In this conversation, Andy and Jed discuss a range of topics related to education policies and the role of teacher unions, particularly reflecting on experiences in Oaxaca, Mexico and the United States. Jed shares his observations about the strong presence and activities of teacher unions in Oaxaca, contrasting them with unions in the U.S. The discussion extends to broader issues within the education sector, including the dynamics of charter schools, governance models, and the impact of large education reforms in cities like Denver and Indianapolis. They also touch on recent studies and political developments, such as the upcoming elections and their potential implications for education policies. Additionally, they reflect on the contributions and legacy of influential education leaders like Don Shalvey and Larry Rosenstock.

Show Notes:

Tim Daly on Finland

https://www.educationdaly.us/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-finland-mania

OG Eduwonk on Finland

https://www.eduwonk.com/2004/04/finland-rising.html

Eduwonk on DiAngelis

https://eduwonk.substack.com/p/the-bloom-is-off-the-seth-rose-what

74 on DiAngelis backstory

https://www.the74million.org/article/corey-deangelis-disgraced-not-by-liberals-he-trolled-but-right-wing-parents/

Denver Study

https://publicaffairs.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider36/default-document-library/denver-study-summary-september-2024.pdf?sfvrsn=60236bb4_1

Denver Public Radio story

https://www.cpr.org/2024/09/23/denver-public-schools-controversial-reform-successful/

Denver Post story

https://www.denverpost.com/2024/09/23/denver-school-reform-academic-performance-study/

Matt Landner on ESA finance

https://www.reimaginedonline.org/2023/07/arizona-governor-touts-misleading-narrative-on-arizona-empowerment-scholarship-program/

Bellwether school finance work

https://bellwether.org/publications/splitting-the-bill/

Rotherham in New York Times on when teachers unions fought their own teachers over innovation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/opinion/10rotherham.html

Jed Wallace on Don Shalvey

https://www.charterfolk.org/remembering-don-shalvey-a-mid-summers-nights-dream-of-loving-what-we-do-and-who-we-do-it-with/

Eduwonk on Don Shalvey

https://eduwonk.substack.com/p/don-shalvey

Don Shalvey on doing what you love (Part 1)

https://www.charterfolk.org/charterfolk-contributor-don-shalvey-education-equals-opportunity/

Don Shalvey on doing what you love (Part 2)

https://www.charterfolk.org/charterfolk-contributor-don-shalvey-do-what-you-love-part-2/

Hey, Andy.

Hey, Jed.

How are you?

I'm doing terrific.

Nice to see you again.

Good to see you.

I understand you like you're on the run from the law down in

Mexico or something like that.

It's my wife's and my anniversary and so we're down in Oaxaca,

Mexico, a place that's been on our bucket list for a very long time.

It started with my students in LA.

I had a significant number of them that were from Oaxaca, and

I still stay in contact with a lot of 'em, and they check in.

You always said Jed, you were gonna go to Oaxaca?

Have you been there yet?

No, I haven't.

No, I haven't.

Well, now I can finally say that., I've made it.

We're having an incredible time.

We're balancing, you know, we're having some weeks of work, with one week at the

beach, that will be true anniversary.

But it's awesome to be in Oaxaca.

I don't know.

How familiar are you with the history of teacher unions here and all of that, Andy?

Some, I mean, I'm familiar with that part of Mexico.

My, cause my sister in law lived there for a while, but I'm familiar

with the teachers unions relatively casually, except I understand that

they make ours look like pussycats.

Well, I can't talk for the whole country, but I will say that it was

our second day here, we're walking around just in love with the city.

It's just a magical place.

And, all of a sudden there's a teacher union protest coming down,

the main square and, it was just.

Striking and you had to wait for probably almost 10 minutes for

this procession to get past you.

Of course, I was interested, I wanted to read all their slogans

and all those kinds of things too.

That night, we had a guy who walked us around to orient us to the city.

His mom had been a teacher during 2006, which is when Oaxaca's union was really

on the radar screen, I think, hearing the story from this young man's perspective,

it really presents the teachers and moment in a very heroic light Oaxaca is one of

the poorest states in Mexico, and the pueblos around the central city are some

of the poorest of the poor places that you will find, and the quality of education

in those places was just not acceptable.

So there was a real nobility to what the teachers were trying to do, which

was to force the central government to put a volume of resources into

public education that would pay greater respect to these kids that were

basically not getting an education.

And during that time, literally, they closed down the central city of Oaxaca.

There were like 80, 000 teachers on strike.

The police force was only like three or 4, 000.

But teachers literally lost their lives as people tried to

break up these demonstrations.

It was a major, major conflict.

Ultimately, I think in 2006, People would say the teachers won, they prevailed,

and they got the additional resources.

But there's this underbelly to what they've done as well, which is around

work rules, and the idea that if you have a job, you can pass the

job to your own family members, or to other people of your choosing.

That there's really no standards whatsoever for Getting a teaching job,

just the, just the calendar and the amount of days that that kids are in class.

These are all limited, you know, by this same force.

And so it just makes me think that Oaxaca right now.

puts in repose, you know, the teacher union matter in the United States as well.

In the United States, it's over a longer time frame.

If it wasn't for the teachers in the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, really coming together

and becoming a force to force higher amounts of investment in public education,

goodness knows where we would be.

It was a totally noble undertaking.

But then once the resources are flowing, the work rules are so

counter to the needs of kids that it's really hard to have anything

other than A feeling of frustration for what they're currently doing.

Say a little more about one of the issues this time, like what's Cause I do remember

that strike, and it was noteworthy.

It seemed like the structure of education in many ways in Mexico is very similar

to what you see throughout sort of Central and South America, which is, you

know, very bifurcated and the elites.

Are sort of operating on a different plane in terms of how they access education.

But what are the issues now?

Is it the same stuff still not resolved or is it new issues?

I don't really know Andy.

I don't wanna oversell how much I'm keyed into this.

It seems as though these are.

Legacy issues.

They keep fighting in a very similar way.

Our guest, our host, a couple of days ago was saying that kids still will

miss dozens of days of school each year as the union just takes days off and

occupies the central square and just reiterates what their demands are.

One of the things that came up in this conversation is just, first of all,

how difficult it is to be a teacher in some of these more indigenous areas.

And yet it's very much like you find in the United States.

