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[00:00]
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Foreign.
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And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radiohefederalist.com follow us on XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Sydney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. We discuss a critical question. How do we save America's kids from a failing education system? Sydney, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
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Thank you so much for having me. It's a very important question to talk about.
[01:08]
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It is and it's getting more and more serious as time passes. Some very troubling numbers out there. So let's start with the big question and I think we'll take the 10,000 foot view and then maybe get into some more details surrounding that question. But how do we go about saving so many America's kids who are truly being left behind? Lots of children being left behind?
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Sure. The short answer is one word is choice. If we have more choices for our children, more educational opportunities for our children, it not only helps our children, but it helps the institutions in which are providing that that opportunity for our kids, making sure that, that that institutions are competitive, are doing better than others. They feel a little bit more of need to, to go the extra mile to spend the extra dollar. But it all boils down to having choices that best fits our child's needs.
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B
School choice has grown considerably over the last 10 years. But when I talk about this issue as an old Wisconsin guy, I cannot help but think about then Governor Tommy Thompson, the Republican governor for the state of Wisconsin who pioneered school choice in private schools in Milwaukee because Milwaukee had long been suffering the, the really the worst academic scores, the worst outcomes that the state of Wisconsin had and really some of the worst outcomes in the country. That was an absolute battle. But he got it done. And now Wisconsin is one of the, the leading school choice states with an expanded across the state school choice system. This is a story truly, isn't it, of this whole area has come a mighty long way.
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Absolutely. And I, I don't know, it's come in an amazing way, but it's also kind of pulled us back in being able to go that extra mile. School choice, I like to say, has the PR firm out there because it's so hyper political and People can't get to the root of the problem without seeing it as red or blue or black and white. And we've kind of inched away from what's best and more about special interest saying, telling us what's best. And I find it very interesting that, you know, the Democratic party of what it used to be, it used to be the party of education and new thinkings and new ways. And we've kind of dug this, this separ of that and we've turned education into this hyper partisan issue that school choice divides us in. And I think that there's so many opportunities here, like you said, of states moving forward and in ways that we don't need it to be red or blue. It can be both.
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Yeah. And school choice in so many cases it really has come down to parents saying, I cannot put my kids through these poor performing school systems. Not just for the academic side of things, which obviously is critical for the future of our country, for the future of these kids, but it's the indoctrination. You talk about how school choice has become such a, you know, or has been for such a long time, a, a political football, a political hot potato. But really I think what has emerged is just how much we have seen the left politicize education and move that from classical education, liberal in the traditional sense of the word, liberal education, to indoctrination. Does that have something to do with the growth of the numbers that we've seen in parents who are saying, nope, I've had quite enough, thank you very much.
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Absolutely. I think that definitely plays a part the indoctrination piece, but I think it's also just what works best for the child as well. I, I mean, I have personal story of this that I think my family really encaptures what school choice is. I went to public school. Both my sister and I went to public school growing up. Then my parents switched us into a private Jewish day school in Florida and my sister ended up going back to public school and finishing out public school while I stayed in public school because that's what worked best for us. And I think there's so many different scenarios in which what is working best for the child, the choices that the, that the parent makes for the child. And somewhere along this way we've lost that plot in this whole thing. And the indoctrination that's going on in some schools, but just the quality of schools is just not to what it needs to be. And if we can have choices, then we can keep our schools competitive, we can keep Our schools better, whether they're private, public, charter. It all is kind of this circle of education, the cycle that just keeps going and somewhere it's broken down.
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Well, certainly we have learned some painful lessons over the course of the 250 years of this great republic. Lots of lessons tried, many lessons failed. But we've learned the, the true things that we can count on over the, the years when it comes to educating children. You know, ways of, of reading, how far, how many kids have fallen behind in reading and basic mathematics because of, you know, these critical theory ideas of how to teach kids. And then of course, the whole sense of it's not equitable to expect excellence from some kids. It's really a racist approach to education and it's very tragic. And it has left so many kids behind. And we see it in the numbers. A new report highlighted by the California Globe, coupled with the new national education data, paints a troubling picture of where America's schools stand. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, that's the annual report card, found that 12th grade reading scores have fallen to their lowest level in decades, 10 points below where they were in 1992. That is an absolute public education crisis. Why do you think it's not being treated as such?
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I think that it's not being treated as such because of the special interests that come into play. I think there's so much that has changed in the world of politics, in the world of advocacy, in the world which we live in, where we are just not focused enough on the child. We're focused on the outside entities that are outside of what it means the most. And people are probably going to say, oh, that's because of COVID And Covid hurt us. And whatever your take on was the way that Covid was worked on in America. But we know that this is not just during COVID It has been now six years. This is something that is massively longevity. This is something that's not going away. And if we keep looking at as a special interest and looking at those needs instead of the children's needs and getting to the root problem and also just throwing money at the problem. If we keep throwing money at the problem, that doesn't really get us anywhere either. There is, there's so many layers to this, but unfortunately not everyone wants to pull back those layers and they just want to keep adding on the layers.
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Yeah, I want to actually expound a little bit on Covid, and you're absolutely right. I mean, we're six years from the, you know, the Start of COVID in 2020. You would think after several years now of being past, that there would be some changes to the positive. There are some, but certainly a dearth of positive movement on these fronts that we're talking about. How damaging do you think Covid was in terms of the lockouts, keeping kids out of classrooms, those sorts of things. And really what we learned is online learning can be successful in certain aspects, but it's still important to have human beings connecting with. With human beings. And I think about all of this in context of Anthony Fauci testifying before Congress, and a lot of the information that we've learned since COVID and what the experts supposedly did at the time, whether they intended to or not, and there's a great body of evidence that there was some intent there. But, you know, the lockdowns and how we approached all of that had extremely damaging effects that could be here with us for a long time. What do you think the ultimate impact of all of that was on education?
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Yeah, I'm not a health expert or a child psychologist expert, but what I can say is that nothing from COVID in that actual beginning time, where the world was shut down and we just didn't know what to do was healthy for anyone, specifically our children. Not only do I work in this space, but my mom was a public school teacher. I saw her wake up every morning with the kids on zoom doing the national anthem and the pledge of Allegiance and teaching them geometry over zoom. And this was the first time that remote learning at such a large scale was being done. And of course, it works for some people, but I don't think that anyone was ready for that. The kids, the teachers, anyone. So it was so much unknown going on, not just within our homes and our personal lives, but also in our education and our. In our education system. And I think that there was a big, big impact on kids. We've come so far, even from COVID to now, to what we have at our fingertips with technology, with AI, with chat and different opportunities for our kids to be a part of that, how we're leveraging that, how we're bringing that into the classrooms, we just have so much at our fingertips that I feel like, like I said before, these layers that just keep being added up aren't being broken down enough. We should have learned that in Covid. We should have learned, let's take a step back and let's see how we can make this all better and look at the technology that we have at our fingertips and what we can do. With it instead of getting into these debates of, you know, school choice or dollar amounts and like no one's really looking at it from the kids perspective.
[11:41]
B
Yeah, you raised some, some very good points there. I wanted to talk to you a bit more about it. The technology. The technology of course has exploded over the last generation and really over the last 10 years. I mean, look at what was going on during COVID as a way to reach students and teach students through the technology. It has advanced exponentially since then. How much will AI play a part of all of this? I think about. What is her name? Sally the Humanoid. If you've heard that story from your state of New York, upstate New York, I guess they're going to roll out this robot teacher who looks like a human being to a great degree, does not have, doesn't move around the classroom, but arms move in its intuitive kind of intelligence. Will that play a big role? And what about screens in the classrooms and the inundation of screens in society for kids?
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Absolutely. And that the AI bot that you bring up, I haven't, you know, I don't know what's right. Or should we have robots in our classroom? Should we not? I think we're still so far beyond that to be able to say that this is a good thing versus this is a bad thing. And like you said, screen in the classrooms in New York, we, we have a cell phone ban and it has been working incredibly in the sense of social media and mental health and all of that. But how are we leveraging just AI technology in general? Maybe it's not directly in front of the children's faces, but how are we making our education system better by leveraging these resources at our fingertips? There's new schools opening in Florida, micro schools and AI schools on computers. And there are different ways to kind of bring the education and the choices back to the child and the families by leveraging what we have, even if we're not talking robots and all of that. But why are we not using everything at our fingertips to look at the these problems, the 10 points lower in California, these low proficient rates. Why are we not taking everything in our arsenal to fix it?
