WonkyFolk: Lisa Keegan on Educational Opportunity, Accountability, and the Future of Reform

In this episode of WonkyFolk, Jed Wallace and Andy Rotherham sit down with longtime education leader and reform advocate Lisa Keegan for a candid, wide-ranging conversation about educational opportunity in America.

Drawing on decades of leadership experience—from state-level policymaking to national advocacy—Keegan reflects on where the education reform movement has made real progress, where it has stumbled, and what must come next.

The conversation explores:

1. The evolving politics of school choice and accountability
2. Whether reformers have lost clarity about purpose
3. What data tell us about public sentiment on educational opportunity
4. Why durable change requires both courage and coalition-building

This episode also highlights findings from the latest national survey on educational opportunity—offering a grounded look at what families actually want from schools today.

If you care about governance, public trust, and the long game of education reform, this is a must-listen.

📎 Show Notes & Resources

1. 50CAN Educational Opportunity Survey (2nd Edition)
2. https://50can.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/50CAN_EducationalOpportunitySurvey_2ndEdition.pdf

Jed Wallace 0:00

Hello, Andy and Lisa.

Andy Rotherham 0:02

Hey, Jed.

Lisa Keegan 0:03

Jed.

Andy Rotherham 0:03

Hey, Lisa.

Lisa Keegan 0:04

How are you? Andy?

Andy Rotherham 0:06

Good. It's great to see you. It's been a long time.

Lisa Keegan 0:08

It has been a long time. You guys look great. It's the same.

Jed Wallace 0:13

Well, I, I forgot my lid. You know, Andy always crosses me up. I come looking disheveled. He looks ready for prime time and vice versa. So, you know, one of these days we'll get on the same page. Andy

Andy Rotherham 0:25

maybe after the last few you've been like Criticizing my taste in sweaters. I wasn't gonna take any chances.

Jed Wallace 0:30

Well, when you take, when your sweaters are that bad, it's just, you Know, you somebody's gotta say something. Come hot.

Andy Rotherham 0:36

So, Lisa, are we catching you at home in Arizona today?

Lisa Keegan 0:39

Yep. I mean, Phoenix.

Andy Rotherham 0:41

All right.

Lisa Keegan 0:41

Yes. Where it is 80 degrees today, Christ.

Andy Rotherham 0:45

And we're, they're playing baseball.

Lisa Keegan 0:48

We're playing baseball finally. Again. I love, yeah. And having an Arabian horse show, well, it ended on Sunday. That's big doings in our family. So anyway, that was fun.

Jed Wallace 0:59

And Andy, I'm getting a chance to see Lisa For lunch later this week. I haven't seen Lisa in, you know, two years. I'm now gonna see her twice in one week. So, this will, this will prime us for, you know what we end up Talking about this later this week.

Andy Rotherham 1:11

Fantastic. We're just really glad you could join, Lisa. You've got just a long, impactful history in the sector and some I think really, interesting views on what's going on now. And so we're really grateful. Took some time out.

Lisa Keegan 1:23

Oh, it's so nice of you to ask. It's also nice that most of what I do now is, encourage Younger people to do stuff. It's awesome.

Jed Wallace 1:33

Well, we'll get started by, following our editor's, request And reminding people that this is WonkyFolk, and that our two hosts are Myself, Jed Wallace and Andy Rotham. We've got Lisa Graham Keegan here with us today from Indiana. From Indiana. Oh my God. What am I doing here From Arizona. I got Indiana on my mind here from Arizona. Former Superintendent of Public Instruction, just did so many Things in Arizona over many years. I was looking at the, charter School Hall of Fame and saw that you were One of the earliest inductees there. So nice. The contributions you've made across such a range of issues, of course a for Arizona and leading advocacy efforts. You know, once you were not formally within government as well, so to be Able to have some time with you, Arizona is such an interesting place now Ahead of the rest of the country. And to get your observations today seems like it's gonna, just be The makings for a great conversation.

Lisa Keegan 2:29

Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. And, yes, God bless Arizona. We're always on the bleeding edge, that sort of stuff. So I'm happy to talk about that and why that is.

Andy Rotherham 2:41

First, just give people real quickly your backstory. Like where did, where did you grow up? What was your own education like?

Lisa Keegan 2:47

Yep. I grew up here in Arizona, so I moved here from Omaha when I was three and I've been here. Since and have lived, we lived in the West Valley, Peoria, my husband Was mayor there, so I just have to put that in there for a decade. And then we moved back to Phoenix when our youngest grandkids were Born, because you gotta be close by, they're down the street. Mm-hmm. But, I grew up. Went to public grade school right down the street from my parents and, public High school Scottsdale, high go Beavers. That high school's gone now. I went to Stanford and then came back, got a master's degree at a SUI was A speech pathologist, the VA hospital. I studied brain injury and as one of my mentors said a perfect background for Them going into the political world. So I became a legislator in, I ran in nineteen ninety, so I've Been doing this for 36 years. I became the education chairman, and I specifically went in To try to see if we couldn't, reorder education a little bit. I was very interested in reform, very interested in how money moves Particularly for low income kids and their access to schooling. So I loved it since. Before I started doing it. And, having a background, quite frankly, in brain injury and the potential Of the brain, the elasticity of a child's brain I was obsessed with from The, from day one my major was language acquisition and how the brain works. So anyway, I, that's always been a fascination and we just frustrates The heck outta me that we underperformed so often in that area. So that's what took me to it. I stayed in the Legislature for two terms and in my second term we did pass. Nineteen ninety-four Arizona passed charter school law. We were the first to have State Board for Charter Schools. Hmm. Also important to know that Arizona's constitution does Not mention school districts. A lot of people forget this about Arizona. There were no lawsuits available to opposition folks. To say the state has to run its school system through districts. We didn't. So it was a liberty that other folks didn't have. We never dealt with that. So, that's one of the reasons it went so fast. Having the State Board whose job it was to start schools also helps, you know You're a hammer, you go looking for nails. We also allowed, we had two boards, the State Board of Ed, they could Open schools, the State Board for Charter Schools could open, them. That only lasted for about five years. And then, we just relied on the State Board for Charter Schools. We just have one. But that, those were the big differences and why Charters moved so quickly. I really spent a great deal of my time though on school finance. We were under a lawsuit when I became state school superintendent After I was in the Legislature. I ran for state school superintendent. We still elect that position in Arizona. And I happily won that. John mcCain was my campaign chairman. So a lot of that's important. In Arizona, you guys probably, you knew senator McCain well, but we call Ourselves mcCane and he, mentoring was a huge deal with him and there's hundreds Of us who had that benefit and, the world became a darker place when he died. Late. Oh gosh, I can't believe it. It's coming up, probably coming up on 10 years ago. It's hard to imagine. But that actually has a great deal in Arizona that has a great Deal to do with your politics and your, how you approach stuff. Mm-hmm. So anyway,. Most of us just got taught to say things out loud, even if they were unpopular. And I think that probably is part of my reputation. I'm happy to do that. But not to be mean. I don't think being mean is part of the deal anyway. But if you wanna do this work, you gotta say what's true. And there's a lot of stuff that's true that we just shouldn't be ignoring. And school finance is one of those things. You know, we built a system. Around districts. We all did. We tax that way. We build schools that way. We provide access that way. And it as I, it has always been exclusionary. So if you're wealthy and, you know, you're in a wealthy area, you get taxed At a lower rate proportionally and you come up with a hell of a lot more money. I'm sorry, heck of a lot. Excuse me gentlemen, I know you daisy. So