Who do you think ends up going to the most difficult posts?

The young teachers, the teachers with no experience, and as you get older

and more seniority, what do you do?

You gravitate toward the parts of the city that are considered most attractive.

And of course, the more affluent Mexicans are living in those communities.

So we find a structural way for those that need the best education

to be most deprived of it.

And it seems as though these seniority rights, are extremely

important to the union.

They're not to compromise on those things.

They're also not willing to have higher levels of pay in the

difficult communities or the more challenging communities to live in.

And so, these, you know, restrictions that they insist on translate into

the highest need kids, unfortunately being the least well served.

Well, it's weird that that sounds a little familiar to me.

Yeah.

That last bit, you don't, you don't have to travel to Mexico

if you want to experience that.

You can, yeah, it was funny.

Cause when I

was explained, when I was explained, when I was explaining this with, uh,

with our, our, our guide a couple of days ago, I didn't tell the story of senior

teachers, uh, or teachers moving from.

Uh, more challenging schools to more attractive ones over

time in the context of Mexico.

I talked about it in the context of Los Angeles and different

schools and he's like, Oh, that's exactly how it works here.

Except the tough places to first teach in are in the indigenous areas

and, um, uh, and the more attractive ones closer to central Oaxaca.

So he made the connection, not me, to the similarity between the

Mexican context and the American one.

Interesting.

Anyway, I think it puts, it puts our, it puts our work in, in

just really interesting repose.

Sometimes I think we can see our own world, you know, by looking at

what's happening in other countries.

That's why I tend to write about this at Charterfolk.

It's just, hey, um, we can see it perhaps when we look at another country

where we've grown so used to what we see in our own, that sometimes

it's not fresh and we can't even realize what's, what's going on.

Yeah, I mean, I like international work and I used to do, uh, some of

it when my kids were growing up, I didn't do much because I didn't want

the travel that's associated with it.

I don't want to be away from them that much.

And now I'm starting to edge back towards some of that because

it's, uh, it's really interesting.

I do worry though.

Like it is a, it is a place where just like correlation causation

and sort of monocausality and, uh, you know, errors just thrive.

Like people go to these places, they see one thing that works.

So like they go to the Netherlands and they see it, they've got like a

choice system and they come back and they're like, see, you can have choice

and a highly, you know, religious, uh, religious saturated kind of environment.

And it's fine with absolutely no knowledge of like the history of the

Netherlands and how they got to that point and the other aspects of the system.

The big example of our sector, which Tim Daly recently revisited, um, uh, you know,

it was Finland, which was like a whole industry and like thinking like one thing

and decontextualizing and being like, this is what we should, we should do here.

And so I think it's like, it's very valuable, but it's also, you have

to be a skeptical, uh, you have to be a skeptical consumer of this.

Yeah.

And I think from a charter school perspective, you see different

levels of receptiveness in different countries, New Zealand right now.

Um, it's had an ebb and flow.

It had a moment where the whole charter school experiment almost died, but

it's been revived and it's growing and thriving in New Zealand for sure.

Um, but like in Latin American countries where labor tends to be

very strong, I mean, we have charter schools in Puerto Rico right now.

But the opposition that charter schools face in Puerto Rico, it's just like, oh,

my gosh, impossible to almost imagine when I was down in Colombia for my brother's

illness, um, you know, I had a chance to learn about the charter schools in Bogota.

Um, and I recently highlighted that there was a study about the

Bogota schools that came out.

They're doing an incredible job.

They're doing an incredible job relative to traditional public schools, but

the blowback that they're contending with, it's just, it makes our work

look like, you know, child's play.

Right.

Well, that's Puerto Rico too.

It's just a really entrenched, uh, set of resistance, uh, factors to reform

and, and, uh, it's just really difficult for reformers down there in general.

This is amazing though.

What are we like eight minutes?

We're eight minutes in and we haven't.

Talked about, uh, speaking of like being skeptical and also like the,

the teachers union's favorite people.

We haven't talked about Cory D'Angelo.

Yeah.

I wanted to congratulate, first of all, thank you for what you wrote.

I thought, because first of all, I got to tell you, I hadn't even heard of it.

And so you brought it to my attention, but then I thought the way that you

wrote about it was really, really smart, but you want to elaborate

on or perhaps even for our audience that might not be keyed into it yet.

Talk about this whole situation.

Yeah.

And I,

I'd recommend, you know, as we're recording this, the 74 has a story out

advancing the whole issue a little bit, um, which I, I would, I would commend.

And, and, um, I mean, essentially He was a he was a self described

school choice evangelist.

I mean, you can certainly say he was like a very strident school choice activist,

and he had a very particular style.

He was extremely combative, active on social media, you know, a real shit stir,

and, um, and he's one of these people who used like culture war for to go after,

uh, the public schools and some of the issues he picked, we can talk about like

whether how much of it's hypocrisy and how much of it's like, does people disagree?

But like, um, uh, he certainly stoked a culture of fear.

He didn't help with those, you know, people who want to see sort of a

de escalation of the culture wars.

He certainly didn't help with any of that.

Um, and it's come to light that he also acted in a lot of porn

apparently, um, website called gay hoopla, um, which I, I, I generally

am pretty much, I do my homework.

I go to primary sources and all that, but this one, I looked at a few screen

grabs on social media and was like, okay, I get the, I get the idea.

So, um, I actually gone through all this.

Um, but you know, my initial reaction was actually like, I, this Because

he's so combative and everything else like he seems right for a hit, you know

There's these parts of the internet where all people do all day is argue

and trench warfare And so I was like this could be a deep fake or just like

a look alike I was actually a little skeptical initially But immediately like

places where he has formal relationships like the american federation Children

and the hoover institution took his sight off and I asked around with a few

folks I know and and people were like, oh, yeah, there's something to this.

This is This is real.

Um You And, uh, and so that's kind of where we are.

And the 74 advanced the story substantially.

Something I hinted at in my.

Blog posts, but I didn't have full, um, a full understanding of, so I, I only

hinted at it was that this hit came from the right, and so it was sort of intra

right trac side around some issues around school choice and government regulation.

And there's some folks who think that having the government involved and

things like ESAs and so forth, there's a real threat to liberty and, and to

homeschooling and so forth that, you know, you, you, you know that that

sort of faction in the school choice world has always been out there.

And I think.

