Frontier Institute’s Trish Schreiber on School Choice & Charter Schools in Montana

The Learning Curve Trish Schreiber

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Well, hello everybody. And welcome back to another episode of learning curve podcast. I’m one of your co hosts, Albert Cheng. And with me is the other co host Alisha Thomas Sersey. What’s up, Alisha? Hello, Dr. Cheng. How are you doing? Ah, doing well, doing well. Yeah. We got an exciting show, you know, looking forward to having a Trish Schreiber.

[00:00:22] I’m excited about that. I don’t know about you.

[00:00:23] Alisha Searcy: I am. She’s doing great work. So I’m excited about hearing more and talking to her about all that’s going on education.

[00:00:30] Albert Cheng: Yeah, that’s right. So just to riff off our opening song, we do have something to talk about in case you, for the listeners, were wondering what that was by Bonnie Raitt.

[00:00:39] But we got stuff to talk about, Alisha, right? Let’s talk between us on some news. So what do you have?

[00:00:46] Alisha Searcy: I’ve got an interesting story from Real Clear Education, and it’s a piece by David Hoyt, The Reformer Saving Houston Schools from Disaster.

[00:00:57] So if you followed anything in public education, particularly urban education over the last few years, we all know the battle that Houston Independent School District has been through where the then state school superintendent Mike Morath, who I actually have a lot of respect for, decided to take over the school district because of all of the challenges that it was having.

[00:01:22] It went through a legal battle. It was a lot, right? All through the news, school board issues, all kinds of things. And so then there was a new school superintendent appointed and I think it was 2022. And he implemented some pretty significant reforms. One in particular is called. NES, the new education system.

[00:01:47] And so what does that mean? There are a few things that are involved in this. So the primary goal of the model is to raise achievement and close achievement gaps for the highest need students. And so that’s everything from more instructional time for students who are in chronically underperforming schools and behind grade level, multiple instructors in each classroom.

[00:02:08] So that improves the student teacher ratio. Get this Albert, seven sunrise centers, which are community based student resource hubs. They’re positioned near the campuses where this NES program is happening, where they provide mental health, medical care, food pantries and other services that are provided there.

[00:02:30] Also very cool. They increase teacher pay. Yeah. So the average teacher salary at these NES campuses are 85, 000. With a 10, 000 stipend, that’s amazing because the average salary statewide is about 55, 000.

[00:02:47] Albert Cheng: Wow, yeah.

[00:02:48] Alisha Searcy: It also removes non teaching tasks from teacher workloads. And so if you follow, right, or if you, in my case, you’ve done school turnaround, district turnaround, you understand that these are all of the things we know that work in public education to drive results for kids.

[00:03:06] And so it should not be a surprise then that they’ve seen pretty significant results. Specifically, in 2022, only 18 percent of HISD 8th graders were able to read proficiently. Get that, right? But now, as a result of some of this work, they’ve seen some pretty significant improvement where, like African American students in particular, their reading scores have gone up 8%.

[00:03:36] Also of note, students with disabilities, they’ve had one of the largest increases across The schools that have had this program. And so what I will say is that there are some criticisms that people have of this new superintendent in terms of maybe his leadership style personality. But what you cannot argue is that these new reforms that he’s put in place have been quite effective and have been getting results for kids.

[00:04:01] And so I think this is an important district to watch to continue to learn from best practices that we know work in public education to get results for kids. And just remind us again that all kids can learn when you put the right remediation in place when you put the right adult in place who are You know, compensated for the hard work that they do and you surround them with wraparound services to address some of the social issues that they’re also facing.

[00:04:31] So kudos to the folks in Houston for the work that’s happening on behalf of kids.

[00:04:36] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, you know, putting a spotlight on, on what’s going on there. Yeah, I think there’ll be lots to learn and keep an eye out to see how things go. And hopefully, you know, these, these changes can be sustained too.