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You think AI will eventually displace teachers at some level? I don't know what that might be, but there will be some lost jobs in that field because of AI teaching models?
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I hope not. But I also know that teachers aren't paid enough right now and there's teacher shortages. My team that works in Florida has been working on teacher apprenticeships and shortages and issues on that sense. But we're facing an issue there right now. Where do we invest in our teachers or do we invest in a new realm of AI bots? I would hope we invest in teachers and AI and we can somehow combine the two. But we've never been good at supporting our teachers, investing in our teachers. And if we keep going down this road, we're definitely going to go down a road that is probably inching closer towards the AI bots. But I don't know if that's right. If I had to say right now, I would still want a human teaching me, I would still want human interaction. But we're just not doing enough in that sense.
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Across America, as I understand it, Old Sally the humanoid cost the school district about $57,000. The scale varies, but in some school districts that's the starting wage of a teacher. Depending on where you live, ultimately you can kind of see where, depending on the programming, I guess you invest $57,000 and maybe a few thousand dollars a year in software upgrades and those sorts of things and you don't have to pay health insurance and fringe benefits and all of those sorts of things. I wonder if school districts will be saying, okay, we're going to save some money here.
[15:40]
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It's definitely better in the money saving sense when it comes to the school districts. But then if you think about it on an economic sense, we want our families to have jobs, buy houses, buy, be able to bring money back into the communities. So, you know, there's the pros, the cons and everything. And the fact that we just haven't been investing our teachers and that we have to even pivot to something like that because we just don't have the resources enough to pay our teachers is alarming in itself. Think if we were to look at teaching and education as high of a, of a salary or high of a ranking when it comes to jobs, as the doctors, the lawyers, we would be in a completely different scenario right now. For some reason, it all ends back at education. But we just don't treat the occupation of education, of teaching and this whole entity, we just don't treat it as such.
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Our guest today is Sidney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. As we discuss the critical question that we have been asking for some time and we're asking it more urgently. How do we save America's kids from a failing education system? You had alluded to it before. The special interest involved how much do the teachers unions continue to play in this? Remember the teachers unions going Back to Covid kept students locked out of schools, I guess in part because there were concerns about some of the older teachers and the health risk that were out there for them. But it was, I can think of so many different school districts that I covered. I mean, a year, a year and a half locked away. And that's just an example of the kind of control that unions have over our classrooms.
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Absolutely. There has always been this tit for tat when it comes to the teachers unions and school choice. And we're seeing it play out in real time right now, specifically with the federal scholarship tax credit program that Trump signed into law in the big, the one big beautiful bill. It's a tax credit scholarship program for public schools, for non, for private schools, charter schools, any students that, that are eligible. And we're seeing the teachers unions come out vehemently against this. But at the end of the day, this program is helping the students. So why are the teachers union stepping in front of much needed resources for the children that they are supposedly representing? You're seeing the real breakdown of what their interests are on the main stage currently at this moment. And there couldn't be a more black and white picture of who they're trying to appease at this moment. If so many of our kids go to public schools, the majority of kids that are going to benefit from this program will be their students and it playing out in real time. And it's really alarming to see that, that they have to step in front of the way of their own children being beneficiaries of a program like this.
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Yeah, I guess it just reminds me of an issue as an elections correspondent that I cover repeatedly and that is, you know, election integrity issues, particularly as it relates to bill pending in Congress that would demand that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and then, you know, photo ID to vote. I, I know it sounds strange, but I keep thinking about all of the Democrats who keep, you know, blocking this legislation that 80, 90% of Americans support. You ask why would that happen? It's the same kind of question, I guess, with the, the unions. Why would they want to stop something that would be beneficial to the education of students? And I, I think I know the answer to that, but I, I'd like to, to get your thoughts on it.
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Unfortunately, they see it as a zero sum game and we've never seen it that way. At least at Teach Coalition, we have never said take a dollar from the public school system and give it to, give it to the private school, give it to Vouchers instead. Give it to this, give it to that. We've, we've never looked at it as a zero sum game. The. A strong public school system and a strong non public school system, a strong private school system makes the entire ecosystem work. And if we're not supporting each other in that, then there will be a massive breakdown of the people who it actually serves. And they don't see it that way. They only see that one can be successful. But like we said at the beginning of this conversation, choices make everything better. It makes better for the parents, for the families, but it also keeps the schools accountable that there has to be competition, there has to be doing better. And we just kind of lost that plot along the way.
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Well, there is a maximum in a maxim in school choice that's been there for a long time. It's I think even more salient today and that is the money should follow the students and the families, not the institutions. But the unions too often don't see it that way. Again, does, does that become more urgent of a mission statement for the choice movement as you're facing more and more opposition from certain entities and certain interests?
[21:02]
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Yes, there's definitely states we work with that feel the money should follow the students. And we agree in some sense. But when we are already working in a fabric of a state or the fabric of where it's working or not working, there's plenty of money in state budgets to go around to help every child. And we should be investing in every child. We should be investing in, in a child in private school because they're eventually going to graduate, they're going to be in the work system, they're going to be building up our own economies. And if we're not looking at them the same that we're looking at a public school student, then we have completely lost the, the plot like I said. And we're not going to move our society forward if we're only focusing on one section of children, what's wrong with the other children? And why don't they get the same opportunities just because they choose or they feel like they need to go to a different that then they're going to go into our economy system in any state that they live in and what are they going to have to show for it? And it will be on the state for not providing them the tools and the resources that they need.
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Well, certainly some school systems in some states are doing it better than others. That's always been, you know, the, the laboratory of democracy. We have an interesting study out from Wallet Hub, an analysis highlighted recently in, in Newsweek. It ranks Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey among the nation's best public school systems, which kind of surprises me, to be honest with you, because you will find some of the most powerful teachers unions there. So I wonder about the measurements. It notes that New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona and Oregon rank near the bottom, which raises, I think, a very important point. In at least a few of those states, you have a very strong school choice advocacy network and you have, you know, a, a school choice system that has been in place for some time. So, so what gives with these rankings? And I guess ultimately what is school choice doing right in America? What is it struggling with? And the same can be asked of the other portions of the other pieces of the puzzle. In education, but particularly public schools.
[23:27]
A
I can say first and foremost, and I said it before too, I think school choice is struggling with its pr. It is so controversial. Well, why is the choices of the, of the constituents in which you serve as elected officials, why are my, why is my choice of where I want to go to school so controversial? I think we've just completely alienated the, the main issue here in that sense. And that is the biggest problem. We just, you come to a democratic state legislature in a state and you say, I want to help schools or kids in this school, and it's an automatic door closed. Why is it like that? It should never be like that. But where school choice is doing it right is you're seeing schools open exponentially. You're seeing people moving. I think a lot of people are moving around the country and figuring out where they're going to put their roots down. One of them is obviously cost of living. And if it's not the first or the second, it's education. It's where is my kid going to go to school, what kind of school, what kind of environment, how much is it going to cost me? And that's what people are looking at these days. And if we're not following suit with that and the school choice, you know, states, Florida's booming, Ohio, Texas, Texas, new program booming. It's really, it's in the data and you can see it. People are moving to these states not just because of cost of living, not just because of other factors, but one of the main factors is a quality, affordable, choice driven education.
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B
Yeah, no, no doubt about it. And again, you keep seeing the, you know, the verbal fist fightings going on in states where you've had established school choice. I, I come back to Wisconsin and you have a governor In Tony Evers, a Democrat who has, you know, obviously benefited immensely from teachers unions throughout the course of his political run. His campaign has. And you know, he has vowed for years to try to at least stop the growth of school choice, if not kill it all together. So you have these constant battles going on. But if you want to look at the public relations, the most effective PR to me, and I want to get your thoughts on this, because I've covered school choice for many years and met a lot of good people in the movement. The best PR is to talk to the families and the students in these programs and ask them how they were all doing before they got a voucher, before they got a tax credit to go to a school of their choice.
[26:01]
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Absolutely. And, you know, everything that we've been saying, it's all going back to the kids and the families, and they're the ones who we need to. We will and we will continue to share their stories. But then it's on the unions, it's on our communities, our legislators, our elected officials, to listen to their stories and to take those stories into account when drafting legislation, when choosing whether you're going to support something or the other thing, and whether making school choice such a politicized issue. If we're really here to serve our families and our students and you're hearing their stories, why aren't we serving them all? No matter whether we're on the right side of the aisle or the left side of the aisle?