I'm like so many issues.

Like this is true on guns.

People don't understand off in the full contour that like the NRA, like

you may find them frustrating, but they've got a bunch of groups on their

right flank that objectively make NRA look a little bit more moderate.

Right.

And it's the same thing as school choice.

Got these folks out there who I remember I used to report out stuff

on homeschools and homeschoolers.

You, you, you would talk to people who just, they wanted, they were against There

was efforts like let homeschool kids play sports, um, on public school sports teams.

And they were against that.

They're like, that's really bad because it creates entanglement.

It's like, it's, it's, they want to hide like from the other side.

Um, and, uh, those are the people who apparently were frustrated with some

of the stuff Corey was doing, found some pictures and it led to stuff.

And they, and they fed this guy.

website that because they came out of a very sort of far right website that

I'd never heard of before this episode.

Um, uh, the story kind of direct

the story dragged it into what does this mean as far as school

choice goes within, you know, a splinter area of the choice world.

That a lot of us are not that keyed into.

I thought that your first post was great in that you kind of looked at

it from the kind of social, uh, social issue perspective, which I thought

was probably the place that will end up coming back to long term as well.

For those of us that are interested in general interest.

Yeah, I mean, look, you can see him like the AFT is trying to make it into

a school choice story now and so forth.

And that's politics.

That's what they're going to do.

But I don't think it's any, these are human failing stories.

Like, like, like, look, every time a teacher's union leader gets indicted

for fraud, I actually, I don't think that's a teacher's unions story.

People get indicted for fraud in like a variety of sectors and situations.

That's a human failing story.

Um, and I think it's the same thing.

I think it's the same thing here.

I do think though, it does.

Have one like sort of like subtle lesson that's not unique to school choice,

but it's around like edu celebrities Like I think people like it was

striking to me how that the media never vetted this guy and that's like Yeah,

the bottom has fallen out of media.

It's a it's a tough business right now But it seems surprising that there

hadn't been like a little more vetting.

Um, uh, Of something like this and and that struck me and then also like people's

willingness to fall in love with like these combative Types, you know, and yeah,

like you shouldn't fall in love with the ideas, fall in love with your North star.

But like we see this in politics too.

If you, if you fall in love with people, you're inevitably like, Some of them

will will disappoint in various ways.

Maybe not quite as dramatic as this but in in various in various ways

Well, I was going to bring up Uh, cory's last major piece with you.

Anyway, um, which was his analysis of the arizona voucher program and

um, and he basically, um, and also like Matt labner went after me

too because i've been highlighting

A question before he got I want to talk about it.

Did

you ever meet this guy?

You

Never did.

Never did.

Yeah.

I didn't either.

I did have, I had several people who, uh, encouraged me to, to meet with

them and, and, and those kind, and I wasn't like strongly resistant.

It just wasn't a priority of mine.

And so it, it never really, never really happened.

Um, part of it was, I just had like kind of that intuitive sense too.

It's just this, he's a figure that's just very, uh, incendiary and, and

I'm not, and I don't know enough.

to like, like welcome them onto the charter folk platform

or something like that.

Um, and without that level of knowledge, I just kept what

turned out to be a distance.

Yeah, no, I never met him either.

And, and like, it sounds like your instinct may have been like

something about him always seemed off.

I never, I wrote about this in the, in the blog post.

I never, I didn't like, I didn't think anything like this, but

like something just didn't.

And there was a, and there was a, um, a podcast he did recently

with Nick Gillespie of reason.

And like, um, and.

Like the beginning of it is almost like painful with the host Gillespie

trying to like get this guy like just off of sort of script and message and

performative talking points and, and that podcast at the time kind of like,

it just kind of underscored for me, like something just wasn't, didn't sit right.

It was like, it was like a performance or, or, or a shtick,

which again, I think maybe should have made people a little more.

Skeptical and I do hope there's some reporting on like

when did people know this?

And like, you know, like how much were people willing to because this guy did

trade in some pretty anti lgbt themes not and again as I said earlier, right

or Not everything like he he he took some positions on some culture war issues

that like plenty of gay people Would take or plenty of transgender people so

it's not like across the board, but he definitely traded in some pretty divisive

You stuff around like the context and, and climate he was creating and some

of the things he said, this sort of, they're coming for your kids kind of vibe.

And yeah, um, and there should be some accountability for that.

When did, when, when, when did people, when did people know about this?

And so I'm hoping this gets reported out a little bit more.

Yeah, to want to, on the one hand, I want to just keep the focus

there and don't let it, um, become a story that it's actually not.

At the same time, and this is what I wanted to ask you about this

Arizona story, I think it's important that we deeply trust the people

that are doing the analysis here.

This is, this is basic economics.

This, this, this is adding and subtracting.

Um, and ultimately you can get to the bottom of the answer of whether or

not, uh, the choice system in Arizona is bankrupting the state or not.

Um, and my first response was, well, I should probably trust his analysis.

I have no reason to distrust it.

It made me want to reach out to Matt Ladner and just say, Hey, do

I fundamentally have this wrong?

Is in fact the Arizona choice, um, system economically sustainable.

But then when I see these other compromises that Corey has made

in other areas of his life, it makes me go back and look at his

piece that he wrote about Arizona.

And wonder whether he was willing to cut corners or misrepresents,

you know, in that context as well.

Do you have any similar, I don't know.

I mean, look, he may not.

Yeah,

he may not have been playing straight pool as it turns out.

But, like, I feel like on the Arizona thing, it's more.

I think everybody has an agenda here.

And so you should be skeptical.

The choice people have an agenda and saying, Hey, there's nothing to see here.

And this is not.

And some of the points they raise are correct.

So like in Arizona, the way things work to access some of these funds

under like ESAs, you have to forego other tax credits so that there's

going to be costs and savings.

Um, they're not all wrong, but they have an interest in saying much as we've

discussed with the musical chairs, they may have all, they have an interest in

saying, Hey, there's nothing to see here.

Don't worry.

Oh, right.

On the other hand, like the governor Hobbes and and the Democrats have an

interest in like hyping this as much as they possibly can and coming up

with like the most robust assumptions to get to the biggest numbers to

scare the bejesus out of everybody.

And I think the answer at this point is we don't quite know what

we can be sure of is you've got two fairly powerful forces here.

