“A system that prioritizes a kid’s address over his aspirations… it’s not one I aspire to.”

– Derrell Bradford

This powerful conversation explores how the education landscape is rapidly evolving, from traditional public schools to innovative hybrid models. Derrell Bradford, president of 50CAN, shares groundbreaking insights from their 20,000-family survey and discusses why the future of education isn’t about choosing between public or private – it’s about reimagining the entire system.

Learn:

• Why school choice is gaining momentum across diverse political environments
• The surprising truth about how families from different income levels make education decisions
• How “bundle plus” vs “half bundle” education models are reshaping learning options
• Why teacher satisfaction increases in markets with more educational freedom
• What 20,000 families revealed about the real state of educational opportunity in America
• How ESAs (Education Savings Accounts) are revolutionizing school finance

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Open Ed Podcast

00:25 Meet Darrell Bradford: Education Advocate

00:58 The Role of 50CAN in Education Reform

03:50 Personal Anecdotes and School Choice

06:52 The Emotional Impact of School Lotteries

10:35 Market Forces in Education

15:00 Innovative Education Models and Teacher Opportunities

22:14 State of Educational Opportunity in America

22:30 Introduction to the Project

23:39 Survey Methodology and Execution

24:33 Key Findings from the Survey

26:29 Parental Involvement and Satisfaction

28:36 Challenges and Barriers in Education

33:45 School Choice and Education Systems

40:17 The Role of the Department of Education

44:05 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Introduction to the Open Ed Podcast

Derrell Bradford: a system that prioritizes a kid’s address over his aspirations. It’s not one I aspire to. The whole, idea that we have a school that is desirable and we’re going to put a line around it.

That sets up a winners and losers paradigm kind of right away.

You,

Isaac: Welcome back to the open ed podcast.

Meet Darrell Bradford: Education Advocate

Isaac: Really excited today to have Darrell Bradford on the show.

Uh, Grant from our team said, Isaac, you gotta talk to Darrell. He’s doing a ton of cool stuff. So Darrell is the president of 50 can, which is, um, education advocacy organization. And Darrell has a ton of experience with charter schools, a lot of different forms of I would say school choice for lack of a better term.

I don’t know how you label yourself, but I’m going to give you a second. Give us like a quick intro to yourself and your work.

Derrell Bradford: Yeah. Uh, so Isaac, thank you very much for, uh, for having me.

The Role of 50CAN in Education Reform

Derrell Bradford: Um, so 50 can [00:01:00] is, uh, we’re a national organization and we support 10 local leaders across the country who are lobbying, advocating, doing elections, a whole bunch of other stuff to try to improve education in their states. Um, the states are an interesting mix.

Uh, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, North Carolina. Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Hawaii.

Isaac: That is a very interesting mix in terms of like the political environments you’re probably dealing with there.

Derrell Bradford: well, and we, we think that’s a feature of the model, not a defect. Um, and, uh, and one of the things that we work, uh, really hard to do other than working across the aisle to, uh, uh, you know, implement solutions that are best for kids, Is, um, sharing ideas that we get, you know, in, in one state and, uh, uh, in another state.

And so, um, I’ve been here for a long time at this point. I used to run our New York campaign. I live in, uh, [00:02:00] New Jersey. So I know sort of a lot about, um, this region and I work on all kinds of school choice, um, A very strong charter school supporter. I’ve worked on, uh, tax credit scholarships and vouchers and, uh, and I’m, I’m very excited about the growth of ESAs and care a lot about open enrollment and a whole bunch of those, uh, those other things.

Um, and I’m happy to discuss them with you today.

Isaac: I love it. I love it. We talked about the feature of working in all these different political environments. One of the things that’s so cool about working in education and, and opening up education Is yes, you have various institutional interests that are at war with each other. You might have teachers unions over here or, uh, ESA administrators over here or private schools over here, or you get these various things and they, they compete and they fight.

But parents across all political beliefs, they all just want as many quality options as they can get for their kids. Like nobody wants fewer options. and less [00:03:00] freedom for their child in form of creating an educational experience.

Derrell Bradford: yeah, man, you ain’t wrong. Uh, I was just, I was just doing a thing the other day and we were kind of, um, uh, we were talking, we were talking about this and, um, You know, like Spencer Cox and, uh, I can’t remember, Helen Ayotte, I think is what her name is. Uh, she’s the new senator, uh, new governor, and New Hampshire, uh, a few other folks and then thinking about, you know, last cycle, there’s somebody sort of offered.