Andy Rotherham 7:25

yeah, Jed's virgin ears please.

Jed Wallace 7:27

Yeah, she is as obvious, doesn't drop an f-bomb on us here. We'll be fine.

Lisa Keegan 7:32

So I know it can happen. We're not done yet anyway, so I just, that always was, not more so Than reform and letting educators build schools and parents choose them. That's primary with me that. You need the smartest people to have the most control over Education, and that's not necessarily how we built these systems. And by smartest, I mean most experienced. They've done it. They know what they're, they know what they're doing. School board members are smart people, but they usually have never run a school. So that is only enabled by the way that we finance schools. And I would love to say that before I'm off this plane and onto The next sort of ephemeral plane that we will have addressed school finance In such a way that it genuinely money is following kids to the Learning environment that they want. We and,. The schools have control over that money to use it as they see fit, all of it. So anyway, that's still my dream. And it is a dream baby. It's been opposed, I would say I've been opposed for 36 years on that. But I mean, small steps. We're making small steps. Yeah.

Andy Rotherham 8:52

And talk about the opposition. Where does that, where does it come from? 'cause in different ways, it comes from R'S and D's on different issues. So like break yes, break that, break that down some.

Lisa Keegan 9:03

That is in constant evolution. Who's oppositional. And I've always said, I don't, I get bored with, you Know, it's always the unions and always the school district folks. That's actually, it's tradition more than anything, right? We've always done it this way and the systems get built up around it. And so there are beneficiaries and not, so in the case of money, a lot Of it in Arizona anyway has to do with who wants to build something Bond houses, construction companies. In Arizona it is a little bit different that because land has been In the past cheaper, we got more of it. And we've built in the main 20 acre elementary streets, schools, 40 acre high Schools, that has been standard, for as long as, you know, since I started Going to school here and that history of, running a bunch of bond elections. When you say you want to eliminate local property tax. You know, Andy, as the basis for how we're gonna fund schools and you'd rather Just rely on what Arizona has, which is a statewide property tax, which you use For state aid and for public charter school students and for ESA students now. So that

mm-hmm.

We haven't changed the formally you don't think that's Getting a little heavily weighted and, creating a massive problem. It is, a problem. It's creating a massive stress, I should say. Yeah. And at the olympics the other day, somebody said the trick To success is to take tension. And turn it into momentum

if

you're an olympian.

Mm-hmm.

I thought, you know, that same thing in education policy, right? This is a constant stress. Why don't we take the energy that's behind that and turn that into really A funding formula that if you say you want people to have universal access to Any kind of school, be honest right about

Yeah.

How you're gonna sustain that thing financially. And so I had, I had some issues when that happened, but on the other hand For decades we've had study after study that says, you know, ideally we Would just have a statewide property tax and fund education decades. I don't know how many other states have that, but I, the latest time we Did it for me was, I participated in it again and I was reading a paper Lisa snell and I wrote in 17, and it got adopted by the statewide committee. And yeah, we're gonna go to statewide funding. Didn't happen. And so when people say, wow, you know, you passed this universal a SA and Now you got this financial problem. Yep.

Yeah.

But it was predictable, right? If you, we've tried to fix this thing for years and then eventually people Just lose their patience and, you know, and so now you got a moment You gotta, you gotta get through. Don't figure it out. But I'm still hoping it's

over time we make some progress on colors of money. And in some places we find ways to like put it all together in a single Block rent or whatever it's gonna be. But one of the hardest. To get rid of is the color of money as it relates to facilities. And I think that's a lot of what you're talking about here, Lisa. There are vested interests that wanna make sure that the huge chunk Of money that comes to facilities continues coming through there. But the distortions that occur and the inequities that occur because of our Separation, our disintegration of school operations, economics from our Fund, from our building economics. Yes. It's just so terrible. So, I mean, when you, when you sent me your recent email and you said Hey, this is what I'm passionate about. I wanna find a way. To bring in, into a single revenue stream.

Yeah.

All of the funds that should come to schools. I mean, are you and I just couldn't possibly agree with you more. I just think it's so important. And, and then for charter schools, we're always screwed Out of facility funding.

Always.

and then, you know, how do we do, whether it's local bonds There's state bonds, there's other sources, and every one of 'em you have To fight for in generally we don't get in there, you know, in an equitable way. But also just the terrible misuse of public Resources with these bonds. And, you know, I'm just here in California right now, we have so Many schools, school districts that just will not maintain their buildings. They absolutely will not so that they can pay every single dollar to their To their, you don't, I don't wanna blame unions for everything, but unions are Basically saying, don't maintain those buildings, don't maintain those buildings. You pay us. You need to maintain those buildings, get a new bond going, you know, years from Now, but then the taxpayers say, what? We're gonna trust you with more money when that's how you Take care of your buildings. Right. Just reintegrating, you know, seems so important. What, I mean, do you believe that, Arizona might actually get there? Or how close are you, what's the latest conversation on this topic?

So the first bill I helped to run on this ran Jed in nineteen ninety-eight. We're getting there, you know, we're still, the bill's still run it. The idea is still out there, as I say. And you know, one of my, one of my favorite, just stupid Arguments is when you talk about charter schools and their facilities And you know, I always get, well, you know, the, at least this. School district has public money for its facilities. These are privately financed schools. I'm like, okay, well you're adorable. Have you ever, read about what municipal bonds actually are? They are funded by private people. They are a profit seeking private business enterprise. Just the way that I always so appreciate you. Like, if we don't say things out loud, it's like they never happen. It's so hard to get people to talk about this because it is dwe be as hell. It is, it's hard to understand. People would rather work on teacher salary. I get it. It's sexier, it's immediate. You can grab it. Bond, bonding. And I've actually read some books on municipal bonding versus Revenue bonding, et cetera. But I like it. I mean, I try to understand it. The fact of the matter is. A bond is unrelated to whether you have two kids or two thousand. Doesn't matter. You don't have to attract kids to have a fabulous facility. Right now, the Scottsdale School District and you know Scottsdale Jed, you're coming to see us.