[00:04:47] I know, uh, in ed reform, you know, try one thing and it works for a few years and then new leadership comes in or the political winds change or this, that or the other. And so I guess here’s the, here’s the hope and something can be built and kind of have some staying power. Absolutely. Excellent point.

[00:05:04] Let’s hope that these things are sustained. All right. Well, I have, um, yeah, maybe a related story, actually, you know, as, as you’re explaining your story reminded me of part of the article I read. So my article is actually, well, it’s, it’s really an opinion piece by the editorial board at the Seattle Times.

[00:05:21] And the headline is Washington charter schools are helping kids. Yet still get short shrift. And I think this is something we’ve heard in a lot of states where, you know, you’ve got certain policy makers that are trying to champion a charter school bill to expand that opportunity. And, you know, in Washington, as the editorial board says there, they’re having a charter schools are having a rocky time, and they mentioned about that fewer than half.

[00:05:46] Of the number of charter schools they originally envisioned are actually operating, you know, you have the same kind of narrative you hear less funding for people, you know, access, uh, or I should say a lack of access to a lot of other funding streams to, you know, do things like, you know, have buildings.

[00:06:01] Right. And so anyway, I want to point that article out and it goes, the editorial board goes into, you know, a bill that’s been moving its way through the state legislature there, but then, you know, certainly the charter stuff gets killed for whatever reason. But actually, you know, I guess where I want to go with this after listening to your story is that, you know, at the very end, they quote a student.

[00:06:23] And I think maybe given what you’ve said, it’s maybe worth me just mentioning what this student said. And so this is actually a student who goes to one of the charter schools there, Summit Atlas, 12th graders in West Seattle. And almost all these kids at that school left their traditional district schools, because as this one student said, at the school that they left, kids were just there to learn and then leave.

[00:06:51] And then she contrasts this with what she calls the family atmosphere. at Summit. She says it’s, it’s like a second home.

[00:06:58] Um, and there’s this feeling that you’re wanted there. And so, you know, and the other students saying like, teachers know their name, problems get addressed, instead of being swept under the rug.

[00:07:08] And so you hear, uh, these stories like that and you’re like, man, you know, like. There are these pockets of excellence out there. People are doing great stuff and you know, and then of course we get dragged back into the real world where there are interests, there are politics, there are challenges. I get it.

[00:07:25] I think with these two stories, maybe we just want to end on a note of like, Hey, a lot is possible, you know? And so let’s keep at it.

[00:07:33] Alisha Searcy: And good things are happening in schools and they’re working for kids.

[00:07:37] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s end on that positive note, you know, as my article ends, you know, he’s like, there are students who are actually jazzed about learning and let’s hope for more of that.

[00:07:46] Alisha Searcy: Yes. More of that, please.

[00:07:49] Albert Cheng: All right. Well, anyway, fun discussing the news with you, Alisha. And so for everyone else, hey, stick around. We’re going to have Trish Schreiber join us in a little bit to talk about her work in Montana.

[00:08:01] Trish Schreiber is a senior fellow in education at the Frontier Institute in Montana.

[00:08:07] Raised in San Jose, California during a time of great cultural and economic change, Trish’s life changed at the age of 13 when her family moved 20 miles west to the newly branded Silicon Valley. Having a front row seat to the inequities of educational opportunities that exists between neighboring zip codes set Trish on a pathway into a career of education.

[00:08:29] After earning a master’s degree and a certificate of educational therapy, Trish opened a private practice offering high quality special education services directly to families. Recognizing a dearth of affordable, diverse, and exceptional educational choices from Montana students and their parents amidst obvious demand, lured Trish into advocating for an open educational marketplace throughout Montana.

[00:08:55] Trish, it’s a pleasure to have you on The Learning Curve. Welcome.

[00:08:58] Trish Schreiber: Thank you so much for having me. It’s really an honor to be joining you guys.

[00:09:03] Albert Cheng: Well, the pleasure is ours. So let’s let listeners get to know you a little bit better. In recent years, you and others at the Frontier Institute have been driving some exciting changes in K 12 education in Montana.