Hey, like, uh, it really looks like, you know, kind of red state governors is popular with these things. And that’s what your blue state governors. I was like, well, you know, like, the politics of that might look that way. But when you ask the people, it’s very popular regardless of what their world views are, whatever, like, they care about the kids and want the best opportunities for

Personal Anecdotes and School Choice

Isaac: mentioned to me, uh, a little, a bit of a personal anecdote about open enrollment, maybe part of what got you so passionate about it yourself. He said that when you were [00:04:00] young, you had to put, um, one of your relatives address so that you could go to school in a different district. Is that, is this a true story?

Am I telling something I shouldn’t be?

Derrell Bradford: It’s very close. It’s very close to the truth. So, so, um, I just, I hadn’t, um, reflected on it. You know, there’s things that happen to you when you’re young and then like later on you get a job working in education policy and you realize that they were about. Education policy, but I grew up in Southwest Baltimore and I was, um, zoned to a middle school.

It’s called Harlem Park, which I, for those who, who are TFA people, it is the school that Michelle Reed did her, um, her TFA core stint at many years later. Um, and that is in the, you know, the same town Winchester section of Baltimore where I was growing up and my mother did not want me to go there. And so, uh, she didn’t think it was going to be the best fit for me.

And so my mother and my grandmother one day were having this conversation about whose address [00:05:00] we might use so that I could go to Mount Royal, which is in the Bolton Hill section of, uh, of, uh, Baltimore, uh, close to the Maryland Institute College of Arts. Um, and, uh, now I’m like, that was highly illegal.

This is a deeply, deeply subversive conversation going on there. And it’s, you know, it’s a conversation that kind of sadly, like, lots of Americans had. Like, not just, you know, Not just my black, low income family trying to get the best education for me. You know, this is pervasive, uh, at lots of different, you know, income levels.

Um, and I had this kind of quip about it, you know, there’s four ways that like most people are experiencing school choice in America, you, you know, you’re lucky, um, as I ultimately was, I got a scholarship to an independent, independent all boys day school, which was. Incredibly formative and important to me.

And I’m like really grateful for that. And it powers a lot of what I [00:06:00] do. Um, so you’re lucky, you know, you’re connected, right? So, you know, the right people, you get the hookup, you know, like, uh, I remember when Joel Klein took over the New York city public schools, he said the first office he closed down was the one that used to place politically connected people in public schools.

So that was the first one we got rid of. Um, So you’re lucky, you’re connected, you’re rich, in which case none of this matters. You buy the right house, you get exclusive school assignment, or you pay tuition. Um, or you lie, which is the way most people, you know, uh, engage in this. Again, at like, all income levels, all races of people, in all kind of places.

And, uh, a system that prioritizes a kid’s address over his aspirations. It’s not one I aspire to. It’s going to

The Emotional Impact of School Lotteries

Isaac: Man, you know, it’s, it’s amazing. You can have these debates in like an ivory tower vacuum. I remember back in the day I grew up in Michigan and I [00:07:00] was homeschooled, so it didn’t directly impact me, but charter schools were just coming on the scene. And there’s these huge debates. You know, the public school institutions were saying, oh, this is terrible.

This is bad. Public schools are great. They’re going to steal funds from public schools and charter schools are saying no. But then when they finally authorized the first few and they had a lottery system for people to get in, I remember seeing the people sitting there in that room when they announced who got in and people breaking down in tears.

About getting in or not getting in this meant so much to him. And I’m like, once you see that and you feel that you recognize, okay, there’s clearly something wrong here. If people feel that much emotion about trying to get out of the school district that they’re in trying to get in. They didn’t even know yet.

If this charter school was going to be a better experience, they just wanted an option. You know,

Derrell Bradford: Yeah. You, you, uh, you’re sort of two things you get on onto here that are super important and a friend of mine, he did a movie [00:08:00] back in, back in the way back called the cartel, um, which is like, you know, kind of peak, peak education fight in New Jersey. Uh, and, uh, he covered a charter school lottery at an extraordinary charter school here in the city of Newark called Northstar.

Um, and. It is devastating to watch, right? Because, um, everyone knows what, what is at stake. I mean, this is a school that, that already does exist. It has like an outrageous track record and the joy and the sadness, like it’s really kind of, um, uh, painful. And so, uh, on the one hand, it’s like, there’s that right.

On the other hand, like we have this relationship with the education that’s right for you. Because our education systems are built on scarcity, not abundance. So the whole, um, idea that we have a lot, we have a school that is desirable and we’re going to put a [00:09:00] line around it. And only certain people get to go to it and other people can’t go to it.

Right. That like that sets up a winners and losers paradigm kind of right away. You, you, you can look again, I’m in the Northeast, you know, in New York city, the most attractive high schools that aren’t charter schools are, are, uh, magnet schools run by the city. They’re extraordinarily good schools. They are all test in.

