#109: Shaka Mitchell on School Choice

If you’ve ever wondered who should decide where a child learns, this conversation gets straight to the heart of that question. We sit down with Shaka Mitchell—education leader, attorney, and school choice advocate—to trace a journey from a working-class Long Island childhood and a small Catholic school to law school, DC policy work, and leading charter school growth in Tennessee. Along the way, we unpack what “school choice” actually means, how it functions across charters, magnets, vouchers, ESAs, and homeschooling, and why a clean framework—who pays, who provides, and who decides—clarifies the options for families.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Shaka Mitchell
• 1:47 Early Life And School Experiences
• 5:29 Faith, Mission, And School Culture
• 9:01 Law School To Education Policy
• 13:01 No Child Left Behind And Data
• 16:20 Building Charter Schools In Tennessee
• 20:16 Defining The Menu Of School Choice
• 24:58 Equity, Access, And Affordability
• 29:36 Parent Agency And Civic Engagement
• 33:06 Outreach To Immigrant Families
• 36:04 Facing Headwinds And Staying Motivated
• 40:06 New Federal Tax Credit Explained
• 44:05 Final Reflections And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Hang Out Podcast. I'm your host, David Sheretta. Come on in and hang out. In today's conversation, I sat down with Shaka Mitchell. Shaka was raised on Long Island and is now based in Nashville, where he is an education leader and attorney. His career spans DC policy, leading charter school growth in Tennessee, and now advancing the cause of school choice at the American Federation for Children. In this conversation, we dig into the real menu of choice in the education sector from public charters to magnets to vouchers, homeschooling, clarifying myths along the way, covering the topics of equity, access, parent agency, and how policy meets the everyday life of a school and a school day. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Shaka Mitchell and his deep reflection, experience, and thinking around education in America. I'm sure you'll enjoy this episode as well. Welcome, Shaka. Thank you so much for joining us today from Nashville and for having this conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Yeah, thanks, David. It's really good to be on with you, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

I thought we could start with your origin story, your background, where you come from, and because ultimately that dictates who you are today in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Yeah, sure. Yeah, happy to talk a little bit about that. And um I'll try to keep it brief because it's probably the least exciting part of our conversation. Um but I was born and raised um on Long Island in New York. And um I I guess my that kind of origin story is also a little bit of the the professional origin story, too, because um those the two things are so closely linked. Um where I lived on Long Island, it was in a very much a working class neighborhood, um, working class and lower income neighborhood uh in in Nassau County, Hempstead. And the schools that we would have been set to attend were low-performing academically, um, unsafe. Um, there's all these stories about Hempstead High School, and anybody who's from Long Island would might know some of these stories about Hempstead High School where just crazy things were happening, like kids setting fire to the carpets and um just you know, stuff that's that goes beyond shenanigans and uh was really became unsafe. And anyway, so you know, my mom was looking for other options. So I went to the one of the local Catholic schools, and you know, with help with help from the diocese, and um, and this was not like some Tony uh private school with lots of acreage and whatnot. It was a you know a small school. Um we had recessed most of the time in the you know, in the parking lot that became the bus lot at the end of the day, and it's a lot of you know um black and Latino kids. Um and I would say it made all the difference, right? Like that um being in that setting, I think made a tremendous difference uh for the students who were there, for me and my siblings who would also attend there. And then we ended up moving and we moved from New York to um outside Atlanta to actually outside Marietta to Powder Springs, Georgia. So you talk about a big cultural shift. We moved from Long Island to Marietta or to Powder Springs, and uh and that's where I went to high school. I went to a big public high school there. But you know, we went down there because it was like cost of living was so much cheaper. This is what the uh mid early to mid-90s. Um, yeah, cost of living super cheap. So you go down there and and I I really thought that like we had arrived. You know, we lived in a house that was a new construction house in a cul-de-sac. I was like, oh my gosh, this is basically like we're rich. We made it. And um, and you know, and it's a and it's a lovely home. My parents still live there. Um, but I went there and uh my my siblings attended those schools, yeah, and then um went to went to college in Nashville, which is where I live currently, did law school in North Carolina, and was in DC working for a little while in the education sector, and uh that's where um you know my wife and I got married while we were in DC and then eventually moved back to Nashville, where I live. And I've got three girls, three school-age daughters who um, you know, this very day will have uh it's the first pep rally of the year. So we're hitting fall, you know, the fall school year. So that's kind of the story.