[00:09:16] Tell listeners about some of your own background. How did you get interested in education and how does all that inform the work you’re doing in big sky country?

[00:09:25] Trish Schreiber: Well, as you heard in my bio, I come from the Bay Area. I was raised in East San Jose and my paternal grandparents were migrant workers in Central Valley of California, like in the early 20th century.

[00:09:39] So like our family lore claims that my father attended no less than 37. Schools between kindergarten and 12th grade . Right. So growing up myself in East San Jose in the seventies and the early eighties, you know, my then single mother had to move our home around a lot because I never really seemed able to pay the rent.

[00:10:01] But knowing my father’s history and seeing. Older sisters early education suffer. My mother learned to lie about our address, so she didn’t do this to, you know, access an elite public school. We didn’t have any of those in East San Jose, but this was really done. You know, she broke the law to provide us with educational continuity, and she coached us as children to hold up the lie.

[00:10:28] You know, if we were asked, so this is where this is kind of where I like to thank my mom for being willing to cross that line, even though, you know, it also involved teaching her Children had a lie. It was well worth it. But we moved from East San Jose to West San Jose when I was in the eighth grade. And this time my mother, you know, she was like, Oh, we’re moving schools because she knew that we were going to have access.

[00:10:53] to great schools. So for example, when my older sister’s high school had a daycare center for the students babies, my new high school had both a college and a career center. And you know, my friends parents changed from being blue collar workers, you was to rather being, you upper management, big tec it was just completely di thing that became clear w Or at least I would be making a conscious decision not to, because I became aware of the fact that I had an opportunity for choice and, you know, I’m a learning specialist by trade, so I’ve been in private practice for about 30 years now offering assessment and instruction and remediation, education, consulting services directly to families.

[00:11:49] And in that. I’ve learned a few things from this experience. But first is that, you know, no one school can be all things to every student. And secondly, I’ve learned that every student I have ever worked with has needed something different, you know, some type of variation to fully engage in learning. And I’ve also seen that parents and students.

[00:12:12] have preferences, you know, based on reasons that are deeply personal and private and that parents shouldn’t have to publicly disclose or justify why they want something different. And sadly, I’ve also observed that it’s often those with the most need for a different educational setting who don’t have the personal resources to seek those options.

[00:12:36] So I kind of fell in this space very naturally.

[00:12:41] Albert Cheng: I too am a California expat actually was born and raised in Fremont, just north of you.

[00:12:46] Trish Schreiber: Not far. Yeah.

[00:12:47] Albert Cheng: Yeah. That’s right. But so you, you know, grew up in East San Jose, California, now in rural Montana. Tell us a bit more about your experiences living in Silicon Valley and then also kind of get us up to speed till now, how and why you decide to move to Montana.

[00:13:03] And then, you know, what are some of the, you know, cultural political changes you’ve experienced in these two different States? Yeah.

[00:13:10] Trish Schreiber: I left the Silicon Valley when I was 20 for college. I went to community college for a couple of years and then I went to Southern California. And then from there I moved up to San Francisco and that’s where, you know, I spent my adult life and my husband is also a native Californian and I don’t know, just kind of out of nowhere, we just decided to be brave and make a move.

[00:13:30] So this was like in 2017 and we were like, you know, we don’t have children. And so we were at a point in our lives where we were like, we could do anything. You know, let’s let’s choose. What do we want to do? And being native Californians, the government is very far removed from the people. And we never gave local politics too much thought, other than we, you know, we knew that over time from the 80s to, you know, the like 2015 time period, things have changed a lot and our freedoms were shrinking each year.

[00:14:00] And that was sort of prompted us to move. So Montana was attractive because it offers a lot of Outdoor beauty just like California, but it also offers isolation, which was something that was becoming harder and harder to find in California. I mean, you would like, you had to basically go to the Trinity National Forest to be able to go on a hike without running hundred people.

