Corey DeAngelis on Building Political Momentum for School Choice

Corey DeAngelis: Hey, thanks so much for having me, Kevin.

Kevin P.Chavous: So there’s so much I wanna unpack with you, but as I always do, because people who listen to the show, who watch the show always ask me, you know, how do these people get involved in education? So I always ask the question relating to background, you know, what led you to this?

Kevin P.Chavous: Because getting involved in, in education generally and getting involved specifically in, you know, educational choice, you know, school choice. You know, parent choice, education, freedom, whatever you want to call it. You know, that’s not for the faint of heart. So talk a little bit about how you got there and you came by way of, you know, public policy academics.

Talk about that journey.

Corey DeAngelis: Yeah. Actually started as a researcher. I did a PhD in education policy at the University of Arkansas. And my first study was actually with, uh, Dr. Patrick Wolf there. Yes, we looked at the Milwaukee voucher program. It started in 1990. And we followed that, that student level data from the state mandated evaluation of the program until the students were about 30 years of age.

And we looked at an outcome that nobody had really looked at before, which was. Whether the, the student was involved in the criminal justice system and we found large reductions in crime. Over time. Lo and behold, you get a better education. You get a scholarship to go to a better school, and for whatever reason, those kids were less likely to be involved in crime later on in life.

And that really kind of opened my mind to. You know, test scores aren’t everything. We should be looking at political participation. We should be looking at students’ mental health. Uh, they’re, whether they’re in an intact family later on in life, uh, are they more or less likely to get married or divorced?

And so that, that was where I started, was looking at non-academic outcomes of school choice. I’ve done over. About 40 peer reviewed, uh, journal articles on the issue of school choice mostly. And I thought I was gonna go into academia, but I started to see that the peer review process was filled more with my enemies than my peers.

I mean, there was a lot of hoops to jump through. A lot of people who disagreed with me politically. And it was very obvious in those peer review reports that were supposed to be double blind. Like I, I didn’t know who was reviewing me, but most of the time I think they knew who I was because my paper was already released publicly somewhere else.

And, um, I saw that it would be an uphill battle going into the university system. So instead I went to think tanks. I started out at the Cato Institute. I’ve been through a bunch of. Different ones. I’m currently at the American Culture Project and associated with a lot of other, more libertarian leaning, uh, think tanks as well.

And even before that, before Arkansas, I, I, uh, started this as an economist and I saw that the school system’s main problem. Was that it had a lot of monopoly power that we were assigned to schools just based on our zip code, based on where we lived. And that created no incentive for those school districts to do a better job because, you know, as a, as a parent, you, these families had no recourse, right?

If they didn’t have school choice. They were just told to just give us more money. We’ll do better next time. Or how about just to complain to the school board and, and then they’ll listen to you. Well, we saw during COVI that didn’t really work out as planned. Those families had their mics cut off.

They were labeled domestic terrorists in some cases. It was a total clown show and um, that’s why we’ve seen so much school choice advancement lately as well. And I think, uh, for myself, um, as an economist, when you have more competition, that improves the public schools as well. And so that’s kind of how I got started in all this.

I benefited from school choice myself even before that. Uh, in high school I did go to government schools or district run schools all through K through 12. But in high school I went to something called a magnet school, which I think was a good opportunity for me and other families should have those opportunities too.

And, so the money should follow the child. And it shouldn’t just be to a government run institution. You should be able to take it to a private school too. It’s your money, not the government’s money.

Let me jump in for a quick moment for a lot of students. The traditional model just isn’t the right fit.

That’s why more than 3 million families have chosen K 12 power schools, offering flexible tuition free learning options with certified teachers, and a personalized approach. That meets learners where they are. If that sounds worth exploring, you can head to k12.com/podcast. Alright, back to the conversation.

You know what’s interesting is when you talk about, um, you’re, you starting out being a researcher, obviously something resonated with you on the school choice issue. Uh, I get asked the question. That I just asked you about how I got involved. And I like to, to share with people that sometimes you can’t script out what your passion will be.