A cost structure that that is going to be an issue, um, and a very, very

popular program and that and we've essentially created entitlement.

Uh, that's very popular.

And those two things are are in collision with one another.

I think it's just too soon to tell exactly how it's going to play out, how people

are going to take their options and how they're going to think about that.

And are, you know, is it all going to be or the bulk of it be people

who aren't publicly involved?

Previous public school participants or will people that

will there be more movement?

And we won't know that for a little bit as to we see the behavior stuff

on this I think anyone who's followed school choice for a while Should be like

chasing the behavior stuff on this always plays out in like unpredictable ways.

And so Um, I just think it's too early for like some of the grand pronouncements.

We're hearing from from all sides Um, I said, I say that with a huge

caveat is I haven't read, um, Cory D'Angelo's his stuff on this, but

I have read the stuff from the state and some of the other things.

And so, um, uh, I, and I, I take it all with a, with a grain of salt.

I just think it's too soon and people are still largely arguing from their

priors and there's a lot of, there's, there's a lot of agendas on all sides.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I'm not saying it's not an

issue.

I'm also not saying that, like, this idea that it's, you know, gonna

absolutely decimate these budgets.

It could play.

It could play out in some different in some different ways.

We're gonna see this in some other states.

We're also gonna see this jet, as you know, is a huge natural experiment.

In some places, you've got some degree of means testing.

In some places you don't.

Um, in some places you have it.

Yeah.

These different kinds of programs that can interact with one

another in some places you don't.

I think it's going to be like the one problem is the way

some of these are set up.

We're going to be able to evaluate some of the descriptive and behavioral

aspects, but we're going to really struggle to evaluate some of the outcomes.

And so.

it will, which in education means it will forever be a somewhat political

debate based on people's priors.

We won't get, at least in the near term, we're not going to get some

of the evidence that might be really satisfying to help figure out and,

and, and, you know, validate or falsify various claims people are making, but we

will, we will be able to, that's real.

And we'll, in a few years, we'll have a really good sense of what's going on.

Well, I just wonder, is this something that bellwether is going to wade into?

Are you going to host a debate?

Or are you, can you get to the bottom of the economics here such that, you

know, those of us that really wonder, you know, have a greater sense of confidence

in the numbers as, as they truly are.

I want to host a debate on this.

So I shouldn't, I haven't had a chance to tell them.

So I'm getting out in front, but like, I would like our school finance

lead is Jen, she's, she used to run the budget office in Texas.

She's just very deep.

She's been involved in a number of the States where you've seen like substantial

finance reform the last few years.

She's.

Just outstanding on this.

Um, I would like to see her and Ladner have a debate about it And I would love

to host that debate and so like i'm gonna be great Yeah, i'm previewing

that here which uh, if they're listening will be a shock to both of them because

I haven't raised it That's the debate.

I actually want to see to start to shed Uh to start to shed some some

light on this Uh, they're both serious people and I think also would if

given the opportunity to talk through this with some caveats I think you'd

get to a real nuance discussion.

I don't think it would be like a food fight kind of debate.

I think it would be very thoughtful.

Well, I think that, um, it would be good to get to the bottom of these things

and to have, like, some general ideas.

If you're in a place like Arizona and your ESA and voucher credit is going

to be 7, 500 a kid, and the state is spending 12, 000, And that you can now

just start to have some rules of thumb about, okay, how many kids need to leave

the public school system funded at 12, 000 to take the 7, 500 option, um, uh,

in order to pay for the new kids that had previously had their entire private

education paid for by their parents.

It seems like this is just simple, simple algebra here.

Well, if they're using tax credits, their savings in the case, Arizona,

that's where it gets a little tricky.

And then also, as you know, the schools, we talk about this, like, it's 1 to 1.

It's not the schools have fixed costs and overhangs and so forth.

And so, um, It all ends up being messier than you hear in the public debate.

Well, the, and the other thing too is, well, you could, you could, you could,

cause I, I'll, I still think that there's an algebra answer here to what is the

overall effect on the state budget?

Just the state budget.

Are they spending more in aggregate on, on education?

Yes or no.

But then.

Then there's the second thing, which is okay.

Who would be benefiting?

Are there very many, um, families that would voluntarily give up essentially

a 12, 000 voucher to say it stay in the public school system to take to

get 7500 for, uh, for a private school?

What families are really going to be doing that?

It would seem intuitive that it's going to be people at the higher end of the ladder

that are going to be benefiting from that.

And, you know, that should be another part of the understanding here.

I saw a study.

I haven't had a chance to look at it from Pennsylvania.

Um, and I haven't had a chance to get into any depth.

So I can't in any way, you know, comment on on the methods or

anything else or how robust it is.

But it's it indicated that the demographics there were

more, uh, more diverse and surprising than you might think.

Again, I want to so much.

Dig into that and see what's behind that.

But it was, it was interesting.

The headline, it was interesting enough that I put it in my

pile of things I want to read.

All sorts

of stuff

to

dig into.

I'm, I'm, I'm glad you guys are diving into it.

I think it's a, it's a really, we want to,

we'd actually like to do a big evaluation project on it.

We're talking with a, with a partner right now about trying to think about what are

creative ways to answer this question.

I know there's some other folks, I know Doug Harris at New

Orleans is thinking about this.

Yeah.

A few quotes from Big Winter.

Because it's going to take some creative approaches to get at it.

Um, but it's, but it's important.

I think we want to, it's going to be one of those things where like, um, uh,

uh, Jay green used to do this a lot.

Like where you just have to be the first person across the barbed

wire with methods, ideal world, what you'd want, but are the best

to be able to do in the context.

Yeah.

And just be like, what, what can we know?

And there's going to be a ton of caveats.

But I think we need some work like that, uh, here.

Well, I think there are these macroeconomic issues that we

should be looking at more.

I don't know if you saw the post that I sent last weekend with the

chart of the century in there.

And, uh, the chart of the century basically showed how, uh, Well, first of

all, hospital stays have had inflation rates at just unbelievable levels.

Just below that is the cost of, of higher ed.

Um, and one of the others that's just been way out of control in

relative, relative to other parts of the economy has been that housing

costs, especially housing purchases.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the economy, Like, the cost of a TV monitor has fallen

off a cliff, technology costs have just dropped, um, phone costs have just, you

know, dropped, and, um, and so it just puts in, in repose, like, you know,

the parts of the economy that are least regulated are the ones where you tend to

see a lot of the price drops and a lot of the economy that is most regulated.