SPEAKER_00: 5:29

What what role has faith played in in your journey? You went to a Catholic school. Was that choice made? I mean, you mentioned the kind of the qualitative change from from the sounds like the what was that Michelle Pfeiffer movie, the dangerous minds or something, where you have that stereotypical the teacher turns their back and stuff starts flying Nashville County.

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

Or like lean on me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:54

Yeah, exactly. That kind of a thing. Um, did did the faith part play any role at Catholic school and beyond?

SPEAKER_01: 6:01

Yeah, I I think so. It um well, certainly it it played a role. I mean, going to Catholic school, um, I mean, I I just took for granted the fact that we had religion as a class, like we had math, you know, like we had history. I mean, it was just a class that we that we had. And um first Friday of the month, we marched across the parking lot to mass. And um, yeah, it was just a a part of the of the culture for sure. Um, that being said, not every kid who goes to Catholic school is Catholic, right? I think that that's the case for um for probably most uh faith-based schools. Um, but I think it did have a big influence in part. I would I I believe, and I don't know if we want to jump right into this, but um I think that for faith-based schools it's actually easier to have a clear mission. Um because if your mission is something like let's say your mission is something that is indeed tied to the Bible, right? Tied to scripture, tied to your the the texts that are the tenets of your faith, like that's not changing. As compared to if you are a conventional public school, your mission fluctuates with um every school board election, potentially, right? And so you can sort of get get whipsawed around a little bit in terms of like, oh, this year we're focused on STEM. Two years from now, we're focused on reading interventions. You know, five years from now we're gonna be focused on high-dose tutoring and uh social programming and you know, after school stuff, as compared to, I think I it's my belief, as compared to many faith-based schools, I think, can just sort of say, like the mission of Jesuit schools, for instance, hasn't really changed since like the 1600s. Um now, the other things changed. There's some some pedagogical things, but yeah, I think it definitely had had an impact on on sort of values and culture. And I would say it also personally was really impactful um because I knew lots of those stories. I knew lots of those like you know, Bible stories, and then later in life when when I would say I really came to faith and embraced um uh Christianity, I I sort of had this had this baseline of knowledge already, because I I had you know gone to school for nine years reading these stories and um that I knew as kind of historical, but later on came to came to really um embrace.

SPEAKER_00: 8:57

So you went to law school in North Carolina, uh then you you started to work in DC, you said, and so how does law school lead to work in education to then the work you do today? I know there's a a full career there, um, or you know, you're you're still a young man, but it's a lot of work that you've done. So walk us through kind of the different signposts along the way um in that career.

SPEAKER_01: 9:26

Yeah. So I have a lot of students and um like college students who will ask me, um, hey, what do you think about law school? Because I'm thinking about it. What what advice would you give? And um one of the first things I tell them is law school is a great place to go if you want to be a lawyer. And I know that sounds like you know, there's nothing profound about that, but I didn't really have anyone who told me that. So I didn't know any lawyers when I went to law school. You know, I was a um my parents uh didn't graduate college, I didn't have a whole lot of folks in my in my network, um, small as it was, that had that kind of professional experience. So I kind of went to law school thinking, oh, well, I think eventually I want to work on laws, like legislation, like legislation, policy, justice, like big issues, macro stuff. And I thought, well, what do you do? Where do you go? Uh after you studied political science, I guess you go to law school. And um, I didn't really realize that a lot of people go to law school so that they can do like real estate transactions and you know, um corporate finance stuff. And that's and that's great stuff, and somebody's got to do that. But I knew from the jump that that was not what I was most interested in. So um I went because I was much more interested in um in in policy, in shaping law and legislation later on, um, much more interested in constitutional questions than I was the smaller contractual issues or procedural issues. And so um, which, you know, made the first year of law school really challenging because you've got to get through all that um baseline stuff before you start asking these deeper questions. But I do think it it was still a great way to kind of um sharpen my writing and my research skills and kind of critical thinking skills. I think law school is still really, really good for that. And so so I did that and then was like, yeah, you know, I think education was just kind of the passion for me. I just thought, man, if we get education right, how many other things downstream will improve? You know, if we get education right, think, you know, K-12 education, will we have better health outcomes? I think so. Will we have better um outcomes in the criminal justice, you know, sort of system? I I think we will. Um, will we have better economic outcomes? Yes. And so to me, education was just was something close to like a first principle. Like, let's work on that and then um reap some benefits later on.