[00:14:21] That’s right. . So that was far, especially with all the traffic. It became farther. So we, you know, we decided to do this, and I can tell you that getting involved in public policy was not the Montana plan.

[00:14:35] Um, but it just, we, you know, what happened was in chief, the fall of 2019, I decided to take a sabbatical because I left my private practice in San Francisco and I was doing a lot of back and forth because I was doing assessments.

[00:14:49] So I would fly to California and do a week of assessments and then come back to Montana and write reports and, you know, conferencing too. online with parents and stuff. Anyway, I decided I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be more a part of our community here, which is really the middle of nowhere. I mean, there are way more cows around us than there are people.

[00:15:07] And so, so we, we could go like very long periods of time without ever seeing another person, which is kind of interesting. But during that time period, it was the fall of 2019. So we all know what happened in the spring of 2020 was COVID. And I was At that time on sabbatical and so we had a huge amount of time to ourselves and I just started doing a lot of reading and trying to learn about what was going on in education.

[00:15:36] And that’s when it came to my awareness that there wasn’t a lot going on . And it was during the time period though of the Espinoza case and you know, we’ll probably talk about that later. But, so I was paying attention to that and doing a lot of reading and just kind of one thing led to another and decided to jump in and get involved in public policy.

[00:15:59] Albert Cheng: Let’s get into that, as you say. So, I mean, 2020, I mean, that’s when the Espinoza decision came down. So the Supreme Court of the United States, just to refresh everyone’s memory, if they’re not keeping track of all this, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of school choice advocates in Espinoza versus Montana Department of Revenue.

[00:16:17] And so tell us about first Kendra Espinoza as the plaintiff, that Supreme Court decision and what it in particular has meant for folks in Montana. Regarding school choice and K 12 education reform?

[00:16:31] Trish Schreiber: Sure. So like I said, this was going on right around the time when I moved to Montana. And because I am a long-term fan of the learning curve, I was really kept up with.

[00:16:43] the case and began learning about my new state and you know how few options students had and why and there was just you know at this point I started reading a lot of the various briefs that were being turned in to the Supreme Court which Pioneer of course offered one as well and you know this is a big state but it’s a very small population and There’s just like no affectation like people are available and willing to connect and willing to help in montana It’s really a wonderful place as far as that goes and you know Kendra is such a brave woman and she’s such a sweetheart and getting to know her has been Really fun in this process and we live in completely different parts of date, by the way, you know, many miles north of where I am.

[00:17:30] But, you know, we’ve crossed paths in Helena. And then, of course, being involved in education, we were bound to cross paths and we just connected, which, which was great. And, you know, kind of going back to our tax credit scholarship. So the bottom line is that it’s not good enough as far as education policy goes.

[00:17:47] And, you know, it went through that whole process and it really cracked the nuts. for the rest of the country, but because our policy is so problematic and very limiting, and there’s really no broad outreach about it. I mean, parents don’t really even know about it or how to access it. So, you know, that again is something I’ve learned over this time period and trying to figure it out and work on improving policy from there.

[00:18:16] Albert Cheng: Well, let’s talk about that tax credit scholarship program. This is one so individuals and corporations can claim up to 100 percent tax credit for contributions to a student scholarship organization, you know, ones that have been approved. And these nonprofits provide scholarships for private school and tutoring among other services.

[00:18:35] So tell us just, you know, your boots on the ground there. Yeah. Tell us about the program and pretty good. How has it grown or changed since the Espinoza decision? Yeah. Catch us up to speed on what’s going

[00:18:47] Trish Schreiber: on. So it’s changed a lot. And as you know, policy, you know, varies from state to state and a lot of it comes down to what policy can you actually pass politically.

[00:18:56] So there’s always that. So when the tax credit scholarship has, I mean the maximum donation. A person could give to an SSO was $150. So imagine how much work that would be for an sso, I’m sorry, a student scholarship organization to raise all that money to actually, yeah, I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous. So that’s how they passed it and it went through the courts that way.

