We missed our November recording due to me coming down with the crud. It left us a lot of ground to cover in a short period of time. Topics we touch upon include:

• Elections perspective six weeks later
• Linda McMahon reactions, including a somewhat surprising lack of acrimony across the political spectrum on her nomination.
• The biggest story in public education this year - Democrats embrace stasis, while Republicans embrace ESAs and vouchers. Are Dems approaching a "gray divorce" on their education priorities, while Republicans head into a "honeymoon period" on ESAs and vouchers?
• The biggest story regarding charter schools - Are charter schools in a "sweet spot" or in a "dead zone" headed into 2025?
• And our biggest reasons for optimism and concern headed into 2025.

References:

* Tim Daly's piece: https://www.educationdaly.us/p/we-are-in-the-midst-of-an-educational

* Election reax: https://eduwonk.substack.com/p/shellacked-what-are-the-education

* Fiscal situation: https://www.pgpf.org/article/7-charts-that-show-how-the-nations-fiscal-outlook-worsened-in-2024/

* Andy and Lindsay Fryer discuss Linda McMahon: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7265157124941369344/comments/

* Musical chairs: https://eduwonk.substack.com/p/charter-schools-might-not-have-a

Foreign.

Hey, Jed.

Happy holidays.

Happy holidays to you as well.

Sorry to miss you last month I just came down with the crud.

I was looking forward to doing an elections debrief with you.

Just couldn't do it.

So glad to see it before the holidays at least.

Came down with the crud.

Is that like, is that like a metaphor for the election?

What are you saying?

The.

Yeah, the elections, whatever.

There was all sorts of cruddiness within it, but also there are reasons for hope as well.

But, you know, there's been all sorts of things I've wanted to process with you, so I'm glad that we're at least finding a little bit of time here.

I mean, did you have any, I mean, you've been all over the landscape sharing, I thought, some really smart ideas around the elections.

But, you know, is there anything that you're taking away as the, as the macro story or is there something that's not been said that you've been focusing on a lot as it relates to the elections?

No, we should quickly.

We never, we just always jump right in.

And as we're already jumping into the election and, and just a little bit, I think we can be brief though, because most of it is out there.

I mean, the last time you and I had had, when we were.

Before that episode had to get postponed, we didn't know who the Secretary was going to be.

And, you know, yeah, she's an interesting pick.

I think that's been one of the more interesting things and the reaction to it.

We can talk later about what that might mean.

You know, she was very well regarded, the Small Business Administration.

This is Linda McMahon, the nominee for Secretary, Education.

And she by all accounts did a good job at sba.

People on both sides of the aisle say that.

So I think what happens with those picks is people tend to look at it like, who would I pick or who would like, the person I voted for pick?

But like, that's, that's like just a sort of an error in analysis.

Right.

Like, I wasn't on the ballot, you know, none of us were.

And the person who was, Kamala Harrier, she lost.

So you have to look at it like, is this a good pick?

Considering that Donald Trump was going to be the president, United States again.

And I think all things considered, and with some of the names are in the mix and so forth, it's a.

Yeah, it's, it's a good choice.

So I am, I am.

We'll have to see what happens.

But I think, like, if, if people are looking for a reason to be, like, completely outraged right out of the jump, it's, it's.

Think it's not Linda McMahon.

Yeah.

I have to agree with you.

I think that it's interesting we don't have someone with really any education related experience, and I think we have to go back a long time.

She's a former state board member.

Come on, man.

What are you.

Well, I'm sitting right here.

Well, well, in terms of having been an operator or having been in, you know, the same extent that we're expecting for an education secretary, but I also feel like that's kind of beside the point as it relates to what Trump wants to do as it relates to education.

And I think he wants to really shake up the National Education Department's work and education and wants an effective administrator to be able to get that done.

And I think he has that.

And now it's just going to wait to be seen what, in fact, she gets done.

But I think she's somebody who's postured to be effective in terms of administering whatever it is the Trump administration wants to get done right now, I think.

So this is probably a politically incorrect thing to say, but, like, when you look back at secretaries, the ones who have had sort of administrative experience, whether, and this is going back like a long time, whether you're talking like a Dick Riley, you know, who had been a governor beforehand, or Margaret Spellings, who had some administrative experience, was an effective secretary more recently.

You know, Duncan got a lot done and he obviously had administrative experience running the Chicago schools.

That's kind of what the job is.

I think people like, like a lot of these, like, large jobs, education, you need to have an understanding and appreciation of teaching and learning.

But the Secretary of education, it's not a teaching and learning job.

You're administering large programs.

You're leading a big, complicated agency that isn't in Washington.

It has field offices all around the country.

That's where I think.

So her experience at SBA is actually like, what does the Small Business Administration do?

It gives loans and grants and administers programs.

And, you know, a large part of what the department does is, is, is give loans as we've, you know, seen and handle aid and as we saw with fafsa, not always.

Well, yeah, but I think.

I think the nature of the job can be.

Can sometimes be misunderstood.

And so you're right.

I think it's a fit.

They want to seem.

They clearly seem to want to do some programmatic restructuring, which, depending how they do it, could be good or bad.

But she's obviously like, you know, she's suited to that.

I think it'd be interesting to look at whether just by federal departments, which ones seem most hidebound by legislation, regulation, whatever it may be.