As the, the worst inflation.

And as it so turns out, you would've,

that Jed that's like surprising know, and as it turns out, lowers prices.

That's like, that's biblical

. But, but what?

But as it turns out, you know, our world, you know, I look at, you can say at the

chart of the century and say, why are you writing about that at charter folk?

It doesn't have anything in there about K 12 specifically.

Nothing about charter schools, but the, the, the adjacencies

to our work, higher ed.

And housing, given that we attend schools based upon the place where

we live, you know, these parts of the economy are are really having

a profound effect on on our work.

And, you know, the way that that tuition costs got out of control in our country

is, I mean, I know there's a lot of argument here, but it's inarguable.

The guaranteed student loans for everyone.

For everyone, regardless, you know, your, your income level just allowed higher

ed to basically raise their rates to a level that, you know, is whatever they

could coax their students into borrowing.

And that's how inflation just got completely out of hand.

And also the

substitute in the aid package to take what aid they were getting and then push

their institutional aid up the food chain.

Um, the economic food chain, like they, it was, uh, the distorting effects.

And we're constantly asked to pretend that this wouldn't be the case, which is like,

it would be highly unusual if this wasn't the case because it would like, you know,

run against everything we understand about like, how, how this stuff would, how you

would expect this to work, um, and it was all kind of distorting sorts of effects.

And, um, there's a guy named Art Hoffman who did a lot of work on the

substitution issues and was sort of basically blackballed out of the.

Uh, higher ed world.

As a result, people said, I want to talk about it.

Yeah.

Well, I think that, that, I mean, there's a lot of talk now about the importance

of voc ed and we've, we've touched upon that previously, but you know, the, the,

under the subtext there is people are comparing the value of, of voc ed, um,

to what the cost of, of, you know, higher ed is, but when higher ed's economics

have been basically warped by this out of control inflation, it makes you, um, have

a different calculation that we would.

you know, otherwise.

And, um, I mean, I, I didn't know until I started writing that thing,

just poking around, like, I had never even heard of the Western governors.

I, I, and it's the biggest university in the country, right?

Yeah, in the history of it, it's kind of an interesting regional cooperation.

It probably has like lessons and implications for other education issues.

If we pause to look at it.

Well, one of the things I didn't write about, I should have, or I should have

included in there is when they made the Western governors universities, those,

those are not public universities.

Those are that they created a nonprofit.

And, and the, and the, and the states have like supported the development of,

it's basically a big college charter.

Run as a nonprofit organization supported by, by states.

Um, and that has turned out to be a recipe that has been incredibly successful.

They gave, they gave out more than 50, 000 diplomas last year.

Yeah.

I mean, look, the real lesson here, we've talked about a little bit.

We actually had a Virginia state board meeting, talked about it with

some students recently it came up is like program, uh, and, and degree

matter more than school at this point.

But people still like just, you know, we're so attracted to the brand names

and so forth, but it's like, what are you, what are you actually studying?

And the feds have tried to put out some data on this to help people see

that, but it hasn't really penetrated.

Um, And look, if you want to study, um, uh, you want to go to Harvard and

you want to study, you know, uh, you know, so, you know, critical theory

or sociology, whatever, that's fine.

Go for it.

If that's your passion, people should, I should follow their passion.

People should be aware of like.

You know, with the R.

O.

I.

And all that stuff looks like and likewise, some credential programs

are great and some are not.

We need to be communicating that, uh, better and helping

his navigate that, uh, as well.

We've done a lot of work on that, though, whether,

well, the other piece is just the, the housing costs and during, during

the, during covid to have seen that 88 percent of house purchases in

2022 were executed by white people.

Right now, now.

Down to 81%.

Oh, we've made, we've made progress, right?

It just shows who has the economic might, uh, to be able to Um, get to,

uh, the house purchases that they want, uh, where they can, you know,

and, and meanwhile, Oh, the black

homeownership is rising and, and, and the black benefits, there

is some good news there as well.

And if you, you're always going to have a higher percentage of

whites because there's just more white people in this country.

Um, but there is some good, there is some good news there.

There's obviously also like when you break down and you look at people

who are descendants of slavery in America, there's like enormous

wealth gaps that, that should require greater attention than they get.

Well, 81 percent of purchasers are white.

58 percent of American residents, you know, are a resident as it's

yeah, no, no, there's a gap.

I'm not arguing it's not a gap, but there's also stairs

buried

in there.

And the strongest opponents to charter schools tend to be, you know, white

progressives who have enough, uh, money to go and buy themselves houses in the burbs.

So, I mean,

These places.

Yeah, no, that's it.

That's, and I, and I think longterm.

As it forces changes in either we go to higher density or do people

move out and get more sprawl?

What does that, what are the effects of that on, on education policy?

I think there's like a bunch of dimensions to that.

It's quite interesting.

Well, you had mentioned that you'd seen a new study outta Denver,

and I hadn't even heard of it yet.

Tell me what, tell me what it is that you saw there.

Oh, I think in color and the broader, you know, that's where I grew up.

Um, yeah, yeah.

What, what's the latest findings here?

Yeah, and I was just out there this last weekend, um, uh, hosting a small group.

And so, and, and, and so this was sort of front and center, um, thinking about

this, uh, this guy named Parker Baxter.

He's, um, at the University of Colorado, Denver, um, runs a really

fantastic policy center there.

He's worked in the district.

Um, just one of these, you know, really great low key people in education.

And, um, yeah, he did a study a couple years ago that showed some gains, but

there was some methodological limitations.

And it was, it was a little, and as he acknowledged, it was

a little difficult to parse out.

Are these like demographic changes in the city and, and, and, you know,

enrollment changes that are driving, um, uh, are driving what looks like

improvements or their actual improvements.

Yeah.

So he went back, he got student level data, the district fought him on it.

So it's important, like it shows how the power there has shifted.

You had Michael Bennett, Tom Bozberg, Susan Cordova, who are like, these like

reformers who wanted to see the district in the current leadership and the district

didn't want, like, they literally didn't want him to have access to this data,

which is like, it's, it's, it's crazy that the sort of lack of curiosity

about, or, or concern that somebody might make an inference somewhere.

