Where are parents can customize the learning experience. It could grow by the way probably to 100,000 if we had the budget to be able to make that happen. In states that are focused on this for special needs kids and for in the case of nftd adef and oth nevada and other place, my vision of this with the right policies in place, the most open system, would you have a half day, perhaps mom could pick a half day of of a traditional Public School, take an ap calculus course thats not available in that classroom setting online from one of the Virtual Schools, take an online music class from juilliard and a spanish course with a local retired school teacher. In that system, my guess is that our education outcomes would be much stronger and more sustainable to be able to deal with the world that were moving towards. So the question is, what are the issues at hand to implement this vision . And its complicated. Theres a lot of things that have to be worked on. What does accountability look like in a Choice Program where parents can choose two schools at once or choose, you know, half a day in one school and another half in the oth center . Whos accountable for that child have . How do we weave these into schools to create harmony . How do we deal with assuring that disadvantaged families get equal access to the benefits of this . All of these things have to be worked out for sure. But i think its worth doing. I honestly do. If you consider the system we have today which worked effectively for 100 years, the system were moving towards, fine, then youll have what you have. But i think a growing number of families look over the horizon, see huge opportunities but also see great dangers if their children dont gain the power of knowledge. And by add video indicating the advocating these programs we can achieve that and i think we need to because the world is moving at warp speed towards a really different time. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you. Governor governor, i now have some questio questions for you. Youve been at this quite a while. Im older than dirt. Before most folks led the expansion of mccabe, before this century started. My question is how is the landscape of School Choice changed over time since were governor . Well, when we created the first statewide Voucher Program in 1999, it was the first statewide Voucher Program. So like it hadnt been done before wund have thouge impleme advantage was going to come to an end. And one of the things about implementing advantages the world doesnt come to an end. The fact that we implemented it took away some of the arguments that were protecting the status quo at all costs would normally advocate. Reform is never cleat, you need to be completing perpetual you know, you build a platform based on one policy change and that allows you to take advantage of that and move on. So what weve, you know, what we proved was that the world doesnt come to and he. 47 of all florida kids go to a school thats chosen by their parents. Whether thats universal public School Choice which we now have in florida, a berthening charting school effort, the largest Virtual School in the country, the largest Corporate Tax scar ship, the largest voucher for skids with learning disability, the largest esa program. All of these have been fought and people attack and they push back, but once you expimplemen people move on to the next thing to gripe about. And i think you just have to be billing and bold and do it. Shou two big moves forward, had you an a plus which is a lot of what has come to be known as accountability systems reason and you also had mckay and large Choice Programs. Which do you think when you were governor got you the most bang for your buck . We also eliminated social promotion in an im not kidding way. So third graders that were below basic readers were held back and we created a School Recognition program so the schools were graded a through f. But the largest Teacher Bonus Program in the country was the 100 per student that went directly to the school, still does, for schools that were a or showed improvement. Its not one thing. Its a suite of reforms that brings about the improving Student Learning, which we got. We got it because we focused on Early Childhood literacy. It wasnt choice by itself, it wasnt accountability by itself, it wasnt being passionate about the fact that a third grade kid by the end of that year, if theyre functionally ill literate, its shameful. I mean, the society itself should be ashamed of that fact. And we correctreated a climate there was a lot of tension and it was a dynamic time because not everybody agreed with the policies. But we tried to faithfully implement them and we had success thankfully. That would have made it harder. If you dont get rising student achievement out of this whats it for . We were at the bottom in terms of Student Learning and through all of this effort to put in perspective on the nations report card in 97 we were 29th out of 31 and then in ten years time we were six out of 50. So the best way to protect these programs is to have success in learning. And to have a constituency where parents say you cant take this away from me. So i want to move a little bit into the choice, but i want to stay on florida. Florida has a strong charter sector. Yeah. And i know a lot of folks who are, you know, they like School Choice but they say charters are enough. Charters are what we need. In fact, charters are the strongest move forward so lets put all our bets on charters. You support private School Choice in addition to charters. Yeah. Why arent charters enough . Theyre not. Plain and simple. I mean, look, we had more than a million slots in private schools in this country that are unfilled. Whats wrong with with having people be given other options that are best for themselves . Maybe some parents want to have im a catholic. Im always lobbying to make sure my