[26:45]
B
That brings up a good point. And we've been touching upon this throughout the conversation, and that is the opposition constantly points to robbing Peter to pay Paul, or at least that. That concept. You're taking money away from public schools and we need that money. Obviously. We have so many kids falling behind and all of that sort of thing. And it feels a bit to a lot of people like a chicken or egg question. You know, we've had some pretty horrible failure and failing of students in a number of public schools. Is it because they don't have enough money? Because I'm looking at a number of public schools across the country that have seen an explosion, actually in funding, particularly in Covid and in so many of those places, sustained funding or higher funding levels.
[27:38]
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Absolutely. Even in New York City, there's so much out there currently circulating, showing, and data showing that investments in the public school system are going up while enrollment is not going up at the same rate. So why are we continuously throwing money? And is that what's working? And going back to what started this is we have to pull back the layers of what's going on in these schools. Indoctrination or just poor performance or the teachers that are teaching. And if we're just throwing money at the problem, yes, money is always better to get a better desk and better supplies and hopefully going to teachers. But if we're just throwing money at the problem and we're not in the schools running them properly, then it's a completely different situation. And we find ourselves that in schools that operate on their own, in a private school, they have that ability to do that. There's no bureaucracy of government and any of that. And so they kind of have that authority to pull back those layers. And we've kind of pigeonholed ourselves in the public school system that that's not really easily available to do.
[28:46]
B
It's amazing to me and sad at the same time. The Federalist has done a great deal of reporting, extensive reporting on where the. The money goes, of course, into these school systems. And over the last 10, 15 years, you've seen an increasing share of taxpayer money not going to teachers, not going to resources that would help kids, but going to administrators, particularly dei, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff members and administrators. That sure feels like a waste and feels a lot like we're not getting our money's worth as taxpayers as we see the results from the academic scores and all these other measures.
[29:35]
A
Yeah, and I'm definitely not saying that every private school is perfect and they pay everyone well and they don't have any, you know, backroom issues. I'm sure those exist and I'm sure that they're there. But it's like you said on the public school side, there really is no authority for the average person to see to average parent to see of where this money is going, to see who it is funding, what roles, what opportunity, what initiatives. But I can. I can probably say with a certainty that there is much more oversight when it comes to a private school being run by a board being run by a smaller group of people that they're able to nitpick and figure out the best way to educate the child in that school. And if we're really asking ourselves how to fix the problem in the public school system, we have to start within the four doors, the four walls of the school. And if it doesn't start there and we just keep throwing money at the problem, you and I are going to be having this conversation in another 10 years with the points being even lower.
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B
Yeah, that is sad. Let us talk a little bit about new entry points. For all of this. And the new federal education freedom tax credit is, is a big one. What are the projections so far? We certainly hear the din and the noise surrounding it from the opposition. But what, what are the projections? What is the ultimate hope from this tax credit?
[31:05]
A
The ultimate hope of this tax credit for, for, for people across America is that this is an opportunity for blue states and blue and families that live in democratically run states to have an opportunity at a scholarship that they never had before. People in Florida have been having had their scholarships in Texas, they're just rolling out in other states across America. But in New York, in New Jersey, in California, they've never had this opportunity to have a scholarship for private schools, for public schools. And this is something that without coming out of state budgets, that every child, no matter what, will be able to access if the governors opt in. And I think I quote Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, who says this is a no brainer for governors to opt into.
[31:55]
B
Interesting, particularly coming from that leftist governor. So correct. We will see where all of this goes. What is the future of the charter school? That has had an interesting journey of course over its time. We've seen some great successes, we've seen some mixed results and we've seen some poorly run operations. What's the future of the charter school in America?
[32:19]
A
I think they have a bright future. I think that they're another choice of school of education that people need. Of course there's ones that aren't run well. There aren't and there's currently litigation at the Supreme Court is charter schools. Can they be religious charter schools? Can they not be religious charter schools? We've had our eye on that too. So I think that there's going to be a lot coming in the very near future of how charter schools future trajectory is, is, is created with some of these rulings that could come out in the very near future.
[32:52]
B
That is interesting to me, the whole faith issue, because I have seen and I, I think the numbers bear it out a bit of a reawakening, if you will, from Americans about their faith, their foundational beliefs and their search, you know, for things that are inherently important to them, particularly their relationship with, with their faith. Are we seeing a higher demand out of choice schools for particularly vouchers to, to bring children into not only an academic setting that advertises and hopefully is doing well on, on that educational front, but also, you know, the basic standards, the, the ideas of a moral based education, if you will.
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A
I think a lot of people are going into the Faith based education, education space. When it comes to school choice, the majority of school choice of private schools is faith based. And I think that specifically with a lot of increases in targeted hate crimes, faith based hate crimes, we're seeing closer knit communities stay within their communities. Specifically the Jewish community, Jewish community, Jewish day school enrollment is, is growing post October 7th. Even Catholic schools have been seeing an increased amount of religiously motivated hate crimes in their community. You may be seeing them closing some schools, but really people are looking for that avenue to have a Catholic education. And I do believe that the faith plays a massive role in it. And specifically with faith based education, most of the times it's not a luxury, it's a necessity. These faith, whether it's Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, you know, Hindu, we, we feel this need to put our children in an environment that teaches our own values, that teaches our ways of life within the four walls of an institution. And we're seeing that grow across the country and we should be embracing that.
[35:06]
B
All right. As we close out the conversation, I often ask this as the, the big ending question, if you will. And so this is, this is one of them certainly. And, and I think it's the human resources question or the job interview question. You know, you're far enough along in the job interview where they ask you the question where do you see yourself in five, ten years from now? And it's one of the standard questions, but I think it's important to ask where do you see school choice 5, 10, 20 years from now?
[35:37]
A
I see every state opted into this federal tax credit program. I think that by then the naysayers now will have completely changed their tune. And I think that this program is going to be a bedrock of the education system in America. And it will also change the affordability crisis we're seeing in America with money going back into the pockets of parents for education and I hope with enrichment with SAT prep and the things that, that this money can, can help provide for students that makes our education system better. I think it's an entire circular system that is going to be bouncing off of this program. And I hope that in 10 years the unions will look back and say they did a disservice in pushing this, pushing against this. And I hope they're kicking themselves in 10 years saying this is one of their star programs because they're going to kids, they're going to see their teachers, the teachers that they represent are spending money out of pocket every year. Imagine if they had this program where kids could actually afford their, their, their their supplies and the teachers didn't have to pay for it. This is an entirely new opportunity, a defining moment for education in America. And in 10 years, I hope you and I are talking about how this has ballooned into the, the biggest thing and we're just looking at the next iteration of it.
[36:59]
B
I hope so too. I hope I'm still here, quite frankly. But yeah, no, I, I think so. I hope there is positive change in all of this. And I, I will say this. The unions, the big, big labor in America has a lot of things to kick itself for. It would have some pretty serious bruising up and down if it really did that. And I particularly think of Randy Weingarten and the damage that she has done to education in America. But perhaps that's a conversation for a different time. Final question for me. For you. Maybe it's for me too. I'm interested. What is, what is Teach Coalition?
[37:39]
A
Teach Coalition is a grassroots advocacy organization that is ensuring that non public schools have a voice at the table in states across the country. Whether it's a blue state, a red state. We go in to make sure that our non public school community has a seat at the table when legislation, when budgets are being announced. And we do that by growing advocates in communities with voting, with action alerts, bringing them to Albany, to Tallahassee to Sacramento, to all different areas and making sure that our communities feel empowered while also shaping what a strong non education looks like.
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B
And where can we find you online?
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Teachcoalition.org and you can find us there. And there's a lot of good insights and there's a nice big hub for the federal tax credit program. You can see all the states that have opted in. You can see some FAQs on the program. What we're doing, it's, it's our biggest move yet because we do feel that this is going to be a game changing opportunity for, for everyone in the school community. No matter where you go to school.
[38:47]
B
Well, there's, there's not much more important. I don't know if there's anything more important than addressing the question that we are trying to get to and that is how do we save America's kids from a failing education system and more and more falling behind. School choice is a big, big part of that. In fact, I, I think quite frankly that's where the discussion should begin because we have found it out over and over again. Competition creates better results. And it is true today as it ever was. Thanks to my guest today, Sydney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. You've been listening? Oh, yes. Thank you so much for joining us again, and I wish you the very best of luck.
[39:38]
A
Thank you.
[39:39]
B
We'll be back soon with more of the Federalist Radio Hour. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.