It is just you, you know it when it’s there. And for me, similar to your experience, Corey, it felt fundamentally and constitutionally wrong, that too many children in America wake up every day. They go to a school that doesn’t serve them well. Most people are okay with that. And I just was one of those people that was never okay with it.

To me, it felt like that the least we could do in this free democratic society is ensure that every child gets equal access to a high quality education irrespective of their zip code or their academic station in life, or their economic station in life. Of their parents. So what’s interesting though, and I want you to comment on this, ’cause you both you, you and I both understand the polling.

What’s interesting though is that most mainstream Americans, irrespective of the demographics, you know, religion, color, race, what do you feel the same way. And we’re starting to see it play out. Around the country. And that’s why more and more, uh, parent choice, school choice ed freedom programs are catching hold.

Corey DeAngelis: That’s right. Kevin, we’re winning so much. I’m almost getting tired of winning. Just kidding. We’re not, we’re not done yet. We gotta get the blue states to come along. We’re, we’ve made a lot of advancement in the past four years. We’ve had more advancement on school choice than in the preceding four decades.

And so we’ve had a lot of advancement. The public schools have gotten better. And we’ve seen 29 studies now, 26 of them out of those 29 have found more school choice competition leads to better outcomes in the public schools. And we’ve seen this in Florida like nowhere else where they used to be at the bottom of the pack on the nation’s report card in Florida.

Since they’ve expanded school choice, their public schools have gotten so good. They’re ranked in the top five no matter what outcome you’re looking at. According to Urban Institutes America’s grade book where they’re looking at math and reading scores, they adjust even after adjusting for differences in student demographics across states.

With an apples to apples comparison, they have improved. It’s been a rising tide that lifts all boats, and it’s not because they threw more money at the problem in Florida. They’re spending 27% less than the national average, and they’re still doing a better job. So this can be a win-win solution. For the kids, but also for the public schools too.

And I’d even say for the teachers who they’re getting the short end of the stick, the unions aren’t, aren’t representing them very well. They’re making them look bad in the public eye for being so political, uh, but they’re also not spending the money in the classroom. You look over time. Per student spending in America has increased 170% after adjusting for inflation. With us now spending about $20,000 a kid, which is about 60% higher than average private school tuition in this country, but the teachers aren’t seeing the money.

The teacher salaries have only increased in comparison. By about 3% in real terms. So this can be a win, not just for kids, not just for parents, not just for the public schools and the private schools, but for the teachers who are doing a good job, who are showing up every day to, to make their mission improving children’s education.

Kevin P.Chavous: Yeah, and it’s hard to. I disagree with much of that. In fact, I remember one of the first studies in Florida was done by Lion Hart, which showed that public schools, their test scores improved with the growth of school choice programs. it’s, there are more and more studies, as you said, shown that, uh.

The challenge is that the politics have cut in an interesting way, and, I will say that, as a Democrat, this idea of making sure that we provide a quality education for all children. Should extend beyond the party politics, but that is not necessarily the case now, you know, Corey, you and I, we agree on some things.

We disagree on others, but we do come together around this notion of making sure that our children get a fair chance and a fair shake. With their educational opportunities and in each classroom they’re in. ’cause studies also show that it only takes one bad experience with one teacher in one grade and it throws everything off.

So, I mean, I think that throughout there has to be this great, teaching experience. And learning experience for these kids. You’ve also come under fire for some of your, you know, social media, you know, blast bombastic, which look, I understand. I’ve been there. I talk to me about how you mentioned Chicago and I’m aware of statistics in Chicago and, and other cities.

How are we able to move beyond that, especially on the heels of some of these victories where the public is winning. The, the, you know, the legislation is, is more aligned to our school choice. What can we do to help bring bigger consensus around the idea of what’s possible with more school choice, which as you have said, and which I believe frankly will benefit everyone, you know, beyond.

The political fighting. What can we do to show folks in those blue states. And to help sort of give courage to those hidden legislators. Every time I speak in front of a group of Dems and I’ve spoken all over the country, 49 states, uh. Dems will come to me who are elected officials and say, I believe what you’re doing, but I can’t say that.

I mean, every time I’ve spoken in front of a group of democratic legislators. So what can we do to bridge that gap?