And so there’s like a real, you know, fight every year. Like it’s very high stakes to get into Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, uh, uh, Hunter High, you know, like a couple of, a couple of other ones and no one ever says like, Why don’t we just double the size of the school? With this, there’s no reason why we can’t have a second campus of Stuyvesant.

Instead, the discussion is always, [00:10:00] I’m, you know, I’m upset, frustrated about what the, like, who gets in. So instead I need to figure out what is fair, which is the position that most elected state and that’s the position of scarcity, you know, it’s like we shouldn’t be rationing opportunity in this way when we know that we can, you know, make schools learning opportunities in school out of school support other modes homeschool all these other things.

To help kids become the best version of themselves. I mean, it’s just, it’s not, it’s not that hard. Parents have done the work already.

Isaac: yeah, I love that.

Market Forces in Education

Isaac: And if you allow, you know, If you allow those market forces to work, they will work. Like there are char, there are plenty of charter schools that are under their, under their cap because they’re obviously not attractive to enough people. It’s not like you would just suddenly. Have one school that every single student attends and every other school, like, because then that school would lose quality.

So the ability to shift and move and grow and to remove those [00:11:00] restrictions that. Okay. So this kind of transitions me to a, um, I saw something. I think it was something that maybe you tweeted or your organization tweeted about a public school. I think in Arizona. Doing some sort of a la carte offerings.

And, and this was really interesting to me because one criticism of public schools that I’ve never liked is, Oh, this is a bad class or it’s low quality or it’s not very good, or the teachers are paid too much or paid too little. I think those don’t really make sense. Absent a market you’re as long as you’re just like, everyone’s forced to go.

It’s going to be, you’re kind of guessing. And once you start to open up when people who criticize public schools, I’m like, look. I don’t know if this is a good or bad school. There’s probably certainly there are good teachers within that school. There are good things. There are good classes happening within that school.

And there are some that are bad. But if you start to open it up and treat it like you would other consumer goods, when it comes to food, we go to the grocery store and it’s like, Nobody says grocery stores are [00:12:00] bad. They might dislike certain products, right? But like you have this ability to go in and you buy the things you want.

If you only like organic stuff. Great. And so the idea of a public school saying, Hey, we’re going to put prices and create a menu and we’re going to offer a la carte options. Because parents ultimately don’t care if they’re, if they’re labeled homeschool, a private school, public school, they care about what the experience is.

And if you can go take two classes that are really good from your local public school, and then go online for two classes and then do a homeschool co op. Like I love that opening up. So I love your, if I’m correct in that tweet of what’s happening, I’d love your take on that.

Derrell Bradford: you talked about a couple of things that I think are like super important.

One is that particularly with regard to teachers. So, uh, and teacher pay, let’s say that’s a really good thing. I, I would argue that the challenge with teacher pay is that it’s not subjected to a market right [00:13:00] now. Um, and that’s a bad thing for teachers. So, you know, when we, and, uh, and you know, when people are like, well, teachers are big more, I’m like, okay, great.

I’m totally on board with this. But I don’t negotiate teacher, teacher contracts, right? School boards and collective bargaining. And so like, I’m not that guy, right? You need to do, there’s a different person you need to talk to. But if the, if we move from an environment where there’s basically one large single employer, Um, to one where there’s more optionality, well, then we’re having very different conversations.

So, so I think that, uh, like the market opportunity that a lot of this, uh, Opening of education, um, uh, provides to improve teacher compensation, teacher choice, right? All of the teacher matching is, uh, is super, super important. So I just want to put that out there. That’s the first thing. The second thing is just that like people, some people argue [00:14:00] that like, we shouldn’t have market forces in education, right?

Because education is not a consumer good. And I, and I’m always like, that’s. Totally incorrect because we actually do have a market for education already. It’s called the housing market. So it’s like what it is is an unfair market, right? It is one that not everybody has the capital to participate in. And so the benefits are sequestered, right?

They’re, they’re, they’re, um, uh, acutely derived by, by a few people who can afford to play it at the highest level and who are most aware of the fact that it is a market. Right, so, or that it costs things or that it’s not exactly free, right? Like, there’s some people like public schools are free properties, all these, all these other things, you know, so that very much changes the relationship that people have with, um, with the market that public schools existence.

So that’s my 2nd thing. The 3rd thing, which is a super important thing, and I’m glad you raised it. So. [00:15:00]

Innovative Education Models and Teacher Opportunities

Derrell Bradford: I’m very supportive of public schools. Like, like I want this, you know, radical new world. It’s all open and everything else, but I totally affirm the public school’s role in that world. Some people are still going to want to choose their neighborhood school and that’s fine.

