12. Myth-Busting School Choice: A Conversation with Nathan Sanders of EdChoice

[Music] Welcome to BAMINOS Education, where we explore Alabama's educational landscape and empower families through informed choices. Join us as we engage experts, dissect school options, and equip families with the vital information you need to make the best decisions for your family. Alright, well welcome back to another episode of BAMINOS Education. This week we're excited to have Nathan Sanders, who is Policy and Advocacy Director for Ed Choice. Welcome Nathan. Hey Sheila, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm so glad you can make it today. And excited to have this episode of BAMINOS Education because today we're going to focus on MythBusting. And everybody likes the Good Myth Buster, right? Like I remember I've watched a lot with my daughter, different YouTube videos where they say, "We've heard this is the Sixth Miriam is true. Let's try it out and let's see what it is or not." And so today we want to focus on MythBusting around school choice. So in the past two weeks, as you know in Alabama they have just released the proposed Rules for the Choose Act. And so now we're in a 30-day public comments period where people can give their comments and questions to the Department of Revenue about these rules. And then on November 5th they'll be having a public hearing to also hear points of view, etc. So there's been lots of talk about this. They've launched their website. They're doing some video or webinars to help people understand more about the Choose Act. So a lot of excitement, but with any school choice program and all the excitement, there's the naysayers and there's a lot of things going around that, you know, re-circle about school choice and what it does or doesn't do and the myths around it. So why don't we get started with that because Ed Choice. So why don't you first tell us a little bit about Ed Choice and what specifically you guys doing, what makes you a great MythBuster? Absolutely. Well, yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate that. So Ed Choice, we're a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. We're formerly the Milton Friedman Foundation. Back in 2016 we changed our name to Ed Choice. And so what we do is we kind of are a machine that researches and compiles research and does and publicizes lots of data and research on private school choice programs. So Ed Choice has been doing this for almost 30 years back when the Friedman started this organization. And we've gotten bigger and we've gotten better. So there's a few arms to our organization. So the team that I serve on policy and advocacy are working with folks like you, Sheila and states that we work in. So I hail from the great state of Louisiana, but a lot of the southern states. I had the privilege to travel to and work with partners like love your school and some others to be able to share our research and our data and sort of use our national resources to be able to help push private school choice and expand options for families. And so that's a little bit about what we do on my team, but we also have a research team who does all the great work that we're going to talk about today. They compile the research and the data and basically get it out in the publication to say, let's share with partners and legislators and families to show them that, you know, if myths come out or whatever we can, we can bust those myths. We have a great legal team. We actually have it brand new, Ed choice legal advocates team that's actually in the courts fighting for these programs, defending these programs. So we that's a whole arm of our team that's that's very busy these days as you can imagine. We have a training team. So lots of good stuff, lots of great stuff for my colleagues that had choice, but I'm blessed to be able to work for them in travel and work with folks like you and fight, try to fight the good fight. So speaking of myth busting, getting into that, what I say whenever I'm talking with legislators or I'm presenting in front of committee, what I like to say is it's not about what people say these programs do or or accuse these programs of doing. It's about what the data says they're doing. So it had choice. We like to look at the data and the research to break through those those myths and those rumors. So I'm excited to like get into that today. Yeah. So I want to just start off with like the biggest one. I think we always hear historically, but also one that I have seen on the social media, I guess, different airways since the choose act launch their website is that. School choice programs defund public schools. So we hear this all the time. I think they've been saying this since, you know, probably the first voucher program or choice program ever came out. So what is the research show us about defunding public schools. Yeah, no, that's a wonderful question to get into. And it's actually really timely because our director of national research, Marty Lukein, if you know Marty, just release an updated fiscal effects of school choice publication. And there's a lot to dive into. I want to dive into everything because like I don't want to, you know, spend two hours going through it. It's a wonderful publication. I encourage everyone to go check it out. They can look at our website. It's the newest publication. But an interesting thing about that is it kind of dives into and gives readers perspective on education budget. So speaking of funding for the school systems and a pull up one of my slides here is to think about all the numbers. They got to have written down for me somewhere. So if you look at the total cost of choice programs and total state spending for public services, and this is looking at everything national in every state. State expenditures on K through 12 private school choice programs. So all the ones that are in existence today. It counts for about $3.7 billion dollars. And it's about 0.3% of these budgets. So if