SPEAKER_00: 12:24

So, what was your first step in in moving into the education realm?

SPEAKER_01: 12:29

Yeah, my first step was um going to DC, and I worked at a place called the Center for Education Reform, which was a um, I mean, as the name indicates, kind of an all-encompassing uh ed reform policy shop. And uh, and I'll say this, it was a really good time for me to get to DC. So that's this is 2004, and as you'll remember, um, No Child Left Behind uh Act was passed in 2001. And so by 2004, this is about the time when the teeth of that law were starting to kind of come into effect. You know, people sort of forget and and maybe begrudge that law a little bit, but you know, prior to that law, like we didn't have good data. You know, at the at the school level, we didn't have good data, certainly for like subgroups within schools. It was like, you know, we'd say, is that a good school? And people say, Oh, yes, that's an A, an A school. How do you know? Well, the kids are happy and they have a baseball field. Okay, that's not great data, right? Um, so No Child Left Behind passes, and all of a sudden, for the first time across the country, you had schools that were deemed failing schools. And then the question is, well, what do we do? And so that's when I was coming into you know my career in this education reform space. So it was a really good time because um as an answer to the question, what do we do about these schools? People were thinking about um charter schools and district to charter conversions, people were thinking about vouchers and private choice programs, teacher performance pay, just all sorts of different things. And so I think it was a really exciting time for me to enter that space. And um, yeah, really got my eyes open to a lot of things at the at that point at the federal and kind of state level.

SPEAKER_00: 14:36

So you you work there, and then talk to us about your transition into more specifically the charter school sector, um, the work you've done um specifically, and then your work your work around school choice writ large.

SPEAKER_01: 14:55

Sure. Sure. So, you know, I um I think my first exposure to charter schools was when I was in DC, you know, I started meeting um founders of of various charter schools. DC has a large charter school uh uh community. I mean, I think something like 50% of DC schools now are charters. And and even back then it was a it was a higher percentage than other places, most other places in the country. So I had a chance to tour schools for the first time and see some of these innovative practices that were happening. I then went and worked for a a constitutional firm where we represented families who were looking to participate in choice programs. Um but uh we got married, my wife Stephanie and I got married, and knew pretty quickly that we did not want to stay in DC. So as we looked at other places, um Nashville was a was kind of on our short list, and um I I knew that I still wanted to press forward on education work and education policy, and I was doing some policy work when I first came to Nashville. And for me, the question was less about what educational system, charter, private, etc., and more about all right, what's at the tip of the spear? And at that time in Tennessee, it was charters. You know, we didn't have a private choice program. We had charters, and we had a um a new thing that was about to start called the Achievement School District. And so I got connected with someone that I had met some years earlier, um, named Jeremy Kane. He had started a school in Nashville called Lead uh Public Schools. And he said, Hey, we're about to expand. And, you know, as you know, David, he said, I don't know what we're gonna need next, but we're gonna need we're gonna need some people who can dig in and who are not afraid to work and who can help and who can think in a few different domains. And I was like, sure, let's do it. And so um when I started at lead, we had just opened our second school, which was the first conversion charter in the state. And then we opened two more schools after that in in successive years. We opened the first Achievement School District School. So this is a bottom 5% school in the district that converted to a charter. Um, and then after that, I went and I I became the first uh regional director here in Tennessee for Rocket Chip. And so we opened three schools um with Rocket Ship. And so, yeah, I got to I got to see firsthand both the school day, right? Because I was, you know, officing out of a out of a middle school or an elementary school. And so um was really experiencing the the school in a and the school community in a way that I hadn't when I was in DC, right? That's kind of it at arm's length, and I think it actually does a disservice if policy people never get in a school building. I think it's um they can you're necessarily disconnected. So it was super helpful um for me to just be on the ground and go, oh, okay, here's what the day looks like. Here's the cycle, the rhythm of a school year, and how that informs your policy. And so um yeah, it was really, really valuable.