Um, Which we see a lot.

It's not just there, but he got the data, um, was able to look large scale study.

I think I don't have it in front of me, but I think I 40, 000 kids was

able to make sure they'd been in the district for a couple of years,

able to follow them to student level data and found really substantial

effect sizes, differing effects by demographics and certain subpopulations.

Um, but overall strong effects and really encouraging effects, uh, with

with some groups of kids is a lot.

They will drop some links to the study into media accounts

in the, um, in the show notes.

And I think what's like, it's 1 of these things that, like, it's these

reforms were super controversial.

The school board there has been highly contested and the results come in.

On this reform approach.

And it's like the train has kind of moved on.

It points out a couple of things we've talked about.

One, this idea that nothing works, which is like, yeah, exactly.

It's another example of how something does work.

And I just think in terms of like portfolio approach stuff that like

people like Paul Hill have been talking about just, you know, for

a long time, um, it's important.

And it, and the findings are really interesting and it, it should be

getting more attention than it does.

And I feel like, no, it's not like a broken record, but I feel like.

In, in some other fields, you know, medicine or energy or whatever.

You know, when you have some good news, it tends to travel a little

bit better and, and good news just doesn't, this is an important, this,

this study should be traveling more.

The, the Denver Post did a story on, there was kind of a hatchet job.

Um, like, cause there's an industry and like, no, this can't be.

And like, it's, there's some interesting stuff in the effect sizes are, I would

describe as unusual relative to what we usually see with these things.

And so people should want to pay attention.

Well, I really want to dive in.

We've done some focus in the last two weeks at charter folk on Indianapolis.

So we had Brandon Brown from MindTrust, right, um, and had a few charter,

uh, he wrote a piece, Scott Bess, um, wrote just a couple days ago.

I was out there, visited schools.

It's been really interesting talking to Brandon.

It isn't in his piece.

But it's worth focusing on in Indianapolis.

They have these innovation schools and the way their state law was done.

They have the charter schools in Indianapolis, but then they have these,

they're, they're basically, I call them cabins charters, all but in name.

Uh, there's, they're run by most of them are run by separate nonprofits.

Yeah, well, I, yeah, so, um, because there are chinos, right?

Charters in name only.

And then there are cabins.

Cabins, charters, all but in name.

And it seems as though these Indianapolis schools really are cabins.

Um, in Denver, they went forward with something similar.

But because they weren't precise in their state, uh, advocacy work, I think

most would say that I think they're called innovation schools or they, I

think they're also called innovation schools in Denver, but their, their

autonomies are fundamentally compromised.

So I'll be really curious to read this report and see

how those schools are doing.

Um, cause I think that if those schools had the additional autonomies that

to make them cabins too, well, then I would feel a greater sense of confidence

that the progress that's been made in Denver is going to be locked in.

Yeah, I remember a few years ago now in Denver, a fascinating group

of teachers wanted to take control of their school and be empowered.

They felt that they could run it better and wanted to do this.

And like the union bought them.

And so it was 1 again, it was 1 of those things that like you would think

would cause people to pause and be like, maybe something's weird in this field.

But, you know.

that's just like Wednesday.

Um, uh, and so, yeah, so, uh, Indianapolis, like,

I'm obviously a big fan.

I should, like, I was, uh, uh, I was a founding board member of the mine

trust with Bart Peterson and David Harrison, and it's just an amazing work

there and, and just to like, just the slow, steady work of moving this along.

And, and, and Indianapolis, like there's still tons of problems.

It's not where it needs to be, but man, the progress is.

Is substantial and should, again, everyone who thinks this is all, you know, hopeless

and futile, um, you know, th their, their, their, their work is a compelling example.

Can I ask you there overall, you know,

it's, I remember read Hastings one time talking about school boards being

like, um, motherhood and apple pie.

You know, there's no way we're ever gonna.

You know, be able to, um, move the public off of a ee for them.

But when we look at these large urban school districts across the

country, and maybe I have a tick, you know, , but I mean, when you see

Milwaukee and Chicago and you see St.

Louis and, and you see what, what Denver was recently and just so many

of these cities across the country, um.

The dysfunction of their publicly elected school boards is just so apparent.

And then not every charter school is a good charter school.

Not every nonprofits, a great nonprofit, but just the stability of a self

sustaining board, a self perpetuating board just seems like a fundamentally

stronger place from which to.

Chief excellence for our kids.

But you know, the conversation is always in the opposite direction.

No, no, no, no.

We should be taking away from these nonprofits, uh, their ability to

be self perpetuating and force them to have elections of some kind.

Uh, is there anything you can offer here?

Embedded

there.

Like, how do you like, I just think I'm, I find the Elected appointed debate, like

just sort of a side show in the sense that there's compelling examples on both sides.

Everyone loves appointed boards until somebody they don't like gets appointed.

And then they're like.

We should like, figure a way to change the power structure, um, me and you,

you see this in a bunch of places.

Um, I think, and this is going to sound glib, but like, it's almost like

sometimes you just need a palate cleanser.

And so when a place isn't working, shifting the

governance arrangement can help.

It can bring in change.

Um, but no one should romanticize any particular governance model

because we've seen plenty of dysfunction with with all of those.

And it is a little bit like, oh, like things really aren't working.

Okay, well, what model do you have?

Well, then try the other one.

Um, and you shouldn't do like what Chicago is doing is like

incredible overcorrection.

They're going to this board.

It forgets like 27 people, something like that.

It's just.

And that's absurd.

And that you can, you can tell how that's going to go.

Um, but like, I, I don't know that you can inherently say that elected school boards.

Um, you know, these things and people can wield their power in other ways.

And, you know, obviously Denver played out through the changes in elected school

board, a bunch of political campaigns, but with that political pressure

been brought to bear and other venues potentially, I do think giving parents

choice is a counterweight against this.

To some extent, you start to build in some dynamism that doesn't exist.

Basic reforms that it eludes me that we don't have and that people

aren't out there pushing for.

School board elections are held at off peak times.

That's by design so that special interest, the unions can kind of drive it.

They should be held when people are voting for other offices during

your normal primaries and general elections, like to increase turnout.

We shouldn't be doing these crazy, you know, firehouse elections or these

off peak or at some, you know, some random day in, in, you know, April.