At the same time, I think that if you’re a, if you’re in Arizona, where now their families who have ESAs and all kinds of other things, you need, you want to be at the table Helping them put together the thing that works for them, right? And so this and I think that’s an important thing for charter schools to like they, you know, uh, yeah, I might want to homeschool, but I don’t want to build a physics lab.

On to the, uh, out of my house, you know, like, I think we saw this initially with, you know, Tim Tebow laws back in the day, which is like, yeah, like I might want to home educate my kid or do something else. Um, but I, I want to play lacrosse at the local school. Right. I don’t want to, I don’t want to have to moan out of, you

Isaac: you, you can’t, you can’t deny, you [00:16:00] cannot. It’s hard to compete with the Friday night lights. That’s a real thing. And it’s, um, it’s an amazing thing to be a part of.

Derrell Bradford: it’s a social thing and I’m, I’m happy to have, uh, Kids and schools and communities, you know, uh, come together in that way. And I just say all that to say that I feel like, and COVID kind of kicked it up. Like I, I know a lot of, um, a lot of what we’re talking about now sort of pre existed and like the proto.

Like most people weren’t really aware of it pre pandemic and then like post pandemic, lots of people sort of think, Oh, there’s all this, like, there’s a different way to put it together. I would just say that, like, along with the change in modality, right? Well, like, we’re, you know, I can get, um, something from my district here.

I can homeschool here. I can get a tutor here or whatever. There’s also a change in the way people think about assembling education, and I have this little, like, mnemonic on it, so you can get, um, uh, the bundle. And the bundle is what most people normally get, right? So you, [00:17:00] you buy it and you normally get it with your house, right?

So it’s a seat in a school and the whole thing is wrapped up. And some people like the book, you know, you can get what I call bundle plus, which is how the real ballers do it. Right. So that is, you get the best bummer you can, and you go all in on all of the other things to help make a kid the best version of themselves.

sports trips, enrichment, volunteering, scouting, whatever, all of that stuff, which normally cut, which, which costs money, obviously. And, um, there’s a lot of. There are a lot of studies on the fact that it’s not that poor people don’t spend money on these things. They just don’t spend as much as, as rich people do.

So that’s the second thing. Um, then you can get what I call the half bundle, which I think is a lot of what we’re talking about, which is that, you know, like I want to predominantly organize my kids education myself, but I want other things from somebody else, right. Or, or, or vice versa, uh, which is, you know, sort of like growing and maybe the [00:18:00] best of both worlds.

And then you can just go your own way, right? You can homeschool, you just put it together yourself. You hire your own teacher. You intend people get a teacher and do it that way. And the change in the way people consume school is as important as how the change in delivery is happening.

Isaac: yes. Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s almost like a, it’s almost like a bell curve, you know, where it’s like most people lumped in the middle kind of take the basic bundle on one far extreme. There’s bundle plus on one far extreme. There’s people who reject the bundle entirely, and that bell curve is kind of flattening out and you’re getting a much more even distribution and, and it’s interesting too, there’s a lot of, um. You’re seeing more customization throughout the life of a child where, um, at the younger ages, they’re more unschooled, a little homeschooling. And then you start to add. Layers to the bundle as they get older. Now they’re doing two days a week [00:19:00] activities. Now three, by the time they get their driver’s license, they’re doing everything.

And they, and that’s a very common pattern with homeschoolers. They get to that teen years, they want to start to go to school. They want to do more stuff. They want to be around. And you kind of like, and I think there’s, there’s kind of a really interesting natural pattern there. A lot of kids, it’s different for each kid, but really young kids.

They might need more time to not be just immediately fully into that and to kind of be able to. And I just, I love seeing the way that these are, these things are breaking down. Even, even on the teacher side, I think a lot of people who are teaching in the system might feel scared when they look at some of these changes, declining enrollment and, and like what’s happening, school choice stuff.

But I always, when I meet people who are teaching, I’m like, don’t underestimate The market value of the skill you have as a teacher. And it’s been cool to see some teachers say, wait a second. If I could go run a micro school for like 10 kids and they pay six grand each. I make 60 grand and I, and I do what I do [00:20:00] at how I want to do it.

And I can even do it three days a week or four, you know?

Derrell Bradford: and I do it in a way that I, that I love because I’m, I’m leading it. See, you raised this really interesting point. I hadn’t really thought about saying it this way before, but, you know, yes. Uh, enrollment traditional districts is down across the country, but there aren’t fewer kids right now. Right? So, like, and yeah, like, the birth rate conversation is actually important conversation.

But from 2 years ago to now, there’s still basically the same amount of kids. So you look at a place like Florida where this is going on all the time. And the sort of market for teachers, it’s just much more flexible people going in inside in in system out of system. They’re starting their own micro schools.

