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PODCAST: | “Freedom to Learn:” Will Democrats Embrace an Abundance Education Agenda?

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DFER’s Jorge Elorza joins Freedom to Learn to share Federal Scholarship Tax Credit polling & his plans to dislodge the status quo

Jorge Elorza, former mayor of Providence, RI, and current leader of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) is dislodging the “sticky” forces of the K-12 status quo, including the powerful teachers unions. He joined the Freedom to Learn podcast this week to discuss the policies and politics of DFER’s Abundance education agenda. Jorge also explains why all governors should opt into the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit so that students in their states can benefit from expanded education opportunities and resources.

DFER’s September poll found strong support for the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit. Under the provision, which was enacted into law as part of the budget reconciliation bill last summer, donors can receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for donations to scholarship granting organizations. Governors have to opt in for students in their states to benefit. And, it turns out that voters are strongly in favor of them doing so. For those polled who expressed an opinion on the tax credit:

• 77% favor their governor opting into the program.
• 75% of Democrats, 81% of Hispanic voters, 76% of Black voters with opinions on the tax credit supported opting in.

As Jorge points out during the episode, this is an 80-20 issue!

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Below is an edited and abridged transcript from our conversation. Please follow or subscribe to Freedom to Learn on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every Thursday!

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You were the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. What did you encounter there while you were working with the K-12 system?

Jorge Elorza: I ran for mayor because I wanted to transform the schools in Providence. And let me just say that after I got elected, I got right to work on education and I received an education on the politics of education. I just came to understand how powerful the forces of the status quo are. I was the mayor, I oversaw the schools. And so at least in theory, I was in charge, but I saw how limited I was in terms of being able to affect real change. And I saw the same for the superintendent. I saw the same for principals at the school level. And I saw the same for even reformers throughout the system, be they educators, administrators, or otherwise. And so I saw how sticky the status quo is.

And it really shaped my views. Before I was elected, my thinking was my focus is the traditional public schools where 90 plus percent of kids study. That’s my focus. And then I came to see that, speaking practically, if you really want to move the needle, you also have to consider alternatives to the traditional system.

So that started the process where I came to embrace those alternatives.

I’ve heard you say that ‘the forces of the status quo have been difficult to dislodge.’ And you just said that the status quo is powerful. What do you mean when you talk about the status quo? Because you’re saying that even the principals and the administrators, they’re all up against the status quo. So what is the status quo? And who or what are these forces?

Jorge Elorza: So it’s a lot of different things. And so, the obvious one, the top of the list for most folks is the teachers unions. And yes, it is a challenge, particularly when teachers unions just have a lot of leverage and have a lot of power. I would say that I learned it goes beyond them as well. It goes beyond them as well. It goes to the entire bureaucracy. It goes to elected officials. It goes to even community leaders that stand in a way and sometimes resist change.

And so, I see an entire system that isn’t designed to evolve. It’s not designed to be dynamic and responsive to the needs of not just the needs, but the individual, the particular needs of kids and families.

And instead at a design level, we’ve created a system that’s very top down. It’s very bureaucratic. It’s a system that is built for compliance, not for anything else. Certainly not to be dynamic. And so, while I’ve been here at DFER, that’s been a great deal of our focus. And of course, we’re very interested in policy reforms, but we’re also very interested in systems reforms that from top to bottom change the incentives so that doing the right thing by kids is the easy thing to do for everyone involved in the system.

I’d imagine in your eight years as mayor that you compared notes a time or two with your fellow mayors from around the country. Are they expressing some concerns with the same issues – the status quo, the teachers unions, the resistance to change?

Jorge Elorza: Absolutely. I guess one of the limitations is that there are very few mayors throughout the country that actually control their schools. But there are a number of mayors who nonetheless get involved. Sometimes by virtue of the position, the mayor is the chair of the school board, or sometimes they just have good working relationships with them. So even if they don’t have formal authority, they have a lot of informal say. We as mayors, we just think very practically. It’s about getting stuff done every day. And we’re the ones that are most responsive to the facts on the ground. And that’s that for too many kids in too many places, our traditional public schools just aren’t making the grade. We don’t take that as as a sign that no progress can be made, we look for alternatives.

