- Transcript
**Isaac Morehouse**: Your book is called "The Parent Revolution," not "The Education Revolution." Why parents specifically?
**Corey DeAngelis**: Parents have woken up. They're never going back to sleep. For decades, the only organized group in education represented the employees. Now there's a new sheriff in town. They're called parents. And in the past four years, we've had more advancement on school choice than in the preceding four decades.
**Isaac**: I live in Florida and we homeschool, I guess, but my daughter attends a three-day-a-week school, plays volleyball at a different private school, does some online learning... I don't even know what to call it anymore.
**Corey**: That's exactly right. And that's the future of education. Not everyone's doing this hybrid approach yet, but more families are discovering they can customize education to fit their child's needs. You can use some funding for home-based education, some for private school courses, some for online learning. The rigid categories don't matter anymore.
**Isaac**: This seems to challenge the whole premise of traditional education.
**Corey**: Think about how we actually learn. How do people learn to walk? How do kids learn to talk? The reality is most of our learning, even now, happens outside the traditional school system. It should be self-directed. It should be based on interest.
When I was in school, I'd go home and read about topics that interested me, then come to class prepared. I didn't absorb information being force-fed in class. That's how human beings naturally learn.
**Isaac**: What changed to make this possible now?
**Corey**: Parents got to see behind the curtain. They saw their kids could learn more in a fraction of the time. Kids were less anxious. Parents realized they were more capable than they'd been told.
You know, parents were always told, "You're not an educator, you can't figure this out." But you don't have to be an engineer to choose your child's math teacher. You don't have to be a surgeon to choose your child's doctor. And you don't need a teaching degree to know what's best for your child's education.
**Isaac**: Tell me about the teachers in all this. It seems like this could benefit them too.
**Corey**: Absolutely. The Washington Post of all places wrote about this occurrence during COVID in New Jersey. They were covering a public school teacher who had been in the system for decades, decided to leave and created her own micro school. She was making the same amount of money as a tenured school teacher but had a fraction of the class size—I believe like 10 as opposed to 30. And she didn't have to deal with all the red tape.
This isn't just a win for parents and students. It's also a win for teachers too. They get more autonomy, smaller class sizes, and can focus on what they do best—actually teaching kids.
**Isaac**: What about parents who feel overwhelmed by choice? Who worry they're not qualified?
**Corey**: Look, in Chicago they have 30 to 40 schools with zero percent math proficiency rates. Zero percent. Come on, you can do better than zero percent.
How did you figure things out before kindergarten? You are your child's first and foremost educator, and I would argue the best educator your child's ever going to have. You taught them to walk, to talk, to navigate the world. Why would that suddenly stop at age five?
**Isaac**: So what can parents do right now, regardless of their state's policies?
**Corey**: First, look at which policies are already available in your state. Most states—I believe like 48 of them now—have charter schools, for example. And even states like California have virtual charter schools where, if you're doing home-based education, you can have like three or four thousand dollars per student per year. A lot of people just don't know about these things.
Second, trust yourself. You know your child better than any system ever could. You see their struggles, their interests, their potential. No standardized approach can match that knowledge.
Finally, connect with other parents. This revolution is happening because parents are sharing information, supporting each other, and demanding better. Your voice matters more than you think.
**Isaac**: Any final thoughts for parents considering their options?
**Corey**: The question isn't whether traditional schools are good or bad. The question is: which of these adults get to decide what's best for a particular child? And I think parents are in the best position. They have the most information on the ground. They're the closest to that member of their family. It's their child. No one else is.
Just because you live in a state that doesn't have education savings accounts right now, I think that's going to change soon, but it's going to rely on people like you working alongside other parents and grandparents and members of your community to push for the right thing.
You figured out how to raise your child before they turned five. There's no reason that wisdom suddenly disappears when they reach school age. Trust yourself. You've got this.