Yes.

A lovely place. I grew up, on the east side of Phoenix, on the border to Scottsdale. Beautiful part of the state. They're about to go bankrupt. They're in, you know, they're just this side of receivership. Why? Well, you said you can't keep building schools with not enough kids in them. And they got competed very hard by some very high-end Well-run LEA charters, right? And so you got a lot of bases out there. A lot of great hearts out there. A lot of legacy out there. A lot of very high performing, very, you know, fine public charter Schools and for whatever reason,. It drained the district. So I, Andy, when you said are you in a volatile state? Are you in a stable state? I don't think public education's had any stability since the Civil rights Revolution, which was long time coming. Right. I mean, since the sixties we've been really changing the way we think about A school district or who gets to go to school where, you know, we start moving Around kids finally in the sixties and at least acknowledging that these Districts are not ideal settings. And now in Arizona we've got less than half of families who Attend their assigned school. And for the first time, let's see, we've seen a drop in preschool No kindergarten eligible kids. 80% of them were going to, district schools is now 60%. I don't know what that is. Nationwide that might be mimicking. The nation, but I think in Arizona we're a bit, it's a bit more

Yeah. You guys are more aggressive. You're definitely on the edge of this.

Yeah. Yep. So this is, it is, I guess volatile is maybe a good word. I, other than it's always like this, like you're, it's All, you gotta invite it because. The alternative is to continue to allow too many kids to be in failure settings.

Well, let me just, let me ask a few other Questions on this facilities piece. 'cause I love, I love this. Yeah. Are you, in support of the idea that, schools should Get the same money regardless whether or not they are site based Whether or not they have facilities? If you, if you are in a completely, in a virtual program or if your Kids are only going to school two days a week as opposed to five. Yeah. Is there any thumb on the scale that the state should have to encourage a, kids To learn in a, in a facility, or should it just be we're absolutely neutral and And the, and the funding can be spent by the school, however it sees fit.

I agree with the latter part of that. I, we do have a differential for online schooling, Jed, so it's Less 90% I think, or something. It probably to my way of thinking, I think what we've learned from Public charter schools is about 15% of your budget is capital. You guys know that better than I do, Jed. I So, but 15% would do it, right? If you had an ongoing 15% stream you, that's what you finance with, right? You can, that will sustain, a school at about 350, 500 students. So yes, I absolutely am in favor of a statewide tax for education That I used to have friends. I had a newspaper friend who gave me a lenin pin. 'cause he said that is just as socialist as it gets. I, why, and I, it feels, I don't know, it feels pretty equitable to me. We do this in all sorts of things, but yeah, I don't see why at This point the state's policy is you can go to school anywhere.

Yeah.

And we're gonna pay you to go to school. Now I'm more of a fan of tuition than, you know, our ESA, you have to get your Expenses approved and there's, you know, but it isn't tuition, so it's a little Bit harder to wrap your head around. I would've stuck with tuition for a little bit longer to just see how I ran. But anyway, so if we're gonna say that as a matter of statewide policy And we know that people are already jumping district boundaries, a lot of School districts are only operating because they have open enrollment.

Yeah.

For whatever reason, their own kids have left, but They're attracting others. I, who knows, it doesn't matter. If that's their policy, then your tax policy should be that we're all Gonna share this cost, because right now it doesn't make any sense the taxpayers In a local school district where 50% of the kids come from outside the District, that doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. And, and we shouldn't force people to have to go to school. And it, you can't put the, this genie is out the bottle.

That's right. Yeah. And I think it's only gonna go further in that direction. So I mean, just getting back from seeing alan person in san Diego and I'm Reliving my san Diego days and all that stuff, and, you know, there and Seeing the different facilities, you know, makes me, makes me wanna, you know Ask all sorts of additional questions. Yeah. But at starting 0.1 is, some people really wanna Put their thumb on the scale. Like, we believe that children should be learning in a school building, and Hey, they're gonna learn more in person. And or there is some evidence that virtual schools don't generate the Same learning, although that's not, you can't overgeneralize in south Carolina. I mean, their online schools are nailing it. Other states, no. Right. But there's great variety. And if, if parents wanna put their funding You know, toward a virtual or mostly virtual experience, great. And also as public education evolves right now, kids going five Days a week to schools is gonna be less and less of the default. And we need a funding, structure that allows that evolution to happen as Organically and naturally and quickly as parents would want it to happen.

Right. The advantage we have in Arizona was created for us in the eighties. I mean, we had a very early per pupil operational formula based on student need. So what happens is kids sign up for a school and then the school Basically diagnoses each child. They fall into categories, right? You, so you have a K three weight, you have a, special ed. 13 different categories. I dunno what it is today, but it's a lot, a dozen or so different Categories funded at different rates. This is typical in a lot of states, but there's also, there's Different ways to do that. A lot of people kind of clump it in, it would make it harder. It's not per pupil, right? They're doing estimates. So ours is absolutely per pupil based on individual diagnoses and so that That money can come into the backpack. Yeah. A lot of people freak out about capital money being in included in that. To me, it's one of the best benefits. So that's the thing that holds teachers. Totally agree. Absolute

agree.

These grandiose school buildings, I mean Lord God almighty, we, anyway

and if these schools were paying a market rate for These things, I mean like just as a thought exercise in san Diego, I Think that they should basically say. All buildings have to be, they're gonna be sold and repurchased. And if you're going to, and if la Jolla high wants to keep using that That building, they gotta pay the market rate as opposed to Lincoln High down in They're, and so they're gonna be paying five times as much for that building. That's great. That's how you've chosen to do it. But we shouldn't be giving that additional subsidy to la Jolla through The cost of its, of its building. But because we don't have our economics set up, you know, to make people pay The market rate on an ongoing basis, we, in the end up screwing out Over the kids that are down in Lincoln.