And that’s what led me, particularly, to embrace charter schools. It led me to embrace, now even private school choice. And so, yes, it’s born out of the same frustration that not only mayors, but anyone who has an orientation towards being effective, getting, delivering results and getting stuff done every day. These are all the frustrations we face.

And I think it’s really important to point out, Ginny, that on the left right now, there’s this big conversation that has been very much, if not spurred, at least catapulted by the abundance movement on delivering results, on enhancing state capacity. But the reality is that a lot of the conversation on the left hasn’t picked up on the need for education reform. You see more of that lately.

But when we talk about state capacity, schools are usually the biggest part of a state’s budget. In the case of Providence, they were half of the city’s budget. And if we’re talking about creating government capacity to actually deliver on families’ needs, education writ large is an area that we on the left, or progressive voices, really need to focus a great deal about because our aspirations and our outcomes, there’s this dramatic mismatch and we need to reconcile that.

You mentioned the abundance movement. For listeners who may not follow Ezra Klein’s podcast or have read his book, what are you referring to there?

Jorge Elorza: It’s part of a conversation that’s been going on for about a decade, but it’s been really crystallized by a book that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson released earlier this year. And what it does is it reorients the policy conversation around getting stuff done, delivering results and delivering the kinds of things that people want. And in my opinion, it really has two key components.

The first is: ‘what is stopping us from delivering?’. On the left, we’ve embraced the form of governance that has become too procedural, too bureaucratic, and it gets in the way of us delivering. That’s the first. And then the second is that, generally speaking, we on the left have come to under-appreciate the role that innovation and technology have in accelerating progress and leading to breakthroughs that we didn’t know were possible.

Again, how do we deliver on what people want? Well, we have to invest in innovation and embrace technology. And it really shifts the conversation from the left around education has been so much about inputs – how much money we’re going to spend or this new program that we’re going to start. But it refocuses the conversation on ‘what are we delivering?’. Are we delivering on the needs of families?

And if not, that’s a problem and that needs to be our singular focus on what to do next.

But the book itself, the Abundance book, didn’t it leave out education?

Jorge Elorza: It absolutely did. And so for all the folks out there who read the book and kept waiting for the education chapter, just know you felt the exact same way that I did. that spurred me to write what I titled An Abundance Education Agenda, a piece that I published a few months ago. And I’ll tell you, Ginny I was just overblown by the response that it received. Many people reaching out and saying, ‘you know, I’ve been waiting for someone to write this,’ or ‘I’ve been wanting to say this for a very long time.’ And I think that on the left, there are a lot of people who have wanted the left in general or the Democratic Party in particular to focus more on K-12 education. And this not only provides a framework for how to talk about K-12 education. But also in this moment where the left is looking back at the last election, we’re sort of licking our wounds and looking at ourselves in the mirror, it really is an opening. And what we found is that there is indeed an openness to new approaches, new ideas, even new political alliances that just hasn’t existed in the past. So look, I’m a former mayor, so I’m an optimist by nature, but I do think that in this moment, even with sort of all the chaos and craziness that exists in politics, there’s this incredible opening to bring about some real change in education because if there is one institution in our society that needs a fundamental top to bottom rethink, it’s K-12 education and it’s exciting to see it get a lot more attention nowadays.

Well, you’re a big part of that conversation. Like you said, you’ve written this piece. It’s a framework that you’ve put out there and you’ve stepped into this role to lead DFER, Democrats for Education Reform. So tell us a little bit about DFER and what you’re hoping to accomplish.

Jorge Elorza: DFER has been around for almost 20 years now. The organization was a big supporter of folks like Cory Booker and Barack Obama. And so we came into existence right at the perfect moment as ed reform was really taking off and even the left was embracing it. And over time, what has happened not only to my organization, but to the Democratic Party, is that we stopped talking about K-12 education. We didn’t have the national figure like Barack Obama that emphasized it. And so then it fell to executives at the state level, to governors. But with the exception of Governor Polis in Colorado, there really haven’t been governors that have prioritized this over the last decade.