Corey DeAngelis: The only way things are gonna change is when these elected officials who are afraid of the teachers unions become more afraid of parents. And I think we’ve seen some of these political winds shifting.

Towards the, the, the, the way of parents. Recently if you look at polling, uh, done right before election day in November, president Trump was actually leading Kamala Harris on the issue of education, which that basically never happens. I mean, you look at Atlas Intel polling, it showed Trump beating Kamala Harris by two to three points on the issue of education.

Not a huge margin of victory on that issue, but if you look at traditionally speaking over time. Democrats have had a decades-long double digit advantage on education, and this has been such a sea change of support that you even have people like, um, the head of the Democrats for Education Reform, Jorge, who has come out and said, based on his own internal polling too, also showing.

That the vote has kind of swung towards the right on the issue of education, that Democrats should also, this is a no-brainer policy. They should support school choice too. Most of their constituents support it, and in fact, defer has also. Come out and publicly supported private school choice for the first time in a Substack article that they wrote, pretty recently.

So…

Kevin P.Chavous: And, I need to interrupt you there, Cory, because  I have some parochial interest. I, you know, I found it defer and one of the reasons why I had challenges with them was on the issue of private school choice. Yeah. So, you know, I, I have to say on, on my show, I told you so to, I told you so, and the board members of DR because you know, there’s no way you can be a little bit for education reform if you don’t embrace the idea of making sure that all educational opportunities are available for all kids. That was the biggest grade, so, sorry. I had to just do that little commercial myself. Right? That’s right. Since I started the group, they had a hard time with private school choice, which has now changed.

Corey DeAngelis: Yep.  And Kevin was right from the beginning, and so that’s right.

Thank you. I mean, I wrote about this in my book too, Kevin, that  it’s called The Parent Revolution. Yes. And in, in one of the chapters, I point out that a lot of red states are kind of expanding school choice right now. And the way that I kind of foresee the Blue States going all in as well is this kind of idea that the politicians start to say, let’s listen to the families and the parents as opposed to just the teachers unions.

And we’ve seen some of this happening in Florida, for example, when they passed Universal School Choice in 2023. 10% of their House Democrats voted for the bill. Yes, that’s right. So the more you get kind of this block of voters on the Democrat side to come out against the unions in Louisiana, when they passed Universal School Choice in 2023, 20% of their house Democrats voted for a universal school choice Bill.

The thing is, when more Democrats can coordinate and say, you know what, we’re gonna do the right thing, the less power that the teacher’s unions are gonna have. Over them because the Democrat, the, the teacher’s unions can, can primary one or two Democrats who vote for school choice if everybody else does not.

But if all the Democrats say, we’re gonna do the right thing, we’re gonna be on the right side of history here. We’re gonna allow the money to follow the child. Then the unions, their power is basically their paper TI Tigers at this point. And they’ll have to pivot to something else. Instead of trying to control kids and trap them in their schools, they’ll instead, I don’t know.

Um, focus on teacher benefits and try to improve. The working conditions of the adults as opposed to, um, uh, fighting against parental rights and education. And we’ve seen some, some high profile Democrats also kind of sway on this issue too. I’m looking at Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. In 2022, he was running for governor.

He was upping the polls by double digits in a, in a blue state that had gone to Biden the year before Josh Shapiro included in his education platform in 2022, a form of private school choice. In the next year, in 2023, he even went on Fox News saying he supported school choice. He ultimately kind of, uh, came out.

Uh, he, he ultimately. Did not get it across the finish line. And he blamed the Democrat controlled house. He said, you know that I, we gotta get this budget done. The house is controlled by Democrats. They don’t support it. So there’s nothing I can do. And I would say at this point in time, right now, he no longer has that argument.

There’s a, there’s a, there’s a program that is in his hands right now that was passed in the big beautiful bill called The Educational Choice for Children Act that is supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. And now he can no longer say that he’s, he can’t support it because of the, the house of, of, of representatives in, in Pennsylvania.

So I’m hoping there’s some bold leadership by people like Josh Shapiro to say, look, let’s reach across the aisle. Let’s give the money directly to parents and let’s do the right thing by them. And then I think that will. Inspire other Democrat governors to do the same thing. And I think that would provide kind of this, uh, uh, this momentum that we need to have school choice in all 50 states.