They’re, they’re, you know, they’re, um, uh, they’re starting charters, charter school folks who are leaving to do their own thing. Um, and all of this has had profound effects on pay and, and, uh, satisfaction, you know, like the, I was talking to somebody, uh, about how. [00:21:00] You know, like choosing a school is about like matching three things.

Let me see if I can get the three things together, right? It’s the, it’s the mission and values of the school, right? It’s the, um, uh, sort of hopes and dreams of the parent and the aspirations of the child, right? Like all together, you gotta line it all up and that works for teachers too. You know, and sometimes like, you know, As your address, it’s not the best way to figure out what human potential, uh, the, like getting assigned to school X because it has a vacancy and class Y because you are the youngest person doesn’t mean you’re going to have the best experience as a potential educator.

And people, people always wonder why there’s all this turnover in the first five years of, uh, of, uh, teacher of the teaching profession. And it’s because you routinely give [00:22:00] the least prepared people, the newest people, the hardest jobs with the least support. And anybody who can do anything else goes and does something else.

The challenge was there used to be nothing else to do that was actually an education. And now there’s a lot more too.

State of Educational Opportunity in America

Isaac: So I know you guys had a study that you put out recently. Um, I think it was the state of educational opportunity in America.

Derrell Bradford: Yep.

Isaac: I would love, like, give me a quick rundown of the study. And what do you think are some of the most intriguing findings?

Derrell Bradford: Yeah.

Introduction to the Project

Derrell Bradford: So, um, this thing was a nightmare to do and I’m pretty, I’m pretty pumped. It wasn’t, it wasn’t my direct project. Um, although my, my team did all the design and stuff with it. So, so we, um, you know, we’re a multi issue organization and we kind of, we have like a vision. This basically like the five things we think a family, like a kid should be able to have.

Right. So, um, we had the education is right for you. That’s our school choice. Pillar school finance pillar. We had a [00:23:00] tutoring and care for all things. We think tutoring is about a powerful lever, but that’s also where the people are. And that certainly mental health is a real issue after the pandemic, right?

Um, we have an open and connected learning pillar because we think you should, we should reward learning no matter where it happens. Um, we have a pillar that we call a parent’s right, right to know, which is about information and transparency. And then college and career. And so we were trying to figure out a way to define success under that umbrella.

That wasn’t just that we lobbied successfully and passed a new policy.

Survey Methodology and Execution

Derrell Bradford: And we kicked around a bunch of stuff and we decided to do a survey instead. And so we surveyed 20, 000 American families.

Isaac: That’s a big survey.

Derrell Bradford: It is. It is. It’s huge. Um, I mean, like we went, sorry, it’s awesome. Edge research. Actually, they did the phone calls and every and everything like that.

We didn’t have the staff 50 [00:24:00] can call 20, 000 families. Um, and since the sample so large, you got all kinds of, uh, information about from all kinds of different demographics of families, like something you never see that the sample size was so large. And we basically mapped all of the questions. Against our little rubric.

And so we got kind of like school satisfaction, uh, out of school and tutoring, uh, information and engagement, uh, college and career readiness and kind of student wellness.

Key Findings from the Survey

Derrell Bradford: And so, uh, I would just say that, like, let me give you some of the top line, uh, uh, findings out of it. So, um, what we found is that sort of like, in a lot of respects is about, uh, the surveys about inequality.

Um, but our approach to this is that everybody should have what the people who are really balling out have, um, other people take the opposite approach. They’re like, the people are really balling out. Those guys are getting too much. We need to [00:25:00] take something from that. We’re not we’re going the other way.

Right? So, um, so, uh, what we found is that, like, rich families and sort of, like, the best students, like a students or whatever, they are getting the most in school and the most out of school. Right? So they’re going to museums, they’re going on trips, they’re volunteering, they’re doing all these other things.

And in school, they’re getting sort of the best thing they can get. And as you track income, you find that like, um, uh, kids with less Household incomes do less of those things. So it’s, it’s pretty, um, sort of extraordinary. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that there’s unmet demand for all of it.

So the gap between people who say, Hey, I’d really like that. And people who are getting it is huge at all income levels, right? So there’s a, um, if you’re in advocacy world, you might say there’s a huge constituency. That is interested in these things that doesn’t have them available. And so that’s [00:26:00] the second thing.

Um, the third one is that this is not just a story about like, uh, high income people and low income people, middle income people are getting squeezed to death to. Because the financial pressures are are broadly felt, right? So they’re, um, uh, you know, not just, uh, free and reduced lunch, whatever, but like, well up into what people would consider middle income families is still saying, I want these things and can’t afford it.

So that’s the other thing.

