Susan Pendergrass speaks with Andy Smarick, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about a recent U.S. Supreme Court case that could reshape the debate over faith-based charter schools. They explore the constitutional questions at the heart of the case, including the tension between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, and why a 4–4 split leaves the door open for future challenges. The conversation covers the potential role of religious organizations in public education, the importance of accountability in school choice programs, recent legal battles in Missouri and Wyoming, and how shifting public opinion may change the K–12 landscape in the years ahead.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Charter Schools and Supreme Court Case
02:40 Constitutional Implications of Faith-Based Charter Schools
05:37 State vs. Federal Authority in Education
08:18 The Role of Accountability in School Choice
11:12 Recent Legal Developments in Education Funding
13:53 The Future of Faith-Based Charter Schools
16:47 The Rise of School Choice and Its Implications
19:34 Conclusion: The Evolving Landscape of Education
Episode Transcript
Susan Pendergrass (00:00)
Great. Well, thank you so much, Andy Smarick for joining us once again on the Show Me Institute podcast. You are now with the Manhattan Institute predominantly. Okay. Great. Yeah. I know we tried to get this on the schedule for a while when I first wanted to talk to you, which I always want to talk to you, but initially it was because of the Supreme court case last spring and you seem to be following the Supreme court closely and you have lots of thoughts on the Supreme court and certainly on this case that I do actually want to talk to you about because
Andy Smarick (00:07)
Correct. Thanks for having me.
Susan Pendergrass (00:27)
I think it connects to a lot of other things that are, that’s going on right now, right now in public education. And this was around the idea that, you know, I used to work for the national Alliance, public charter schools. And one of our biggest headwinds was convincing people that charter schools are public schools because, you know, they’re not, they’re not governed by the local school board, but by their own board. And yes, they don’t have to follow all the same regulations, but they have public school students and public school teachers.
and they are funded with federal, state, and local dollars. And we really pressed for that to get people to accept that these are just differently run public schools. And last spring, the Supreme Court considered a case as to whether one of those public charter schools could be Catholic. And I gotta say, my initial reaction was like, no way, absolutely not. Because that’s antithetical to the concept of what is a charter school. I understand that you did not necessarily agree with that.
I would just like you to convince me and to tell us a little bit more about the case and how it turned out, because I’m sure folks want to know why you and I disagreed on that.
Andy Smarick (01:32)
Well, there are a couple of different ways to go at this. One is like the interesting constitutional legal issues. And then the thing that more people I think are interested in are just like the political tactical things. So we can do either or both, but let me just begin with like the case itself. There is a, there was a group in Oklahoma that wanted to start a charter school that was going to be Catholic. It was going to be an online charter school. They were approved by their authorizer after lots of hemming and hawing and fighting over this.
The state constitution wouldn’t allow this. The governor was on their side, but the attorney general was not. The state Supreme Court said that they couldn’t do this. They sued, up at the US Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett, who has been on the court for a number of years, she recused herself from the case. Justices do not have to explain why they recuse themselves. It was inferred that she did so because
She has these long ties to Notre Dame, especially one of her colleagues there was involved in some of the litigation related to this case. So even though she, Justice Barrett was not involved in it, could be people could look at this and say that she was biased in some way. So she recused herself, didn’t take part in the hearing or the decision itself. the
case came out 4-4 split that in the middle so no opinion no decision no presidential value it just goes back to the decision that was reached by the state Supreme Court and so this school cannot start at least not as a faith-based charter school but just like
Within the past decade, there was a similar case where after Justice Scalia died, there was a 4-4 decision on public sector unions education issue, 4-4 split. And then when his replacement got on the court, then the conservatives ended up winning. So although this case is done and as it currently stands, faith-based charters are not allowed. Next time somebody sues on this and Justice Barrett takes part, it could be a different story. And then I’ll just put in parentheses a really, really interesting question.
The assumption is that Chief Justice Roberts was a conservative who didn’t go with the other four conservatives. We don’t know that for a fact, but the reason why that’s so interesting is he was the one who wrote the three opinions that suggested that many of us, that faith-based charters were going to be deemed constitutional. And so if it’s true that he voted with the progressives on this, the fascinating question is how could he reason himself?
into his decisions in Trinity Lutheran, Espinosa, and Carson, but then vote against this. And that turns out to be a really interesting set of speculations.