[00:19:21] And again, it’s more meaningful. For what it did nationwide then for the people of Montana in that shape. So the maximum amount that could be collected for scholarships was a million dollars. That was the original policy. So in 2021, we had a shift in government. We have a new governor at that point, and they raised the maximum aggregate to $2 million.

[00:19:46] which was good. And then come 2023, which was a really great year in Montana for broadening education freedom laws in general, they raised it to 5 million and they put in a 20 percent automatic increaser, which is huge. So last year it was 6 million and next year it’s going to be 7. 2 million because of course we hit that aggregate, which is great.

[00:20:09] So we have about 22 SSOs right now in the state, but. The bottom line is the problem with this tax credit scholarship has always come down to the Department of Revenue, as you know, the case was against the Department of Revenue who decided to violate everybody’s First Amendment rights when they started implementing this law, and they’re still not doing their job.

[00:20:30] And so there’s Very little reporting. There’s absolutely no PR around this tax credit scholarship. And so people don’t really even know how to find the SSO, you know, and the actual policy, you know, though it is open to all students, the SSOs are kind of picking and choosing winners and losers, mainly on means testing.

[00:20:53] And from what we can see, figure out we don’t really know because like I said, there’s not a lot of reporting. They’re really only covering about a third to a half of the private school tuition for families. So again, it’s good for some families and it’s obviously working and that’s great, but that’s not going to work for every family and it puts a burden on the private schools who then have to also find other scholarships to match these to help these students, you know, come to their schools.

[00:21:22] And it totally leaves out homeschooling options and micro school options because of that, because most micro school founders can’t allow students to come at a third of the tuition and then find all these other scholarships for them, you know, and have parents. Yeah. Pay part of it too. So anyway, so we need more programs to offer options and flexibility in this state.

[00:21:42] But like I said, it’s a good starting point and it’s getting better. Each legislative session, which we only have every other year.

[00:21:51] Alisha Searcy: So interestingly, you mentioned the need for more options. I want to ask a little bit more about that. So even before learning loss due to the pandemic on Nate, which we know is the nation’s report card, Montana was slightly above average performing state on reading and math like more than two thirds of states, though it is also experienced.

[00:22:12] sharp drops in its NAEP results from 2011 to 19. So can you talk about how Montana school reform activists, lawmakers and policymakers view these NAEP scores and how these data inform public debates about expanding both private school choice and charter school options?

[00:22:32] Trish Schreiber: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m super glad you brought that up.

[00:22:35] So, you know, like you pointed out, even though Montana’s Slightly above the national average. It’s still, what really happens with those NA scores is Montana’s in a group of about 18 other states. So really they’re very middling and it has been declining since 2011. That continues through 2000. 20, the most recent night scores that we have.

[00:22:58] And sadly, Montana has that achievement gap that became so apparent this year between really the haves and the have nots. So it’s just this consistent decline persists and our state assessments show the exact same results and the exact same trend. And we just had our worst round of state assessments where, you know, again, like basically just.

[00:23:23] Below 50 percent of the students are actually hitting proficiency in English and language arts, and then about only 33 percent are hitting that in math. So, I tend to blame this lack of education reform. I mean, Montana has just been a desert of education reform. If you look at the maps Of rating all the states and the different activity that they have going on and changes that the states have made.

[00:23:48] Montana only has that tax credit scholarship I referenced earlier, and that isn’t enough to spark more options for families. So I think it’s a lack of innovation. It’s. We’re a local control state and I know a lot of people are really beholden to that, but I see a lot of problems with that. We have a very inconsistent curriculum and standard.

[00:24:12] I mean, though there are state standards, it’s like there’s no one enforcing any of that. We have meaningless accreditation, you know, that’s not focused on students. But rather on inputs. And oh my gosh, in fact, our constitution, you know, like most states, promises a quality education. And when you go look at how that’s defined in code, there’s a bill going through our state house right now where a state senator, actually, she’s my state senator, she’s trying to put a better definition on what exactly a quality education is.