I don't know which ones are.

Least might be quicker.

Okay, well, yeah, wait, whatever.

You know, my.

It's.

I'm leading my own, you know, topic here, by the way I present it.

It just seems to me from an education perspective, we are among the most hidebound things you find anywhere in public life.

And it would seem as though the effectiveness of our federal departments is going to be a function of.

Do they have much latitude to actually get work done?

My intuition is, yeah, it would be.

There's huge morass in all of these federal departments who's.

Who's kidding who.

But I just feel like there's another layer of calcification around education that makes it even more difficult and makes it even more important that you have an administrator who can figure out a way to push things forward.

Well, I think that's right, because these programs, they, you know, they move through state agencies which are themselves varying degrees of being nimble and agile or being more hidebound.

So the programs carry, like, a lot of both fiscal and programmatic weight moving through those.

So, yeah, it's a complicated bureaucracy.

I mean, that's the interesting thing.

I feel like everybody sort of quietly agrees there's room for reform, you know, and Trump may be kind of a strange agent for that.

But, like, if they are, if they are thoughtful and, and they do reform with a scalpel and think about how can you make these programs more effective?

How can you potentially align them better across different agencies?

There's obviously a lot of overlap between Education, labor, for instance, some between Education, hhs, Health and Human Services.

And, you know, there, There's.

There's opportunities to put, potentially do things better.

If it just turns into sort of chaos and a meat act, some politics, well, then, you know, that won't be constructive.

And one thing that's been, that's been overlooked.

I'm sure the people listen to this podcast know, though, is, is you.

You hear this common thing.

Is Trump going to abolish the Department of Education?

Well, he, he can't do that to begin with.

Congress has to do that, and they're going to get their.

They're going to get their say.

And I think one of the kind of interesting things to watch is what is that relationship with, with Trump in Congress going to be like sort of as it evolves?

And are we going to see that sort of Article 1 authority asserting itself again?

I hope so, because I think Congress is important in that they don't just implement whatever the executive wants, but actually, like, have their own prerogatives.

Yeah, I'll think I'll be fascinated to see just how aggressive she wants to be in terms of reducing regulation.

Whether we use the new Chevron case as a new lever to really decrease the amount of regulation that may be coming from the department, that seems like a big area of opportunity if they choose to use it.

I'm not sure they will.

I think so, but that's one of those things.

Like, I feel like everybody's, again, regulated.

It's like free speech.

Everyone's for free speech until it's speech they don't like, and then they all become censorious, you know, or books.

And I think it's the same thing with regulations.

Everyone's against regulations, so it's one they want.

And it's worth remembering the Chevron case was actually a Trump administration action that was challenged and ultimately led to that decision.

So they're going to, like, I think this is one of these things.

The Chevron is going to start looking a lot better.

To the Democrats reigning in Trump administrative authority.

It's going to look a lot.

It's going to look a lot less exciting for the Republicans.

Yeah, I was just focusing on where I think the secretary actually has leverage, can actually get something done, you know, sunsetting the entire department.

Department.

That's just not going to happen.

There is, you know, an area around regulation that if they chose to focus, they probably could do some significant sunsetting.

We'll see if they choose to do it.

For me, what I look at for the longer term is financial.

And I don't know if you agree with what I've been writing in Turner Folk.

I didn't write it only here.

I've been writing it for the last year.

And I know this will not play out in one election or one budgetary cycle or anything.

It would require all sorts of changes.

But for me, the biggest issue right now is financial.

We've got urban school districts that are imploding.

They don't have enough money to keep them afloat, and we've got these universal voucher programs, you know, on the red side that we can't afford.

And it seems to me as though the use of federal dollars loosened up, you know, for both the blues and the reds to prop up what is currently not financially viable is going to be the biggest story over the next four years in terms of education funding.

But I don't know, do you see it differently or.

No, I mean, I think, look, I'm someone who thinks the inattention to federal spending and we're sort of, we're blowing through numbers that years ago people said would just be like cataclysmic in terms of like, size of debt, deficit relative to gdp, these kinds of things.

And nobody, you know, the sort of fiscal hawk types but are concerned, but neither party is particularly fiscal hawkish at this point.

And so, yeah, I think it's a big issue.

And if you care about education spending, you have to pay attention to it because we've quietly, just as we have at the state level with pensions and healthcare, at the federal level, entitlement spending is crowding out domestic discretionary.

And you know, if you're somebody like me who thinks Social Security is a really important program and, and does a lot of important things, but you're seeing that sort of cost pressure.

There is, you know, there is a moment of reckoning coming at some and we have to have some hard, hard conversations.

And that has been put off for a long while.

I'm not, I mean, Trump in his first term, spending was, was way up.

You're already seeing sort of a bidding war breakout on, on tax cuts.

So it's, it's unclear exactly where the energy for fiscal restraint is going to come from.

There's like one scenario where spending lots of money remains like the last bipartisan thing in Washington.

I just think the Republicans and the Democrats are in different stages of life evolution as it relates to their partnership, their matrimony to education policy.

I think that the Dems are basically in a period of great divorce.

It's getting old.

They can't afford this stuff.

They're ultimately going to have to split up.