Parental Involvement and Satisfaction

Derrell Bradford: Uh, the fourth thing is that there are why there are large differences in school type by, uh, sorry, in school satisfaction by school type. And you could read that in another way. The more a parent is aware that they chose a school or the more they’re invested in it, be it financially or sort of, uh, uh, uh, from a, like a vision mission standpoint, the higher their satisfaction is.

So that, uh, so that’s one, um, [00:27:00] uh, transitions matter a great deal. So like one of the slides is about mental health. It’s like super important. The. The drops in student mental health are precipitous in fourth grade and ninth grade. So if we’re thinking about like the best way to, to, you know, help students or, or when to intervene, that might be, those might be the kind of best times to do it.

And then the, the last kind of big finding, and there are tons of other ones, like the survey is huge and you can download it, load it. Our state, we did it for all 50 states. You can get state breakout or the whole thing at 50can. org. We have this like, we have, we got graphs. Fancy, you know, drawings, what we call the beach ball, which you’ll figure out when you get there.

Um, but the last one is really that, um, how parents receive and use information is very different across income and actually counterintuitive. So lower income families, they trust grades and the teacher. [00:28:00] Higher income families trust themselves and their friends. So high income families say. If I think this assignment is hard, it must be hard.

And then they use their social networks. Um, lower income families are institutionally trusting. Right. So they’re like, I, you know, I want to know what the school says, whatever, which is, which turns on its head. A lot of what people think about how long can people get their information, right? They would think that, well, you just talking to your friends about what this is.

It’s like, I, which was, uh, which is very important. So there are, um, lots of interesting things in there.

Challenges and Barriers in Education

Derrell Bradford: Like we asked families. What are the 2 biggest barriers? To, uh, having your kid do more enrichment, whatever transportation of money over and over and over and over and over again, we asked them if you had to choose between like, you know, 10 things that you think would go, um, would you, um, would provide the greatest benefit for your kid?

You know, what would they [00:29:00] be? The number 1, 1 is sports. Um, Tutoring is, uh, widely spread in the South and the Southeast. Like there are more kids that are getting tutoring there than, um, than, uh, than elsewhere. And there’s huge, there’s sort of a huge asymmetry in tutoring. Like, uh, B and C students get it the most, but D and F students want it the most.

Right. So, so things like that, um, the Northeast is all in on camp and summer. Okay. That kind of thing. Um, and states that have like, uh, sort of a lot of choice and I’ll count D. C. as a state in this too. I know, I know that’s aspirational for D. C., but, uh, but you know, like D. C., Arizona, Indiana, uh, Florida, you know, they, um, they do pretty well on school satisfaction and information, um, because like, you know, they’re in environments that are more sort of market friendly.

So now [00:30:00] everybody can do better, like, even, even our best states have like a huge, um, uh, gap between where they are and what we would consider, like, really knocking out of the park. But, um, but it was, it was fun survey to do, and I encourage anybody who wants to dig into that. The data to go ahead and download it

Isaac: I love that finding you mentioned about, um, I guess like agency or participation when parents feel that they have had. Some role to play in shaping or choosing the education. And it’s such a, that’s just a great takeaway. If you are an educator to whatever extent possible, allowing parents to feel more agency, that they’re not just being given something.

I, it reminded me of, um, Kind of a principle of design. I’ve, I’ve hired many, uh, you know, freelance designers over the years to whatever, do a company logo or something. And a good one, they’ll go through their process. They won’t just ask you what they want and then come back and say, here it is. I made it for you.

They’ll ask you [00:31:00] way more questions than they probably actually need. And then they’ll come to you and say, okay, here’s a bunch of concepts. Tell me how you feel about these. And then, and some of them might already know what they’re going to design in the end, but instead of just giving it to you, in which case you’re going to say, well, I don’t know if I like it, but if they involve you in every step in the process, you feel so much more invested in like, okay, now I understand why it looks this way.

And I had a voice. I had to say, I think that’s just a really powerful. I mean, you, you don’t meet people very often who are like, Oh, I, I hate my church because people choose churches, right? And they choose to participate. They have agency there, but you might meet people who are like, I hate the local school district if they don’t feel that they’re, you know, a

Derrell Bradford: involved

Isaac: that’s,

Derrell Bradford: Yeah, and I think you’ve actually sort of touched on on something else. It’s kind of really important in that. So that, uh, you know, at 50 can, like, in a lot of respects, we are, are and have been sort of traditional accountability people, right? Like we think [00:32:00] assessments have like a real important role to play, highlighting gaps and a whole bunch of other stuff.

But, um, you regulate, you know, sort of like a market and a monopoly differently. And one of the things that we’re talking about now in a more constructive way is like, how do you engage with a family with a, with a child, with a parent in a way that is nuanced enough to tease out what their actual vision of success is.