It’s gonna take, we need some Democrats to lead on the issue. It can’t just be the Republican states. And, and so, you know, I think that Josh Shapiro initially signaled support for school choice for a couple reasons. He might have believed it in his heart. But it also could have been a political decision.

His opponent, Doug Mastriano, the Republican, was saying, you’re a hypocrite. You sent your kid to private school. You went to private school. I support school choice. Why don’t you, Josh Shapiro, whether he believed in it or not, he was able to take that argument away from Doc Josh Shapiro, away from Doug Mastriano by saying, no, it’s in my platform.

I support it. I’m not a hypocrite on school choice. And it was a smart political maneuver. By him at the time. He might have been looking over to Virginia the year before in 2021. Uh, Terry Iff was basically the incumbent. He was up in the polls by a lot. He was the former governor of Virginia in a state that went 10 points to Biden in 2020.

Terry McAuliffe ended up losing that election when he said, quote, I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. Glenn Youngkin turned that into a campaign ad on repeat, a Republican. He ended up winning on the issue of education. That was the number two issue in that election, according to exit polling by CNN, and he won with education voters by six points in a blue state.

Corey DeAngelis: So. Glenn Youngkin kinda laid out a blueprint for success for Republicans going forward, to lean into parental rights as a political winner. But if Democrats are smart, which I think Josh Shapiro was smart and said, I’m not gonna let that happen to me. And he was able to kinda lead on school choice too.

Corey DeAngelis: So I think if Democrats wanna take away this advantage from the Republicans going forward, they should pick up the football too and say, I’m not gonna let them gain any more yards on this issue. And, and champion parental rights. This should be a bipartisan issue.

Kevin P.Chavous: Yeah, and I totally agree. In fact, even before Youngkin, the reason why DeSantis won in Florida over Gillum was because Gillum said he was going to end, the tax credit program where hundreds of thousands of kids were involved and that created such a huge gap because the majority of the kids in that program who were benefiting came from, black and brown families. And that cost Gillum the election. Let me ask you this, Corey, just a couple more questions going forward. So I think that the other benefit of school choice is, and you mentioned it, it really does help the traditional government system be more responsive to not just parents, but teachers and students, particularly as we are in the wake of this huge, innovative, digital, technological,  AI latent revolution in education.

So much of what’s going to happen in education in the world is going to truly be, uh, you know, personal learning, which we’ve talked about, has been a buzzword, but it’s for real. People are gonna learn at their own pace.  They’re gonna learn in various different learning modalities. The, the, the goal will not be, you know, measure of success in education is not just gonna have a four year degree and go to a great liberal arts college career.

Learning’s gonna take hold, certifications, people having specialty focus. Being able to not just take the cookie cutter approach through your educational journey where you take algebra in the ninth grade. Some bright kid who like math can take it in sixth or seventh grade ’cause that will help them on their learning journey and keep them engaged and excited about school.

Talk to me about how you see this vision that is inevitably gonna happen. Irrespective of the politics of the day in education, personalized learning in a new way is going to happen. So talk about how. What we’ve seen with the school choice revolution, uh, will play into that and why that is gonna be so beneficial to accelerate the new education of tomorrow.

Corey DeAngelis: Yeah. Competition spurs not just improvements, but innovation as well, and so I think it’s going to turn the entire factory model school system on its head. You look at the government-run school system today. Things have been basically the same over time. They look exactly the same, and I think it’s because it’s more of a top down approach.

It hasn’t been incentivized to change anything, and so they do the same thing they’ve always done and they get more money for doing the same thing. It’s a definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I think, uh, the way that we truly learn is student directed and student focused education.

It’s about that individual child who they have unique needs, they have unique interests, and it needs to be, uh, they need to be interested in something. They actually learn it unless, unless otherwise, they’re just going to regurgitate information on a standardized test that they memorize,  and cram the day before.

And I mean, I think back to my own experience in the public school system is I did, I was very good at memorizing stuff, so I, I did well in the system, but it, you’re not gonna remember it later on in life if you’re just regurgitating information on a Scantron. But I would, I would read books at home. I would, I would, um, learn outside of the classroom more so than inside the classroom.