grandchildren get a catholic education. So far weve failed. Id say its a draw right now. Why not . I mean, why not have a variety of different options for parents both public and private . Ive never understood what the what the obsession about that is. There are great traditional Public Schools and they should be held up high as great examples as well. If you move to a parentcentered model rather than protecting this sacred kind of thing of Public Schools as though i mean, what other sector in our society did we go through this whole exhaustive conversation . We dont do it when we consume products, do we . I mean, you ever go to the supermarket once in a while . I do the shopping in my family. I mean, i used to use this analogy, milk being for School Choice, the number of options for milk. The last time i used that analogy was probably two years ago. Its doubled the number of milk optionors fake milk or almond milk or 30 calorie milk. The whole world is alive when youre given i given options and youre an informed consumer. Thats what parents should be. They should be given informed information to make the best choice for themselves. And whether its, you know, private or public or something in between, to me, it doesnt matter. So let me get on esas which are one of my favorite topics and i think its super interesting. Yeah, you wrote a book about it. We did. A lot of critics will says are just vouchers by another name. Thats a criticism. Theyll say whats wrong. But my question is they just vouchers by another name or are they something new and important and exactly what is it that is important about them . The difference between a voucher is a voucher would give you, a parent, the choice to go to a private school. And youre transferring from a Public School typically to a private school. An esa could do that, you know. You could go and take the esa dollars and go to a private school and be done with it. Our could create a custom mized educati education experience for your chieltd. That chieltd. The parent is in charge of the money in this program where you have ray direct support organization. Its a meaningful difference if you can envision a you know, where we should be moving, which is many choices that are, you know, that arent just focused on one choice put pick this school our pick that school. Ultimately, you would you could envision k12 education look kind of like college where you divide it up in credits. We do that in college, but whats so sacred that you have to you fund right now k12 education with, you know, 180 days of butts in a seat, basically. Outcome doesnt matter, the funding comes if youre there for 180 days. This system would dramatically change that, and think thats its power. So part of esas sort of animating logic is that we can build sort of a marketplace for education. So how about the supply side . And maybe you can just tell me about florida or other states that the foundation is working in. How does the supply side of private providers respond when we kick up demand with a program like esas . Well, floridas a good example of a place. I think indiana would be another good place to look or lois becau louisiana. You go to pennsylvania or other places that have limited Choice Programs theyre closing on converting Catholic Schools to Charter Schools, which seems odd to me. Its a better solution than closing the schools altogether but not the best solution. The best solution is to have a vibrant catholic urban education for parents that truly want it spot weve seen an increase since the Corporate TaxScholarship Program has been put in place of about 800 private schools. Not all of that, i mean, we also get a thousand people a day move into our state. We dont have a corporate we dont have a personal income tax, i dont know how you all do up here on that. We have people moving to florida, part of that is the natural growth of our population. But a lot of it is we have these sustainable now longterm programs that support building supply. I think what youll find is that will be the net result in states that are getting close to the kind of 40 to 50 market share of students whose parents can make choices rather than be dictated to where the kid goes to school. So a question maybe some advice for other governors or legislators that are considering esas. Esa easy are in six states now, theres one in committee and near the finish line in new hampshire. But these are the products of the legislative process and they get beat up and you have to make compromise dollars a compromises and sometimes you have to compromise on how much money the parents can spend or whos eligible. If you were to give these folks considering a system that theyre creating with an esa, where can they not compromise if theyre going to make an esa program that works . Well, thats a great question because sausage making is really ugly and you got to make it. This cant be just a think tank thing. You got to go out and grind it out and theres massive people somehow feel threatened by giving parents power to choose where their kids go to school. But ive never quite understood it, but it maybe related to the economic interest of the adults in the system that feel like the more people that leave, the less money they have to pay for their pensiono pensions or whatever. First advice is assume no matter how small the program is or how popular it might be that youre going to get clubbed and go to bat well kevlar on. Dont go to battle thinking youre going to reason with people who are dead set against it. I would say there are things that you can pass laws in esas in other areas of School Choice that almost guarantee that it fail and you dont want that. I mean, youd rather wait till the till you can build, you know, enough support to get a meaningful bill done. The number one issue, id say, is probably money. You know, if youre doing an esa that is so small that its going to have a limited