Susan Pendergrass (03:59)
And all of those cases are interesting and germane to what I want to talk about next. But one of my questions is, was it along the lines of federalism because if Oklahoma wanted to allow this, why, you know, the governor supported it and they were authorized. Well, how can the federal government step in and tell a state they can’t have the type of charter school they want to have?
Andy Smarick (04:23)
Yeah, okay, so now we’re gonna get into some of these interesting constitutional issues. this is rudimentary, but just bear with me. There are two provisions of the First Amendment related to faith, non-establishment and free exercise. And it has long been understood that there is what’s called play in the joints, that sometimes these things are in conflict with one another and then state governments have to be able to kind of figure it out.
So faith-based charters may be the classic example where these two provisions, non-establishment and free exercise, there’s tension between them. So non-establishment or the Establishment Clause essentially says that the government can’t fund, get too involved in religious activities. Free exercise clause says, in short, that people or organizations of faith can’t be discriminated against. So in this case,
Does the establishment clause take precedence, meaning that charter schools are sufficiently government controlled, that if the government is engaged with them enough, that if they are faith-based, that is like the government funding religion? Or does the free exercise clause really kick in because every single other nonprofit in America of every other different type is allowed to run a charter school with one exception, faith-based groups.
So that means that faith-based groups are singled out for exclusion, which might run afoul of the free exercise clause. So in this case, the decision was because the decision of the state Supreme Court that they decided this under their state law and state constitution could not fly. The only question for the US Supreme Court case was like the free exercise clause part.
was Oklahoma discriminating against this group solely because it wanted to run a faith-based school. Because it was 4-4, we don’t know what they decided on that. We don’t know what the majority would say on that. But to your point, it may well be the case that a bunch of states could, Oklahoma could pass a law allowing faith-based charters saying that that is consistent with their state constitution. And then if it went to the US Supreme Court, if the other side sued, the US Supreme Court said,
This is an area of play in the joints. This does not offend the non-establishment clause. We already said that the free exercise doesn’t force us to do this. Oklahoma, it’s up to you. We haven’t seen, interestingly, any states amend their charter school laws to allow this to happen. And it doesn’t seem like Oklahoma is on the verge of it. Maybe they are. But at least from this point of view, the U.S. Supreme Court has said, at least four justices have said that the free exercise clause does not demand that
states at least consider these applicants.
Susan Pendergrass (06:58)
Now in Oklahoma, parents by and large can get a tax credit for tuition paid to a private school. Right, so if you pay tuition, you can take it off of your own Oklahoma State tax bill and I believe it’s refundable. So Catholic school, virtual Catholic school could open and would be essentially free to parents. Why not just do that?
Andy Smarick (07:17)
⁓
huh. Sure, they could.
Susan Pendergrass (07:18)
I mean, what’s the distinction?
Like, I feel like, was it a political ploy where they’re like, hey, we’ve got the Supreme Court where we want them. We’ve got John Roberts. We’ve got Amy Comey Barrett. No one she was going to recuse herself. Let’s put this to the test. Do you think that’s?
Andy Smarick (07:30)
No, I mean, from my point of view, it is constitutionally legally the right thing to do to enable this. I think it does offend the free exercise clause that we could start a social justice charter school, but not a faith based charter. We could start an outward bound charter school, but not a faith based charter school. We could start a Montessori charter school, but not a faith based charter school. I think faith based groups are singled out for exclusion, which is unconstitutional. The more policy oriented issue is that I’m still old school enough that I believe in student achievement.
Susan Pendergrass (07:37)
Okay.
Andy Smarick (07:58)
And I believe in an expansive definition of what a public school system is. So when charter laws were passed initially, they were sued in every single state. And what state supreme courts decided was it is not the case that only government entities are allowed to run public schools.
wide array of nonprofit organizations can run public schools as well. So public school is not synonymous with government-run school. So in my mind it is completely intuitive that if you’re going to open up the sphere of allowable organizations to run schools, run public schools through a charter law, that it’s discriminatory to say that faith-based groups can’t do that. Now with all that said,
The reason, when I said I’m like old school enough to still believe in measures of student achievement, I’m concerned that a lot of these tax credit programs or scholarships, whatever we want to call them, are great for choice, but I’m not convinced they’re going to be great for student achievement. Like, I believe in belt and suspenders behavior on this stuff, trust but verify. I want to know that the results are good. And so the difference between a voucher scholarship program and a faith-based charter school program is that there would actually be a contract.
there would be measures of student performance. We would actually know whether not the faith-based school in a charter program is succeeding for kids. And so I’m just surprised that there hasn’t been more from the left or from the center, even from the right saying, well, rather than just having religious schools get money to participate in K-12 education outside of the system, why don’t we…
make them part of the system by allowing them to have charter contracts. If they’re going to get the money anyway, don’t we want some accountability? So this has been the surprise for me.