Summary7 min read

Podcast Summary: Federalist Radio Hour

Episode: How To Save America's Kids From A Failing Education System

Date: August 4, 2026
Host: Matt Kittle
Guest: Sydney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition

Overview

This episode explores the ongoing crisis in American education and focuses on the core question: How do we save America's kids from a failing education system? Host Matt Kittle and guest Sydney Altfield, a prominent school choice advocate, examine the broader issues plaguing public schools, the opportunities and challenges of school choice, the impact of recent policy changes, and the implications of new technologies like AI in the classroom. The conversation is marked by concern for the future of students, a defense of parental rights, and a critical look at bureaucracy and special interests.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Essential Role of Choice in Education (01:34 - 04:03)

Choice is the central solution to educational woes, according to Altfield. Enabling families to select the best educational path for their children not only benefits students but also compels all educational institutions to improve.
“It all boils down to having choices that best fits our child's needs.” — Sydney Altfield (01:34)

The Political Football of School Choice

Historical resistance to school choice, such as in Wisconsin, is highlighted, but Altfield emphasizes that the debate need not be partisan.
“We've turned education into this hyper partisan issue that school choice divides us in. And I think that there's so many opportunities here...it can be both.” — Sydney Altfield (03:03)

2. Academic Decline and Indoctrination (04:03 - 07:32)

Parents are increasingly seeking alternatives due to not only poor academic outcomes but also concerns about ideological “indoctrination” in schools.
Kittle references a national decline in reading scores:
“The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress...12th grade reading scores have fallen to their lowest level in decades, 10 points below where they were in 1992.” — Matt Kittle (06:10)
Altfield contends that special interests and a misplaced focus on politics over children have stalled reform.
“We're just not focused enough on the child. We're focused on the outside entities that are outside of what it means the most.” — Sydney Altfield (07:32)

3. COVID-19’s Enduring Impact on Education (08:35 - 11:40)

The pandemic’s school closures and pivot to remote learning had devastating effects on student achievement and well-being.
Altfield brings a personal perspective through her mother’s experience as a public school teacher during pandemic lockdowns.
There is consensus between host and guest that technology is useful, but not a substitute for in-person connection.
“What I can say is that nothing from COVID in that actual beginning time...was healthy for anyone, specifically our children.” — Sydney Altfield (10:00)

4. The Role and Risks of Technology and AI (11:40 - 16:34)

Exploding technological advances, especially AI, create both potential and unease.
Kittle references a “humanoid robot” being trialed as a teacher in New York. Altfield is ambivalent about such dramatic change.
“Should we have robots in our classroom? Should we not?...How are we making our education system better by leveraging these resources?” — Sydney Altfield (12:41)
Concerns about AI replacing teachers are raised, tied to longstanding issues of underpayment and teacher shortages.
“If we keep going down this road, we're definitely going to go down a road that is probably inching closer towards the AI bots.” — Sydney Altfield (14:08)

5. Teachers Unions and Institutional Resistance (16:34 - 19:37)

Teachers unions are positioned as major obstacles to reform and more flexible funding.
“Why are the teachers union stepping in front of much needed resources for the children that they are supposedly representing?” — Sydney Altfield (17:32)
Altfield points to opposition to the new Federal scholarship tax credit program as an example of unions prioritizing political interests over student welfare.

6. Funding Debates: “The Money Should Follow the Child” (20:28 - 22:10)

The maxim that educational funding should follow students is discussed as central to the choice movement.
Altfield stresses that investment should be in every child, regardless of school type.
“A strong public school system and a strong non public school system...makes the entire ecosystem work.” — Sydney Altfield (19:37)

7. State Comparisons and School Choice Outcomes (22:10 - 26:01)

State-by-state discrepancies are discussed, with surprising findings (e.g., states with powerful unions ranking high in public school performance) and rapid growth in “choice” states like Florida and Texas.
Altfield highlights the PR problem facing school choice and the need for parents’ and students’ stories to be at the center.
“The best PR is to talk to the families and the students in these programs and ask them how they were all doing before they got a voucher, before they got a tax credit to go to a school of their choice.” — Matt Kittle (24:57)

8. School Funding and Accountability (26:44 - 30:38)

The practice of “throwing money” at failing schools without addressing root issues is critiqued, especially with rising administrative bloat (including DEI staff) in public schools.
“If we're just throwing money at the problem and we're not in the schools running them properly, then it's a completely different situation.” — Sydney Altfield (27:38)
Private schools are described as having more transparency and agility due to smaller, community-centered governance.