And I can remember back, back in the day, back in the way that, uh, I had a designer who was working for me and I was like, Oh, We were talking about redesigning a website and he was like, what do you want it to be? And I remember I said, I want it to be like, I want it to look like milk on slate. That was the thing, because I was, I wanted to sort of like a cool grayish thing, but it was really, and, and I, I always say that to say that some of the intangibles are really hard to describe, right?

Like some of the [00:33:00] pieces of sort of human potential, like really hard to nail down. And it takes like a more holistic process to think about, okay, how do I make sure that we’re hitting on this thing? And that is, you know, Maybe a more, uh, nuanced companion take on, you know, our parents right to know principle about transparency that is very front and center in this big discussion

Isaac: Yeah, that, that give and take is so, is so key and having thousands of experiments because it’s not like, Oh, well, parents should get to decide what the education looks like because if they don’t always know what they want, they’d always know how to describe it, but it’s also not, well, let’s just create a forum and shove it down their throats.

There has to be a dance, a give and take in a, in a process.

School Choice and Education Systems

Isaac: So I want to ask you, um, a question. I don’t, I don’t know. I can’t verify these statistics. This is something that I heard recently from someone. If you look at all of the different types of choice programs available across all of [00:34:00] the states, there are virtual schools, charters, part time enrichment programs, ESAs, uh, some special education specific ESAs, there’s vouchers chart, there’s all these different things.

The uptake on those Is surprisingly low from my understanding. If you took all the people that qualify for these various programs, and then you look at what percentage are actually being used, what do you think that gap is? There’s this clear demand for more options and more choice, but the types of programs that are currently offered don’t always, some of them do, some of the ESAs have huge wait lists, but they don’t always have the uptake you might expect.

Derrell Bradford: Yeah. So, so this, this is, um, I mean, we sort of alluded to it, uh, uh, earlier. So the natural state of the American public education system is a monosystem. Um, and there are 13, 000 plus. You know, school districts that are all sort of like highly regulated, very top [00:35:00] down. And, um, and, you know, you’re sort of fighting to get what you want out of it.

Right. And that system works for tons of kids. The tons of kids it doesn’t work for, but that, you know, whatever. But that approach has been the American approach for a very, very, very long time. And the, what is it like 1999? I think, you know, the first was in 1990. God, I’m getting old. Yeah. Um, you know, the first voucher program in Milwaukee is passed, right?

And so that is highly structured and highly constrained as a program. It’s only low income. It’s only Milwaukee. It was, it was, uh, um, uh, you know, they fought like hell to keep it from, from even happening or, or whatever. And, uh, and then I think it was 10, 000 kids in that program. And it was 10, 000 kids for like, 20 years or something like that.

I’m being, I can’t remember exactly 20 years before a very long time before they expanded the program to like Racine. And I think like another place, right. Um, you know, you think about charter schools, [00:36:00] right. Take, uh, Massachusetts, you know, I don’t know how many kids in Boston, uh, you know, predominantly are in charter schools.

Um, although I know the charter schools in Boston are very high quality, but. Like eight or nine years ago, maybe it’s 10 years again. I’m getting old. It’s all like, it’s all fading in the background. You know, the, they try to, they had a statewide referendum that was going to increase the amount of charter schools, um, like nominally, and it went down two to one because again, like the, so over the last five years, the, the net increase of students in charter schools in Massachusetts is 23.

Right, 2, 3, like not 230, not 20, 23, right in New York City, we have a charter cap in New York City that we did. So all of the new enrollment that happens now is, is only in existing schools. [00:37:00] There will be no more charter charter schools here. And so 1 of the things I think it’s really, um. Important when thinking about the share of kids who are in these programs is that they were designed over time to have very small footprints, like, even letting them exist was a huge concession.

And so you had to constrain the concession and we lived like that for 25 years. And then West Virginia, Arizona, uh, you know, uh, Iowa, Arkansas, uh, maybe Texas next year, Florida converts as programs, you know, and then you have 12 or 13 states that have said, hey, we’re going to take the lid off of charter school growth.

And we’re going to have this other thing called essays. Right? And so the. The way that we think about growth now, I think will be very different than those first kind of, uh, 20 years. Now, all of all of that said, [00:38:00] like, people like the bundle and that’s fine. Right? And so if you are in the bundle business. I think there’s basically nothing to worry about unless you don’t want to compete or unless you don’t want to change or unless you don’t want to be a part of the, the unbundled market, as we kind of talked about earlier.

And that’s the evidence I think we were going to see over the next like five years, but one quick thing on this though, which I think is super important. And I maybe for your listeners, particularly ESAs of which I am a supporter, um, and ESA is not. A mode of education. It is a revolution in school finance that enables other kinds of education to come into existence.