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

So the concept of school choice is an interesting and nuanced one, and I think often misunderstood. Uh you you you know, in a minute, I'll get you can give your perspective on that. But from my perspective, it's often misunderstood. Having worked now for over three decades in charter schools, I every day run into people who mistakenly think charter schools are private, mistakenly think that students have to take a an exam or a test, they have to test in. Yeah. They've seen waiting for Superman, and they, you know, they have some perceptions about that. Um, then we have at certainly with this most recent iteration of Donald Trump, but even the previous iteration of Donald Trump, vouchers started to gain legs as a as an option. I know now several dozen states have some semblance of a voucher or voucher-esque um program. Uh, can you kind of take us through the the menu of options that if of things that you're thinking about when you talk about school choice? Like from public, private, vouchers, charter, like how should our listeners think about and navigate that? Just the it's it's a big, it's big.

SPEAKER_01: 20:04

Yeah. Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. There's a lot of misconceptions about choice. There it requires a good deal of nuance. And you know, to be fair, part of the reason is because the educational environment uh looks so different today than it did um you know 20 years ago, definitely 30, 40 years ago. And now that's not the case in every state, but in a lot of states. I mean, if you think about the educational options that exist in Washington, DC today, none of this, you couldn't even fathom this ecosystem 25 years ago. Um, because you've got a voucher there, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, you've got a you've got charter schools that are thriving. Um you now have district magnet schools, I believe. So yeah, so what it what does it all mean? I think kind of at at the core, um school choice or educational choice or educational freedom, whatever the parlance is that that you prefer, I think it has to do with um who is best positioned to make the educational placement decision for the child. That's that's kind of the to me that's the um the most important like unit, right? Who's at the who is best positioned to make that decision. Um to say that a school district is best positioned to make that decision, I think kind of really like you've got a you've gotta stretch reality um to to say that with a straight face, because you know, I don't know how big the district is in San Diego. Here in Nashville, where I live, our district now, I mean, you've got about a hundred thousand kids, a hundred and ten thousand school-age kids.

SPEAKER_00: 22:18

Yeah, that's what San Diego Unified is about.

SPEAKER_01: 22:20

Yeah. Yeah. So that's a that's a lot of kids. I I only have three in my family. And um and it's clear that my three kids uh have you know different learning styles, they are drawn to different subjects, right? Um if you're a family and some of your kids have exceptional needs, then you know that now you're that's another layer you've got to put on top. So so the question is, all right, you do that, and now you multiply those differences times an entire county or an entire city. How is one school board gonna make decisions that are in the best interest of every single child? I just think it it's impossible. And that's not because school board members or school district employees are bad people. I just think it's it's like a a numbers thing. It's a reality, right? Um there's too many, there's too many kids with too many needs to do that, too many unique needs. So the concept of school choice is all right, well, let's give some of the decision making then to our parents. Um but what we're gonna do is per state law, because this is the case in every state, every state says that it's going to pay for education. But I think what um what doesn't have to be the case is that it doesn't mean that it's uh going to both pay for and provide the education, right? So that's the that's the difference. And um it's separating those two things so that we can say, yeah, great. Um let's let the the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee pay for education. But we're gonna let mom and dad make the decision about where this child should go because um they've got you know they've got the most direct link and they've got real skin in the game in terms of what what's gonna work best for him. That's I I think kind of fundamentally what's there. Now, policy-wise, yeah, you asked about like what are some of the ranges, um, some of the differences in policies. I mean, um, this kind of started out, I'll try to hit it quickly, but um you know, most people think about um private choice as just vouchers. But I think again, if you think about those the the pillars that I mentioned, who pays for it and who controls it, right? Who who pays, who controls, and who sort of provides the education. In um on one end of the spectrum, you've got say a a district, and the district pays for the education and it provides the education, and they tell you where to go, right? They say you're you live on 24, whatever, Poplar Street. This is where you go to school, period. So you don't have any any say in the matter. The other end of the spectrum would be if would be say really homeschool, and would be all right, family pays for it, family provides it, they're gonna figure out what the what the school day looks like. That's at the other end. Everything else is in the big middle, right? So you've got a charter school where, as you know, as as your audience, most of your audience will know, a charter school, not a private school. Why? Because the government still pays, but now you have this independent, usually nonprofit board kind of making the decisions about how to operate it. And who makes the choice? Well, parents make the choice. They say, I want to go to that charter school because it's got a STEM focus, or it's got, you know, it's doing some cool things with um English language learners or, you know, whatever it is. Down the way, then you might have a private school. And again, private schools would be private pay, private um uh placement, but the school itself figures that out. Where a choice program comes in is we say, okay, we're gonna take the money that would have gone to the public school, and we're gonna let families carry that to whatever option they want. And um and we're gonna again trust that parents are the are the closest ones to the end user, and that is a student, and so that they're gonna do what's um in the best interest of students.