9. New Policies: Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (30:38 - 31:54)

New tax credit program aims to give blue-state families access to scholarships previously unavailable.
“This is an opportunity for blue states and blue and families that live in democratically run states to have an opportunity at a scholarship that they never had before.” — Sydney Altfield (31:04)

10. The Future of Charter and Faith-Based Schools (31:54 - 35:05)

Charter schools’ future is linked to pending Supreme Court cases about religious charters; demand for faith-based schools is rising, particularly amid reports of hate crimes and a search for shared values.
“When it comes to school choice, the majority of school choice of private schools is faith based.” — Sydney Altfield (33:44)

11. Predictions for the Next 5–20 Years (35:05 - 36:59)

Altfield anticipates universal adoption of the tax credit program and a shift even among today’s critics.
“This program is going to be a bedrock of the education system in America. And it will also change the affordability crisis we're seeing in America...” — Sydney Altfield (35:36)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On School Choice:
“It all boils down to having choices that best fits our child's needs.” — Sydney Altfield (01:34)
On Indoctrination vs. Education:
“We have seen the left politicize education and move that from classical education... to indoctrination.” — Matt Kittle (04:03)
On COVID Impact:
“Nothing from COVID in that actual beginning time...was healthy for anyone, specifically our children.” — Sydney Altfield (10:00)
On Technology and Value of Teachers:
“If I had to say right now, I would still want a human teaching me, I would still want human interaction.” — Sydney Altfield (14:08)
On Teachers’ Unions:
“There couldn't be a more black and white picture of who they're trying to appease at this moment.” — Sydney Altfield (17:32)
On Funding:
“We've never looked at it as a zero sum game...choices make everything better.” — Sydney Altfield (19:37)
On School Choice's PR Problem:
“We’ve just completely alienated the main issue here...” — Sydney Altfield (23:26)
“The best PR is to talk to the families and the students...” — Matt Kittle (24:57)
On Administrative Bloat:
“Over the last 10, 15 years, you've seen an increasing share of taxpayer money not going to teachers...[but to] administrators, particularly DEI...” — Matt Kittle (28:46)
On Faith-Based Education:
“People are looking for that avenue to have a Catholic education. And I do believe that the faith plays a massive role in it...it's not a luxury, it's a necessity.” — Sydney Altfield (33:44)
On the Future:
“This program is going to be a bedrock of the education system in America...” — Sydney Altfield (35:36)

Important Timestamps

01:34–04:03: Introduction to school choice as a solution
06:10: Alarming education statistics and national decline
08:35–11:40: Discussion on COVID’s negative impact on schooling
12:41: New York's AI teacher experiment
16:34–19:37: Teachers unions and their resistance to reform
20:28: The "money should follow the student" philosophy
22:10: State-level differences in school performance and choice
24:57: PR value of personal stories from families
26:44–30:38: School funding, accountability, administrative growth
31:04: Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit overview
33:44: Rise in demand for faith-based education
35:36: Predictions for the next 10-20 years of school choice
37:39: Teach Coalition’s mission and resources

Conclusion

The episode offers a sweeping, candid critique of American K–12 education, emphasizing parental choice, accountability, innovation, and a refocusing on student outcomes. Altfield and Kittle argue that the future of education depends on empowering families, competing to improve schools, leveraging technology wisely without losing the human touch, and overcoming special interest resistance. They see optimism in recent policy changes and in states where school choice is expanding—and stress that real educational reform must put children and parents, not systems or politics, at its heart.

Learn more about Teach Coalition:
Teachcoalition.org — Resource hub, FAQs, and legislative updates on education reform.