And it's because they've just been fixated in a situation, a relationship that's just not viable for the long term.

Republicans, meanwhile, they're in a honeymoon period.

They're going through their ESA thing and everything is just wonderful and lovely and they can't wait to do it even further.

But on the other side of the honeymoon is the reality of how the heck are they going to pay for these things.

We should get into some look back and look forward because I think that's one of the things is this issue of, I mean the parties are evolving the, you know, we're back to a point where the traditional Democratic advantage on education is, is, is, you know, we're back to sort of even par.

The Republicans have some kind of an opportunity there, will they seize it?

And we saw in this election, I think, you know, people have been saying that you were seeing shifts among non white voters and some people believe that and some people didn't.

But like that clearly is happening and education plays a role in that in a couple of different ways, both in terms of people's own educational attainment and then also some preferences and so forth and framing around the issue.

So you're, you're right that, that, that cleave in the Democratic Party, you're going to see that tension continue to manifest itself.

But you know, it depends.

Can the Republicans actually get their act together and put forward a compelling agenda or do they end up cleaving to some extent as well?

Which I think again that gets to some of the really interesting questions you had about sort of looking back and looking forward.

And, and you know, for, for education, not just for charter schools, but for, for the whole.

And I actually think that, that Harris's decision to basically stay status quo, not having to go through a primary, having latitude if she had wanted to, to pivot not just on education policy but on wide range of different policies, would have been a fascinating moment.

She didn't do it.

She didn't do it.

And so staying in a mode of status quo, the status quo was defeated.

And that will have all sorts of ripple through effects outside of education.

But I also think it's going to have its, its effect in education.

That's what I consider to be the biggest story in the United States in education over the last year.

But I don't know, do you see it in the same way or is there a different, different nuance or wrinkle you would point to there.

Yeah, I mean, I can't argue with them that that's obviously really consequential.

I guess when you ask, you know, I was thinking like, okay, what's the biggest.

I think the biggest story continues to be sort of the un, the unbundling of education.

And so the, you know, the rise of various kinds of options and then under enrollment, those two things are obviously related because the rise of some of the options is, is, is, is causing in some cases the, the, the enrollment declines or is related to them the same sort of factors that are driving it.

That to me, is the biggest story.

And then, you know, what's happening with ESAs, you know, whether you love them, hate them, or sort of, you know, ESA curious or whatever it is, like there's no doubt they are exacerbating that.

They're exacerbating those challenges.

And so like the most popular thing on offer continues to contribute to the under enrollment and people leaving the traditional public schools.

And, you know, I think it's like 13 states have passed them, which is just remarkable if you sort of study and think about school choice history.

Just like in a relatively short time, that much of an increase and Texas is on the cusp and that will be a really big deal.

And per what we were talking about spending earlier, I think a big part of the fiscal fights in Washington are going to be on the tax side.

You're going to see, you know, the big argument among Republicans is do they want to do one reconciliation bill or two.

And so you're going to see a lot of stuff happening on the tax side.

And that's a tough lineup for spending.

And it's a tough lineup if you want to see programs that maybe would augur against this disenrollment.

So to me, that's the big story is it's kind of parallel to what's happening with the country.

We're sort of in a fluid political time where we're redefining politics and institutions and we're redefining public schools.

You know, right in front of us.

It's happening.

And to me, it's a huge story that we tend to grab onto little pieces of, but it's really, it's really a macro story of what are public schools going to look like in a decade.

I think that's right.

I think there it's kind of like the talk about the barbell.

You know, we're just, we're just gravitating toward extremes here as it relates to education policy.

I focused on hey, what's going to happen on the Democratic side of the barbell?

Is the weight going to hold together?

Is it going to fracture?

And you're really focusing on the Republican side, which is very important now.

I think the thing that's just not clear to me on the Republican side is the degree to which these ESAs are going to prove viable, they're going to prove successful, they're going to prove to be something that Republicans want to double down on politically.

They clearly want to.

Right now.

I just think from a program standpoint, difference with kids, impact on society, it's just such a question mark right now.

It's hard to know whether or not doubling down is what we would want to see happen.

Well, they're definitely like the dog that caught the car, right?

They wanted sort of twice and so forth and now it's happening.

I mean, I don't know.

These things tend to be popular and as you and I have discussed, like I think the blunt force, like, well, like if you don't like essays, like you can just take it back.

That seems difficult.

It's going to be what kind of regulations get put on them?

Do you end up putting on means testing and sliding scales and that sort of stuff?

And I think that remains, that remains to be seen.

One thing and maybe this would be like a second candidate for a big story like measurement in education in general and just sort of accountability.

All of it is really under pressure and so like it will be harder to make the case around if the case around ESA is just, it's just politics and who has political strength.

That's bodes well for ESAs.

If it's a more empirical conversation tied to outcomes and so forth, that conversation might go differently.

But right now measurement is just under so much pressure across the board and it often is, but it seems like a very intense time for it.

That, that's going to be a big challenge.

Well, you're skipping ahead.

I was going to ask you questions about what you're optimistic and pessimistic about.

And, and you go first.

So that's.

Give me a charter story.

You gave me, you gave me your, your big education story.

What's your, what's the, what's the charter story for you?

That.

Yeah, because I, I definitely want to get that data piece because I think it's super important.