You know, Jed, when we wrote the first bill about this in Nineteen ninety-eight, and we did it because the state was under a lawsuit for inequity in Capital access and rightfully so, and I came into the job as superintendent And I was supposed to defend the state. And I, it's indefensible, like it's just free. That's not, that's not equitable. These things are highly unequal. So anyway, I changed the state's position as the state and then convinced Didn't have to do much convincing the rest of the State Board changed our position. So it was the state superintendent and the State Board against the governor. Anyway, he wasn't happy, but he's a good friend. We were just, at the charter dinner together the other night, but I mean It was a massive, thing for the superintendent and the State Board To say no, we think the system's unequal. Right? This lawsuit had gone on for a decade before we all got there. Anyway, we won, we won by putting together the state School facilities board. And one of my friends at the time called it the borg from star Trek that predicted it would, and he was right, but what we needed Was at least a floor, right? You can have these. You can have buildings falling down. But we proposed what you're talking about, what you and I are talking About today in two thousand 26, which is a statewide funding system, and it got Killed right now by the bond houses. So anyway, when people say, you know that teacher's union, what? A teacher's union.

Yeah.

They see the salary difference, right? Yeah

yeah.

Union. That's not where they went. But it the, you know, you, your partners are your partners. Anyway, that didn't happen, but it, when you talk about the buildings, we Actually created a formula by which we considered it inherited wealth.

Nice. I like this. Okay.

A building like that, right? You would have a deduction over time unless you wanted to sell it and somehow You know, you could rebo it, but you had to calculate for inherited wealth. Otherwise, there's no way to just. Depend like everybody's equal and I love that

forward.

So anyway, we'll talk about it, Jed at lunch Maybe we'll come up with a perfect system and deal with it. Love it. Finally.

So Lisa, where does like, talk about like, quality And how quality comes into this? 'cause like, you know, when I was first getting to know you is during The, you know, the heyday, the Arizona charter experiment. And I think Arizona had kind of the widest variance of schools that Had some of the very best, that had some of the most struggling. And that's kind of always just given the political culture in the state. And, you know, so talk about, as we think about this finance question, where does Sort of quality assurance or information for parents or what we used to call An quainter age accountability, where does, where does that all, like, how Does that, how does that fit into this?

Quainter age. Andy, one of the things that we did in Arizona, which I felt I felt strongly About, feel, I still feel strongly about it, was we gave 15 year contracts. You remember? And we took a lot of heat that yeah. But we did not, rely on a lot of states created mechanisms Because there were charter schools into district facilities. We weren't gonna do that. And ours had to go out to a bank and they had to get money. And nobody's loaning on a five year contract for a school, I guarantee you. So we put in a, we worked with standard and poors and the bankers In Arizona and said, okay, this is what a charter school is. And fortunately, governor simonton is a really good developer Guy, and he understood this. And we spent a lot of time on how were these schools going To, have a facility, have the means to have a facility. We set up bonding districts and all this kind of stuff. We also, as you know, we did require them to take the state test and To participate in accountability. And you are right, and you're being generous in saying we had Some challenging situations. We had some schools that sucked and some of 'em, they did come before Us and we did put them outta business before that 15 year contract went. But it was easier to do it for financial fraud than it was for academic fraud.

Right

right. So most of what happened was, I think it was about 80 to 85 schools That went outta business after 15 years. Andy, it was a significant percentage. Right. And. A lot of them were smaller than 100 students. That mostly what Ladner calls the, wild West revenge. Right. We will, that's how we manage you. We leave your school. And a couple of 'em did manage to hang on. Shouldn't have. And so I feel really strongly about transparency in academics And it is difficult right now. I think, you know, Arizona's charter schools as a system, they Outperformed district schools. I actually, I love that. That's true. I mean, but then and what's not, 'cause I had to live through the first 15 years. Oh, you're kind of apologizing for this and going, no Really, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. But I really do, I mean that's something about, I take a very long view. I've got a bumper sticker that I'm looking at that was milton Friedman That says, you know, you, doesn't matter what your colleagues say or Whatever, you've got to look decades out. What if your policy, if you're putting long-term policy, in fact In place, you gotta understand and it'd be great tomorrow. So anyway, I, it's not that I wanted bad schools, it's just That you needed for it to develop. And now the system much better than, certainly then at the beginning And it continues to get better. In eighth grade math, we lead the country in scores. So, the point is they are. Yeah, they fell like everybody else during the pandemic, they came back faster And they're continuing to get better. It matters enormously that we try to understand what that looks like. Our testing programs have changed. They've, you know, they've been lifted during the pandemic and didn't get put Back for what I felt like was eons. I think it was like a two year hiatus with nothing. Right? Mm-hmm. You didn't, we didn't know and o other than we knew they would not be good. In the ESA, in the case of the ESA, this is rough. I think it's, I absolutely want to know, and I always hope that as An industry, you know, the private schools will get together and say Here's what we would offer, here's what we're offering as our transparency. They do, they do give parents information, you know, they're giving them something. I think it's going to take a little bit and I think there's gonna be more pressure For a more consistent kind of reporting. Not necessarily the state test, but whatever they're using for academics Reporting, their reporting is gonna have to be made more public. I think. We'll see. I'm patient with the beginning of anything and so, but I don't think, you know The worst accountability system is the one you don't even try to have academically. In my mind, and I understand when we had private schools that we really Made a very clear distinction. We had no government involvement in our private schools And now you've got funding. And now you've got, you know, a whole genesis of micro schooling Going on and all these things. And I'm very sympathetic to my, you know, wild ass libertarian friends Who, God, we gotta make sure the market can move and we can invent new things. And, okay. Yeah. But inventing new things is not always brilliant. You know, the, you and you leave the market this wide open 'cause You know, a lot of it's gonna fail. So let's be honest about that. You're not everything that gets created is gonna Be a whizzbang genius thing. And we have to have some way for parents to be told, this Is the data on this school. Now you make a decision, right? We're not gonna, we're not gonna say, and therefore they can't operate. Maybe, I mean, we do that with, we do it with our, there's

a lot of resistance to that. To even, I mean, let alone like the single, let's have a, let's Actually have a single measure and see how people do against it. But even the choose your own adventure. Yeah. Choose your own measure, but you gotta report it. Like there's a lot of resistance, but it seems like what you're saying is The direction it's gonna inevitably go as there are some problems and Over time people are gonna wanna know. Once you've sort of let that initial pressure off of people just want to Get out of the system, like then people are gonna wanna know what's going on.