SPEAKER_00: 27:01

And thank you for that uh for that overview. I think it's really helpful for for the conversation and for thinking about this. One of the the knocks against school choice, the the the last uh descriptor that you used, and I'm sure you've heard this all often, is that that's all well and good to be able to take your um allocation or allotment of X amount of dollars to wherever you want to go. Um uh what happens if that's not enough to cover the cost of a private setting? That's one part of the question. The other part of it is uh what happens if we're dealing with a family that just historically, I mean, assuming every set of parents loves and cares for their kids and wants the best for their kids, I think that's a good assumption place to start with, a respectful place. But the systemic um empowerment that comes with this idea of choice isn't just a default thing for people, right? Like uh how do you think about um uh both empowering choice for people who very likely have choice in all elements of their lives and exercise it freely? Um, people like you and I sitting here now on this call, and then also people who may not even have ever had to make a choice about education for their kid and suddenly they're living in a place where that's an option. I think about Texas, for example, right? Governor Abbott um pushed super hard, and I think it costs some politicians their jobs in the last um primaries, and suddenly there's a there's a thing going on in Texas. But the question is like, is that empowering everybody, or is it a select few people like me who might have had my kid in a private school anyway, and now I'm getting a$10,000 discount for that? Right. Talk about kind of how you think that through from an equity and access standpoint.

SPEAKER_01: 29:05

Yeah, great questions. So your first question, what if the what if the the scholarship or the voucher or the education savings account, whatever uh whatever form it takes.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

Tax break, whatever it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 29:18

Yeah, what if it's what if it's not enough? So um one, these things are increasing. I mean, at at American Federation for Children, where I work, we we always push for like a minimum of 70% of the per pupil allocation to be part of one of these scholarships. In Texas, this new law that you referenced, so it just passed in May of uh 2025. It's gonna be about$10,000 per per student. Like 10 grand that'll spend, you know? Um, and here's what what I would say about what if it's not enough? Because you're absolutely right that there are schools with tuition. That are much higher than that. But what I think a lot of folks fail to realize is what happens when you inject capital into this ecosystem. So it does a few things. One, it allows it actually allows philanthropic dollars and scholarships, school-based scholarships, to go farther. Because schools are not going to stop raising money. You can believe that. Schools are going to keep raising money because people get a tax break when they contribute to a school, typically, to a scholarship fund. So schools are going to continue to raise money. Now what you're doing is you're allowing a school's financial aid to go further and reach more kids. And I've seen that firsthand in Nashville, where a school told me that they had, they basically had one scholarship that they could give. They had the equivalent of$14,000 or$15,000 that they could give. They had two girls from the same school who applied, and they were like, man, these girls are great. We want them both to attend. Neither one of them can afford it. If those girls had the$7,000 ESA, then the school could split that financial aid and brought both girls and not have to make that awful choice between one or the other. So it allows it to go further. Parents will figure figure it out and will and are savvy enough to um to come up with a little extra. That's a lot of money. And again, at AFC, we think it's really important to prioritize lower-income families in these programs. And so you can do that in a number of ways. You can, for instance, you can reserve some seats or some scholarships for low-income families. That's one way to do it. You can give priority access during the application process, right? Because we know that wealthy, politically savvy families are going to log in and apply for our program on like minute one. Right. So we think if there are ways to open up the application process first to families who historically have lacked that kind of access, that that's a a way to kind of balance the scales a little bit. So there's some things that you can do from a policy standpoint that um that keep that that those communities kind of um as a as a focal point. And then the last thing I would say is I really do think that um that choice begets choice. And maybe a corollary to that is that agency begets agency. And what I mean there is that um I don't think it should be surprising. You you I bet you've heard this, David. I bet you've heard um colleagues at other schools, especially public schools, talk about, oh, we don't have, we you know, we can't get enough parents out for this parent night, or there's not enough of the right kind of parent engagement. Um, and I would say is, well, how responsive have you been to parents? Because if you're a school that has a history of being unresponsive to parents, why would you expect parents to keep coming out? I wouldn't do that, right? If I was if I kept making comments, dropping dropping notes in the comment box and they went unanswered, I would stop dropping comments in the box. And I would just ignore it and go, well, I guess we can't fix it. I guess it is what it is. The flip side of that is when um, and there's a guy out of University of Arkansas that's done some work on this, uh, Patrick Wolfe. Um, when families participate in a choice program and they choose a school and it works for them, there's actually some indicators that those families have higher civic engagement after.