But I, I would cat you put it in a different category for our discussion today, I think.

But before we go on to the charter specific thing, I really want to throw out another, another set of thanks to Tim Daly, because in terms of just the national story, his framing of it, of us going through an education depression, I think is as helpful an overall framing that I've seen in quite a while.

I mean, we've just talked about, hey, what's happened politically and what's, you know, what's going to be the next thing that happens from a, from a policy standpoint.

But I thought Tim just did a great job of reminding us all that from a learning standpoint, what's happening right now, the collapse in learning is, is a multigenerational phenomenon.

And the amazing thing is that there's really no discussion going on about it whatsoever.

And so I really, you know, I've been writing about it repeatedly.

I've been putting it in every other post, but I haven't heard your reaction to it.

Do you similarly find it helpful along those lines or, you know, how, how do you respond to what, what Tim wrote?

Yeah, no, I, I agree.

And actually you asked.

One of the questions you had was sort of what were.

And you essentially, at this point, we've had sort of, you know, eight years of not a great deal of leadership at the Department of Education and we can't afford to make it 12, particularly given what we know about the pandemic and the things that you're talking about and just how catastrophic this is.

And so the thing I'm, the thing I'm pessimistic and worried about is that instead of focusing on that, it's just going to be, you know, again, so the outrage du jour, the things that people are upset about, either.

Right.

You know, rightly or just things that are just political distractions.

But that, that's going to end up being, you know, a real hindrance to getting that kind of laser like focus that we need.

Yeah, I think that.

So they kind of fit together.

You were really talking about, hey, ESAs are incredibly important.

I'm talking about, hey, whether or not the Dems hold together with their NEA aligned positioning.

That's kind of the political operation in front of a backdrop.

In front of a backdrop.

And I thought Tim just did A great job of painting that backdrop and reminding us.

And so, but in terms of, like.

When I say they're important, just to be clear, because it's something like, I think they're important because of what's happening, I'm.

You can actually count me in the skeptical camp on them.

I've been doing this work long enough that I get.

I've been surprised by different choice schemes and how they play out.

And so, like a lot of the certainty of both proponents and opponents, I.

I don't know that you can be sure.

But personally, like, I have some skepticism.

I have some questions about measurement and how we're going to.

How we're going to think about that.

And, you know, and look, you know, where I work at Bellwether, we have people who think different things about them.

We have people who I would say are not even skeptical or just ardently opposed, and we have people who are very supportive.

It's just a range, you know, we have a range of folks.

But that's my.

When I say they're a big thing, though, I feel like this sector sometimes struggles with things that are happening.

We talk about them and like, whether we like them or not.

And sometimes, you know, things don't care whether you like them or not.

They are just trends.

They are things that are happening.

I think it is a.

It is a.

It's a powerful trend.

And I think in part because a lot of people don't like it, it hasn't gotten the attention that you would think a really seismic shift like what we're seeing with ESAs would be getting.

We've talked some past episodes, like these little voucher programs, like people used to act like the sky is falling, and now we've got these statewide ones passing regularly.

And for people who are sort of like, quietly, like, I don't know, pretend like it's not happening or something.

Yeah, just like the NAEP data falling off a cliff, the TIMS data that came out just a month ago.

Absolutely.

Falling off a clif.

Adult educational competencies, falling off a cliff.

These are just unprecedented things.

And in a prior context, had these developments happened, there would have been some kind of reaction.

There would have been.

Focus on it.

Let's go to this question about what's the biggest charter school story.

I have my answer here, but maybe the charter guy should answer second.

Do you have something out there that, that you think might.

No, you better go first because your yours.

Otherwise yours will just be rebutting mine because I know we don't agree.

So you Go first.

Okay.

Mary Wells said.

Mary Wells described you.

She says Jed's been charter pilled.

That's how she.

That's how she described you.

Charter pilled.

You're such a constant good advocate.

She's like Jasmine.

Charter pilled.

I like it.

All right, well, guilty as charged.

I think that the p.

The PPI study this year is the most important story for charter schools, and certainly for the year.

I think it's maybe even more important than that.

But to have now PPI come along and I analyze the 10 cities where charter schools have gotten to serve more than 30% of kids.

All 10 of them.

All 10, all boats are rising and gaps are decreasing.

Some of the cities are not that big.

You know, it's really big in Camden.

It's not that big in St.

Paul, but still, St.

Paul, Detroit, every city shows that all boats rise and gaps close.

And I think it starts to provide a real legitimacy for us to say, why are we driving for growth?

Why do we want to get to a third of kids in charter schools?

It's not because we just care about having a third of kids in charter schools.

It's because this is the place where we start to see the kind of results that we've hoped for for a very long time.

So I think this is very important.

I don't think it changes the political dynamic.

No one's paying attention to this in the political world, but we are focusing on it.

Our funders are working on it.

Those of us that are most passionate about charter schools, we see this as huge validation.

And, and that alone is.

Yeah, we talked about in the last.

In a past episode.

I think it's a good study.

I think it falls very squarely in the.

Do no harm if people say, well, if you do charter schools, the sky is going to fall.

You look across all these cities.

That's clear.

Clearly not the case.

And so it should call into question that argument.

I mean, it's.

It's not a causal study.

And there's a lot.

