School Choice & Education Reform: Andrew Handel on NewstalkSTL
Andrew Handel, ALEC Education and Workforce Development Task Force Director, talks with Tim Jones, Gabe Phifer and Stel Pontikes of NewsTalk STL about education reform, school choice, and the new ALEC Index of State Education Freedom: A 50-State Guide to Parental Empowerment.
The Index of State Education Freedom is a brand new publication. We just released our first edition just here in the last couple of weeks, and then we’re planning to renew it annually, but it basically just takes a look at all fifty states, and it looks at what educational options are available to families.
Florida was number one, which probably doesn’t come as a surprise. Florida is kind of viewed as the gold standard in education freedom. Number two is Arkansas which shot up the rankings here with the passage of the LEARNS Act, that was a big priority of Governor Sanders and the legislature acted swiftly to get that in place. So, they now have universal education freedom available for all students. Number three is Indiana, which also has universal education freedom. Four is Arizona which also has universal education freedom, and five is Iowa which is another state that just got that universal education freedom. There’s a theme there in the top five in case you didn’t notice, having these programs available to all students is really key.