you look at the bigger picture at the full K through 12 spending and education budget. The state expenditures equal about 1.2 trillion dollars. So looking at the, you know, the grand scheme of things, all these choice program 30,000 foot view. They count for about 0.3% of education spending. So this idea that school choice programs are bankrupting states and are causing, you know, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. It's just not true. It's a very small fraction of education funding. And it's actually, you know, more bang for your buck because they're spending less per kid and a lot of these states per per people at the state level. And it shows that the outcomes are even better. And so it's more bang for your buck. Parents are happy with it. And it's a very, very small fraction of these budgets. Yeah. And I think that's important to note. And also just specifically with the Cheez Act, we know that $7,000 per student for private school, which is less than the state's total allocation. And that's just the state's, state's portion of the budget. So that doesn't include the local or federal tax money that also goes into the schools for those students. So like local tax dollars stay in the local schools. And so I think that's really important to know. And then on homeschooling if someone chooses to homeschool, it's even less. It's $2,000 per student with a max cap of 4,000 per family. So a family who maybe has four children to their children aren't even drawing any of the money from the education fund to help educate them. So I think it's really important for people to know like that one that's just not true. And just how little the money is. And I think which is a totally different podcast episode. But I think it also begs to question, okay, well, if private schools and homeschooling models can educate kids and have equal to or better outcomes for the student, maybe we need to look at our spending models a little bit differently from a state perspective. But again, that's it. That's a totally different podcast episode. So you're right. I mean more money doesn't equal better outcomes. I mean, we try that method for decades. And it just doesn't work. Education outcomes for the United States have only decreased and funding is only increased. And so it just doesn't work like I know for my home state of Louisiana. I don't know the exact number for Alabama, but in Louisiana, we spend about $13,000 per kid just that state funding. So that's not even counting federal funding. I'm sorry, that is counting federal funding. So that's everything. 13,000. But if you look at especially this southern region, we're in the higher end of per people spending. And we have some of the worst outcomes in the country and the country. And so if you look at Florida, I think they're overall spending. I may have to be fact checked on this is about $9,000 and they're one of the lower ones in the South, but they're like ranked number four state, you know, country nationwide. They're the fourth best state in education. So they've model like Florida has proved that more money does, you know, does not equal better outcomes rather it tell you allocate that. It goes into the process. So yeah, we've tried it for years, it doesn't work. So I think parents are finally waking up and saying like, you know, we want better outcomes, we want better attainment for our kids and all of these, the solutions are just throwing money. You know? - Yeah, and it's interesting that you brought up Florida because I've looked at Florida a lot myself and the interesting thing about Alabama and Florida that while Florida has a larger population and therefore a larger child population were similar in our poverty levels. So we're similar in that level. At least we were a couple years ago and I know growth is changing some of that. So we have to, you know, maybe it's changed slightly. But the interesting thing is that back in the 90s, when I was looking at Florida's education evolution in the 90s, Florida found themselves at the bottom of the nation and one of the key differences that when they started to move up that they changed were they started introducing choice options. Which I think really, you know, backs the evidence, but also tells the story of how you can literally go from the bottom to the top by just enabling parents to exercise freedom of choice and how their kids are educated but also bringing competition into the space of like seeing or acknowledging that all kids learn the same way and having multiple models for people to choose from actually is better for kids in the long term. - Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the great things about Florida is just because they've had a choice program for so long and it's not like they have multiple choice programs and their ESA now is expanded to a universal program which is wonderful and that program serves almost half a million kids in the state of Florida. But back in 2001, like you said, it doesn't want to as a two governor bush, you know, help pass their first tax credit program, specifically for low income students and over the years, it was working. Like outcomes were getting better, parents were extremely satisfied with it. And it's now built 20 years later, it's grown to one of the most expansive programs the country and they're a leader in education freedom. And so that was absolutely vital in their success in being better in overall education. And so I think that's why states like Arizona was Virginia a few years ago said, you know what, we have to do this. We have to give our parents options and give our students a way out if they're not doing well. And I think we've only seen it grow obviously with the big revolution in the last couple of years around the country with education freedom. So. - Right. Yeah, no, I agree. So along the same lines as Defunding Public Education. So that's a myth one that we've busted. There's another one around this whole notion of, well, when you defund