I absolutely, Andy, one of the things I think Arizona Does pretty well, and I'm not sure other states have all this data But I'm a, I am addicted to it. So we follow individual children and we look at where they are Resident in what school district and where are they enrolled. So you guys might have that data available or whatever and You can pull it up or whatever. So I, if I'm a school district for example

we solve that in Virginia by not letting them choose. We don't know

you know what

it's much simpler if we just assign everybody

the data is so much easier if I just tell you where to go to school. Anyway, yes, that is simpler. But in Arizona, I was telling Jed that my son is on a, the Phoenix Elementary School board and he was complaining about something and rightfully so. I mean, is it, he is got a tough. It's a tough road to hoe. I'm proud of him for giving it a try. You know, the, but he was suggesting a kind of reform that led to Jed, what You and I were just talking about. I'm like, honey, mommy's been trying for 30 years, so get your folks together. He said, well, I'm not gonna go. He said, I'm, I don't think I have to go out and, you Know, lobby for these things. I said, really? Anyway, what house did you grow up in? Anyway, it's just something you have to know. My children in my area right, are either choosing my District or they're not, or they're choosing in high density numbers. They're choosing four out of our eight schools and ignoring the rest. Or if not, for the two thousand kids who are coming into my district Our district would be bankrupt. Right. And so it, you have to know all of these things about where Students are going to school. Where are parents wanting their kids to go? I

mm-hmm.

I take a lot from that market and what it looks like. How are parents moving? Are they moving a lot? They're moving more than ever. I'm sure you saw both the school choice week and 50CAN, are Are noting higher than ever. Numbers at least of looking and pe parents don't look 'cause They're pissed necessarily. Only 30% of people who look for a school are doing it 'cause they Really are unhappy with the situation. They're mostly doing it because they've got a child who's starting school now Or they themselves wanna move or they've got a new interest for their child and They just don't have a perfect fit. 75%, 76 I think we saw at School Choice week. And there's a like number, at 50CAN, and

we'll put both these surveys in the show Notes and the new 50CAN surveys just a treasure trove of stuff.

It is so good. I am very proud of that. This is the second one. And I'm, I sit on the board of 50CAN, or one of the things That blew me away, look at the numbers for who likes an ESA politically more Democrats like the ESA than republicans. I think that I don't know it libertarians, green party loving the ESA, I dunno what that's all about. The world has shifted, although

I do have you shifted. How do you identify politically now? I mean, you were in Republican politics, you talked earlier about mcCain But I know at times you've been. Really frustrated. I mean, earlier you talked about the Civil Rights Act in very favorable terms Which now, you know, there's a debate in the Republican Party about whether we Should have even had the Civil Rights Act. And whether that was like, you know, a a, some sort of a front to States rights or whatever, which most of us thought we settled, but apparently not. So how do you identify now? I'm very, I'm very curious 'cause such a weird political time and You've had this like, you know, long journey on these issues.

You know, I still, Andy I identify with issues. I mean, I was briefly an independent and John McCain found out had a fit.

I remember that. You wrote something about that. You wrote

one. Yeah

yeah.

And said if you do that, then the party, then You leave the party to,. Folks who are not gonna honor all of these things that we think are so important Like the civil rights, for example. And I, you know, I am, I'm never sure Andy, whether those things Are so delicious to, to hate, you know, that people would Really be opposing civil rights act. That gets a lot more attention than the fact that there's a whole bunch Of republicans who don't think that and who work, in, you know, in favor. So I really focus mostly on issues. As I said, I'm still a registered Republican. I have, you know, I've been public in the past about, voting for biden The mcKinney Act as a group, when trump first ran, or in two thousand 20 rather. And then that was not a successful administration for the work that I do. I have to say I was for a whole bunch of reasons, and I work in higher ed On grand Canyon education's board, and, the ideology versus what is Actually going on at the Department of Education was really hard to take. So anyway, issues take me to a vote usually these days, Andy. And they can be either it's a, it's a person or a, you know, I still following These issues around and I don't pretend to understand things like healthcare. You know, I know what I know and I vote for that. I mean, I vote for,. Things that, you know, I think really matter. And I understand, I understand the intensity of Everybody's feeling these days. I really do. And I, and I don't like it. I don't like it for my kids. You know how angry everybody seems like they have to feel all the time. There are actually good people trying to get stuff done. And the thing I keep reminding my children is the, we have a three You know, we have an executive, a legislature and a judiciary. And thank God they operate independently or they're supposed to And everybody's gotta do their job. We don't, we don't just have the one, you know, the one guy, did

you put your finger on something a minute ago? Like, we really haven't had like a strong Department of Education just In terms of strong vision execution for at least like, you know, 11 Years, you know, 10 years, whatever. Now. And. The states have, not necessarily, I mean, some of them have stepped up. You have this sort of very high variance where you've got some states That are doing some great stuff and a bunch that are so not doing a lot. So like on this issue, where do you see leadership coming from? You've been at this a long time. You know, because we, it seems like we're sort of stalled A little bit across the board.

Yeah. And it seems like the strongest voices are, the ones who get the Most play are focused on the smallest issues, junk issues, and. This is a frustration for me. I mean, right now in Arizona, I we're looking for voices and What you need is for somebody to at least say, here's the aspiration

right?

You guys, yeah

you guys

we wanna beat massachusetts or something. I don't know. I don't know what it is, but you do your part. Let's define what needs to happen to take that next step. There's a lot of closed doors. You know, my son's not wrong. Districts have their hands tied in any number of ways. Well, we should lift those, you know, we should lift those barriers To doing the next best thing. You gotta do that all the time. And we did our work at a, for Arizona, which Jed alluded to Which basically was we identified. The highest performing schools, serving majority of low income kids. And we got their school principals together, to talk about what are The barriers to you getting bigger? Because they all have wait lists on their schools. Didn't matter. Their districts are charters. They all had wait lists. Parents moved to better schools. I mean, we need more studies about this. 'cause Ladner tells me it's really hard to do. 'cause I always just throw this stuff at him. I'm like, you got that phD thing. Why don't you go ahead and take a look.

We should mention, we've mentioned Ladner a couple times. This is Matt Ladner, who's at goldwater Think tank. He studies these questions.

Yeah, he was at goldwater. He's not there anymore. He's a GA fly. I'm trying to think where he is now, Andy. But, for us, you know, we call him obiwan. He researches Arizona, and pretty consistently. But anyway, ner. It talks about, you know, the fact that we need a long-term You have to long-term study over. When parents choose, do they choose an academically more advantageous setting? We think so when the preliminary data looks like it, but I hate To just throw that out there, but that's the point, right? System should get better over time.

If you have the supply, like we've seen that in other place where You put in performance framework, parents do respond to it only, but only in sofar As there's supply and options.

choose what somebody doesn't create.