[00:24:45] And right now, that definition is really about. just needing accreditation, which is box checking, you know, it has nothing to do with student outcomes. And she’s trying to tie it more to student outcomes. And oh my gosh, if you watch the hearing for this bill, it’s unbelievable because the education establishment shows up and they basically said out loud that they cannot be held accountable for student outcomes because the bottom line is that the families are so terrible.

[00:25:13] I’m floored by that. Yeah, I mean, it’s unbelievable. It’s like there’s this tension between the families and the schools and the schools just don’t want to change and it’s, you know, I just think that We got to get this going, you know, and I think that private choice programs and even public choice programs, if we don’t even have charter schools here, you know, so if we could get those in play, it would make a huge difference for families.

[00:25:44] Alisha Searcy: So I want to dig deeper and I don’t want to get political. I have to be very careful. Um, but I think you’ve named something that’s really important and that’s that there’s an entrenched collection of often very powerful and well organized special interest groups around K 12 education policy. And sometimes that includes teachers unions and school committees and even school superintendents.

[00:26:10] So can you talk more about sort of these special interests in your state and how the activists you work with navigate around these very well funded political influences to persuade elected officials.

[00:26:24] Trish Schreiber: Well, as you know, it’s not easy and you know, we’re not outnumbered. I can say that there are more people out there who would like to see change, but they just.

[00:26:34] Get involved in policy change. You know, it’s like Helena, I mean, Montana’s this huge state, and even though there’s remote access to participation, it’s just, you know, normal people are not gonna just stop whatever it is they’re doing to make something happen in Helena, it’s just. It’s very hard. So there’s been a big grassroots movement and we have a state chapter of Americans for prosperity.

[00:26:58] And I would like to give them some credit here because they’ve done a lot of grassroots training and reaching out to people and helping them, you know, follow their interests in improving policy to increase freedoms and prosperity and stuff across the state. So that’s been very, very helpful. And the lobbyists.

[00:27:17] Here for the establishment have just been so successful. They’ve just been able to block everything every year. I mean, it took Montana 24 years, but again, they only have sessions every other year, but 24 years to pass a charter law. And it, it’s just, it, it’s that hard, you know? And, and at the point. Okay, 2023, we finally have a charter.

[00:27:41] Well, now it’s caught up in the courts, you know, so again, that’s another story, but that’s what the establishment is spending their time on. They’re like, okay, we didn’t, we couldn’t beat you in the court of public opinion or in the legislature. So we’re gonna take you down in the courts and, um. Every state has gone through this who has a charter law.

[00:27:58] So, so we, we get it. That’s part of it. But going back to that idea of people in Montana being very accessible, we have citizen legislators and that means something here. And because of that, they’re very easy to reach. And what we found in just literally all their numbers are online. You just call them up and they always pick up.

[00:28:19] Sometimes you have to wait a little bit for them to come off of the tractor. You’re waiting like three or four minutes, but they’ll get. And they’ll take that call. And we found that the legislature really has a desire for school choice in Montana. But because they’re cities and legislators, they don’t have staff, they don’t know how to write policy.

[00:28:39] They can’t do this really either. So it’s really been a group effort of, you know, grassroots. and grass tops working as a team. And that was something we were able to develop going into the 23 legislative session. And it was just finding people who are in the right place at the right time and had some time.

[00:28:58] And we used all social media contacts to reach people all over the place and just, you know, did a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, blasts and just tons of stuff. And it just finally worked. Our voices got heard. It was pretty amazing.

[00:29:13] Alisha Searcy: Excellent. And you should be congratulated for that. It has taken a long time, but you did do it. And I actually want you to talk more about, we talked about sort of the establishment that’s against it. But talk to us about the coalition of activists that you and others have been leading to bring the charter schools to Montana. Who else is a part of that coalition?

[00:29:35] Trish Schreiber: Oh, I’m so glad you said that because I had mentioned AFP, but who I didn’t mention was other national partners who helped us get here.