schools, then all of a sudden teachers are going to become unemployed. And so there's a massively off of teachers and things like that. So what have you guys found on this or what can we say about this myth? - Yeah, this one is, I love getting this one. So one of our Ed Choice Fellows, Dr. Ben Scaffi, he is a professor at a Kennesaw State in Georgia. He has tons and tons of research compiled throughout the years staffing compensation. Look at it, overall staffing numbers, things like that. And he's got a lot of research pretty much in every state. And so I would encourage everyone. He is a publication that's a few years old now. So a lot of the numbers have been updated to newer data. But it's still a great read. It's called the staffing surge. And you could just type in Google Ed Choice staffing surge and it's by Dr. Ben Scaffi. I would encourage everyone to read that. I think he told me he's got a new one coming out fairly soon with the new data. But anyway, to your point, some of my most recent looking into a lot of this data. So as I'm sure you know, Sheila, there's a ballot initiative in Kentucky going on right now that basically is it's an amendment to allow the state legislature to create some type of school choice program. There's no legislative program yet. We're not even talking what type of program. This is just a constitutional change for the state to eventually create one. Anyway, so a lot of the talk about staffing has come up in this Kentucky conversation. And so, and the wonderful thing about Kentucky is it's in proximity by Ohio from Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, all states which have universal or near universal school choice, some type of school choice. So Indiana's got a virtual voucher, Ohio, a virtual voucher, West Virginia's got a universal ESA. So a wonderful comparison in that region of what no school choice looks like and what school choice looks like. Particularly diving into staffing, Dr. Ben Scaffi, his numbers basically show that with total compensation. So we're talking about how much teachers get paid, which is everyone cares about, station, and Indiana both pay their teachers more than teachers in Kentucky. So you may ask why is that? And so when you look at staffing in those three states, her 100 students, Kentucky actually has more teachers or more staff that they pay. And so a big reason why they don't pay quite as much is because they hire more teachers. And so when you look at, you know, that tells a story though. But to my point, Indiana, Ohio both have universal school choice and they've had some type of school choice programs, particularly in Indiana for years. This isn't a new thing. But they've managed, while also managing a school choice program, a universal school choice program, they've managed to pay their teachers more and also continue to fund both public education and private school choice. And so that tells a story. It's like, look, in Ohio and in Indiana, school choice, introducing school choice programs will not cause this mass excess of teachers. And it won't cause teachers to get paid nothing. Like it's actually the opposite. They'll be able to continue to hire teachers, but they'll also be able to continue to pay them even more than some states that are near there that don't have school choice at all. And so that myth is just completely unfounded. Right. And I think the other point of it is too is that, I have, I come from a family of educators. And I have quite a few friends who are educators as well. And one thing that I've consistently heard on and off over the years is just frustrated. Frustration more with the system itself, their employer, some of the requirements that are dictated by federal government, things like that. And when you introduce a choice program, and you start to have different employer options. So someone who doesn't want to deal with all the, you know, maybe paperwork that's required because the federal government money being used, things like that, when you're introducing choice in these different types of school systems that then start to develop, whether it's microschools or private school or what have you, then the teachers also have more choice, right? Because they can say, you know what, I don't want to mess with this. I want to be able to just focus on my classroom. So I'm going to do a private school or I want to have more flexibility in my schedule. So I'm going to go to a microschool where I don't necessarily have to be in the classroom every day. And so I think, you know, in a world post-COVID, where in all of our other industries, we've entered models of flexibility in how and where we were. This also opens that flexibility for school teachers. Would you agree with that? - Absolutely, yeah. And I think when you think about like Milton Friedman's vision for what this could look like, you know, we're not talking about just choices, like you said, for parents. And that's a critical part of all this, like the parents and the kids matter most in this. But it's also a choice for staff and teachers, right? Like you said, if a teacher says, you know what, like I'm so tired of the bureaucracy, I'm tired of, you know, this type of schedule, you know, I've been teaching for 20 years and I want to spend 10 to 20 years, you know, doing something still in the classroom, something maybe different. I'm going to go be a full-time tutor and participate in an ESA program where you could be a vendor, but you can tutor on your own schedule in your own home or in your own building. Or like you said, go start a microschool or go be a part of a microschool or a private Christian school. If you want to spend, you know, the rest of your teaching career also, you know, using that to teach kids about the Bible, about Christ, right? So it offers an array of choice for, like you said, for teachers and for staff to where they can still, you know, as we know, economics one and one at a competitive market, you know, that helps with pay, right? If you're