School choice is the policy idea that education funding should follow the student rather than the institution. On The Bob Zadek Show, guest Corey DeAngelis, described by Bob Zadek as an adjunct scholar at Cato for the Center of Educational Freedom and author of School Choice Myths, framed the concept as “funding the student instead of the institution” Students, Not Systems (2022). Under the existing arrangement DeAngelis described, families are residentially assigned to a government-run school and that school is funded regardless of whether the family chooses to send a child there. School choice would instead let the money follow the child to whatever educational setting a family selects.
Origins and framing
Bob Zadek dated the issue’s prominence to the early 1990s, when, he said, Milwaukee in Wisconsin first initiated a voucher program; he described the voucher school movement as active and growing since then Students, Not Systems (2022). Zadek attributed renewed attention to the pandemic, during which public schools locked down and banned classroom education while private schools were more able to cope and still hold classroom learning. He also noted that President-elect Biden had said the days of school choice are over, and called choice “as American a word as there could possibly be.”
DeAngelis endorsed Zadek’s use of the term “government schools” rather than public schools, arguing they are not public in any meaningful sense because they discriminate based on zip code and are not open to the public like a public park. He noted that Milton Friedman referred to them as government schools as well. He described the American arrangement as unusual in funding the institution regardless of how well it meets the needs of individual families and regardless of whether the family chooses to send a child there.
Funding students, not institutions
DeAngelis argued that school choice simply applies to K–12 the logic already used elsewhere. He cited Pell grants for higher education, under which money goes to the student, who may pick a public or community college or a private or religious university; the GI Bill for veterans; and pre-K programs such as Head Start or other state-funded pre-K programs, where families are not residentially assigned to providers. He also cited food stamps, noting that low-income families are not assigned to government-run grocery stores but may choose Walmart, Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. He asked why people who support funding the child for pre-K and higher education do not support vouchers or funding the student directly for K–12, and answered that the power dynamics differ: K–12 has an entrenched special interest that profits from receiving a child’s education dollars regardless of how well it meets the family’s needs.
Bob Zadek added the VA system as an example, describing it as a monopoly healthcare system for American military veterans that has been attacked as inadequate, and recalling an almost universal hue and cry that veterans should be allowed to take the benefit into the private sector. He also cited Medicaid, where the patient may pick any doctor who will accept the compensation, and Section 8 housing, where a voucher holder picks the apartment or home. Zadek concluded that school choice is not radical but a proven system Americans have long accepted in almost every other area of welfare-type benefits.
DeAngelis clarified for libertarian listeners that using analogies like Pell grants and food stamps did not mean he endorsed those programs; his point was only that if money is allocated away from the taxpayer for such programs, it should go to the person rather than the institution. He added that for K–12, reallocating dollars from government institutions to individuals can be used in the private sector and reduces government size, and that voucher programs tend to be a lower percentage of what is already spent in the traditional public school system.
The defunding argument and teacher unions
DeAngelis identified the main opponents of school choice as the teachers unions, describing them as an entrenched special interest and a monopoly that fights funding following the child because it would end the geographic monopoly created by residential assignment to government-run schools, which are more likely to staff union members—meaning less union dues and less political power for union bosses. He said the unions repeat myths even though the evidence and basic logic take those myths down easily.
The central myth DeAngelis addressed was that school choice defunds public schools. His first response was that school choice does not defund public schools—public schools defund families—and that school choice initiatives reallocate dollars back to the rightful owners, the families. He argued the money belongs to no institution, public or private, but to families, and compared the claim to saying that allowing people to choose their grocery store defunds Walmart.
His second response was that the same people who defend the government monopoly on schooling and say public schools are great also say school choice defunds public schools, which he treated as an admission that families would leave when given the option. He cited parent surveys indicating that about half of people in traditional public schools say they would choose something else, either homeschooling or private schooling, if money were not an issue and school-choice-like initiatives existed.
His third response was mathematical. Schools are funded based on student enrollment counts but not completely so, because block grants also flow into the traditional public school system. Georgetown University, he said, has estimated how much funding is based on student enrollment, and in most states it is about 60 to 80 percent. When a student leaves through a voucher program, the traditional public school keeps 20 to 40 percent of the funding for a student no longer there, so on a per-pupil basis it ends up with more money. He extended the grocery analogy: if Safeway kept 20 percent of your grocery bill after you left for Trader Joe’s, Safeway would love that deal.
Mechanisms: vouchers, ESAs and tax-credit scholarships
Asked how the economics work, DeAngelis said the families are the winners. Under a school choice mechanism, the same funding follows the child to wherever the family chooses; it could still go to the residentially assigned traditional public school, in which case nothing changes. If the family chooses otherwise, a fraction of those dollars follows the child—a fraction because, to make programs politically feasible, they build in a taxpayer savings, at perhaps 80 percent of what would have been spent in the traditional public school system, or sometimes as little as 50 percent. The public schools keep some money, the taxpayer keeps some money, and the family gains a choice. The money could follow the child as a voucher to pay private school tuition and fees.
DeAngelis also described Education Savings Accounts. Instead of a voucher paid to a private school, the money goes into an account the family operates. It can pay private school tuition and fees, but also special needs therapies for special needs students, online learning, homeschool expenses, microschools, and expenses for unschooling or pandemic pods, making it more flexible and customizable. He said regulations require government-approved education expenditures, so the money cannot be spent on groceries or a big-screen TV, and doing so could bring fraud charges.
A third mechanism, tax-credit scholarships, is privately funded: donors give to a scholarship-granting organization, families obtain those private dollars for a private school or homeschooling expenses, and donors receive a tax benefit. DeAngelis said such programs tend to be less regulated because private funds are less likely to be regulated by the government than—and the excerpt breaks off there.
Across episodes
The excerpts contain a single episode on school choice, so they show no development between an earlier and later treatment; the topic is argued in Students, Not Systems by Bob Zadek and Corey DeAngelis.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state which state Milwaukee is in beyond Zadek’s own reference to “Milwaukee in Wisconsin,” nor do they name any specific bill, statute or court case. They do not report what any court has held about school choice or which constitutional amendment any such case turned on. The excerpt describing tax-credit scholarships ends mid-sentence, so the comparison DeAngelis was drawing is left incomplete.