[00:29:43] So, you know, reaching out. to places like the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools. They were so helpful in helping to educate us about, you know, fixing our charter law. Because one of the things the establishment said for those 24 years was that charter schools are not constitutional in Montana.

[00:30:04] And so when I picked up the law to kind of read the law that would, you know, had been in legislative services all these years, of course it had changed over time, but I read through it. I was like, you know what, they’re right. It’s totally not constitutional. So we reached out to the Alliance and they helped us adapt it so that it would be constitutional to the, to the Montana constitution is really the issue that we have.

[00:30:26] So national partnership. really made a big difference in helping us. But again, it really was a grassroots movement in the 23 session. And like I said, our charter school law is called community choice schools, and it now is in the courts. And so we’ve been relying on these relationships that we’ve developed with people in passing that law and just keeping them informed and active and using a lot of national partners.

[00:30:57] And yes, every kid and Excel and Ed, they’ve been helping us by coming in and we’re doing like workshops of educating both citizens as well as. Our legislators. And so I can’t tell you how many Zoom conferences we’ve had where we’ve had experts come in and really just answer questions and suggest readings, and it’s just been incredibly helpful.

[00:31:20] So, you know, I think that’s one of the other things that was new is that nobody had really reached outside of Montana yet for help. And when I did that, it was just, they came running, you know, to the rescue. They’re like, we’re here. This is exactly what we wanna do. We needed a state partner. This is great.

[00:31:36] So we’ve been expanding that a lot and then also the frontier institute where i’m a senior education fellow So kendall cotton, he’s the president and ceo He’s so impressive and he’s a young guy and he started the frontier institute in 2020 Which was just a kind of a terrible time to start anything But it just shows how terrific he is that he’s been successful in doing this and he works on a lot of policy about increasing freedoms And after we passed that community choice schools law That’s when Kendall came to me and said, Hey, will you take on this position?

[00:32:08] And as the, you know, education fellow, really what I do is I use that as an opportunity to write a bunch of op eds where I then reference great papers that people should be reading, other articles that people should be reading. And so we’ve taken that like year and a half until now to really. Educate more widely, and we’ve been widely publicized in local papers, which is great.

[00:32:31] And then simultaneously, Frontier developed a special unit called EdNavigate Montana, which is a website that’s a resource for parents about the educational options that are not yet available to us, but that will be soon after some courts or, you know, court things are taken care of, um, court cases, and hired an education coordinator.

[00:32:53] And so she’s really taken on a lot of work. And it’s having that is fantastic. Like she has been able to teach people about our tax credit scholarship and how to reach these SSOs so that they can request, you know, scholarships. And in 23, we also passed a special education ESA. It too was in the courts, but it didn’t get the injunction put on it.

[00:33:17] So it’s actually up and running right now. And in the first round of applications, we pass. 14. So we had 14 families using it. That’s how little like PR there was about it. People just had no idea. But then since it navigates come on and their education coordinators been reaching out to families, we just had another application cycle and they took on 55 new families.

[00:33:40] So it was wonderful. It’s like, I know that’s small in other states, but in Montana, that’s pretty good. And so we’re, you know, hoping to continue building this coalition. Of just normal everyday people and keeping them engaged because that’s the only way we can really engage in the game against the establishment.

[00:34:02] Alisha Searcy: Excellent. I love your energy and your passion. I had another question which was about which Policy groups you work with I think you named some of them excel and ed and yes every kid And so I wonder if you could just close us out by you know, if you want to mention any other policy organizations But also any advice that you have for educators, for policy makers, or even parents or leaders who want to accomplish some of the things that you have over the last few years, what advice you would give to them?

[00:34:35] Trish Schreiber: I think I’m going to start with that part. So I don’t forget to go to that. The advice I would give people is to just reach out to people. If you’re reading something and you’re thinking, wow, I wish we had this in our state, or I wish I had a charter school in my area. Start. Making phone calls and you know, it’s a little intimidating to do that sometimes to call it a stranger’s like I would literally read a paper and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to see if I can reach this author online and people are really receptive to that.