And if you look at how we learn today. I mean, after we leave college, how do we learn things? We don’t have to always enroll in a course unless it’s a real specialized thing that you wanna sign up for, but even if you do, you’re interested in that one particular course and you’re gonna focus and you’re gonna retain that information.

Because, uh, you, you were the one to seek it out. But you also, you speak to your peers. You, you look for experts in the field. You watch videos, you read books about things. That’s how learning actually happens. And I think because of the school choice revolution, we’re having an educational innovation, Relu revolution as well, where we’re seeing these micro schools sprouting up everywhere.

Virtual schooling is changing in tremendous ways as well. Homeschooling is becoming more feasible, and so the, the school system’s gonna look a lot different than what it looks like today. It’s not gonna be this one size fits all behemoth system that’s gonna benefit students, obviously, if they’re getting a better education, but it’s gonna benefit.

The kids who even remain in the public schools because they’re gonna have to shape up and adapt to this, this changing environment. And I will say, the micro schools have been a, a, a big deal. And there’s one, uh, in Arizona called Preda Micro Schools, and they actually had an opposition research, uh, sheet written about them by the NEA, the largest teacher dean in the country.

And the Wall Street Journal reported on this a few years ago. It was, an article called The Teacher’s Union’s Tidy Tiny Little Enemy, and they were referring to, to Brenda, shaking up the one size fits all system so much that the unions were afraid of them. They did this political hit piece on their founder.

They circulated it internally and it was leaked to a school choice advocate, who then a little birdie tells me, sent it to the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal. And, um, so I think, uh, it’s gonna look a lot different. There’s these ideas of this, this uberification of education happening as well.

There are some apps, these third party apps that are coming out connecting educators with, uh, students, uh, kind of connecting supply and demand through a third party app. And it’s, things are just gonna look so much differently and it’s everybody’s gonna benefit in the end because of it. Um, and I think costs will, will have downward pressure on cost as well.

I mean, if you have a micro school or a virtual school. You know, um, you don’t have as much of the fixed cost associated with running these big factory model, uh, brick and mortar schools. So, um, ultimately that means more money going directly to the education of children, and I think it’s gonna be a, a, a great result.

But for some families, if you like that tradition. System. Um, I might not think it’s the best fit for my child when she, she, I have a 1-year-old, by the way, when she grows up and I’m homeschooling her already. We homeschool from the moment they’re born. They’re parents are the first and primary educators of their children.

Even if it’s not in a formal setting. But if you do like that formal setting, if you do like that, um. The kind of public school you went to when you grew up, that option’s still on the table and no school choice advocate is saying to get rid of that option, it still should be an option. It might need to tweak things to go forward.

But this is, this is how we make it a win-win solution. It’s about, it’s not about public versus private or homeschool versus factory model school. It’s about freedom of choice. It’s about individuals choosing for their own families, uh, so that the government isn’t controlling what your kids learn. So that it’s the parent choosing what their child learns and that that cuts both ways.

There are a lot of conservatives who say that the public school system’s too far left, but you can also imagine progressives who want progressive schools for their kids, and as school choice advocates, we need to be able to respect those decisions on either end of the spec spectrum for Republicans and Democrats, and even just independents who might not want any bias in the classroom at all, who just want.

The school is to focus purely on the basics.

Kevin P.Chavous: Yeah. What’s interesting, Corey, and I really appreciate you joining us. I think that, uh, believe it or not, in spite of all the ranker, uh, I think the future’s bright because I really believe. That the education system’s gonna be forced to right size itself and that parents and students are gonna win ultimately.

And that is a gratifying thought. Corey, evangelist, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate what you’re doing and your work and um, it was good to have you on what I want to know.

Corey DeAngelis: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Kevin. Good talking to you.

Kevin P.Chavous: Thanks for listening to what I Want to know. Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.

So you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education and write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using hashtag WI WT K on social media. That’s hashtag WI WT K. For more information on Stride and online education, visit stride learning.com.

I’m your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining. What I want to know.