Edchoice Chats

Our Vice President of Communications (and a lawyer in her own right) Jennifer Wagner sits down with our Vice President of Legal Affairs Leslie Hiner to introduce EdChoice's new Legal Defense and Education Center, or LDEC. Learn why we developed this new center and what type of work we'll be doing to help protect educational choice programs across America in this episode. For more information about EdChoice, visit www.edchoice.org.

Get the key findings from EdChoice’s annual survey of Americans on education issues and more, with a special focus on small town and rural families as well as new questions about the role of the federal government. The authors of our Schooling in America Survey—Paul DiPerna, Michael Shaw and Andrew D. Catt—join us in this episode to talk what's new, survey results and what's next. For the full report, visit www.edchoice.org/NationalSurvey2017

The EdChoice team is investing more than ever in tracking school choice, children’s rights and teachers’ rights in the courts. Our VP of Communications Jennifer Wagner sat down with our VP of Legal Affairs Leslie Hiner to talk about the state of legal affairs in the school choice movement right now, what’s on the horizon and the supports EdChoice will provide to school choice’s defenders. Listen now!

In this podcast, EdChoice’s Director of State Research and Policy Analysis Drew Catt chats about the effects of school choice regulations on the homogenization of schools with the report’s authors Lindsey Burke—director of the Center for Education policy for the Heritage Foundation, an EdChoice fellow and doctoral candidate at George Mason University—and Corey DeAngelis, policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, policy advisor for the Heartland Institute and a distinguished doctoral fellow and Ph.D. student in education policy at the University of Arkansas. Listen now. The full report can be found here: http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2017/09/does-regulation-induce-homogenization-an-analysis-of-three-voucher-programs-in-the-united-states.pdf

In today’s episode, Dr. Marty Lueken, EdChoice’s director of fiscal policy and analysis, chats with Dr. Michael Podgursky, professor of economics at the University of Missouri. The two break down teacher pensions—how they work, why they’ve created problems and how school choice can help. For more information about school choice in America, visit www.edchoice.org.

Our new research, Surveying the Military, is the first of its kind and methodology to delve deeper into former and current military families’ thoughts on K–12 education in America. This 2017 survey of 1,200 active-duty military servicemembers, veterans and their spouses aims to help policymakers and the public better understand this important population’s perspectives on school choice policies, the military profession and more. Co-authors of this new EdChoice report, Paul DiPerna and Lindsey Burke, joined us in the studio to share their results and possible implications for policymakers. Listen now, and remember to visit www.edchoice.org/MilitarySurvey for the full report and slide show of key findings.

Sivan Tuchman joins us to discuss her latest research, what policymakers should know and what school choice advocates should do to properly serve families of students with special needs. For more information on school choice in America, visit www.edchoice.org.

In our latest podcast, EdChoice’s Drew Catt talks with Dr. Patrick Wolf, who has researched various forms of school choice for decades. Dr. Wolf explains the results of his latest co-authored report, Charter School Funding Inequity in New York City. Listen to get a summary of the report’s findings. For more information about school choice in America, visit www.edchoice.org.

Researchers Drew Catt and Dr. Evan Rhinesmith examine the responses of Indiana school parents from all sectors to a survey—developed by EdChoice and conducted by Hanover Research—that aims to measure what motivates them to choose K–12 schools, their children’s schooling experiences, their awareness of school choice options, their satisfaction levels and goals they set for their children’s education. Get the full report at www.edchoice.org/WhyINParentsChoose

In this installment of EdChoice Chats, our President and CEO Robert Enlow talks with Director of Policy Jason Bedrick to get the details on Illinois’s new tax-credit scholarship program—the Invest in Kids Program. They first cover how the program works and who it serves. Then, they dive into the politics of passing a school choice program in such a tough state. They also discuss the program’s weaknesses and our hopes for its future, in spite of those weaknesses. For more information about school choice in America, visit https://www.edchoice.org. To learn more about the Illinois tax-credit scholarship, visit https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/programs/illinois-invest-kids-program/.