Loading summary

Transcript48 lines

[00:00]
A
Foreign.
[00:18]
B
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radiohefederalist.com follow us on XDRLST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is Sydney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. We discuss a critical question. How do we save America's kids from a failing education system? Sydney, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
[01:04]
A
Thank you so much for having me. It's a very important question to talk about.
[01:08]
B
It is and it's getting more and more serious as time passes. Some very troubling numbers out there. So let's start with the big question and I think we'll take the 10,000 foot view and then maybe get into some more details surrounding that question. But how do we go about saving so many America's kids who are truly being left behind? Lots of children being left behind?
[01:34]
A
Sure. The short answer is one word is choice. If we have more choices for our children, more educational opportunities for our children, it not only helps our children, but it helps the institutions in which are providing that that opportunity for our kids, making sure that, that that institutions are competitive, are doing better than others. They feel a little bit more of need to, to go the extra mile to spend the extra dollar. But it all boils down to having choices that best fits our child's needs.
[02:06]
B
School choice has grown considerably over the last 10 years. But when I talk about this issue as an old Wisconsin guy, I cannot help but think about then Governor Tommy Thompson, the Republican governor for the state of Wisconsin who pioneered school choice in private schools in Milwaukee because Milwaukee had long been suffering the, the really the worst academic scores, the worst outcomes that the state of Wisconsin had and really some of the worst outcomes in the country. That was an absolute battle. But he got it done. And now Wisconsin is one of the, the leading school choice states with an expanded across the state school choice system. This is a story truly, isn't it, of this whole area has come a mighty long way.
[03:03]
A
Absolutely. And I, I don't know, it's come in an amazing way, but it's also kind of pulled us back in being able to go that extra mile. School choice, I like to say, has the PR firm out there because it's so hyper political and People can't get to the root of the problem without seeing it as red or blue or black and white. And we've kind of inched away from what's best and more about special interest saying, telling us what's best. And I find it very interesting that, you know, the Democratic party of what it used to be, it used to be the party of education and new thinkings and new ways. And we've kind of dug this, this separ of that and we've turned education into this hyper partisan issue that school choice divides us in. And I think that there's so many opportunities here, like you said, of states moving forward and in ways that we don't need it to be red or blue. It can be both.
[04:04]
B
Yeah. And school choice in so many cases it really has come down to parents saying, I cannot put my kids through these poor performing school systems. Not just for the academic side of things, which obviously is critical for the future of our country, for the future of these kids, but it's the indoctrination. You talk about how school choice has become such a, you know, or has been for such a long time, a, a political football, a political hot potato. But really I think what has emerged is just how much we have seen the left politicize education and move that from classical education, liberal in the traditional sense of the word, liberal education, to indoctrination. Does that have something to do with the growth of the numbers that we've seen in parents who are saying, nope, I've had quite enough, thank you very much.
[05:03]
A
Absolutely. I think that definitely plays a part the indoctrination piece, but I think it's also just what works best for the child as well. I, I mean, I have personal story of this that I think my family really encaptures what school choice is. I went to public school. Both my sister and I went to public school growing up. Then my parents switched us into a private Jewish day school in Florida and my sister ended up going back to public school and finishing out public school while I stayed in public school because that's what worked best for us. And I think there's so many different scenarios in which what is working best for the child, the choices that the, that the parent makes for the child. And somewhere along this way we've lost that plot in this whole thing. And the indoctrination that's going on in some schools, but just the quality of schools is just not to what it needs to be. And if we can have choices, then we can keep our schools competitive, we can keep Our schools better, whether they're private, public, charter. It all is kind of this circle of education, the cycle that just keeps going and somewhere it's broken down.
[06:10]
B
Well, certainly we have learned some painful lessons over the course of the 250 years of this great republic. Lots of lessons tried, many lessons failed. But we've learned the, the true things that we can count on over the, the years when it comes to educating children. You know, ways of, of reading, how far, how many kids have fallen behind in reading and basic mathematics because of, you know, these critical theory ideas of how to teach kids. And then of course, the whole sense of it's not equitable to expect excellence from some kids. It's really a racist approach to education and it's very tragic. And it has left so many kids behind. And we see it in the numbers. A new report highlighted by the California Globe, coupled with the new national education data, paints a troubling picture of where America's schools stand. The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, that's the annual report card, found that 12th grade reading scores have fallen to their lowest level in decades, 10 points below where they were in 1992. That is an absolute public education crisis. Why do you think it's not being treated as such?
[07:33]
A
I think that it's not being treated as such because of the special interests that come into play. I think there's so much that has changed in the world of politics, in the world of advocacy, in the world which we live in, where we are just not focused enough on the child. We're focused on the outside entities that are outside of what it means the most. And people are probably going to say, oh, that's because of COVID And Covid hurt us. And whatever your take on was the way that Covid was worked on in America. But we know that this is not just during COVID It has been now six years. This is something that is massively longevity. This is something that's not going away. And if we keep looking at as a special interest and looking at those needs instead of the children's needs and getting to the root problem and also just throwing money at the problem. If we keep throwing money at the problem, that doesn't really get us anywhere either. There is, there's so many layers to this, but unfortunately not everyone wants to pull back those layers and they just want to keep adding on the layers.
[08:36]
B
Yeah, I want to actually expound a little bit on Covid, and you're absolutely right. I mean, we're six years from the, you know, the Start of COVID in 2020. You would think after several years now of being past, that there would be some changes to the positive. There are some, but certainly a dearth of positive movement on these fronts that we're talking about. How damaging do you think Covid was in terms of the lockouts, keeping kids out of classrooms, those sorts of things. And really what we learned is online learning can be successful in certain aspects, but it's still important to have human beings connecting with. With human beings. And I think about all of this in context of Anthony Fauci testifying before Congress, and a lot of the information that we've learned since COVID and what the experts supposedly did at the time, whether they intended to or not, and there's a great body of evidence that there was some intent there. But, you know, the lockdowns and how we approached all of that had extremely damaging effects that could be here with us for a long time. What do you think the ultimate impact of all of that was on education?
[10:00]
A
Yeah, I'm not a health expert or a child psychologist expert, but what I can say is that nothing from COVID in that actual beginning time, where the world was shut down and we just didn't know what to do was healthy for anyone, specifically our children. Not only do I work in this space, but my mom was a public school teacher. I saw her wake up every morning with the kids on zoom doing the national anthem and the pledge of Allegiance and teaching them geometry over zoom. And this was the first time that remote learning at such a large scale was being done. And of course, it works for some people, but I don't think that anyone was ready for that. The kids, the teachers, anyone. So it was so much unknown going on, not just within our homes and our personal lives, but also in our education and our. In our education system. And I think that there was a big, big impact on kids. We've come so far, even from COVID to now, to what we have at our fingertips with technology, with AI, with chat and different opportunities for our kids to be a part of that, how we're leveraging that, how we're bringing that into the classrooms, we just have so much at our fingertips that I feel like, like I said before, these layers that just keep being added up aren't being broken down enough. We should have learned that in Covid. We should have learned, let's take a step back and let's see how we can make this all better and look at the technology that we have at our fingertips and what we can do. With it instead of getting into these debates of, you know, school choice or dollar amounts and like no one's really looking at it from the kids perspective.
[11:41]
B
Yeah, you raised some, some very good points there. I wanted to talk to you a bit more about it. The technology. The technology of course has exploded over the last generation and really over the last 10 years. I mean, look at what was going on during COVID as a way to reach students and teach students through the technology. It has advanced exponentially since then. How much will AI play a part of all of this? I think about. What is her name? Sally the Humanoid. If you've heard that story from your state of New York, upstate New York, I guess they're going to roll out this robot teacher who looks like a human being to a great degree, does not have, doesn't move around the classroom, but arms move in its intuitive kind of intelligence. Will that play a big role? And what about screens in the classrooms and the inundation of screens in society for kids?
[12:42]
A
Absolutely. And that the AI bot that you bring up, I haven't, you know, I don't know what's right. Or should we have robots in our classroom? Should we not? I think we're still so far beyond that to be able to say that this is a good thing versus this is a bad thing. And like you said, screen in the classrooms in New York, we, we have a cell phone ban and it has been working incredibly in the sense of social media and mental health and all of that. But how are we leveraging just AI technology in general? Maybe it's not directly in front of the children's faces, but how are we making our education system better by leveraging these resources at our fingertips? There's new schools opening in Florida, micro schools and AI schools on computers. And there are different ways to kind of bring the education and the choices back to the child and the families by leveraging what we have, even if we're not talking robots and all of that. But why are we not using everything at our fingertips to look at the these problems, the 10 points lower in California, these low proficient rates. Why are we not taking everything in our arsenal to fix it?