looking for just higher pay, a competitive market will help you in your search for that, but also for the quality and what you're looking for. And so that is absolutely a critical part that I think, especially our movement, maybe should highlight more for the, you know, the teacher side of this is, you know, for you options, right? To be an entrepreneurial or to just have an option for what you want to do in the classroom. So I think that's a wonderful point. - Yeah. And I was also thinking too, for the younger generation of teachers that are coming up, I think they're gonna want, and I could be wrong on this, but, you know, my grandparents, like my grandfather, he worked for the same company, he worked for Sears. Sears doesn't even exist anymore, but he had worked for Sears for decades, you know, and, you know, he kind of grew up expecting, you get an employer and you kind of stay with them, and you're loyal to them and they're loyal to you. And now, like my generation's not even like that. but I think the new generations of teachers coming in are gonna be even less like that. And so I would think that this would be maybe more appealing than to expect that they're gonna just work for a single school district or even just the public school machine their entire career, just that it might be more appealing to have these different options and explore different educational tracks. So we have a publication as well, I'll plug another one, it's called What Do Teachers Want? And it's just polling and we survey teachers in the classroom of what their opinions are in and out of the classroom, what they want, it's a wonderful publication. So if you are interested in this sort of, this teacher side of all this, that's a great read, but yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, so my mother is a public school teacher. She's been in the classroom for almost 30 years since I was born, I mean, before I was born, my sister, my older sister, she's a couple of years older than I am. She also went to school to be a teacher. She taught in the classroom for about five years, but after that fifth year, she was like, this isn't for me, it was, but it was never the kids, right? It's never, I want to quit because this kid or whatever this class, this subject, it's always, most likely in my opinion, it's always sort of the bureaucracy or something in that world. It's never, the kids and so my sister basically said, like, I can't do this for 34 years, I'm gonna go crazy because I gotta get out of this setting, but she's always said she wants to go back to teaching somehow. She wants to go, she loves the kids, she loves the classroom. So someone like her who's not even three yet, with a choice program like this, that's so expansive that offers so many options for people who are interested in teachers in teaching because she is a certified teacher. That gives her so many options to basically say, like, maybe I don't want to go back to the public school classroom, but I'm gonna go teach at private school. I'm gonna start my own tutoring service or what have you. So yeah, I think generational changes are kind of, it's good for a program like a universal USA because I think folks younger, like my age are always looking for different options and looking for entrepreneurial ways to make that work. So I think it's a great thought. - Yeah, so let's also another myth that comes up a lot is the accountability piece. So they say, hey, if we give this money to parents to educate their kids, there's no accountability or private schools don't have accountability. So I just wanna just clarify something with the Cheez Act. None of the monies go directly to the parents. So these monies are managed through the Department of Revenue and parents decide where the monies will be sent to whether it's a private school or some type of separate vendor under the homeschooling portion of it. And so just wanna be real clear on the Cheez Act, but this is a general question that people think that there's no accountability there. So what have you guys found as far as the accountability goes? - Yeah, that's a great question. So our director of National Research, Mike McShane, who you're with this week Sheila, he likes to say accountability does not equal test scores and I love that so much because I think not digging on the public system at all, but Cheez and Zach's an example, if accountability were equal testing, then all 50 states fail. Because if you look at nape scores, a lot, almost in every single state, only like a third of our children can read and do math, well. - Yeah, so I don't think it's heathies right. It doesn't necessarily mean testing, but also on the financial accountability side, I think if you think about accountability from a sort of a government perspective overseeing the public system, I'm not sure that the history or the last few years the public system have been very accountable either because you think about all this money that we're talking about, like we talked, the very first thing we talked about in the podcast was expenditures for the public system. It's $1.2 trillion, I believe it was, for every state. And so you divide that up, that's still a ton of money, right? Education is a huge part of every single state budget. It usually takes up like 20 to 30% of it, if I don't know if you know. So, but if you think about that versus the test scores that we're getting that we just talked about, I wouldn't necessarily call that accountable, right? So something has to be done. So when you think about from an individual perspective, a parent's having access to this money to spend on things that they want to spend on with the ESA money, parents should have the ultimate accountability anyway, right? If you think about school closures, once the last time you heard of a public school system closing because of bad test scores or because of something else, right? But on the charter side, on the private side, school can close all the time. It's not an