[00:35:05] And so you have to start there. And so reaching out to people and then also being organized in the sense of re engaging, I think so much of this has to do with relationship building. And again, that’s at all levels, so don’t be shy. Don’t be afraid to start. Don’t tell yourself this can never happen because it can, and it just takes people really having the will to do it and not giving up.

[00:35:31] So there’s that, as I had mentioned earlier, when it comes to other groups that I’ve been really leaning on, I always credit the Pioneer Institute and learning curve first, because I remember I read this paper was like probably 2015 or 16, and it was the common core debacle, and it was just. So good that that’s what eventually led me to the learning curve, and then just listening to all the interviews of all these people who are doing this great work.

[00:35:55] I was like, oh, I’ll go read that. Oh, I’ll go read that. You know? So it leads to something and I just wanna give kudos to EdChoice because they have. such good information available to everyone, and they keep it up to date and they do polling, which is also awesome. And so I rely on Leslie Hiner and Matt Ladner and Mike McShane and Ben Scafidi and Jason Bedrick.

[00:36:18] And these people, you know, do work with a bunch of different organizations. But those are the papers you want to read. Actually, Albert, I’ve read a lot of your stuff as well. So you’re on my list of people who I go to look for, you Is a great resource. You know, the 74. When I think about the why behind all of this in education, I’m a huge fan of Ededie Hirsch and have read just about all of his books, not his most recent, I have it on my shelf that I have to dig into that one, but just the idea that.

[00:36:49] We need to help students build knowledge and that can be done. And that makes me think of Ashley burner, you know, and her messaging on education pluralism and yeah, there’s just so much help out there. And it’s a matter of just writing that email or sending that direct message or making a phone call and being brave enough to reach out.

[00:37:10] And people will be there to help.

[00:37:12] Alisha Searcy: I love that. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for giving Dr. Albert Chang a shout out too for the great work that he does.

[00:37:20] Albert Cheng: Well, I appreciate that and certainly appreciate you giving us your time to be on the show too.

[00:37:25] Trish Schreiber: Thank you guys so much. Keep up the great work.

[00:37:40] Albert Cheng: Well, that was fun to learn a little bit more about what’s going on in Montana. I, you know, I got to say just, you know, I only hear the stuff I see on national news, not living in that state, but it was great to get a bit more of an insider scoop.

[00:37:52] Alisha Searcy: It was, and she’s got a very interesting background, and I love how she got into this work and it really speaks to, you know, just what’s possible, so great interview.

[00:38:02] Albert Cheng: Well, that’s going to take us to the end of our show, and to close out, let me first give the Tweet of the Week, which comes from Pathéos, in honor of Women’s History Month. They’ve got a blog post about Harriet Tubman Day. A Visionary’s Pursuit of Freedom. And in case you’re wondering what day that was, that was March 10th, so just a couple days ago.

[00:38:23] But anyway, we want to call that out and also to remind listeners that actually just a few months ago, we had University of Texas at San Antonio’s Catherine Clinton share her expertise on this show about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. So go check out that old episode and if you missed that.

[00:38:40] But hey, Alisha, pleasure to co host this as always with you. As always, good show today. Thank you. Good show today. And hopefully we have a good show next week. I think we will, because we’re going to have the president and CEO of EdChoice, our friend Robert Enloe. So that should be a really fun discussion.

[00:38:59] I don’t know that I’ve ever had a dull conversation with Bob Enloe. I mean, it’s always a treat. I would agree. Yes. All right. Well, we got that to look forward to next week. So thanks for tuning in everybody. And we hope to have you tune in next week too. See ya. Take care. Hey, it’s Albert Cheng here. And I just want to thank you for listening to the learning curve podcast.

[00:39:24] If you’d like to support the podcast further, we invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.