[13:55]
B
You think AI will eventually displace teachers at some level? I don't know what that might be, but there will be some lost jobs in that field because of AI teaching models?
[14:09]
A
I hope not. But I also know that teachers aren't paid enough right now and there's teacher shortages. My team that works in Florida has been working on teacher apprenticeships and shortages and issues on that sense. But we're facing an issue there right now. Where do we invest in our teachers or do we invest in a new realm of AI bots? I would hope we invest in teachers and AI and we can somehow combine the two. But we've never been good at supporting our teachers, investing in our teachers. And if we keep going down this road, we're definitely going to go down a road that is probably inching closer towards the AI bots. But I don't know if that's right. If I had to say right now, I would still want a human teaching me, I would still want human interaction. But we're just not doing enough in that sense.
[14:58]
B
Across America, as I understand it, Old Sally the humanoid cost the school district about $57,000. The scale varies, but in some school districts that's the starting wage of a teacher. Depending on where you live, ultimately you can kind of see where, depending on the programming, I guess you invest $57,000 and maybe a few thousand dollars a year in software upgrades and those sorts of things and you don't have to pay health insurance and fringe benefits and all of those sorts of things. I wonder if school districts will be saying, okay, we're going to save some money here.
[15:40]
A
It's definitely better in the money saving sense when it comes to the school districts. But then if you think about it on an economic sense, we want our families to have jobs, buy houses, buy, be able to bring money back into the communities. So, you know, there's the pros, the cons and everything. And the fact that we just haven't been investing our teachers and that we have to even pivot to something like that because we just don't have the resources enough to pay our teachers is alarming in itself. Think if we were to look at teaching and education as high of a, of a salary or high of a ranking when it comes to jobs, as the doctors, the lawyers, we would be in a completely different scenario right now. For some reason, it all ends back at education. But we just don't treat the occupation of education, of teaching and this whole entity, we just don't treat it as such.
[16:35]
B
Our guest today is Sidney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. As we discuss the critical question that we have been asking for some time and we're asking it more urgently. How do we save America's kids from a failing education system? You had alluded to it before. The special interest involved how much do the teachers unions continue to play in this? Remember the teachers unions going Back to Covid kept students locked out of schools, I guess in part because there were concerns about some of the older teachers and the health risk that were out there for them. But it was, I can think of so many different school districts that I covered. I mean, a year, a year and a half locked away. And that's just an example of the kind of control that unions have over our classrooms.
[17:33]
A
Absolutely. There has always been this tit for tat when it comes to the teachers unions and school choice. And we're seeing it play out in real time right now, specifically with the federal scholarship tax credit program that Trump signed into law in the big, the one big beautiful bill. It's a tax credit scholarship program for public schools, for non, for private schools, charter schools, any students that, that are eligible. And we're seeing the teachers unions come out vehemently against this. But at the end of the day, this program is helping the students. So why are the teachers union stepping in front of much needed resources for the children that they are supposedly representing? You're seeing the real breakdown of what their interests are on the main stage currently at this moment. And there couldn't be a more black and white picture of who they're trying to appease at this moment. If so many of our kids go to public schools, the majority of kids that are going to benefit from this program will be their students and it playing out in real time. And it's really alarming to see that, that they have to step in front of the way of their own children being beneficiaries of a program like this.
[18:45]
B
Yeah, I guess it just reminds me of an issue as an elections correspondent that I cover repeatedly and that is, you know, election integrity issues, particularly as it relates to bill pending in Congress that would demand that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and then, you know, photo ID to vote. I, I know it sounds strange, but I keep thinking about all of the Democrats who keep, you know, blocking this legislation that 80, 90% of Americans support. You ask why would that happen? It's the same kind of question, I guess, with the, the unions. Why would they want to stop something that would be beneficial to the education of students? And I, I think I know the answer to that, but I, I'd like to, to get your thoughts on it.
[19:37]
A
Unfortunately, they see it as a zero sum game and we've never seen it that way. At least at Teach Coalition, we have never said take a dollar from the public school system and give it to, give it to the private school, give it to Vouchers instead. Give it to this, give it to that. We've, we've never looked at it as a zero sum game. The. A strong public school system and a strong non public school system, a strong private school system makes the entire ecosystem work. And if we're not supporting each other in that, then there will be a massive breakdown of the people who it actually serves. And they don't see it that way. They only see that one can be successful. But like we said at the beginning of this conversation, choices make everything better. It makes better for the parents, for the families, but it also keeps the schools accountable that there has to be competition, there has to be doing better. And we just kind of lost that plot along the way.
[20:28]
B
Well, there is a maximum in a maxim in school choice that's been there for a long time. It's I think even more salient today and that is the money should follow the students and the families, not the institutions. But the unions too often don't see it that way. Again, does, does that become more urgent of a mission statement for the choice movement as you're facing more and more opposition from certain entities and certain interests?
[21:02]
A
Yes, there's definitely states we work with that feel the money should follow the students. And we agree in some sense. But when we are already working in a fabric of a state or the fabric of where it's working or not working, there's plenty of money in state budgets to go around to help every child. And we should be investing in every child. We should be investing in, in a child in private school because they're eventually going to graduate, they're going to be in the work system, they're going to be building up our own economies. And if we're not looking at them the same that we're looking at a public school student, then we have completely lost the, the plot like I said. And we're not going to move our society forward if we're only focusing on one section of children, what's wrong with the other children? And why don't they get the same opportunities just because they choose or they feel like they need to go to a different that then they're going to go into our economy system in any state that they live in and what are they going to have to show for it? And it will be on the state for not providing them the tools and the resources that they need.
[22:10]
B
Well, certainly some school systems in some states are doing it better than others. That's always been, you know, the, the laboratory of democracy. We have an interesting study out from Wallet Hub, an analysis highlighted recently in, in Newsweek. It ranks Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey among the nation's best public school systems, which kind of surprises me, to be honest with you, because you will find some of the most powerful teachers unions there. So I wonder about the measurements. It notes that New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona and Oregon rank near the bottom, which raises, I think, a very important point. In at least a few of those states, you have a very strong school choice advocacy network and you have, you know, a, a school choice system that has been in place for some time. So, so what gives with these rankings? And I guess ultimately what is school choice doing right in America? What is it struggling with? And the same can be asked of the other portions of the other pieces of the puzzle. In education, but particularly public schools.
[23:27]
A
I can say first and foremost, and I said it before too, I think school choice is struggling with its pr. It is so controversial. Well, why is the choices of the, of the constituents in which you serve as elected officials, why are my, why is my choice of where I want to go to school so controversial? I think we've just completely alienated the, the main issue here in that sense. And that is the biggest problem. We just, you come to a democratic state legislature in a state and you say, I want to help schools or kids in this school, and it's an automatic door closed. Why is it like that? It should never be like that. But where school choice is doing it right is you're seeing schools open exponentially. You're seeing people moving. I think a lot of people are moving around the country and figuring out where they're going to put their roots down. One of them is obviously cost of living. And if it's not the first or the second, it's education. It's where is my kid going to go to school, what kind of school, what kind of environment, how much is it going to cost me? And that's what people are looking at these days. And if we're not following suit with that and the school choice, you know, states, Florida's booming, Ohio, Texas, Texas, new program booming. It's really, it's in the data and you can see it. People are moving to these states not just because of cost of living, not just because of other factors, but one of the main factors is a quality, affordable, choice driven education.
[24:58]
B
Yeah, no, no doubt about it. And again, you keep seeing the, you know, the verbal fist fightings going on in states where you've had established school choice. I, I come back to Wisconsin and you have a governor In Tony Evers, a Democrat who has, you know, obviously benefited immensely from teachers unions throughout the course of his political run. His campaign has. And you know, he has vowed for years to try to at least stop the growth of school choice, if not kill it all together. So you have these constant battles going on. But if you want to look at the public relations, the most effective PR to me, and I want to get your thoughts on this, because I've covered school choice for many years and met a lot of good people in the movement. The best PR is to talk to the families and the students in these programs and ask them how they were all doing before they got a voucher, before they got a tax credit to go to a school of their choice.
[26:01]
A
Absolutely. And, you know, everything that we've been saying, it's all going back to the kids and the families, and they're the ones who we need to. We will and we will continue to share their stories. But then it's on the unions, it's on our communities, our legislators, our elected officials, to listen to their stories and to take those stories into account when drafting legislation, when choosing whether you're going to support something or the other thing, and whether making school choice such a politicized issue. If we're really here to serve our families and our students and you're hearing their stories, why aren't we serving them all? No matter whether we're on the right side of the aisle or the left side of the aisle?