uncommon thing, but that should be a good thing, right? That means that the ability within the private side, especially as it pertains to school choice, it's working because if parents don't want to use that good or service, that school, they won't enroll their school there, their children there, and the school has got to make decisions. And that should be a good thing, right? We shouldn't have a million schools in every district just because, you know, they're not closing it. So that's one piece of it. And I think, as you know, Sheila, just working with parents all the time, parents know best, and whenever you apply for a program like this, it's not necessarily just checking a box, like you got to go through pretty extensive paperwork in an application process and approval process, things like that. And so the parents who do this, the parents who are taking the time to research and apply for a program like this and have access to this money, those parents care. And they're gonna know things that they think is worthwhile to their kid. - Right. So another myth that you hear a lot is that, if we allow choice to fund some students to go to private schools, then what will happen is all the cream of the crop or the top achievers in the public school system will leave and go to the private schools. What have you guys found on that or is that one that you've heard? - I have heard that one before. That's an interesting one. I think, so if you think about it anecdotally, you know, first thing comes to mind is our Catholic schools. Right, I talk with Catholic school leaders all the time, principals, superintendents. And what Catholic schools care about the most, and this is probably true for most religious schools, are meeting the needs of students regardless of test scores, regardless of income, regardless of race. Catholic schools and other religious schools will want to first minister to these kids and show them, give them a good, you know, and safe environment, you know, to give them good academics. And so a lot of these school choice programs, especially 20, 30 years ago, started out or still exists today as choice programs, particularly for either special needs students or it was income based. And so, you know, that's what a lot of people care about in this movement, and as they should, is meeting the needs of kids no matter what. And so I think that claim is unfounded. I can't think of any particular research showing, sort of the, I guess you call it, cream of the crop, students leaving or staying, but I'm not sure if that's true. - Yeah, well, and maybe it's just not, it's not wholly true, because like, my daughter goes to her private school, and her private school is known in our area as one of the best schools for students with dyslexia. - Yeah. - And so we have a lot of students there who are attending to get that help, because they have a special curriculum or in Gileham who is, you know, a well-known worldwide renowned curriculum for kids with dyslexia. So parents who have children with dyslexia especially seek out that school. And I think whenever you bring market into an industry, you're going to have specialization schools, right? And so it just allows for people who have maybe had experience, you know, I met some people just this week who they have a, you know, some special needs focused schools that just focus on kids who need certain accommodations in schools, and they focus on that. And I think that's the beauty of the choice programs is that you can build those schools to help those kids, you know, lay on, are the outliers, right? 'Cause we know research shows us that most people are most likely going to stay in the public schools, right? 'Cause public schools do fit the needs for a lot of kids, but you always have the outliers on either side, where it's just, or families who just want something different, you know, whether it be a schedule or they want the focus of their education to be different. So those outliers, that's what choice really helps facilitate is for that those kind of specialized schools to be created and operational and bring value. - That's not, I mean, and honestly, that's the beauty of an education savings account being more attuned to what, you know, an open market could look like is because it's not even just about schools. I mean, the majority of students who utilize this will probably go to some other type of school, right? tuition and it's gonna be the probably a major thing, but the beauty of any essay is you don't even have to use it on tuition, right? If I have a student who needs a special therapy or needs just specific tutoring and certain subjects, or what happens. I can use that ESA money and do just these classes. It doesn't have to be even a full-time school. I can take classes and get tutoring and get therapies. Because like you said, parents have reasons other than academics for leaving a school. You can be in an a-rated school that's got perfect academics and all the students excel really well. But maybe I have a student who's getting bullied or who just can't process certain things in a large class or a small class or what I have to you. It's not just academics. Me parents have their reasons and parents know best of what their student is good at and what they're not so good at. And so just, you know, I think academics is a big part of education, but it's more to it than that. It's can I graduate and get a great job? Can you graduate and go to college or go to trade school? It's those pathways that I think we get lost in sometimes that it's not just academics. I think it's great. And we actually have studies at show in our annual publication of ABC123s, rather, which is just a huge, just a compiled research and data on the outcomes of school choice programs. And a part of that is attainment. And a lot of the schools, a lot of the programs that they study show that students who are utilizing choice programs are more likely to graduate. They're more likely to attend college be