So as a party, we just stopped talking about it. And so I came into the organization two years ago and that’s been my focus. Where there are Democrats or progressive voices that are policymakers that are trying to pass good policy, historically, what we’ve done is we help them get good policy over the finish line. But what I found when we started was that Democrats just weren’t trying to get stuff done. So it wasn’t about getting it past the finish line, it was about getting them to prioritize K-12 education and want to lead boldly in this space. And that’s what has led us to not only write this article that I told you about, but play more of a leading role in the thought leadership space, calling out the fact that we used to be the undisputed party of education.

We used to have a plus 20 point advantage over Republicans on voter trust on this issue. But now that advantage has vanished. We are no longer more trusted than Republicans on this issue. And so making the case to the party that there is now a political imperative for us to focus on K-12 education. And since it’s been 10 years since we’ve talked about it, we need to rebuild not only what the vision is, but also at the basic level of what the language is, what the ideas and what the policies are. So, helping to fill that void so that as a party, there is actually an agenda for us to champion in governor’s races and in the presidential election in 2028.

Well, the teachers unions certainly haven’t been quiet over the last 10 years, nor are they ever quiet when it comes to Democrat Party dynamics, K-12 education, and what their agenda is. How are you managing that internal party dynamic when the teachers unions have historically always been so powerful and so vocal?

Jorge Elorza: What I always tell electeds is that, speaking only with a political hat on, I can understand a political alliance when it’s paying political dividends. But the reality is that Americans no longer trust Democrats more than Republicans on this issue. We have followed the lead of not only the teachers unions, but of the voices of the status quo for a very long time and look at where it’s gotten us. We are now underwater where it matters on K-12 education. And so if a political alliance is no longer paying political dividends, then why are we still there? And that’s a big part of why I think that there’s an opening in this moment to get new voices, but also existing voices to rethink our policy and our alliances in this space.

And, it’s clear that Americans aren’t buying what we’re selling on education. So we have to offer something different. And it’s very clear that upsetting the status quo and dislodging the status quo is going to make folks who are invested in status quo, like the teachers unions upset, but not only as a matter of policy, but also as a matter of politics, it’s the smart thing to do.

Sounds like a hard thing to do though, Jorge, if we’re being honest. I’m not a political person. I’m more of a policy person. But from what I understand, something like a third of the delegates to the Democratic convention come from the AFT and the NEA, the big unions. How do you go up against that kind of lock on the political power and the institutions?

Jorge Elorza: So Ginny, it is an incredibly hard thing to do. So I don’t want to paper over, I don’t want to paper over that fact. And even if the political incentives align for reform, the reality is that teachers unions, they’ve played the political game very effectively over time. They’re at every ziti dinner for ward political parties. They’re at every fundraiser from the local level all the way on up. And so they’ve built those relationships over time and those relationships are lasting. And so, yes, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do.

But again, I think there’s at least two, maybe three things going for us. The first is that, looking back at this last election, it’s virtually impossible to look at ourselves in the mirror and conclude that nothing needs to change. In fact, the opposite. And I think there are a lot of voices that are beating that drum. The second, there now exists a political imperative for us to refocus on K-12 education. Look, us reformers have been telling the party for decades that the party’s positions on education are out of step with the base, but the party never paid a political consequence for it. Now it has. And so, aligning the party’s positions with the, with the base and they carry just a lot more weight and importance. And then the last piece is, there are 36, 38 rather, gubernatorial elections in the next 14 months. And, we as an organization are focusing on executives. Executives are the ones that set the agenda. They provide policy guidance, political cover, et cetera. And, there’s a new generation of Democrats that are running for governor. And they’ve seen the polling. They want to lead on education. But, Ginny, they literally don’t know what to do.

And so through the relationships that we’re building, we’re looking to not just be of service on the policy side, but on the political side and helping to shape their thinking on education and then being in a position to help them implement once they’re in office. So all incredibly hard work, but there are dynamics at play in this moment that just haven’t existed in the past decade.