[26:45]
B
That brings up a good point. And we've been touching upon this throughout the conversation, and that is the opposition constantly points to robbing Peter to pay Paul, or at least that. That concept. You're taking money away from public schools and we need that money. Obviously. We have so many kids falling behind and all of that sort of thing. And it feels a bit to a lot of people like a chicken or egg question. You know, we've had some pretty horrible failure and failing of students in a number of public schools. Is it because they don't have enough money? Because I'm looking at a number of public schools across the country that have seen an explosion, actually in funding, particularly in Covid and in so many of those places, sustained funding or higher funding levels.
[27:38]
A
Absolutely. Even in New York City, there's so much out there currently circulating, showing, and data showing that investments in the public school system are going up while enrollment is not going up at the same rate. So why are we continuously throwing money? And is that what's working? And going back to what started this is we have to pull back the layers of what's going on in these schools. Indoctrination or just poor performance or the teachers that are teaching. And if we're just throwing money at the problem, yes, money is always better to get a better desk and better supplies and hopefully going to teachers. But if we're just throwing money at the problem and we're not in the schools running them properly, then it's a completely different situation. And we find ourselves that in schools that operate on their own, in a private school, they have that ability to do that. There's no bureaucracy of government and any of that. And so they kind of have that authority to pull back those layers. And we've kind of pigeonholed ourselves in the public school system that that's not really easily available to do.
[28:46]
B
It's amazing to me and sad at the same time. The Federalist has done a great deal of reporting, extensive reporting on where the. The money goes, of course, into these school systems. And over the last 10, 15 years, you've seen an increasing share of taxpayer money not going to teachers, not going to resources that would help kids, but going to administrators, particularly dei, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff members and administrators. That sure feels like a waste and feels a lot like we're not getting our money's worth as taxpayers as we see the results from the academic scores and all these other measures.
[29:35]
A
Yeah, and I'm definitely not saying that every private school is perfect and they pay everyone well and they don't have any, you know, backroom issues. I'm sure those exist and I'm sure that they're there. But it's like you said on the public school side, there really is no authority for the average person to see to average parent to see of where this money is going, to see who it is funding, what roles, what opportunity, what initiatives. But I can. I can probably say with a certainty that there is much more oversight when it comes to a private school being run by a board being run by a smaller group of people that they're able to nitpick and figure out the best way to educate the child in that school. And if we're really asking ourselves how to fix the problem in the public school system, we have to start within the four doors, the four walls of the school. And if it doesn't start there and we just keep throwing money at the problem, you and I are going to be having this conversation in another 10 years with the points being even lower.
[30:39]
B
Yeah, that is sad. Let us talk a little bit about new entry points. For all of this. And the new federal education freedom tax credit is, is a big one. What are the projections so far? We certainly hear the din and the noise surrounding it from the opposition. But what, what are the projections? What is the ultimate hope from this tax credit?
[31:05]
A
The ultimate hope of this tax credit for, for, for people across America is that this is an opportunity for blue states and blue and families that live in democratically run states to have an opportunity at a scholarship that they never had before. People in Florida have been having had their scholarships in Texas, they're just rolling out in other states across America. But in New York, in New Jersey, in California, they've never had this opportunity to have a scholarship for private schools, for public schools. And this is something that without coming out of state budgets, that every child, no matter what, will be able to access if the governors opt in. And I think I quote Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, who says this is a no brainer for governors to opt into.
[31:55]
B
Interesting, particularly coming from that leftist governor. So correct. We will see where all of this goes. What is the future of the charter school? That has had an interesting journey of course over its time. We've seen some great successes, we've seen some mixed results and we've seen some poorly run operations. What's the future of the charter school in America?
[32:19]
A
I think they have a bright future. I think that they're another choice of school of education that people need. Of course there's ones that aren't run well. There aren't and there's currently litigation at the Supreme Court is charter schools. Can they be religious charter schools? Can they not be religious charter schools? We've had our eye on that too. So I think that there's going to be a lot coming in the very near future of how charter schools future trajectory is, is, is created with some of these rulings that could come out in the very near future.
[32:52]
B
That is interesting to me, the whole faith issue, because I have seen and I, I think the numbers bear it out a bit of a reawakening, if you will, from Americans about their faith, their foundational beliefs and their search, you know, for things that are inherently important to them, particularly their relationship with, with their faith. Are we seeing a higher demand out of choice schools for particularly vouchers to, to bring children into not only an academic setting that advertises and hopefully is doing well on, on that educational front, but also, you know, the basic standards, the, the ideas of a moral based education, if you will.
[33:45]
A
I think a lot of people are going into the Faith based education, education space. When it comes to school choice, the majority of school choice of private schools is faith based. And I think that specifically with a lot of increases in targeted hate crimes, faith based hate crimes, we're seeing closer knit communities stay within their communities. Specifically the Jewish community, Jewish community, Jewish day school enrollment is, is growing post October 7th. Even Catholic schools have been seeing an increased amount of religiously motivated hate crimes in their community. You may be seeing them closing some schools, but really people are looking for that avenue to have a Catholic education. And I do believe that the faith plays a massive role in it. And specifically with faith based education, most of the times it's not a luxury, it's a necessity. These faith, whether it's Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, you know, Hindu, we, we feel this need to put our children in an environment that teaches our own values, that teaches our ways of life within the four walls of an institution. And we're seeing that grow across the country and we should be embracing that.
[35:06]
B
All right. As we close out the conversation, I often ask this as the, the big ending question, if you will. And so this is, this is one of them certainly. And, and I think it's the human resources question or the job interview question. You know, you're far enough along in the job interview where they ask you the question where do you see yourself in five, ten years from now? And it's one of the standard questions, but I think it's important to ask where do you see school choice 5, 10, 20 years from now?
[35:37]
A
I see every state opted into this federal tax credit program. I think that by then the naysayers now will have completely changed their tune. And I think that this program is going to be a bedrock of the education system in America. And it will also change the affordability crisis we're seeing in America with money going back into the pockets of parents for education and I hope with enrichment with SAT prep and the things that, that this money can, can help provide for students that makes our education system better. I think it's an entire circular system that is going to be bouncing off of this program. And I hope that in 10 years the unions will look back and say they did a disservice in pushing this, pushing against this. And I hope they're kicking themselves in 10 years saying this is one of their star programs because they're going to kids, they're going to see their teachers, the teachers that they represent are spending money out of pocket every year. Imagine if they had this program where kids could actually afford their, their, their their supplies and the teachers didn't have to pay for it. This is an entirely new opportunity, a defining moment for education in America. And in 10 years, I hope you and I are talking about how this has ballooned into the, the biggest thing and we're just looking at the next iteration of it.
[36:59]
B
I hope so too. I hope I'm still here, quite frankly. But yeah, no, I, I think so. I hope there is positive change in all of this. And I, I will say this. The unions, the big, big labor in America has a lot of things to kick itself for. It would have some pretty serious bruising up and down if it really did that. And I particularly think of Randy Weingarten and the damage that she has done to education in America. But perhaps that's a conversation for a different time. Final question for me. For you. Maybe it's for me too. I'm interested. What is, what is Teach Coalition?
[37:39]
A
Teach Coalition is a grassroots advocacy organization that is ensuring that non public schools have a voice at the table in states across the country. Whether it's a blue state, a red state. We go in to make sure that our non public school community has a seat at the table when legislation, when budgets are being announced. And we do that by growing advocates in communities with voting, with action alerts, bringing them to Albany, to Tallahassee to Sacramento, to all different areas and making sure that our communities feel empowered while also shaping what a strong non education looks like.
[38:19]
B
And where can we find you online?
[38:21]
A
Teachcoalition.org and you can find us there. And there's a lot of good insights and there's a nice big hub for the federal tax credit program. You can see all the states that have opted in. You can see some FAQs on the program. What we're doing, it's, it's our biggest move yet because we do feel that this is going to be a game changing opportunity for, for everyone in the school community. No matter where you go to school.
[38:47]
B
Well, there's, there's not much more important. I don't know if there's anything more important than addressing the question that we are trying to get to and that is how do we save America's kids from a failing education system and more and more falling behind. School choice is a big, big part of that. In fact, I, I think quite frankly that's where the discussion should begin because we have found it out over and over again. Competition creates better results. And it is true today as it ever was. Thanks to my guest today, Sydney Altfield, CEO of Teach Coalition and a leading school choice advocate. You've been listening? Oh, yes. Thank you so much for joining us again, and I wish you the very best of luck.
[39:38]
A
Thank you.
[39:39]
B
We'll be back soon with more of the Federalist Radio Hour. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.