Susan Pendergrass (09:38)
Yeah.
Yeah. So going to that point you just raised, Missouri’s got a scholarship program, a tax credit funded scholarship program. And we, it was set up in a way a few years ago that we thought, you know, worked around, well, Espinosa and so far is like the money goes from a scholarship organization to the parents, the parents decide where to spend it. And, you know, one of the scholarships organizations is the Diocese of St. Louis.
This year, our legislature decided to, because they’ve been having a hard time raising the funds, mostly because of timing, which people want to make tax credit donations towards the end of the year, like November and December, but kids need scholarships around August. so schools were sort of promising families that they would get a scholarship once all the money came in at the end of the year. So there was a timing problem. And the state of decided that they would put $50 million in state money into the program.
into the till basically of the scholarship granting organizations. Well, the Missouri NEA has filed a lawsuit saying that they can’t do that because they can’t put public funds towards these private schools. I don’t think that holds up legally, does it?
Andy Smarick (10:47)
I don’t know in the current context. maybe can I go back then and explain briefly these three Supreme Court cases that led us where we are right now? Because then for anyone who’s listening to this who wants to know what comes next, I can’t tell you what the decision of the court’s gonna be, but I can tell you where the area of debate is gonna be and what we have to learn. Okay, so all of this is within the past decade. The first case in…
Susan Pendergrass (10:49)
Yeah. Yes.
Yes, because those are three important ones. Yes, please do.
Andy Smarick (11:12)
this Trinity, no pun intended, is Trinity Lutheran. A case where ⁓ this, in Missouri, where the state decided that they wanted to enable non-profit groups to resurface their playgrounds. Easy enough. Using this new material so kids don’t get scraped elbows and knees. Awesome. And they said, just apply if you’re a non-profit and you wanna resurface your playground. Awesome. But then they said, yeah, but you can’t apply and get money if you’re a religious group.
Susan Pendergrass (11:17)
in Missouri.
Andy Smarick (11:40)
and the Lutheran organization sued and said, wait, you’re singling us out for exclusion just because we’re religious. That violates the free exercise clause. The US Supreme Court, in a decision written by John Roberts, said many things, but most important of all is listen, Missouri, you didn’t have to create this kind of competitive grant program that opened up funding to the wide array of nonprofit organizations.
But once you did, you could not single out faith-based groups for exclusion. Okay, so the faith-based group was allowed to participate. A couple years later in Espinosa, now we have a case for a tuition tax credit program up in Montana. Largely the same thing where the state made the decision that all schools could participate, all private schools could participate, with the exception of faith-based schools. They sued.
The US Supreme Court, again with a decision written by John Roberts, said, hey Montana, you did not have to create a tuition tax credit program, but once you did and you opened up the participation to the wide array of nonprofit organizations, you cannot single out faith-based groups for exclusion. So faith-based groups could participate. Then the last decision is Carson v. Macon in Maine, again just a couple years later, where Maine has what’s called a tuitioning program because not all their districts have high schools, where if you’re a student in a district that doesn’t have a high school,
the state will give you money so you can choose a high school in some other district or even in a different country, including a boarding school. You can get that money to go to any kind of school you want, except a faith-based school. And the US Supreme Court, in a decision written by John Roberts, I thought we told you already in Trinity Lutheran and Espinosa, Maine, you did not have to create a tuitioning program that opened up the provision of high schools to the wide array of nonprofits.
But once you did, you could not single out faith-based groups for participation. So that’s where we are with the Oklahoma. That’s where we thought we are. Many of us assumed that John Roberts was going to write a decision in this case saying, Hey, Oklahoma, you did not have to create a charter school program, but once you did, you could not exclude faith-based groups from participation. John Roberts did not say that or we think he did not. We assume that he was the one who joined the three progressives. So.
With that long explanation, the question here is how could Roberts repeatedly say that thing, but then in the case of charters, not say that. So where is the area between those that he’s deciding now for the lawyers out there, there is this question of what’s called the state action doctrine or state actor doctrine that maybe his view is that charters are sufficiently wrapped up with government activity, that they are controlled by the government. So they’re actually government bodies. So they have to be secular.