impact for parents, then thats probably not going to be effective. If you if you have in return for money in an esa youre imposing major regulation on top of private schools, bad idea. Look, in the choice arena, states have massachusetts is a more heavily regulated chart her school state than, say, arizona, and both of them seem to work. But i think theres a point past which you make you make tem possible for these schools to be successful. Their mission, instead of having the traditional top down regulation from the department of education to the School Districts to the schools which has been kind of the norm, maybe some federal mandates thrown in for fun, youre replacing that with the ultimate regulator, an informed parent loving their children with their heart and soul making the right choice. So i advocate, and i do this all the time, a lighter touch. And trust fiernts maparents to choices so long as they have the proper information, which is really important. If you expect parents to understand all of their choices and what they are, just because they can go online or something, forget it. Well, that was my next question, thank you for leading me directly into it. Theres this question about whether complexity itself can be a subsidy, right . If a program is so complex that only terribly sophisticated people can take advantage of it. Yeah. Then its it advantages them and disadvantages folks who would have a hard time negotiating it. Esas are more complicated than most other choice mechanisms because they can be unbundled. So my question is, whats the states role in providing that information, in creating a system where theres a common sense about how to carry this through . Well, id be wary of assuming that disadvantaged family i dont know what that means but im assuming it means poverty or lower income, arent capable of complex thoughts, just for the record here. I think all parents need to be empowered with information. And this is a place where states, including my beloved state of florida does a lousy job. You go on line and try to find out what the choices are available on the web sieft most states, what youre going to find is, you know, excel spreadsheets with very Little Information that is relevant. So one of the things in our foundation is trying to do is to do competitions to try to get states to understand how important it is to create clear, transparent information about how their kids are doing, how their schools are doing and what the options of other schools, what they have. And in the aits a little more complicated because its a multitude of services debundled, as you said, but its possible to do. We do this all the time in every as speskt o aspect of our life, right . So it shouldnt be use the analogy of sending men and women into space, thats complicated. Thats an engineering feat. This should not be as complicated as that. But the reason why it looks complicated is because no ones actually done it. Its not complicated until you at least we should make it as part of any of these laws there should be a real effort, i think, to focus on transparency. Same with testing by the way. It drives me nuts. If you believe in accountability, which i do, really believe in it, i think if you measure youre going to get a better result, its kind of one of those life lessons. But if you dont provide the information on where a student sits, what theyve learned, and you dont get it to the previous teacher or to the next teacher and if youre testing in february or march rather than the end of the year and youre not giving back a diagnostic tool to the next teacher and to the next parent, all those things would yield a far better result than what we do. But this is what bureaucrats do. Their insular, they dont think about this as a normal person would providing, you know, real information in a timely fashion. Just im answering your questions before you ask them, i think. One of the real challenges about all of these issues, esas particularly which will be the next big fight, you pass a law, the governor has it, steins into law, theres a big ceremony and children are around and its a beautiful time. Thats just the beginning. Then you got create the rules around how you implement that. Gerard knows this. And the people that youre asking to implement it oppose it. Think about that. I mean, thats the schools thats the plight of School Reform in our country. Buy a by and large, the state boards of education the people that have been there for many years dont like these ideas, the superintendents dont like these ideas, and the unions dont like these ideas and were asking them to implement it and that makes it hard. You have to be fiercely vigilant and use the Winston Church hill expression never give in. You got bang em, fight em, plead with them, neutralize those that are the opponents, win over those that are neutral. A lot of folks that are critical of School Choice and arguments for School Choice say, well, youre just sort of against traditional Public Schools. And, indeed, you know, you support vouchers, charters, education savings accounts, online schools, a number of options and all of these would, inevitably result in more people leaving traditional Public Schools. Yeah. So given that backdrop, what do you think of as the future for traditional districts and neighborhood schools . I think a majority of particularly, you know, elementary schools, people thats a thats a value that parents really appreciate. If you move to a parentcentered system having their child close to where they live, thats a value. Or having a child go to a school thats close to where they work, thats a value. The bureaucrats wouldnt think of it that way, but a parent might have a unique kind of circumstance. So Traditional Schools will be the majority of where a majority of the learning takes place in this country over the next 20 years, i totally believe that. And ultimately we get beyo