We ration this stuff, we ration this stuff left and right. This, I mean, this is where the attendance boundaries and the, in the school District, boundaries, Hey, you can switch as long as there's room. Now Arizona, I think has more people moving across these lines Than most other states. I'm curious, you know, what is it that allowed Arizona to achieve that? I personally feel like, you know, school districts. Should have to accept more people. And if that's where they wanna go, you know, sorry, move over. You gotta, you gotta make space for these places and for schools that I I'm not aware ever, and maybe I'm wrong here, Lisa, even at this way Longer than me, I, is there any bill that says, Hey, if you're a, if you're A school, a public school of any kind, and you have a lottery and you have three Times, two times as many people apply for your school three years in a row You are entitled to, the state must give you this to as the option to grow. I'm not aware of any, you know, and this is what we need fund, I mean like Abundance agenda for pete's sakes. What's, what is working and give it stuff and give parents the right to get there. But instead we'd have all of these kind of underappreciated things that ration That, we need to find greater policy creativity to address.

Jed, your right. At afer, Arizona. When governor Ducey was governor, we took our leaders in to ask for the Following, and we had it in place for about three or four years before The gaskets that were blowing off. People's heads finally caused the law to go away. But most of what we do in public education is if you fail We will give you more money. We will. Yeah. Yeah. So the worse you are, the more money you get from programs and whatever Or the poverty weight, which I object to, unless the school is Demonstrably performing at a high level. But for sure you need 'em if you're at a high level. Right? So we created a law, performance bonus for the top tier of schools That were performing at a high level. And if you were in a low income. If you were doing that in a low income school, that number Was about double per pupil. So if it was 500 to any school that got to that level, additional Per pupil, then it was a thousand. And the reason to do that was to support expansion.

Yeah.

So that's the kind of, I think, policy thinking. We need to, we need to admit that we haven't been brave enough to Try, but when we did it worked. You could see that the, for the charter networks in particular that we're trying To build the next school, they could take that, whatever it was, 500 per Pupil and you could bank it against, you know, you were gonna have in the future. The problem was short term, it had a, it was short live 'cause it pissed People off that we were funding schools that were already successful. Including my dad. Right. Who said, why would you give more money to a school that's already doing well? You know, it just seems counterintuitive because you think that if you Just pay me more, I will be better at what I did yesterday.

Sure.

As we know that doesn't work well. But what if you pay people who are already good to do more Of what they're doing either? And we said to them, look, either you grow more seats where you are, put some Portables out there, build a new building or teach somebody to do what you're doing. But for God's sakes, don't just sit there and be great with 500 kids when You've got a waiting list of a thousand.

How well has Arizona done, in. Forcing, encouraging whatever it is, the more affluent areas To accept kids from outside. I mean, when you look at the, when you look at Connecticut, you know And they just try to have the most minor inter-district, and you've Got, you know, these Connecticut, I mean, it's not just Connecticut. I could talk about, you know, just

Right.

Oakland hills and other things too. But I mean, these areas would rather their schools shrink and, you know And decay rather than let some of these kids in from outside their area. How has Arizona handled this and what more could you do, if there Was more political courage around you?

Well, I think, I think the more money that's in A child's backpack, the better. Right? Jud. And so the incentive in Arizona gets answered pretty immediately with The, with the appearance of a child. So, and in a lot of ways, more so than in other places where it's mitigated. So if a child moves, money moves and it moves right now, most of It, so they get counted and we're in current year funding status. And it's more, I think last time we looked against what most states, what happens When most kids move in other states is it may not go as long, but I'm not Jed. We definitely, we've had school districts, wealthy school districts, bond to take a School building down and build it smaller.

Yeah, it's so ridiculous, right?

It's pretty well, like I told you, here's the problem. Human beings keep running these systems, right? We're not charming all the time. And when we were proposing the, you know, sort of the law I told You about in 98 to let anybody go anywhere to total open enrollment in 94, we actually passed that in 94. We already had open enrollment in Arizona, but wealthy school Districts were charging. Thousand bucks. Right? We didn't know about it until we finally looked closer.

We didn't know that we had, we had ESAs long ago. We just didn't call it that. Right.

Listen, that's why I don't panic about ESAs. And people tell me, you know, these wealthy people. I'm like, oh listen, wealthy people have been working this, you selected

admission too. You can come in as long as do you have that stuff too? That's all over California? All Over

As long as what?

Hey, we'll let you in as long as you're doing well on your Test score test scores and let me see what your behavior records are and Let me see the selective admission, you know, that goes into these inter-district Transfer things is a phenomenon that we find across the whole country. Doesn't the A

CU go nuts on you for that stuff? They sue us.

Yeah. No, 'cause the teacher union doesn't care. The teacher union doesn't care. And the, and you know, ACLU is like, they're with CTA and OEA and UTLA on this stuff. And if they, if they don't care.

They hate it more in charter schools. If people

of course, of course. I mean, I mean, whatever. I mean, now you're giving me like, flashbacks. But like I, when ACLU was going to do, a big study on charter, on Public school admissions and they wanted to talk to charter schools, I was great Let's, awesome, let's talk about this. And then also, I knew about all the selective admission Schools in los Angeles. You know, oh, you can go to these schools as long as you are at grade level in math. There were two, there were scores and scores of them. But what did they do in the end? Oh, no. We don't have any interest in district admissions. We only wanna focus on your guys' admissions. You know, and it was just absurd. It was absolutely absurd. So, you know, you've got ideas about how we can direct attention to the sorting and The screening and the offensiveness that's there within the traditional system. I'm all ears.

Well, listen, we once had that, A friend of ours at the A CLU said, Hey, we are doing a study. This charters a bunch of are like really being selective and They're pushing out and whatever. And I'm like, okay, why don't you show me? I wanna see that. Meanwhile, we're just gonna get our staff together to go through the admissions. Online public admissions documentation for the districts. And I said, just know I will raise. Holy freaking heck. What you do is you come out with a study about public charter students Or schools versus public of district schools, as though one of those Things is any better than the other. The districts actually have a line around them in wealthy places. So, you know, they start, they start with an advantage, an advantage Meaning if they're trying to be exclusive. So we had a. Oh, I don't know what we had. We had a good drinking relationship and those things, those seats didn't come But the stories, obviously they come

well, Jared point earlier, it's humans. And so you can approach this like work by sector or you can approach that. You're gonna have certain tendencies and they're probably gonna exist in across The sector or in all three, you know, the in private independent sector, the Public charter sector and the traditional public sector because, like humans Are humans and they're gonna respond. And then we're seeing that now with charters, with some of the Quality problems and so forth. You're seeing fairly predictable behavior. No one's sort of above the, above these mm-hmm. The above these things. And really you can really see as people who do this work, how they Approach it, like takes you to a d if you

it's all, it's a lack of courage in charter school advocacy. That's the number one thing.

Yes.