And so we’re trying to make the most of it and take advantage of this moment of disruption.

One thing governors can do is opt in to the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit. That is something I assume that you’re telling them because I’ve heard you talk about it in various arenas. And so I’d love to dig in a little bit specifically into that policy. And I’d love to understand a little bit more about why you’re personally supportive and then why your organization is.

Jorge Elorza: We’re very excited about this scholarship tax credit. I think it has a tremendous potential, not just on the policy side, but also on the political side. So we’ve been telling the party for a long time that choice is popular, right? And I mean, it’s just like the visceral appeal of it is just so intuitive. Of course, people want more choices. Of course, people want more options, particularly now that private school choice has expanded in Republican states and Republicans have emphasized it more in their political messaging.

As a party, we need to embrace this as a matter of policy and as a matter of politics; that’s been our message. However, getting the party to embrace choice from where it is today, that is a major, major leap.

So, laying the breadcrumbs that draw the party towards there is part of what we’ve been working on. But then in the middle of this work and making the case that Democrats should embrace it, this new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program passes. And in my opinion, this program has the potential to be a lifeline for Democrats because it forces a conversation in every state throughout the country on K-12 education. And, it’s all new money that comes to a state. And it’s just such a no brainer for governors and states to opt in. So it forces a conversation where the end result of that conversation is the party taking a significant step towards choice. Another way to think of it is that we’ve just been on the wrong track on education for at least a decade. And this offers a very convenient off-ramp for us. So, for those reasons, politically, I think that it is ultimately very helpful for Democrats. But then policy-wise, as I tell folks, this isn’t about Democrats being Republican-light on K-12 education.

I can’t think of a more progressive thing out there than empowering families, empowering them with educational choice. And we’ve been making the case not only that choice is a progressive value, but helping policymakers in blue states see all of the really forward-thinking, frankly, progressive things that can be done at the school innovation level by embracing choice and, in particular, the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program. So, there’s been a lot of receptivity.

The truth is that there are already a lot of Democrats elected and policymakers that are “choice curious.” And many of them tell us that they’re already there policy wise, but, the politics make it difficult.

So as an organization, what we’re trying to do is socialize this idea among policymakers and thinkers on the left so that it softens the ground and makes it easier for decision makers to opt in.

When the governors opt in, which is part of the mechanics of this Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, which previously was called ECCA (Educational Choice for Children Act), they’re not just opting in for a mechanism that will provide private school tuition. Students can benefit in other ways as well. Is that a way to soften the ground with governors to say, ‘look, taxpayers can donate and then receive a tax credit for the money that they’ve donated to scholarship granting organizations. That’s what this allows. And then those scholarship granting organizations can give funds for tuition, but also for other things like tutoring, like educational technology, like services for students with disabilities.’?

Does that help in your conversations that this is broader than just tuition?

Jorge Elorza: Absolutely. Yeah, that’s been key here. And so there’s, as you mentioned, Ginny, there’s a range of eligible uses. And, this isn’t a case where a governor would need to make a deal with the devil, meaning, you could get all of these additional resources into your state, but you have to use them to do things that you don’t want. That’s not the case at all. Since you could use it for say tutoring for public school students and other supports for public school students, public charter school students as well. This is actually new money coming into the state that actually helps governors and other policymakers advance their own priorities and their own agenda. And so that’s part of why it’s just such a no-brainer that governors should step in. The other piece that I think has really helped is the sheer amount of potential money that can be raised through these programs. So with the $1,700 tax credit, if states are successful in capturing as many of these $1,700 contributions where, for us as taxpayers, the decision is, ‘do we send the money to the IRS general fund or do we send it to an SGO in our community that’s doing work that we deem is important? And so it costs us nothing to make that contribution.’.

And if a state is able to capture as much of that as possible, the numbers become almost astronomically high very quickly. So, you can capture a great deal of new resources to help you do things that you are already prioritizing and are part of your agenda. You add that up, it’s a no brainer.