unknown: 35:06

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

And the hypothesis is that again, like this agency sort of begets agency. And so they go, like, hey, I did that, right? I filled this thing out and it worked. And now we are in a our family is in a markedly better situation. Okay, what else can I do? Like, who knows? Maybe voting. Um, maybe that, maybe that works. Maybe I'm gonna engage that way, or maybe I'm gonna engage with my, you know, block party association. It doesn't have to be some Mac, you know, really big scale. Um, but I think there's a dynamic there that when you show parents, hey, this works and your opinion really matters and you can make a difference, I think that that that kind of gets the flywheel going.

SPEAKER_00: 35:48

I'd imagine the parent education orientation piece is huge, right? Just understanding the landscape, understanding the terminology. I mean, I'm I as I look out my office window, I'm like 10 miles from the border with Mexico. And so a large percentage of our families um are uh our students are first generation uh uh born in the US or or uh immigrant students, and they're coming from a landscape where there are no charter schools at all in Mexico, and the disparity in public perception between public and private in Mexico is vast. Like it's like you just do everything you can to escape public. Like that's a thing. And so I've we've seen that over and over and over again in in our messaging and communication with our community, is like understanding that, yeah, we have uniforms here, we have these expectations, we have these programs, and it doesn't cost you anything. We're free, we're public, you know, and so talk talk about the work that your organization does in disseminating information about school choice. Because we talk about again, if you and I are making choice for our kids, we're we're the we're the dudes logging in at 1201, yeah, making choices, right? Right. Uh, because we we we're we're closer, you know what you're doing, and I'm closer to knowing what I'm doing, but we don't represent everybody. So, what does the parent education side look like?

SPEAKER_01: 37:32

Yeah, it's it's um definitely something that we pay a lot of attention to. I was just with a group um earlier in the summer, and we were talking about uh a new this new federal tax credit program that it got passed as part of the the the one big bill, and and it's got the potential to you know give scholarships around the country. I mean, it it I think it could be really catalytic, but we were talking about all right, what might it look like to tell parents about this? And um, one of the things that I noted, I said, okay, when we're talking to parents, keep in mind that when you start talking to someone about tax policy, it's like automatic shutdown.

SPEAKER_00: 38:21

Shades come down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:22

Yes, yes. I said we cannot lead with, hey, let me tell you about this new federal tax credit program, is like not exciting, right? So I think um, and that's not just spin either. I mean, I think it's being responsive to what people are paying attention to. I think educators are often really surprised and maybe even frustrated to see these polls that come out almost annually. Somebody will do a survey and they'll say, what's most important to parents when selecting a school? And, you know, top three, it'll be like safety, transportation, right? Then maybe number three is academics, right? Right. But it's often really, really frustrating because you know, educators, you didn't go to years of schooling to be a classroom teacher so that you could just have like safety as your highest priority. You you actually want to teach content. But again, I think we've got to be responsive to what parents want because of course parents want to safe school. Um, and so so too with these programs, we try to really talk about um or or identify what's important to families. Some of that's gonna be contextual based on what's happening. I mean, for instance, um in in my city, a lot of people don't know this, but Nashville has a really large immigrant and refugee population. So when we started one of our schools, um, one of the rocket ship schools, we had a large Egyptian population, student population, who spoke Arabic, a big Somali population, so they're speaking Somali, and then we had a Spanish-speaking population, but you had several um mostly Central American countries. So what did we do? We had to have people on staff who spoke those languages so that we could communicate with um with the with folks in the community, and that's something that I think we were early on, you know, we were early to and district schools weren't um as responsive, and I think that goes a long way. So yeah, it's kind of meeting families where they're at.