There's a lot going on.

But I think it's certainly to.

And this has real utility in a political conversation is if you, if, if you do this, the bad things that people say are inevitably going to happen are not like, necessarily going to happen.

And this shows this across A range of somewhat diverse context that hasn't happened.

My concern though is that political conversation.

I, I think the, the biggest story continues to be the musical chairs.

The Republicans are getting their way on private school choice and that's where the energy is going to be.

We talked about, you know, in, in Washington, I think the way a lot of legislation is going to move, there'll be more focus on things on the, on the private school choice kind of side.

Linda McMahon, by the way we didn't talk about earlier.

She, she was though a good friend of charters in Connecticut.

By, by all accounts up there and charter folks up there, good things to say about her.

But this administration's priority doesn't seem like at least out the gate it's going to be charter schools.

It's gonna be other kinds of things.

The energy in the Republican Party is these other kinds of things.

We talked about Texas and ESAs where you know, Abbott really like, you know, went hard in the election.

The governor there, Governor Greg Abbott went hard in the election there around that and he's going to probably get his way.

The Democrats, the, the, the sort of post election, whatever you want to call it, conversation, recriminations, circular, firing squad, whatever is just getting going and it remains to be seen what that's going to end up looking like.

And there's a, you know, the Democrats are not a super pro charter party right now as you, at the national level as, as you know.

And so I really do think story for charters is, is where do you get political traction and, and sort of where do you build, where do you build those alliances?

And they are really cross pressured.

I think Starley Coleman, as we've talked about, is a great pick for the alliance to help navigate that.

But boy, she is cross pressured with the, with these different things.

I just think it's a, it's a tall order and it's something the community, you know, needs to, needs to think about because you know, as anyone who's been paying attention should appreciate, politics in this country are fluid and you have to be very careful about how you, how you navigate that.

And I think charters have navigated it somewhat poorly.

They've hitched their wagon to the political party that doesn't like them and they've antagonized the one that does so in.

In terms of sweet spot versus dead zone, being in the middle between these two places.

You would characterize charter schools as more at risk of finding themselves in a dead zone and perhaps being in a sweet spot.

I'm more optimistic than that.

I would say it's tbd, but there's some big choices.

I mean, and I think this whole community has some big choices coming up about do we spend four more years doing politics or do you try to decide how can you get some wins, where you can get some wins and how do you want to relate to the various kinds of partisan politics and how do you want to relate potentially a political actor.

So you may personally, you know, not like, fine, revolting, whatever it is, but who happened to be in public office and calling the shots.

And again, it's been eight years and I think at some point people have to say we have to get this, to get back to divorcing this movement from the sort of day to day kinds of politics and have more of a North Star on sort of outcomes and what we're, what we're trying to get done.

I can give you chapter and verse where this stuff's getting in the way right now on both sides in different ways.

And I think, but for the charter community, I think it's, I think it's an important conversation and a, and a real challenge.

And I think the political alignment again is tough.

And I'm not sure everyone's played their cards well, which, you know, you know, you know, if the performance data changes, if the politics changes, could be a real problem.

Yeah, I would not be willing to categorize one or the other.

It's somewhere on this, on the spectrum here.

I guess I'm, I'm feeling a little bit more bullish that we could be more in a sweet spot than, than a dead zone than perhaps I was thinking a year ago.

And I think that's a function of encouraging data coming along from ppi, but also just the, the cracking of, of the Democratic Party.

I think we're going to see Jared Polis come out in his State of the State address in Colorado and really call for, unapologetically calling for the growth of charter schools.

I don't think we're going to see Shapiro back away from supportive school choice in Pennsylvania.

I think Gavin Newsom is going to likely try to really present himself as something genuinely neutral.

He's going to have some hard work to do to do that.

You know, I think is, is suspect.

I think we're going to see something different happen now.

And so the question for me to your point is how do we play this moment how do we play this moment?

What are we advocating for?

And, and does it resonate with this next, you know, this next chapter of Democratic work such that.

Yeah, you know, I'm a polis.

I, I mean, he polis is my kind of Democrat.

You know, he's, you know, sort of heavy on personal liberty and also heavy on making sure government works for you and, and charter schools are a piece of that.

And I, and he, I think he's done both.

You know, frankly, another state board member, which I know doesn't apparently carry much weight with you, but for the, for the rest of us, and he's a former state board member.

He was great in that role.

He was great in Congress and he's, he's definitely done a good job in the state House.

So I hope you are right.

But I think there's, there's, there's going to be a lot of, there's gonna be a lot of pressure on that.

But yeah, I mean, if there's a, if there's a path forward for the Democrats as a broad national party, I think it's, it's certainly Democrats like Polis, Shapiro, folks like that, Democrats actually have a pretty good bench for down the road.

That's something I wrote about coming out of the election.

But there's some stuff that's kind of work itself out of the system to get there.

If you look at the election results in Colorado for their ballot measure, the meta story was, hey, Kentucky, Nebraska, Colorado, we saw school choice go down handily.

But if you really focused on Colorado, where the ballot measure was specific to just whether parents should have this right for choice, rather than getting, getting specific on use of dollars outside the system, like the wording in both Nebraska and Kentucky stated, you saw that that thing almost got to 50% support in Colorado, which is pretty darn blue.