And so I, it’s, you know, it’s not a voucher, right? Like a voucher gets you a seat. That’s a kind of thing. Like an ESA gets you possibility, which could include a seat, but it’s not limited to that.

Isaac: Yeah. And, and ESA allows the possibility of an ecosystem [00:39:00] to emerge around because, because it’s a different funding mechanism. So all of these different ways to actually deliver an educational experience are able to, to blossom under that mechanism, but it still requires that, that ecosystem, and it’s been interesting for me.

I still think there is. Some really big information asymmetries, because when you’re dealing in the realm of like policy and nonprofit advocacy groups, they are fundamentally, they’re about changing laws and regulations. And so when, once they get that accomplished, they’re like, cool, mission accomplished, they’re not, they’re not marketers and they’re not consumer marketers.

And so you’ll often find these laws have been passed. It takes a long time for people. I live in Florida now I was living here for almost a year and we homeschool our children. Before I even knew that there was an ESA in

Derrell Bradford: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac: it’s like the biggest one in any state. And I, and I’m like into the education space.

And so, um, it’s just one of those things where I think there’s [00:40:00] still, it’s still young and there’s still a lot of unknowns around, like. What does it look like? And because the policies may or may not change, there’s a little hesitancy for, you know, vendors, for example, to bank their whole business model on the assumption that the funding is going to be there next year.

Um, so I think there’s a lot of growth. All right.

The Role of the Department of Education

Isaac: I’m going to ask you a final question. That’s very, very like right now trending topic related. I saw you post this, uh, somewhere about the Department of Education. So a lot of people in the sort of school choice, um, arena or just perform are kind of like, look, eliminate the Department of Education.

Most people don’t know. The federal Department of Education is actually pretty new. It’s not really the entity that most schools are run at the state and local level. So it’s kind of this bureaucracy over the top that kind of, you know, gives them these top down things that annoy them all. And Hey, you could just get rid of it.

And I saw you say, you might not want to do that. You might need the department of education. I’m curious, give me your, give me your take for what role the department of ed could [00:41:00] play in helping advanced school choice.

Derrell Bradford: Yeah. So, um, uh, I had sort of a quippier thing about this, but I was basically like, if you, um, Most of the things that at the time, uh, either perspective in administration would want to do. would require the department and the time it would take to actually get rid of it means you’d never get done what you want to get done.

So it is sort of too important of a lever to actually get rid of. Um, though it should certainly operate differently. I think that’s the thing. And the, the most important things I would say were school choice of concern is that, you know, the department, uh, uh, handles civil rights law. And so for instance, it can make it harder to open a single sex high school, you know, which I’m like, I went to an all boys school.

I’m a big fan of them.

Isaac: love to see more of those, you

Derrell Bradford: [00:42:00] Yes, so, so what I have, like, I’m a, I’m a, I’m a big fan. You know, they can make it harder or easier to open those. They can regulate charter schools. You know, uh, so that they must be more like traditional district schools than less like that, right? Which is counterintuitive or, or, or whatever.

Um, uh, so those are like kind of two, you know, they can, um, they can have guidance around the charter school program grant that makes it, uh, harder or easier to start new charter schools, you know, uh, uh, across the country. Those are just kind of like three. Three instances and I’m, and there are many more where they can make it easier or harder to, uh, to do these things, but I totally agree.

And this is the important thing. You know, the states are way out ahead of the department right now. So, you know, what Florida and Arizona and, you know, uh, uh, Indiana and, uh, West Virginia and [00:43:00] Iowa and Arkansas and, uh, Oklahoma and all these other places are doing. It’s like on a different, you know, planet compared to where the, where the department is right now.

And so, and we sort of know how people feel about, you know, rightly or wrongly about the federal role in these things right now. And so my advice is really like, for whoever the secretary is or whatever, to just kind of like, you know, help. But, uh, but hang back. Yeah, that there it is. Help help. But, uh, but hang hang back.

Um, you know, don’t make it harder for states to do the things that they are already doing. And the 1 thing that the US deal we can do is convene in a productive way. And so the, um, helping states learn about what other states are doing. Um. Tackle the problems of all of this, you know, together, that is a unique role that, uh, a unique and collaborative role that a federal, [00:44:00] uh, agency could have, and I, I, you know, enjoy seeing something like that.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Isaac: this has been an awesome conversation. I got to say there’s been so much progress in movement in the last just handful of years on the opening up of education. And for anybody who is taking advantage of that, enjoying that, whether your charter school or ESA or your, your public school has started to open up what they could do.

Durell is at least partly to thank for that. You’ve been in the trenches for a long time, and I know that what you’re doing at 50 cat is, is no small part of this overall movement. So thank you.

Derrell Bradford: You’re very kind. Thanks, Isaac. Thank you for having me.