They, they other side will focus on cherry picking. We will not call out orchard harvesting. They'll run bill, they'll run, right. They will run bills on our cherries and our cherries and our cherries and our Cherries and we charter school advocates. And, and the other side knows you. The way you drive a narrative, and this may be cynical and you Know, it may contribute to like the partisan stuff, but the other side Knows the way you drive narrative. Find something else about your adversary you don't like and Run legislation condemning it. Right. And that's how they have a narrative. We have way more material to our, yes. Available to us. We won't

but I think charters have been

we won't do it.

Charters and reform has been cowed into, they Don't want to be confrontational, they don't want to be disruptive. They've been sort of told that part of being a good member of the education Community is being collaborative and not. Rocking the boat and they've sort of bought into that. Rather than, like, nothing really ever changes here without like a fair Amount of disruption and political

losing its way.

Yeah, no, that's what happens.

No north star. Yeah.

You know? And without a north star, where do you go

Jed? When we, at afer, Arizona, when we first got these school leaders together And remember, these are public charter schools, magnet schools, district schools. It was anybody we identified. Ultimately, we had private schools in here as well, if they wanted to participate. There weren't many that did want to, you know, private schools of sort Of their own ecosystem, but were, so, we'll see how that changes. But they really did not wanna put their heads up. They had existed, particularly district principals.

Mm-hmm.

They existed in their world by not. Wanting to point out that they were tons better than their colleagues At what they did, and their children were off the charts receiving an Excellent education right next door to a school that was not providing that. They do not like to say that. I mean, these are educators. They like comedy in the ranks. They are good kind people. They're a lot nicer than the three of us. Sorry gentlemen, but we've known each other a long time. They just don't want to say, I am better than you are at what I do.

Yeah

very tough. Just educators in general.

Yeah, that's tough. It's true. I mean, but also that's not even what we're talking about. We don't even need to do that. All we need to do is say there are problems within the traditional system. That's why we exist. Okay. Is that why you exist? What are those damn problems? And what's your proposal? And we won't even say it. We won't even say it.

Well, it's just explaining what the counterfactual Is on a lot of this stuff. No one explains, so then you get held up against some kind of idealized standard Rather than kind of what's going on.

But it's like, you know, so much of our Problems in school districts, you know, could be addressed if school Districts had to do their budgeting. To go back to our beginning, topic, in ways consistent With what CMOs do, I don't know exactly what Arizona's laws are. Most states in the country, they require that charter CMOs approve Their budgets down to the school level. And there's not just the willy-nilly ability to move Things across different schools. And if school, if Phoenix had to do that, the tendency to suck money away from the Low income areas to subsidize the schools and the more affluent areas would go away. Right. So charter schools could just say, Hey, Phoenix, just do your budgeting the way We already do, because by the way, we're more transparent and understandable Than you, but we won't say it. We won't say it, and we won't propose anything. And so the public remains uneducated on this issue.

Yeah, you're right. So

so Lisa, you've been, like extending from This, you've been on the ballot in different capacities as you Served in the state legislature, you served in statewide office. How, like, has what you've learned from that experience, like translated Into your education work, and where do you think that's like having That, having that understanding of having stood in front of the voters? Like how has that helped you in your sort of advocacy or policy work?

I, sorry. For the dog?

No, for once. It's not my dog barking. That's fine.

my husband's supposed to be here, rounding him up. So I'm distracted by my dog. I'm so sorry. I can go shut him up. No

it's all good. It's all good.

A minute. Running for office, I mean, I highly recommend it to anybody. If you, I always loved it. I think it's one of the best ways to promote advocacy is to run for Office, whether you win or not. If what you're trying to do is get something done, you've got A massive opportunity to say it. You know, when I ran for state school superintendent, I was Running against a friend. She was the number two person at the teacher's union. So we, this in nineteen ninety-four when we had just passed reforms charter schools, I Was in favor of, private school, vouchers even then. And we debated each other 47 times, and the all over the state And it was massively helpful. I, I've never forgotten it. And. It gives you a serious ear to try. You wanna know what are people thinking and why. Even, I mean, maybe, especially when they are opposing what you're talking about To really learn what is it that they want, what are they trying to tell me? That's why these, surveys that come out, you know, we're talking About School Choice week, about 50. Can we, I wanna see what happened in Arizona. We run them in Arizona. What is it that parents are wanting? You know, as much as I would love it, parents don't look first and Foremost for an academic setting. They're looking for a cultural setting. And the leaders of grade schools, we'll tell you first and foremost Academics are sort of a proxy for the ideal culture, what they're trying To instill in students, et cetera. Right? So, it's interesting to hear what is it that people are looking for to watch? What is it that they're doing? And I just think you have. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but for me, I became more acutely aware of All of that running for office or, you know, working on John McCain's campaign For president and going to debates and listening, you know, to this a hundred Different times in his case in two thousand 8. Just to hear it, is such a privilege that people Will share all of that with you. People running schools or wanting a grade school or, and you learn God, you just, you learn a ton and then hopefully if you win, you know, you're Able to put that into place and you're, I was always acutely aware of how short That time span is when you're in office.

Mm-hmm.

You gotta do it. You gotta, as much as you gotta go, you gotta go fast, you gotta go smart. And then encourage other people to do that, which is what I. You Know, being older is about, you know, getting all these younger people who Are doing great work and encouraging them to go on it, it's hard it Tire, you know, it wears you out.

Well, you've seen, you, you've had, you Know, this multi-decade view. I don't know. And if you had something you wanted to go further there on

I just thought, one interesting thing that Lisa said Was simply, this ability to see, hear, and see what people think And put yourself in their shoes. That seems like a very underrated, it doesn't mean you have you necessarily Gonna agree and so forth, but I'm struck, I'm struck increasingly how When you talk to people, they really can't articulate positions that aren't Their own in like a compelling way. How somebody would, might think this or that and like make a case for it. And that seems like a, just a very. So to again, like believe what you want, but it's a core, you know How can you really be confident in what you believe if you can't sort Of articulate the case against it. And it does seem like people have been in public roles, seem to just have a Better understanding of like, I can see why those people are for that. Even if, even if that is not your particular, you know, view on things.