We don’t know yet. So that is where we are. And that’s why like the Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Roberts thing is so interesting.
Susan Pendergrass (14:27)
Yeah, so then Missouri is not the only one that I just mentioned being sued for their scholarship program because Wyoming is too. And this is a new lawsuit where they’re saying that their state constitution says that they can only fund schools that are uniform or they’re using their state constitution to say you cannot fund private schools with public money. And essentially what they’re saying in Missouri is you cannot use public funding. And, you know, that’s to be clear.
state funding for public education in Missouri is six to seven billion a year, but they’re very focused on this 50 million. And for six to seven billion, four out of 10 of our fourth graders can’t read on the basic level, but they’re very focused that this $50 million is going to bankrupt public education. And I think they’re just trying to set a precedent saying you can’t spend any public money on private education. further, somebody just filed an initiative petition, which is the thing we like to do in Missouri.
that they’re gonna put it to voters and it’s basically gonna say no public funds can be spent at a private institution on behalf of a student’s education. K-12 or higher ed.
Andy Smarick (15:27)
That
should be constitutional, at least as we understand things right now. Because from the advent of public schools in America, say 1830, 1840, until the advent of chartering in 1990, 1991, 92, for 150 years, all public schools in America were run by the government. It was understood that under state constitutions, state governments could decide that all public schools, everything that satisfied the state’s obligation under
public education could be accomplished by government entities. So that is completely fine if the government decides all of the money that we have for K-12 schooling is going to go to government run entities, local school districts, state entities, and so forth. Chartering to the point of this uniform clause, because this became an issue in Florida and some other places, states have to decide if their Constitution has the term uniform, what does that actually mean? Does that mean no chartering? Does that mean
that all schools have to follow the same curriculum schedule. Generally, courts have said no. But what we do think is that if a state wanted to get rid of its charter law, it absolutely could do that. If it wanted to interpret its statutes and constitution to say it is our decision that K-12 funding has to go to a government-run body, great. What we don’t think it can do is to single out faith-based groups for exclusion in the private sector, like that’s the Carson v. Macon Espinosa.
The question is this like chartering. Yes, they’re public, but public doesn’t mean government run because lots of Supreme Court cases have decided that just because you call it public doesn’t mean it’s government run. It could still be a public entity that’s privately run. So it could be faith-based. So we’re in this area of trying to decide, can a state single out faith-based groups for exclusion in the case of chartering TBD?
Susan Pendergrass (17:12)
Yeah, well, I just feel like school choice is on the rise. You know what I mean? I feel like the more parents have access to this wide array of choices, the less likely it is that we’re going to continue to just have people look at their utility to bill to decide where their child goes to kindergarten. I just think that it is very much on the way out and it may take time, but I feel like we have parents who were part of
whose own parents chose their schools. So we’re heading this direction. And I believe that parents want, you you have Arizona and Florida where you can take your money anywhere and some other States. And I think parents want to be able to choose faith-based schools or homeschooling or a combination of the two. And the teachers unions to me, or the people who are like the head of the educational establishment in Missouri anyway, they’re trying like a lawsuit, a petition of initiative. Like they want to stop that train.
that’s already sort of rolling down the tracks. And I think most people, or I don’t know, maybe people thought that this religious charter school thing was gonna be a non-starter for sure that you can’t have one of those. even the four-four thing, I figured if Justice Barrett had voted, she probably would have been a five-four, right? Like we would be having religious charter schools. I think she would have voted four. But I don’t know, I can’t guess what she would have done. But I just think that as the, like you just said,
Andy Smarick (18:26)
On which side? Yeah.
Susan Pendergrass (18:34)
450 years, one group was in power of this whole thing. And as they start to lose it, it’s like fingernails scrambling on the cliff. I don’t know. It’s like, you can’t, I don’t know. What do you think? mean, I think they’re using the court system to try to stop this thing. And it doesn’t, to me, feel like that’s gonna be successful.