SPEAKER_00: 40:42

Like any changes within a system, then while as you referenced earlier, the options in education are incredibly varied compared to where they were maybe 20 or 30 years ago, even. But this is a public education in in the United States is well over a hundred years old, and for most of that, it was a fairly uh stayed and and and uh unchanging or very change resistant. I think it's safe to say that public education continues to be change resistant. I'm sure that you see attacks against concept of school choice. You know, in the charter movement in a state like California, uh we face uh legislative attacks every year. I that's one reason we are we're part of membership organizations. Um, I'm sure you see this in in your home state as well as work around the country in various ways. What gets you up every morning to continue this work? I mean, this is work that's not just a straight line, easy uh movement ahead, right? There are a lot of there's a lot of headwinds against you, uh, depending on where you where in the country you're working and who you're talking to. Like this is there's a lot of this that's thankless too. How do you as an individual stay motivated and positive and and calm? Um, and again, I thank you for your calm presence. Um, I I sense that it comes through the screen, and I know it's gonna come through in the audio as well. But what what keeps you going?

SPEAKER_01: 42:21

Well, I think some of that calm is just as as you know, has uh increased with age. Um because I I don't know that that would have been the case. I think 20 years ago I'd have been like, burn it down, you know. Um and and listen, I think it takes some of that sometimes because there are educational situations for kids still in the US where we should absolutely disrupt that system because it's failing kids. I mean, I think about a city like Baltimore. Um I've got a colleague who's up there, and uh there were there were like less than a dozen actual high school students proficient in math, not percentage. Um you know, those sorts of things are um, I mean, I think it's in it's in injustice to graduate kids and matriculate kids, give them a diploma, um, and you're really just selling them kind of a bag of beans that says, oh yeah, that you'll be fine. You'll be fine out there. No, you won't. Um, so I think that's gotta still motivate us. What how animated we get about it is uh is another uh question that's maybe one of temperance. Um but but yeah, I mean I I guess I just know personally and have seen professionally in so many different schools, whether I was affiliated with the schools or just touring other great schools. I I I believe in the power of education. I believe that if we're gonna have meaningful and actionable like civil discourse in the US about any number of other important issues, I think we've got to um have some shared knowledge. Um I just saw on on social media the other day somebody that I went to high school with. I won't I won't name them, but um posed a question about the moon landing. And I mean, there were like 37 comments. There were so many comments that it surprised me, and so I clicked comments, and there were like 37 comments where 90% of them said, nah, that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00: 44:45

It was a studio in Burbank or something.

SPEAKER_01: 44:47

Yeah, it was a studio, and I was just like, oh my goodness, great. So in some ways, like what motivates me, that kind of thing motivates me too, right? Because I think um we should be we should be proud of the like intellectual and scientific and academic advancements that we've been able to make. And I don't think, I mean, we talked about faith earlier. I don't think those things are at odds with faith. Um, I think we've been given you know these abilities and and frankly, um, how do you even uh come to a more defined faith? Well, you read. Right. I mean, any faith tradition has got like texts that you've got to actually study. Um, so I think we've got to arm people with the skills to be um discerning citizens. And education is just a part of that. And now I say with with my kids, you know, I'm like, all right, we're what are they gonna be? Who are they gonna be? And um, and education is such a big part of that.

SPEAKER_00: 45:50

Well, you've been very generous with your time and and your wisdom and your your perspective. I really appreciate that. But I have one last question for you, but before we get there, is there anything that we haven't covered um that you you wish to add to this conversation about your work, about your perspective, something that I might have overlooked?

SPEAKER_01: 46:12

Well, thanks for asking that. Um, and I've enjoyed our conversation too. I mean, I think we I mentioned it, I touched on it briefly, but I would definitely encourage folks to keep an eye out for that uh very unsexy sounding federal tax credit program.

SPEAKER_00: 46:28

Uh everyone go on the IRS website right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:32

Yeah. That I mean, that won't start for a little while. It's probably not uh it doesn't come into effect until 2027. So, you know, maybe we can bump this up.

SPEAKER_00: 46:43

What is it? What is it? Just uh what's the reader's digest version of that?