You know, my husband and I, we, John was also in elective office. Yeah. He

was a mayor

and then mayor and we both comment on how grateful we are. We did not run for office in the midst of what is a massive Social media world right now. Where that kind of stuff I think is really,. I guess it, you know, your ability to have to go meet with Real life people and listen to them. Listen, listening is something that's sort of not in vogue these days. We're supposed to come fully formed, I don't know, outta the head of zeus. I guess. I don't know how people learn stuff if they don't listen to folks Who are experiencing something. Right. And not in s silly soundbites and, you know, postings On social media, et cetera. Sit down, you know, go listen. And so it forces you and I, a lot of people still do this, so I don't Wanna, I don't wanna say people aren't doing this the, and they're running for Public office, but you had to do it, you know, back in the day when I was a young Lady, I mean, I started running for office when I was 30, so this is 36 years, right? So. It, it just, your perspective is you do know what you don't know. And I think humility, sometimes you just have it thrown At you because you earned it. Right? Sometimes people are shooting at you because you deserve it, right? You, you screwed up, or you didn't pay attention or you got Cocky, or, I think that's a lot of what happened with common Core, right? We just went nanas and all of a sudden, you know, we wanted to Regulate almost everything when it came to academics, and it set us Back a fur piece in, academic accountability, which I still believe in. So I, I don't know. I'd like to think, I also think really honestly, the mentoring Of mcCain and that group of people in Arizona, that was a really big Deal, and we, he held you accountable. To being honest in the job. You know, when it would hit the fan and it did for everybody in their Job, you literally, you would pick up the phone, you would know it was him And he would wanna know if the kids in Arizona sucked because you did. That's his question on the phone. And he, what he was doing, he was calling just to offer you the opportunity To ask his opinion about the into.

I love that.

And dave Chappelle's new special, he has a very Interesting and ultimately complimentary story about John McCain. Does he Yeah.

Yeah. It's worth, it's worthy. I mean, it makes, it makes a couple of good points. Jed's gonna bring us in for a landing in just a second. Before he does that though, one other question for you, something I've admired about you over the years is you're a community builder. You bring people together in different ways. And I know like in Arizona, you mentioned earlier, these people, your Drinking buddies, whatever, like you've

Yeah.

Been able to build sort of a cross sector education community. You have this thing called race to the tap, which yeah.

Is

like, just like a happy hour that people Come to, which is a great idea. Like that's, and you just bring people together. So just talk a little bit about that. I feel like your role is your, like, people tend to remember often the big Formal things people do, but sometimes these informal things are really Powerful and you've just been a community builder over the years Across signs of difference.

That's really nice to say. I hope that's true, Andy. I would think that's, that would be a goal for me more than almost anything. Policy is something in our world, in education, you can Create it, but you don't do the actual on the ground work. Right. It's there so that somebody can use it or not use it. Passing the law doesn't make something happen. It either creates an opportunity or blocks something. I really, I just love people. I really do. I admire, like the work both of you do, the work that The people who work with you do. That's incredible. And I wanna hear about it. I wanna understand, and I love like, race to the tap. We haven't done it for a couple years and we're gonna put that back In place because it, you know, a for Arizona formally went outta business A few years ago when emily Ann went to go see you guys in Virginia.

That was our, it was your loss. That was our huge gain in Virginia. Yeah

she's a smart woman. I'm supposed to have dinner with her this week as well. She's in Phoenix for a hot second. But you know, everything, it was around for 10 years and we learned A lot from it, but I think the most valuable piece of that was people Getting together across the aisle. So these settings are always, completely inclusive. Republican, democrat, teachers union. Is there, the, you know, those of us who are, you know. Whack job libertarians when it comes to education. You know, let's let it all happen. Anyway, just having a pepsi or a beer or whatever and just talking To each other about what's going on. And we did it during the legislative session so that people Could blow off steam and you could collect information. I mean, I think that's a highly underrated thing is don't get your Information from social media. You know, create settings where somebody is telling you what They're doing, why they're doing it. And if you understand it, a couple of things. They might teach you something you need to know about your own opinions Or you might be able to block 'em. Let's just be honest.

Yeah. You

shouldn't, you shouldn't go after people for rumor because Of rumor or because, you know, you go after their bills or whatever. No. But understand why they want what they want. If you think that one of the, their faulty in their reasonings say that to them And then just say, well, that, you know. I'm gonna help that not happen.

Yeah.

Or as John McCain used to say, well, that's gonna Make you famous and I'm gonna help, you know, like, not in a good way. So it's, I don't know. I guess I would say I've been lucky enough to be around people who were courageous Enough to be honest about what they were doing and to really push for it And to also share that with people. And I learned from that and still do. And so even being largely retired, I mean, I still, I work On boards or on projects or, you know, get in people's way. If I, you know, I can pick up the phone and say, I, what's that? What are you doing? That's a privilege if you've, if you're able to Live in a community like that. And Arizona's always been home, you know, for John and for me. And so we're lucky enough. To still, to still have that ability, which is really nice.

Well, here we are more than an hour, of discussion And I ha I have lots of questions that I haven't even gotten to. And so there's no way, you know what, but we're gonna, we're Gonna have lunch later this week.

Yes.

And maybe we can like plan a little more Mischief and man, we can have

you back

you know. No, I love that. You guys

are

so fun. We haven't spent, we haven't said, Hey, Arizona has more The highest percentage of charter schools students in the country. How do we get to be that way? We have all of these suburban schools that are charters that we don't Have suburban schools and other places. Hey, what's going on? Charter, how are charter schools gonna do as these ESAs and universal vouchers You know, expand in the state? So we have a lot of stuff to return to. All I can say is just thanks for, you know, this first Great hour and, you know, I look forward to talking more with you. Andy, I'll actually let you wrap it up, but Lisa, again, thank you so Much for being a part of this. This is a great conversation.

Pleasure.

I've got nothing to add except thank you to both of you. Fun. I learned stuff, which is, you know, there's no better way To spend a little bit of time. So, Lisa, thanks for being with us. We'll figure out a way to, we'll figure out a way to have you back. Or we can do a live one out in Arizona at some point.

That'd be fun. That'd be fun. Maybe we'll go over to, grand canyon. If you guys haven't been on the campus of Grand Canyon University I would love to show it to you.

Maybe we should make it WonkyFolk race to the tap version. We can

we could do it. We've done the live ones. We did a live one actually right after, governor ducey did a thing and then We followed him with a live WonkyFolk. I think you oh, so

good. That must have been fun.

Yeah. He was a little dismayed to be the opening act for us. I don't think he, I don't think he loved that. And then, and so we've done, we've done a couple, we did one of the bars so We could certainly, we could come out and we could do a WonkyFolk race the tap. That'd be a

hoot. We will do that. We would love to do that.

Great. Let's, let's make that happen.

Let's do it. Jed, and I'll figure it out. We'll find a good, we'll find a good bar

for that. Perfect. You can scout one out. You can, you can scout one out for us this week.

I'd love to.

Goodbye.