I mean, there's reforms, there's reforms we could make, but I think yeah,

Democracy's messy, and I'm skeptical of the idea that there is any kind of a

panacea, um, any kind of a panacea here.

Well, I wasn't arguing for appointed over elected.

I was arguing for self perpetuating.

That's, that's the value of these nonprofit boards.

And, you know, I just my years at high tech high, I know for sure that if they

hadn't been able to get board members that are deeply committed to project

based learning and the different things that they wanted, if they just had

any old board member come on there or one that was elected, all the things

that made high tech high unique or different, they would have compromised on.

And it would have sacked back to, you know, the miasmic

one talk about all the time.

So I feel like,

yeah, well, hey, one other thing I guess I'd say about that.

It's worth just pausing for a moment.

Is this pressure to, like, get into board governance as a way to hamstring?

Charters is a problem because it's hard to find good members who are committed,

who have the skills, who have the time.

Uh, and so to the extent people want to make it like you have to have more

and more seats, it just makes that challenge harder and leads to problems.

I think charter critics know that.

So you need to be thoughtful about how do you make sure these, These

things are publicly accountable, transparent, there's appropriate

public input, but where that's not used as a, as a tool to hamstring them.

Well, Minnesota is a cautionary tale for us right now.

You probably saw how the Tribune, the Minneapolis Tribune came out

with a big long hit piece against the state sector generally.

But one of the things that was highlighted there is that one thing

that makes Minnesota's charter school law different than any other state

in the country is it's required that all school board members are elected.

And so a lot of the most respected players in the country would never

set up shop in Minnesota because they can never agree to a governance

structure that was so fatally flawed.

So governance really does matter and, um, and we have to remember what those things

are and make good arguments for them.

Um, yeah.

Good week.

We don't need to get into.

We can throw that in the show notes.

I have not read the article yet.

It's on my list, but I will say people out there.

I respect say there is some quality variance issues.

On the other hand, Minnesota has some really fascinating authorizing methods.

I think it's, I think it's a super interesting state.

Um, with some really compelling examples.

So I think it's again, it's one of these ones where there's something for

there's something for everybody, but serious players in the charter sector.

They have been around for a long time are certainly pro charter

have have raised concerns that there are some quality issues.

I'll be writing about it soon, so I'll be curious to see what one of

these things like.

What, you know, it gets back to these really difficult questions.

Like how much should we be like, this is not quality.

If it's a school, the parents like a different kind of pedagogical approach.

This stuff's not, this stuff's not straight, straightforward.

Sorry.

You were going to talk about the last,

yeah, well, the last minute, the last election or the last discussion, we were

talking about walls and, and, you know, he coming onto the ticket and everything,

um, we're now only six weeks out, you know, and I, I shared with you in an email

in advance of this that, Hey, I don't.

I don't know if I have anything different to say about this presidential

election, but now we're only six weeks.

Are you seeing any new trends?

Anything?

That's no, I think it's what

it seems.

It's a very, it's going to be a very close election.

Trump probably enjoy some structural advantages relative

to the electoral college.

She is certainly having just a, a, a sort of wind at her back, uh, that

any politician would, would want.

And she's running, I think, a pretty smart campaign.

We can talk about that.

Um, uh, but like, but it's, it's going to be close.

My, my gut sense is it's either going to be, he wins by a

little or she wins comfortably.

Um, and because we just don't quite understand what's happening with the,

with, with, with the electorate and does that do low propensity voters that are

hard to pull turn out for, um, for him, or is, is, is there going to be the end

people are going to break towards her?

Cause again, you know, it's, it's, it's a weird race.

You think the eventual wisdom is always people like, well, you know.

Undecide his break against the incumbent but like who's really

the incumbent in this race.

It's a little it's it's a complicated dynamic um one thing I do think

is interesting and sort of I I find interesting in the sense that

I'm one of these people who does believe education's like usually

the last to get the memo She's like running pretty hard to the center.

She's tossed identity politics politico this week, you know, where she's like

she's ending sort of identity based appeals You Um, to hispanic voters and

instead going with aspirational appeals, um, which a lot of people have been

urging her to do except sort of the activist class that, that, that, you

know, um, has an interest in invested interest in various things and she is.

So she's, she's running a very smart campaign that way.

Um, And, uh, and I think that's interesting.

And so she's, you know, you're not hearing like no, no identity politics on her.

She's, she's cutting against that and so forth.

And yet like in our sector, everybody's still like luxuriates

and that stuff all the time.

And that just, to me, that's an interesting, that's an

interesting disconnect.

Um, she, I think she is closer to where the country is.

Uh, I think she has a better, uh, thumb on that than, than perhaps like all the

elites in our sector, uh, and that's showing up in, in how she campaigns.

And then there's going to be some lessons there.

And she's not she hasn't clawed back all the gap with where Biden was in

2020 with with different demographic groups, but she's doing better, um,

uh, than he was she's making background among black and hispanic voters.

She's doing very well among white voters.

Like she's starting.

You can see the glimmers of the coalition.

She would need, uh, she would need to win

well, we in education world often get focused on those those

presidential elections or top of ticket matters when usually.

What matters the most is what happens in the, in the legislature

is what's the mix of stuff.

And I, I just saw something, I don't know if it was in Politico or maybe

it was in 74 about, um, Arizona.

We were talking about Arizona earlier in the voucher program.

1 thing that's, uh, is a real possibility there is that they could have.

A democratic governor and both chambers of the legislature controlled by Dems,

who would then be determining the future of their ESA and voucher program.

In a number of different states right now, there's a possibility for

significant chamber, chamber shifts.

And that's where actually the, you know, the education policy tire hits the road.

Yeah.

Well, going back to what we talked about earlier, historically, cost issues have

been a potent argument against choice plans and So you can see that they're

going to need a way to go after the choice stuff and you can see that being the way

and because that's been again, that's been a that's been potent and so you can see

that happening in Arizona and you sort of seen hops kind of casting around for a way

to go after it while recognizing that it's very popular and so this could provide

that that could be an avenue they go.

The other thing I just think, look, yeah.

The more states you have with, like, robust charter sectors and Democrats

in the Senate, the better it is.

Yeah.

Because it starts to mute the opposition.

It's like when we talk about Tim Walz, where, you know, where he's

obviously no great fan of charters, but he's also like, look, parents are

choosing this, this is going on, I'm not going to, like, upend their lives.