Philosophically softening the ground, how’s that going for you? I’ve heard you say that “public education is a goal, not a series of systems or a particular delivery model.” Do governors understand what you mean – or candidates for governor – state leaders, mayors, can they get on board for that way of thinking, or are they locked into the status quo approach?

Jorge Elorza: Part of this is like we are moving an ocean liner. And so, It’s not going to happen overnight. But look, governors in particular, they’re executives. They think a certain way to them. It’s about delivering results. Of all the players in the political game, executives are the least ideological. And so they can put two and two together. They get it.

So I mentioned that, a lot of folks are already “choice curious,” and they need just a little bit of help coming out of the closet. Particularly when it’s new dollars, new resources that don’t take a single dollar away from state education budgets.

When you put all the pieces of the argument together, I fully expect that a good number of governors will opt in in the first year. And over time, almost all, if not all governors and states will opt into this program.

But, it certainly takes a lot of educating on how it works and then raising awareness around all of the really forward thinking progressive things that you can do with these resources. And so that’s part of the challenge and part of the work we’re doing.

I think I hear you saying that a practical approach perhaps is more effective than a philosophical approach. I’ll throw out a third P; there’s polling out there. That polling approach generally speaks to elected officials or individuals who are seeking to be an elected official and DFER’s poll addressed some of these topics. Are there any findings that you’d want to share with us on that?

Jorge Elorza: We did a national poll and we’ve done several state-level polls and the results are what you would expect. Support for governors opting into ECCA is overwhelmingly positive. There’s still a good chunk of people that have no opinion. But if you take out those poll respondents, this issue of choice and this issue of opting into ECCA is literally an 80-20 issue.

There’s been a lot of talk and conversation about all these 80-20 issues that Democrats have been on the wrong side of. So, we’re adding this to that list, and that’s part of our more broader messaging. What is it about our party that continually has us on the wrong side of any 80-20 issues? We have to put a stop to that. And opting into ECCA is a very good start to addressing that on the K-12 side.

For people who are listening to these conversations, learning about the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, what do you encourage them to do to convince policymakers to opt in and get excited about this proposal?

Jorge Elorza: So not just our organization, but several other organizations are having several webinars and sessions to raise awareness and to educate the public on it. In terms of how it works, there are some nuances to it that it’s really helpful to learn. So I encourage everyone to please tune in to these various webinars. Thank you, Ginny, for raising awareness of it here. And I’m confident that as the general public becomes aware of this, they will also see it as a no brainer.

I encourage folks to be in touch with their local elected officials and their own governors’ offices and tell them that there’s just no reason, at least no justifiable reason, why a state should watch its money leave the state and go to the U.S. Treasury when it could be retained to support your own kids at a moment where there’s an education crisis and they can use it.

There’s just no justifiable reason for turning away this opportunity. And please encourage your governor and your states to opt in.

Governors typically are very competitive people. So there’s the idea of the money going back to the Treasury; but there’s also the possibility that individuals could donate to scholarship granting organizations in another state. So the money is going to leave that governor’s state if they don’t opt in. So playing to that competitive spirit, I think, is probably effective as well.

As we conclude, we like to tackle myths, education freedom or other myths. Are there any that really bother you? Do you have a favorite that you’d want to tackle today or dispel?

Jorge Elorza: So staying on a private school choice, I hear from a lot of folks that the reason why they don’t support private school choice is because, in terms of outcomes, it is no better than the traditional public schools. And, I’m always left scratching my head on that. There’s been work done on this at the international level. With pluralist systems, both academic and civic outcomes, they regularly outperform the United States. Also here domestically, I think that the most generous case that choice supporters can make for the other side is that if anything, the research is decidedly mixed. If we really want to throw a bone, let’s say if it’s decidedly mixed, that is hardly an argument for not embracing these new tools that have so much promise and that empower families. And so this idea that we would support them if only they delivered results, that’s something that we really need to dispel.

How can people follow DFER’s work?

Jorge Elorza: You can follow me on Substack, but also at www.dfer.org. Please sign up for our listserv. And if you have any thoughts or questions, I’d love to hear them. I’m at jorge@dfer.org.

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