So I feel like now is the moment for Colorado advocates to come out and say, how are we going to get the volume of public school, public school choice that we want in the state of Colorado?

It seems like a mandate, but if we aren't coming out and doing something new, advocating for something new.

Yes, of course, let's grow charter schools.

Let's make sure we have better authorizing arrangements.

We have to have facilities.

All those pieces.

But also what else are we doing to push the overall system to reflect what the voters seem to suggest in Colorado is, is what they want?

Yeah, I mean, the thing that Colorado was a couple of things.

First of all, the Colorado ballots, another one of these states like your state, where I Mean like, like voting is like a part time job there in, in November.

It's just like there's so much stuff and the way it was written was kind of weird.

And I could also see somebody reading it to say well doesn't this like reaffirm existing.

It was confusing those things though.

Charters, school choice in general never does well in referendums and it tends to do well in the legislature which is counterintuitive until you think about like how people actually vote.

Like leave aside places have super majority thresholds which is just how people vote in, in, in, in referendums and so forth.

I thought it was interesting because it was confusing and nobody quite knew.

Polis didn't take a position on that one which I thought was kind of interesting.

And there was different sort of takes on out there.

I was in Colorado a couple of times this fall right before the election.

Different takes from different people on sort of how to, how to handle that.

But I do think, yeah, I mean the Democrats problem is they need to have the Republicans answer on school choices.

Anything goes.

The Democrat answer is extremely tepid and people are chomping at the bit for options.

And so anything goes is going to be tepid.

And so the Democrats have to move on this issue.

I mean you and I think strongly agree charters offer them a great place to move and do sort of ambitious structure changing public school reform without crossing that line into, into private school choice that they don't want to cross.

But they can't continue just to do nothing because that is, you know we saw that's one of the stories of this election.

Like it used to be that if the, if, if, if the Republicans were good on education and the Democrats weren't, it would sort of like it would kind of wash out because people, the Democrats had a brand on the issue and so forth.

Like the Republicans were sort of there like, like the old Ginger Rogers Fred a stair joke.

They had, they had to do it twice as good and backwards.

Well the last couple of cycles have shown that like if, if the, like the people are so frustrated coming out of the pandemic that the Republicans are sort of just the disruptors on this.

If the Democrats don't have anything on offer, the Republicans are going to do quite well just by being disruptors.

And, and that's, I think that that's basically what they, what they did and people were willing to take a, take a try on it.

And if you look at some, I mean again, I don't, I, I don't.

You can't make a Case like education was like a huge issue, but you did see certain things in the voting patterns.

And so I think you can, you can infer that people are not voting education specifically, but it's part and parcel of a set of frustrations and a willingness.

People want, you know, people want change.

And on education, Democrats right now are not the party of change, no matter how much they try to dress it up, that their agenda actually is changed.

That is not like, that is not how the average voter sees it right now.

And the data is pretty clear on that.

Yeah.

So I, I come back to just your, your positioning, which is, hey, it depends on, on what charters do or what, what reformers do.

If we keep screwing it up, if we keep screwing it up, it could very well become much more dead.

Zony.

Yeah, but I, I also just feel as though things have opened up right now.

And if we are particularly smart, the question though is, and this, you know, whatever being an old advocate, it comes down to what our advocacy is, what's our capacity, how are we going to get our message out?

And I think what we're finding is our old ways of just, hey, let's issue a report or let's have a symposium or.

It's not going to cut it anymore.

It's not going to cut it.

We have to have policy proposals that get out into the landscape that reflect what our movement is all about.

Generate some conflict and some controversy, but show us on the right side of history.

And that's how we navigate this moment.

Well, I'm just not sure we, we become very risk averse.

Oh my gosh.

Anything that's controversial, that must be bad, don't do it.

That mindset is not going to do well for us in the last half of the decade here.

Well, we've had this conversation like I think we've got, there's some people running around who just, they dislike conflict for conflict's sake and that's not constructive.

And then I think we have some people like you just described who don't want any political friction.

And just given the way education politics work and where charters are in the landscape, you're not going to get there without any friction.

I just think people need to.

You've offered some really good advice over the, over the years about like being crisp on message, be really clear what the value proposition is be very clear what the differentiators are.

I think that's all important.

And then I think, look, we've got this reactionary, like, we'll go back to Polis.

Like, you know, in my view personally, Robert Kennedy has said.

Robert Kennedy Jr.

Has said some, some stuff over the years that I, I find bananas.

But he's also said some stuff that I think a lot of people are like.

Yeah, that's right.

Like ultra processed foods, chemicals and food, things like that.

And what you immediately saw after his nomination was suddenly people who have agreed with that were suddenly now like parsing.

Yeah, that.

There was that like crazy article in the New York Times.

It was kind of like, you know, really trying to split the hairs on, on sort of food dyes and additives and cereal and so forth.

And it was just kind of ridiculous.

Like, it's like, take the w.

You don't.

Just because you agree with him on this, that doesn't mean you have to agree with them.

You don't have to agree with him on the polio vaccine.

Right.

You can like.

And I think this is going to be.

And Jared Polis to his credit said, oh yeah, Kennedy said some really good things about health that, that I, that I agree with.

I think that's going to be the same thing.