*The parent revolution isn't about tearing down what exists—it's about building what our children actually need. As more states embrace educational freedom, families are creating learning experiences as unique as their kids. And that's exactly how it should be.*
*Listen to the full conversation on [the OpenEd Podcast.](https://open.spotify.com/show/6Kf7SZ8XASA6tSqMEuHmVC?si=f789cdee70314085)*
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Something unexpected is happening in American education. Parents are taking control, and the results are nothing like what anyone predicted.
"It's not one size fits all," says Corey DeAngelis, author of the best-selling book The Parent Revolution and one of the nation's leading advocates for educational freedom. "It's one size fits none. We should let a thousand flowers bloom instead."
DeAngelis joined us on the OpenEd podcast to discuss how 17 states have quietly revolutionized education by doing something simple yet profound: letting education dollars follow the student rather than the system.
When asked to identify the single most transformative change that could fix American education, Corey DeAngelis doesn't hesitate: "Fund families directly instead of systems."
It sounds deceptively simple, but this fundamental shift in how we allocate the $800 billion spent annually on K-12 education could create a cascade of positive changes throughout the educational landscape.
"When you fund families directly, you create a market that actually responds to their needs," DeAngelis explains. "Right now, the government has a monopoly on education funding, and that money is locked into institutions regardless of their performance."
The Pandemic's Silver Lining
While COVID-19 brought unprecedented challenges to education, it also created what DeAngelis calls a "transparency event" that accelerated the school choice movement dramatically.
"The teachers unions really stepped on a rake when they fought to keep schools closed," he notes. "Zoom school showed parents what was happening in the classroom for the first time. They saw the curriculum, they saw the quality of instruction, and in many cases, they weren't happy."
This newfound awareness created a groundswell of parental activism that has transformed the educational landscape. "Parents became a new interest group," DeAngelis says. "They showed up at school board meetings, they voted differently, they started demanding options."
The results speak for themselves: 17 states now have universal school choice programs, up from just one state five years ago. DeAngelis calls it "the fastest civil rights movement in modern American history."
These programs typically work through education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarships, or vouchers that allow education dollars to follow the child to whatever learning environment best meets their needs—whether that's a private school, homeschool, microschool, or hybrid model.
"We're seeing innovation explode in states like Arizona and Florida," DeAngelis says. "When families have options, satisfaction increases and costs actually go down because providers have to compete for students."
The Unbundling of Education
One of the most exciting developments DeAngelis highlights is the "unbundling" of education—the ability for families to mix and match different educational services rather than accepting the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional schooling.
"We're seeing families create customized learning experiences," he explains. "Maybe your child attends a microschool three days a week, takes online courses for certain subjects, and participates in a homeschool co-op for others."
This flexibility allows education to be tailored to each child's unique needs, interests, and learning style—something the traditional system has struggled to provide.
DeAngelis emphasizes that parents don't need specialized credentials to make good educational choices for their children. "You are your child's best teacher," he insists. "Nobody knows your child better than you do, and nobody has a stronger incentive to see them succeed."
He points to research showing that parents across all demographic groups prioritize academic quality, safety, and values alignment when choosing schools—the same factors education experts would recommend considering.
While the school choice movement has made tremendous progress, DeAngelis acknowledges there's still work to be done, particularly in states like California and New York where teachers unions maintain significant political influence.
However, he remains optimistic: "The genie is out of the bottle. Parents have seen what's possible, and they're not going back to the old system."
The message is clear: when we fund families instead of systems, we empower parents to create educational environments where their children can truly thrive.
About the author
Charlie Deist
Charlie Deist (aka “the OpenEd newsletter guy”) is the editor of OpenEd Daily and Head of Content at OpenEd, where he curates compelling thoughts, trends, and tools for parents rethinking education. When he’s not writing or wrangling content calendars, he’s tending to a small homestead in rural Northern California, where he lives with his wife, four kids, and a rotating cast of cows, pigs, and chickens. Most of his best ideas come while hauling feed buckets or chasing animals that found a new way to escape.
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