SPEAKER_01: 46:46

Yeah, readers digest is that um uh every taxpayer with you know, every federal taxpayer, which is all of us, right, who work, um, or even if you don't work, you can be a federal taxpayer. Um, every federal taxpayer can contribute seventeen hundred dollars, get a get a dollar-for-dollar write-off. So if you have tax liability, instead of cutting a check to the government, you can put seventeen hundred dollars into a scholarship granting organization.

SPEAKER_00: 47:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 47:19

And then the scholar, those scholarship orgs can give out scholarships to kids in private, charter, public, school, even homeschool in some states, um, that can be used for tuition, for uh materials, for AP classes or college coursework or special ed services. Um and so it's got a lot of ability. And the the scholarships are not$1,700. The scholarships can be more than that. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 47:48

I was gonna ask you that. The$17 is just the ceiling on the individual taxpayers' donation limit to that.

SPEAKER_01: 47:57

Correct. And and this is so and this is not a donation. So, you know, normally, right, if I if I gave a donation to your charter school, I might get like half or something in half or thirty, thirty, forty percent of something like that of the credit. This is dollar for dollar.

SPEAKER_00: 48:13

Dollar for dollar.

SPEAKER_01: 48:14

Yeah, 100% credit, um, which is a pretty big deal. And so um, yeah, this could this could be really catalytic, I think, for a lot of families, and um you'll those will start to come online in 2027. But here's the rub um governors have to opt in. And so there's gonna be a lot of pressure. I know that there's a a meeting just last week of Democratic governors, and they're already talking about hey, on the one hand, they might not have been fans of the big bill. On the other hand, this is a lot of money is at stake if they don't participate. A lot of money could be coming into their state for students.

SPEAKER_00: 49:00

I'm wondering where organized labor is going to come down around this.

SPEAKER_01: 49:05

I don't know. It's uh it it's hard to say. Here's the here's the deal. In a state like yours, like California, even if your governor elects to not participate, right? Your taxpayers can participate. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 49:21

So all of your tax, right?

SPEAKER_01: 49:24

And so if I'm a if I'm your governor in California, I'm like, why would I want to you're basically just sending checks to people in other states? Why would you do that? Um if you're yeah, if you're my state, like and and Kentucky's not participating, like we're happy to run TV ads to the people in targeting the people in Kentucky saying, hey, by the way, you're gonna do your taxes when you do them. Why don't you contribute to education? Interesting. Yeah, so that'll be super interesting. That's something to watch.

SPEAKER_00: 49:58

Thank you for thank you for that. I definitely will keep an eye out for that. Um, okay, the last question of this conversation, and hopefully you and I, this isn't the last time we have a conversation. Yeah, because that would be a good idea.

SPEAKER_01: 50:10

I would love to link up again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:12

Um so this is a hypothetical, it's a thought experiment. You're given the opportunity to design a billboard on the side of uh freeway or your local highway or throughway, whatever they're called in in Nashville, in California, obviously would be a freeway. Um what does your billboard say about your work about what you believe in? What message do you send to the world?

SPEAKER_01: 50:44

That's really good. Really good question. Um The idea that my face would be on a billboard makes me very nervous.

SPEAKER_00: 50:55

It doesn't have to be your face.

SPEAKER_01: 50:57

Good. Like, I don't know. I yeah. More like a face made for radio. Um, what would it say? I think um I think boy, this is gonna be too long, maybe, for billboards. You can have two. The fonts, yeah, it has some of those, yeah, those repeating ones, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's on a couple different exits when you're yeah. Um I think it would say something like uh education colon, the surest path to the American dream. I think something like that. I think that's right. I think I I I believe that. I think it's um there's not a surer way to climb the ladder uh for you and for your family, and um and there's so many other benefits that come along with it, right? The the I mean you see the dignity that comes um when kids show you their work that they've worked on, even if it's not perfect. Um that's that's a real value, and that comes through the educative process. And um those lessons carry out, and I think it it has the ability to continue to set us apart as a nation. Um, so yeah, I think education, surest path to the American tree.

SPEAKER_00: 52:33

Thanks for joining us on the Hangout Podcast. You can send us an email at podcastinfo at proton.me. Many thanks to my daughter Maya for editing this episode. I'd also like to underline that this podcast is entirely separate from my day job. And as such, all opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thanks for coming on in and hanging out.