In this episode of EdChoice Chats, Jennifer Wagner, our vice president of Communications, gets together with Leslie Hiner, our vice president of Programs, to talk about political grassroots coalition building and how it can be helpful to our movement, to passing school choice programs and, ultimately, to helping children. For more information about school choice in America, visit https://www.edchoice.org.

In our latest podcast, our Vice President of Communications Jennifer Wagner joins EdChoice President and CEO Robert Enlow in a frank dialogue about issues of race and segregation in K–12 education, how school choice fits into the puzzle and whether your personal politics should matter more than your personal philosophies. Listen now! Learn more about EdChoice, the organization, at https://www.edchoice.org/.

In this installment of EdChoice Chats, our President and CEO Robert Enlow taps Arizona resident and EdChoice Director of Policy Jason Bedrick for a rundown of what’s going on in Arizona right now. Arizona has been a pioneer state in the school choice movement in many ways, and this year they expanded their education savings account (ESA) program to nearly every K–12 student. That expansion is now under threat. Listen to find out who’s behind it, why they’re attacking the program, the latest developments and what advocates of this incredible program are doing to fight back. Learn more at https://www.edchoice.org

In this episode of EdChoice Chats, Jennifer Burgess, a Georgia mother of two who's fighting for educational options for her 4- and 5-year-old sons John and Joseph, joins EdChoice Marketing Coordinator Abby Hayes, also a mother of two, to discuss—from a parent’s perspective—the strengths and weaknesses of our current public education system when it comes to serving students with special needs. Learn more at www.edchoice.org.

In this episode of EdChoice Chats, our President and CEO Robert Enlow gets candid with Director of State Engagement Michael Chartier about what went down this past legislative session with Nevada’s education savings accounts, or ESAs. Learn more about educational choice across the country at www.edchoice.org.

In this episode of EdChoice Chats, EdChoice VP of Communications Jennifer Wagner is joined by Stanton Skerjanec, a teacher in Fort Collins, Colo. who shared some of his views on educational choice, the challenges he has faced as a supporter in a family of public school educators and more. Listen now!

In this episode, our Vice President of Communications Jennifer Wagner is joined by our guest EdChoice CEO and President Robert Enlow to discuss what's going on in federal education reform policy and where EdChoice stands. Listen to learn more. Learn more about school choice and to access our library of research and data at www.edchoice.org.

Our Director of State Research and Policy Analysis Drew Catt is back with a new EdChoice Chat. In this episode, Kristen Blagg, research associate at the Urban Institute's Income and Benefits Policy Center, joined him to discuss the recent report she co-authored with Matthew Chingos: "Who Could Benefit from School Choice? Mapping Access to Public and Private Schools." Listen on to learn more about what their study found!

Our latest report—“Back to the Staffing Surge”—measures US public school employment growth versus student growth as well as teacher salary fluctuations and student outcomes over the past 65 years using publicly available data that state departments of education annually report to the U.S. Department of Education. The results were shocking. Tune into this podcast where EdChoice Director of State Research and Policy Analysis Drew Catt sat down with “Back to the Staffing Surge” author Dr. Ben Scafidi, professor and director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State University, to discuss what inspired this research, key findings and what they could mean for teachers and policymakers.

In our latest state research, the New Hampshire K–12 & School Choice Survey, EdChoice researchers and policy experts Drew Catt, Jason Bedrick and Paul DiPerna analyze the responses of a representative sample of New Hampshire voters on K–12 education issues, including school choice reforms and the current ESA bill. One of the authors of the poll report, EdChoice Director of State Research and Policy Analysis Drew Catt, sat down to discuss this new survey with long-time school choice advocate and Executive Director of Children's Scholarship Fund New Hampshire Kate Baker. Listen to the interview to learn more key takeaways and what they mean for school choice advocates on the ground in New Hampshire.