much school choice. It would have been totally different and that would have affected the other states because a lot of states look to Florida and say and and they were able to say, well, they open, they were OK, well, maybe we'll open too.And so we might have been locked down as a country. Even longer than we were. And then three when when more people use school choice and you get a bigger coalition using it as well. The concept becomes more mainstream. And if the concept is more mainstream, the rest of society is less likely to see that this is a that this is some icky thing that only a few people are doing, and therefore we got a call to regulate it.So the more that the rest of society is OK with this idea of private and home education, that should reduce the chances of government overreach in the future.Again, this isn't a silver bullet. But is the best solution that we have at the moment and was as the great economist Thomas Sowell once famously said, there are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.And the people who are fear mongering about school choice, they're looking at one potential cost of school choice that could happen in the future while ignoring the guaranteed monumental cost of cementing the status quo.And if school choice was really a ploy to have the left take over private education, why the heck are all the Democrats voting against it? Why are the teachers unions who are who control the Democratic Party, so against school choice? If if it's really just a plot to to infiltrate leftist values into private schools, that that's not what that's not. That's not the game of school choice. And my last thing I'll say ab…
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