He was kind of a responsible governor in that way.

And like, you could, it is better the more states you have where there's actually

a constituent interest in this, like, the better will be in terms of, like,

restoring some sense of at least, like, equilibrium, even if we can't get to,

like, outright support for charters in the, in the, in the Democratic caucus.

Yeah, I'm really quite, quite interested in the changing tone in Charterland.

Uh, I think things are getting a little bit more positive right now.

I think there's a lot of concern about what's going to happen at the top of

the ticket and all that kind of stuff.

But I'm not sensing in my day to day conversations the degree of

exhaustion and the degree of, of almost futility that people were

feeling maybe three to four years ago.

And I wonder if it's just a matter of Recognizing our own staying

power and how unique staying power is in the education world.

Um, and maybe to wrap up, we could we could talk a little bit about one who

had as much staying power as anybody that we knew, which is Don Shelby.

He had this event last week, and I had a chance to go there.

It was a great thing to see so many people there.

But, um, I think the overarching thing was, you know, Well, there were so

many things to celebrate about Don Shelby, but it's the staying power.

I did see Reed.

He walked up and he was just like, you know, Don just stayed in the game

for so long and it's the cumulative impact of staying in the game.

I didn't make the connection with Reed in that very moment.

Um, but a good thing I immediately was locking onto.

Yeah.

And the staying power of charters were, you know, well into our fourth decade now.

And it's the staying power, um, our people, uh, and the

broader, you know, sector itself.

But I don't know, you knew Don as well as I did, you know, um,

any, any new reflections on, on what, you know, his legacy is.

Well, yeah, I was sad I couldn't be there, but I had a, I had a

commitment elsewhere and, and, and so I was very, I was very sorry.

I was very sorry to miss it.

Yeah.

I mean, look, I think part of it is, um, I also think it's

not just staying power alone.

Don also made some big bets early or, you know, he bet his career when he

left the superintendency to do aspire.

He was willing to bet his whole career.

And so I also, I want to make sure he gets credit for the staying

power is important, but so is the willingness to take a risk in my.

Big fear for the sector right now.

I'm not sure how many leaders we have.

We're actually willing to like make those, you know, we've talked about it, the

Howard Fuller's, the Linda Brown's, you know, people who were kind of willing to

put all their chips in the middle of the table for something that they believed in.

And I worry we have like, A lot of people now who see themselves as

the future, you know, CEO or ED of this or that, or the future deputy

assistant secretary of this or that.

And so they're not like, and, and, and a movement that suffers from that's a move.

It's not going to get very far.

So I don't, I don't want to lose his bravery as well as his staying power.

But yeah, I do think there's something.

To that, I mean, it's the old, you know, you know, have a life showing up

like you got to keep showing up and, and look that going back to Denver,

like the reform critics, they got swept out of the board, you know, and

Michael Ben and Boseberg were, you know, moving an aggressive agenda, but

they didn't just like, um, and then Susanna, they just didn't like go home.

They like kept showing up and they clawed back.

Um, like you have to respect that.

Um, and I think our folks are can be pretty fast to kind of declare

mission accomplished or move on or say it's futile or be a little feckless.

And, you know, Don, Don was definitely not.

any of those things.

He just, he was, he was very persistent, um, in a, in a

good, in a good, uh, a good way.

And he, he had a, he had a North Star and he stayed, he never,

he never lost that North Star.

The next month I'm going back to San Diego.

They're going to have a big event for Larry Rosenstock, um, at High Tech High.

Uh, he's not passed, uh, but his health is not good and it's a part of the reason

why they, they want to celebrate here.

But one of the things, and, and Don and, and, and Larry

spent a lot of time together.

They did refer to each other as brothers from other mothers.

Um, but the one thing that they had, it's like, I mean, cause I can remember

Larry in my, in my like second or third month on the job at high tech

high, cause I was like, go get it.

It's like, I wanted to like, you know, just go really fast and stuff.

He's like, look, we will go fast, but people around here, we love our work.

We love our work and we are going to continue loving our work.

That is a non negotiable.

And it's just that love of work, that the privilege of being

able to work with young people.

I mean, all you had to do with B is be with Larry in the presence of teenagers.

And you just, you just saw them.

And that was the thing that with, with Don too, it was like whatever setting

he was in, whether it was with teachers or it was with funders or it was with,

you know, other educators or parents or, or kids themselves, this guy.

You know, he had the staying power, but it was no, it was no huge.

He took his risks.

He took his risks.

Yeah.

But it's no heavy lift.

He loved it.

Right.

And he was a happy warrior.

Yeah.

It's, it's one thing that I think we, and, and, and it's one of the reasons why

when I feel, you know, charter land having a little more oxygen in the room and I

don't feel a sense of dispirited ness to the same degree that I did, you know,

last, you know, three or four years ago.

Makes me more optimistic because the only way we're going to sustain

this work is if we continue to to enjoy it And if there's anything that

that Don reminds us that he he wrote something at Charterfolk Love you.

Love what you do and then Then three days later.

He said Jed.

I didn't get everything in there Can I publish again next week so

I would never do this before same contributor two weeks love what

you do part two Yeah, well, I think

that's an important thing there, Jed, that ties both those, and you're right about

Larry, and Larry has hilarious, so many hilarious stories, uh, about, like, he's

just like, it's so much fun to be around.

Um, uh, both those guys, though, I think one thing, they knew what they were

for and why they're in this business.

They weren't just about tearing down, they weren't just like against the

unions or against the government.

Districts are wanting to, you know, abolish this or that.

Like they, they were builders.

They had, they were like, here, they, they were for something.

And I think that's a big differentiator, um, that you need like leaders in the

sector who are actually are for something, have a positive vision in the world that

they want to see realized almost less matters if you have an agree with that

vision or not, but some sort of positive vision for change rather than just like

all these things that you're setting yourself in opposition to or against.

Well, all we got to do is keep going at it and, uh, for another 30 years

plus and, you know, laughing all the way and we will have lived up to the

example that Larry and Don left for us.

But I sure enjoy our time together a lot, Andy.

Yeah, Jed, it was great.

I hope congratulations again on your anniversary.

I hope you have a great rest of your trip and I'm going to look

forward to seeing you in person soon.

All right.

See you for another one in a month.

Great.

Take care, Andy.

See ya.