Thing that the charters are going to have to think through and you're seeing sort of play out in different ways.

Like, you got to sometimes take yes for an answer and like, you know, this one's very present for me because in Virginia we're trying to get an accountability system in place.

We don't have one.

And you know, Glenn Youngkin is trying to put in place a system.

The people who helped design it, it was Chad Alderman and Heislop, who are, you know, well known in this, in this community, are fantastic.

It's basically a playbook that like, you know, the entire, the Ed Trust, the NCLB coalition would have been like very happy with.

With updated for space on some stuff we've learned and all that, but basically that sort of approach.

But because it's Glenn Youngkin, suddenly all these people won't take yes for an answer and are coming out with every reason to be against it.

And it's, it's ridiculous.

And it's the same thing with charters.

If like, and we went through this with DeVos, like, just if Betsy DeVos being for charter schools is like Robert Kennedy wanting chemicals out of our food, like if you were for that two weeks ago, you should still be for it.

And I think that's going to be sort of the gut check moment.

We're going.

And if we become again like we were, where everybody sort of abandons their, their, their political commitments they had a month ago, we're going to be in trouble.

And instead being like, okay, yeah, if I can agree with you on this part, I disagree with you on this other stuff, whatever.

Like, that's, that, that's a more mature, sophisticated and effective politics, and that will, I think, augur well for charters if we can get there.

But it's hard to miss that.

That has been a, that has been a struggle in the, in the charter community.

Well, I love you pushing us to say that.

And it's not going to be easy.

By the way, one more thing.

I've talked a lot, but one more thing, like, if, if half of the rumors of what Trump is going to do on immigration are true, it is not going to be easy because there's going to be stuff going on that I think a lot of people find horrifying.

And so this is going to be a real, it's going to be a real complicated, difficult set of politics.

And nothing I'm saying should be like, oh, this is just easy and obvious.

It's going to be hard.

But I think it's, I think it is potentially an existential challenge.

My great fear for charters, I don't want them to be remembered.

Like, we think about past sort of alternative school movements where there's sort of relics and remnants left, but sort of the.

I don't.

That, that is, that is not what I want.

I've been watching that.

I've been forcing my poor wife to watch the comeback.

We were, we were out.

We were in Chicago.

Howard Fuller was there.

Howard, like, was rubbing our face in it because, you know, we're.

But what we were doing was setting up what would become the national alliance.

There's like, six of us out there, right?

And like, you know, big and big and, and watching it just reminded me of that because it really was kind of traumatic and not, not setting up the alliance.

That was actually.

No, but watching the, the Red Sox blow Game seven and, and, and just watching it, though, just was reminding me that.

And we had big ambitions for charters, right?

And, and I want, that's like, this was going to be structure changing for public education, a new way to do public education.

I don't want us to lose that and I don't want us to become like a marginal thing because people didn't play the politics.

Right?

And so just another sort of marginal thing in this huge system.

And you're reminding us again and again that wanting to sit with the cool kids in the cafeteria is not a political strategy for the ages, is a great one.

So keep telling us over and over and over again, right?

We've got to have something where we are fine to sit down and have, you know, maybe using RFK stuff here.

It depends on how nourishing the meal is.

And let's stay focused on that.

And if we got a good meal, other people are going to sit around us, you know, who we're going to want for the long term.

Right.

And the thing like we talked about, maybe we should revisit at some point the cool kids.

It turns out most of the country didn't think the cool kids were all that cool.

So it wasn't necessarily even a great bet.

I mean, one of the really interesting things with this election and this, obviously this stuff ebbs and flows, but like the most recent Gallup numbers, like, everybody's like, we need a third party.

And you look at that data and you would say to yourself, we sort of have one.

It's called the Democrats.

Because the Republicans there, like the Republicans are in the 30s for party ID independent.

Just saying people who say they're an independent, which we know in practice is often weak partisans, but people choose not to identify with either.

They're in the 40s and the Democrats are in the mid-20s with party ID.

And, and so just objectively, if you're charters and you're looking at that political marketplace, you've got to you, you better have something to say to people who at least identify themselves as independents or showing an inclination in that direction.

And you better have something to say to Republicans.

You can't just play to the 26, 28%.

It's not gonna.

The politics simply are not going to work for you nationally.

So let's wrap up here with what we're most concerned about and what we're most optimistic about.

Maybe let's save the optimism one for the end so we can hopefully wrap up on a.

On a good.

Well, you heard my concerns.

You've heard my concerns.

What about you?

Well, that's, I mean, I was going.

The thing that's most concerning to me is just us sunsetting virtually all data in the system and how just flying blind makes absolutely no sense.

And how do we possibly ever get out of a depression if we don't, even if we can't even measure, you know, all of the key things that, that are there.

But it looks to me as though we're not pulling back, we're accelerating down a path toward, toward flying toward going blind in public education.

All right, let's end on the optimistic ones.

All right, well, let me just start with technology or maybe I'll start and end here.

I just.

In terms of like things that we just don't pay that much attention to or it makes the news, but then what the real ripple through implications are.

I just.

The volume of learning that seems to be incrementally supported, better at this point now is just stunning to me.

And part of it is having, you know, college age kids.

You know, you gave me a hard time before.

Oh, you're.