Andy Smarick (18:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, over time, you’re right. Well, maybe I should take a step back. This is how I’ve been thinking about this. Before any of these choice programs, so pre 1990-ish, even if we go back a little further, like pre magnet schools, we knew that about 10 %
of families were choosing private schools, maybe a little bit higher during the heyday of like Catholic schools, especially in some cities. So one way that people thought about this is about 10 % of American families want to choose a private school for their kids. But that was artificial because maybe they couldn’t afford it and all the public money was going to something else. it’s like when the Berlin Wall was up, we could say that things were stable that
West Germany and East Germany had a population. But when you bring down the wall, you can see what people wanted by which direction they were moving across where the wall used to be. And we learned pretty quickly that people from the East were moving to the West. Okay. So when you start to bring down this artificial wall of telling families who don’t have money that they have to participate in their geographically assigned public school, what happens? Well, we learn a bunch of millions of families choose charter schools. And then with vouchers and scholarships, tax credit,
I think more than a million now if you include ESA programs or choosing other types of schools. And then if you include homeschooling and other things, it’s even higher than that. And as choice programs grow, that number is going to keep going higher and higher. Now, the question is, it had been like at 90 % who were in traditional public schools. Do we think that goes down to zero? Do we think there’s no appetite in America for that? But is the, I don’t think that’s the case.
Susan Pendergrass (20:30)
I
don’t know.
Andy Smarick (20:30)
Do
we think it’s 80%, 70, 60, 50, 40? I don’t know. So we’re gonna have to let this thing play out. And in the interim, I am really interested in seeing how we can make sure that we have accountability, public accountability for public funds in addition to choice programs. again, like I said at the beginning, I am just surprised with the expansion of choice that…
We could get 10, 15 years down the line and realize that this expansion of choice did empower lots of families, but lots of kids ended up in really bad schools and didn’t learn very much. And I don’t want to be 15 years from now saying, I was telling you to do expansion of chartering to have these faith-based schools participate in a publicly accountable system so we knew what was happening. And I worry that we’re going to end up in that spot, that unless we get faith-based charters, we’re going to have a bunch of schools that aren’t so good and we’re going to regret it. But alas.
Susan Pendergrass (21:24)
Yeah, I think that’s right.
I think that’s right. I mean, I very much advocate for high accountability and high flexibility of choice. I think you have to have two together. And I think if you try to do one without the other, it’s gonna be a failed system. And the idea of parents vote with their feet. So that’s accountability. I don’t believe that that is full accountability whatsoever. I think it needs to be more of the Florida model with high accountability and high choice. If you wanna get results for all kids. And, you know, I also believe in a…
Andy Smarick (21:32)
Amen.
Susan Pendergrass (21:51)
in a system like maybe Arizona, you might see a large entrance into the market of suppliers who are not good, right? So you open up the Susan Pendergrass School of Foreign Language and then a bunch of parents sign up and then none of my teachers actually know a foreign language and over time, know, word of mouth, those, but there is some period of time where those schools operate. And it certainly happens in higher ed today. We have a lot of dog training universities and
Andy Smarick (21:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah
Susan Pendergrass (22:21)
We
do. mean, you do. And they’re Title IV participating universities. You get a Pell Grant, you get student loans, you can go to these schools that you end up with nothing at the end. So yes, there is going to be this period of time when that type of thing happens until the market settles down. And maybe this generation will be more exposed to that. But I also believe if we just keep doing what we’re doing, I mean, I can say in Missouri, our test scores just are slowly deteriorating over time to the point where
I think 60 % of our graduates by state measures are considered college or career ready when they hand them their diploma. ⁓ 40 % of our kids, our fourth graders are maybe illiterate. Like we don’t know, cause they didn’t get to the basic level. We don’t know where they are towards the bottom there. And what we’re doing right now isn’t working. So I think we need much stronger accountability system and a much
Andy Smarick (22:58)
Wow.
Susan Pendergrass (23:15)
broader system of choice. I think the same people, like I just said, the 6 billion that’s being spent for very poor results, they’re focused on this 50 million that might let some kids out of that system. And to me, that’s not, I mean, just generally not a good look for them. Like what is the, you know, what is their long game to make sure that all kids stay in the exact same system that they’re in right now that’s not working?
Andy Smarick (23:39)
Well, I’m interested in how what you’re saying plays out with this brand new federal tax credit program because states don’t have to participate. States can decide not to. So states have a couple of different choices. Just keep doing what they’ve done, especially if you’re a blue state. Just have virtually no choice at all. Participate in this program and expand choice.
Susan Pendergrass (23:45)
Yeah, for sure.