successful at life. So that's a cool tip. Yeah. So one last myth that I want to talk about before we wrap up is sometimes, and I feel like especially in our current political environment, we talk a lot about rights and the Constitution. And do people have the right to take taxpayer funding to use for choice programs? And is that allowed by the Constitution or US law? And so what have you guys found on that? It's a good question. And I'm fully transparent. I'm no legal scholar. I'm not a lawyer. But I work with a lot of wonderful legal scholars and lawyers who have been in this fight for years. And so just taking what I've learned from them, I'll say, is specifically-- I mean vouchers, the ESAs, what have you, they're constitutional. I mean, these are-- this isn't money going directly, particularly in the ESA, the Chews Act, and Alabama. This is not money going from government writing a check to school. This is money going to an account that parents can access. That parents have the right to say, OK, in this account, that's authorized by government I can choose where I want to go. Maybe it goes all to tuition, maybe it goes to tutoring, maybe it goes to whatever. But that's a big difference. Is it's not government funding private schools. Is it government funding parents with their taxpayer money, with their money that they've paid into being able to just choose another option? So that's a big piece of it. I know that in some states with the blame amendment, it can get kind of dicey. Legally speaking, likely Alabama didn't have that problem. But yeah, it's-- but that's-- and again, that's why we have such a wonderful legal team that we've invested so much in our legal advocate team is because a lot of these states, particularly South Carolina, I'm sure you've been keeping up with that news that their ESA was sort of struck down. And they were told that parents can't use this money on tuition. And the program had already started in parents of Oregon in the first quarter of it. So that's an interesting issue. But it's why it's so important to have these legal advocates and these legal scholars in our fight. It's because if you look at the South Carolina Constitution, they have a blame amendment. But with an ESA, that shouldn't be an issue. So there's a legal thing there. So yeah, I mean, that's really all I say to that. I don't want to like-- I'm not a legal scholar, so I don't want to get into the weeds of it. But yeah, that's the beauty of an ESA. It's not government writing checks to schools, particularly religious schools. This is government giving taxpayer money back to taxpayer parents who want an option. And they are the primary controllers of this money. Obviously, there's some guardrails, as we talked about earlier, with accountability. But at the end of the day, parents have access to this money. They decide where it goes, where it doesn't go. And it's their hard-earned taxpayer money. So-- Yeah. And I think it's also important for people to recognize that even the US Supreme Court has a pined on many of these issues with the ability to use these kind of funds for religious institutions. They've found that that is constitutionally correct. And so there's a lot of legal precedent for choice programs. And so for someone who's more interested in that, you should definitely go look at those cases and see that. But I think broadly speaking, we can say that there's been enough court cases and with the Supreme Court opining on some of these cases that choice is definitely within our rights and within the Constitution and the written laws. And some of these states, like in Kentucky, that you mentioned at the beginning, they're recognizing that in order for it to be in alignment with their state Constitution, they've got to go back and amend the state Constitution in order to be able to move these programs forward, which I'm glad that they're willing to look at that. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the biggest thing is that's getting kind of convoluted in this Kentucky fight if you're keeping up what it is. A lot of the opponents and a lot of the folks who aren't big fans of school choice like to paint this amendment as-- this certain amendment, our public schools will be defunded, our teachers will all get laid off. They're using-- well, everything we've talked about mythbusting, they're using that right now in Kentucky. And proponents of school choice are saying, no, that's not the case at all. We're not voting on a program. We're not voting on even if this is going to be an ESA or voucher if it's universal. And we're just voting on the legislature having the right to talk about something like this, a constructive program and debate it in the legislature. So this isn't even determining if we get a program or not. And so-- but they're coming out of the woodworks, the opponents, and using all of those myths. So it's good to talk about those, especially today. But yeah, you're 100% right. And they can talk, frankly, for my knowledge, Kentucky Supreme Court. Because Kentucky passed tax credit ESA a few years ago in the past the legislature. And they overrode the governor and put the Supreme Court shut it down. It's kind of the same situation in South Carolina. They said, hey, this doesn't fit into what we think the Constitution. I know a lot of legal scholars disagree with their decision. So the legislature basically said, fine. You think it's unconstitutional. We'll go in and change Constitution. And so we'll see what happens there in just like three weeks, itself. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be interesting and definitely something that people who like all of the school choice movement and are interested in that should follow. And the interesting thing too is that sometimes we think, oh, well, that's a different state than mine. I don't have to worry about it or I don't have to pay attention. But it's not entirely true because some of these trends and some of these things that happen in other states then end up showing up in your state. And so I think that's why it's really important to watch what's happening across the United States broadly. But also we can learn from each other with best practices. So some states have been earlier adopters like Florida and these kind of programs. They've really been the trailblazer where other states are late adopters. And so they can learn from all the lessons that have been learned from other states. Absolutely. I think that's really great. So-- Just to that real quick, Sheila, I'll say props to Alabama, the Governor Ivy, her team, the legislature senator or representative Garrett, props to all of them. Just being in Montgomery a few times this past legislative session as they were passing the Chewz Act, they were extremely effective in getting this thing through. And it wasn't like they just shoved it through. But I know that Governor Ivy and her team put in tons and tons of work before session to educate folks on what this meant and to basically to push folks to say, hey, they're going to listen to parents not any going to vote for this. So props to all of your friends in Alabama for getting this done. And I know that I use that working-- from going from Alabama to Louisiana, of course, Louisiana. We didn't start a legislative session until March. And so by then, you guys had it wrapped up pretty in a bow. And I know that folks like myself, I use that in Alabama to go to talk with legislators and leadership in Louisiana and say, hey, look, even with competitiveness in the South with folks that work in competing with them things like tax reform and things like that, like, you have school choice. Alabama just got this done. Florida's had this done for years. Are we going to be last again? Are we going to wait and sit on our hands and not do anything? All right. Are we going to do this? And I think to-- they absolutely are 100% right. Other states, particularly in competitive regions, they like to have a race to who can do it better. And that reminds me, we actually have a new tool out. It was released just yesterday. You can Google a choice ESA builder. And what it is, it's twofold. So it's a website that you can go in and compare different state programs. If you're a policy nerd, you can go in and compare different state programs. So if I want to compare Louisiana's program to Alabama's program and then to Florida's program, I could basically just have a drop down menu of what these programs look like, how they differ, how they're the same. That's very cool. Yeah. So your point earlier, like you said, if you can learn from states who've done it before or what they did well, they didn't do so well. So you can kind of go look at that if you're a policy nerd. And then you also can go and build your own. So if you're in a state where maybe like Texas, I don't know who may get it done next session, who want to go in and sort of build what your essay could look like in Texas, you can go in and build it based off of other states language and model language and things like that. So that's another resource for your listeners who are policy nerds or who are maybe in the legislature or whatnot, they can go in and use that too. Yeah. That's really cool. I'm going to have to go check that out. So just as we wrap up, I think I guess my takeaway and what I would encourage people to do is that when you hear these alarming notions about why we shouldn't allow people to have the freedom to choose how their children are educated, do some research. Most of these myths have been busted and you can find them out, find information and reputing them or telling you, like sometimes they'll take a portion of the truth and then exasperate it, right? So you can kind of look at that and edge choice. There's a lot of good resources out there, but edge choice is an excellent reliable resource, especially when it comes to the research and data. So before we leave, why don't you tell people where they can find your organization and youth and want to reach out? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll just say thank you Sheila for having me on this discussion. This is such an important topic, myth busting, and pretty much every single state that we work in and I know it was in Alabama and it still is. And so I think it's super important to talk about this stuff and to get folks to the right store. So edge choice, like Sheila said, we have tons and tons of research and publications that range back for years and so. But we are also really good at releasing new stuff, like the fiscal effects by Dr. Luke and that I mentioned. So you can go to edge choice.org. There you can kind of browse what other states have. You can kind of look at, we have a map called school choice in America and you can look at Alabama and you can look at Louisiana Ford and see what they have to offer and how many kids they're serving, things like that. You can look at our publications. So I'll have mentioned some today. You can kind of look at our publications of data and research and see what we have available. Pretty wide range of stuff there that's really informative. And then you can check out our legal advocates page there as well as we've talked about and kind of see what's going on legally around the country when it comes to school choice. So bought a stuff on there but edge choice.org you can find all that stuff. So. Okay. Great. Well, thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. It's been a fun conversation and for all of our listeners, be sure to check out edge choice and also to be sure to follow BAMINOS education either here or on our social media sites, Facebook, X and Instagram. And we will catch you next time. Thank you for joining us on BAMINOS education. For more insights on educational choices in Alabama and to stay updated, you can find us at loveyourschool.org/alibama or follow us on any of our social channels, Instagram, Facebook and X. 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