Your college age kids are cheating with using ChatGPT.

Okay, it's, you know, it's fine.

But I mean, when I hear how folks, how the kids are using stuff right now, I mean, it's fascinating.

My, my daughter's, you know, studying for finals, she's studying with, she's challenged with genetics.

She went and she put all of the slide decks that the teacher had presented across the entire semester and just said, give me ChatGPT, my study agenda for the next two.

I have 48 hours, summarize everything for me and where would you recommend that I go in and where are some, you know, additional support materials that will help me be ready for this final?

It's just like, wow, wow.

But that's just, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Some people, the teachers, how they're using chat for teacher prep, you know, just, just, just, it's, it's just instantly taken care of.

The gifts that I'm giving to people right now around like college courses, you know, the great courses.

I mean there's so much incredible learning that you can do there for nothing or just, you know, whatever.

I'm hoping that my Christmas gift is my family giving me, you know, piano lessons.

Just from YouTube.

Just from YouTube.

I don't need any AI, but it's taken a while for like the resources to get amassed and for people to understand how to do it.

And so I just feel as though this technology revolution that we're going through, we're always talking about technology making a big difference.

And I think it's usually been more of a disappointment in the end than something that we can be excited about.

But I think there's something new happening right now where just the volume of learning that can happen in a society is just really leaping forward.

There are all sorts of risks, all that kind of stuff.

But I'm really quite blown away by some of the technology demonstrations I've seen in the last several months.

Yeah, that's great.

I've got some skepticism about aspects of it, some of the AI stuff, but also, like, yeah, I think there's.

There's enormous potential.

So that's great.

I guess mine is a little different.

Yeah.

I think this is a fundamentally a people business, and often I.

Jed, you and I, off camera, we're talking about people, people who we love and people who have done, you know, amazing work.

There's just a lot of time spent this year honoring Don Shalvey.

I mean, it is education.

One of the great things about it.

It's fundamentally a people industry.

And so my cause for optimism is.

Is not just like, I'm not.

There's lots of great people.

That's always been the case over the years, but more, you know, politics and policy kind of moves.

You know, political scientists call it sort of punctuated equilibrium, but basically waves and troughs.

Right.

And we've been in a trough for a good bit, really, since there hasn't been like, a big sort of argument about education really, since, like, race, the top, common core, that kind of thing.

Politics abhors a vacuum.

That's probably one of the reasons we've had all this culture war stuff and everything else.

And you're just starting to see small groups of people are meeting.

There's sort of convenings happening on and off the record.

People like, you're starting to see what, to me, having done this for a little bit now, are sort of some of the telltale signs that maybe there's a wave starting.

And you talked about, like, I think Tim Daly is giving voice to what a lot of people are thinking about.

I see it in feedback I get on different things that I write and like that.

Just some of the tell again, the telltale signs that people are sort of losing patience with a status quo that's just about adult politics and so forth and isn't doing much that is starting.

And so I'm optimistic that we haven't seen the last of education.

Reform, I'm with you.

I mean, I think I'm, I fault toward irrational exuberance all the time.

Right.

Even amid that though, I was really finding a lot of people that were maintaining a sense of Zen.

Yes, this is ridiculously difficult right now.

It's always been difficult.

But we're going to get through this.

I think right now we're already past, we're going to get through this.

We're on the other side of it.

And it's just, there's just a feeling of kind of oxygen in the room, which I think is a good thing.

And the thing that I most focus on right now is can this next with oxygen in room, can we come up with a theory of change or enough agreement around a theory of change that people really believe there's a reason for hope?

And that's where I think charter schools play a very, very key role.

Because when PPI happens or when the CREDO study happens, hey, you may not think that charter schools are going to be the, the panacea, but there is something that's happening within public education that is really doing some remarkably good things and there's reason for optimism.

Keep, keep going.

And so, you know, I, I, I appreciate you bringing this up because it's a feeling I certainly had of, of late as well.

Well, speaking of ppi, right after I got off with you, I'm out the door to their holiday party.

Should I keep the sweater on or should I, should I keep that?

Should I keep the holiday attire?

Should, or should I go back to, to, to, you know, business casual as they call it?

No, I think it, it's, it, it's fitting.

It's fitting.

And you know, my, my grandmother's neon green sweater, which, you know, I bring out during the holidays.

You look festival.

The Red Sox have a three night stand out there with your Sacramento A's.

And I'm extremely excited.

That little stadium, it seems like it's going to be great.

So I'm looking forward to a couple of nights on your couch watching and going to some baseball games.

Hey, I'm waiting because they haven't put the tickets on sale and I know, I mean Sacramento is not, you know, a destination location, but because of this of this upcoming baseball state season, we're gonna have a lot of people coming.

So if it's gonna be great, I'll be there.

I'm gonna be there in September.

It's gonna be, it's gonna be fantastic.

And there are, there's so many great education people in Sacramento.

Right?

Like Tyler Whitmire, he used to, I mean speaking of like good people, just fantastic.

Like there's like you guys have a, you guys have a good scene out there and it's a great, at least when the socks are there, it's a great time of year.

Good.

Well, maybe we'll be able to do one of these recordings in person one time.

But hey, have great holidays.

Fantastic.

Hey, happy holidays.

Okay, See you in January.

Bye.