Andy Smarick (24:04)
maybe dramatically, we don’t know how many families are going to participate in this, but it could be millions and millions and millions. Or what I’ve been trying to tell these blue states is if you’re afraid of taking part in this tuition tax credit program, if you think that actually makes sense to have more choice, but within the form of accountability, figure out how to do it through chartering. But what we might have instead is just all these red states participate in this tax credit program, and they’re going to just do more of what they’ve already done. Blue states not do any of it. And so they’re going to just keep
doing what they’ve done I think there’s a third way faith-based chartering.
Susan Pendergrass (24:36)
Yeah, and there we are. mean, but it’s true. It’s true, too. Like in a blue state that doesn’t participate, people who live in that state could be sending their $1,700 to scholarship organizations in other states. You can still take the tax credit, so they could be essentially sending public dollars to red states for scholarship programs, which that’s going to be a weird calculus for states to do. don’t, you know, for blue states to try to keep the money there. Or do you say it’s blood money? We don’t want it. I don’t know.
Andy Smarick (24:47)
Absolutely.
Right. This does put a bunch of blue state governors in an unusual position. In their heart of hearts, how opposed are they to choice? We’re going to see, especially if they have like tough budgets, they might have to make some tough decisions. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.
Susan Pendergrass (25:18)
Do you think though if faith-based charters are okayed by the Supreme Court, would there be very many? Do really think there’s a supply side for that?
Andy Smarick (25:25)
Great question.
It’ll be 10 % of the market maybe. Maybe 20 % after 10 years, 20 years. No, like what we’ve seen is in the, 30, 35 years of the charter movement, just lots of nonprofit groups, community-based organizations, secular groups dominating this and expanding. Maybe a handful of faith-based groups will do it. But…
The idea that this would take over or even worse, the idea that this somehow pollutes the secular nonprofits that have been around for 35 years is just madness to me. Okay, so there are what? Seven, eight, nine, 10,000 charter schools and a hundred of them are faith-based? And what?
Susan Pendergrass (26:06)
Yeah, that’s
right. And you know, lot of Catholic schools have converted to charter schools and they have to jump through hoops and move the crosses out of the room and do religious set after school and make sure that no one’s wearing a rose. I mean, like they jump through hoops. But essentially, I’ve been to charter schools in former Lutheran school space and they have a closet where they keep all their stuff that they then bring out. And, know, they just basically would not.
Andy Smarick (26:11)
Yeah!
Susan Pendergrass (26:29)
jump through hoops. And I know that you’ve written a lot of very smart things about the loss of urban Catholic schools. And that is an absolute case in St. Louis where we’ve made dismal, couldn’t be more of a train wreck, public school system that just got worse in the last couple of years. And we have a lot of Catholic schools closing, which is a shame because that has been a real lifeline for parents in the city.
Andy Smarick (26:49)
These are institutions that matter to a community. So in addition to caring about choice, also like I’m a communitarian. I believe in long standing institutions and places and the greatness of American pluralism, whether it’s like small Lutheran communities, recent immigrant communities, Catholic communities, they should be able to preserve their institutions and their ways of life. I think it makes America a richer place, especially if those institutions are doing right by families and low income kids. And so the fact that we have so many cities with just
dreadful long standing, unable to improve themselves, public schools that kids continue to be assigned to and that they can’t be fixed for whatever reason. And yet we have higher performing schools that are passing on traditions and customs that are closing their doors. It seems insensible to me.
Susan Pendergrass (27:32)
Well, I appreciate that you follow this at such a detailed level. Many people talk in soundbites and you are not guilty of that. And I do appreciate that. It’s complicated issue. And I think we’re seeing some pivoting in the K-12 education space, certainly picked up speed with COVID, but I do think we’re seeing that and it’s going to be interesting to see how it unfolds. So I really appreciate your time.
Andy Smarick (27:53)
Yeah,
yeah, of course. like you and I are of the sort of like older generation, not to date us too much, but like think if someone had told you that you and I would be having this kind of conversation 25 years ago.
Susan Pendergrass (27:58)
Hey now.
Andy Smarick (28:07)
We wouldn’t have believed it. Like this amount of choice, this amount of diversity, this amount of change within the meaning of public education. So like, although these are tough times, we’ve had a generation of remarkable improvement in policy and like the organization of schooling. although like things are tough now, they’re always tough, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that so much has changed just in a generation.
Susan Pendergrass (28:25)
⁓
That’s right, it’s exciting. that’s awesome. All right. Well, I hope you come back again in the future to talk about more things related to this topic. Thanks, Auntie.
Andy Smarick (28:35)
Can’t wait, thanks for having me.
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