Lynch Foundation’s Katie Everett on School Finance Model for Catholic Schools & School Choice

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Well, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Learning Curve Podcast. I’m one of your co hosts this week, Dr. Albert Chang from the University of Arkansas. And guest co hosting with me this week is Pioneer Institute’s Mike Goldstein. Mike, good to have you on this show.

[00:00:38] Mike Goldstein: Albert, how’s parenting going?

[00:00:40] Albert Cheng: It’s going well, all things considered. I guess I’ll have to add that caveat.

[00:00:45] Mike Goldstein: Well, good to be here.

[00:00:46] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. And again, just to the listeners, you know, Mike’s got another podcast that we’ve plugged on, on the show before, uh, about all his, I guess, adventures, getting to know some folks in the micro schooling space and the homeschooling space.

[00:00:58] So make sure to check that out too. I guess, Mike, you’ve had a great time doing that, haven’t you?

[00:01:03] Mike Goldstein: Super fun. Homeschooling journeys. And We’ve been meeting like these really interesting moms who are doing the homeschooling and also some people that are providing services for the parents. So it’s been a fun journey.

[00:01:18] Albert Cheng: Great. Well, let’s get onto our, you know, our show for the day. I mean, we’ve got Katie Everett coming in. She’s joining us from the Lynch Foundation for an interview. Before we get to that though, we’d like to talk about some news stories and news articles that we’ve found. So Mike, I’ll, I’ll go first here.

[00:01:34] You know, I found one that. Caught my eye from the Financial Times, you know, London based paper, and it’s a paper arguing for something that we hear as well on this side of the pond in the States. It’s an argument for making financial education compulsory. And at least in the Financial Times article, it seems like this is a big push from business.

[00:01:59] And, you know, here in the States, again, we have that push as well. And I don’t know how I feel about it. I’m really torn. If not, I’m feeling a little bit leery about this. I get that financial education and financial skills are important. You know, I’m glad my parents taught me a thing or two. They didn’t teach me everything, but eventually I figured stuff out.

[00:02:18] And I understand too, that There are folks out there who don’t have the, I guess, the opportunity to learn from their parents or others about how to manage their finances. So I get that, but I’m worried that the overemphasis on life skills, is going to continue to water down some of the curriculum that we have in our nation’s schools.

[00:02:42] Just to maybe plug Steve Wilson’s book coming out. He’s got a couple excellent chapters documenting the history of how we got to the kind of education we got today. And this all sounds like we’re repeating What we did, you know, 100, 120 years ago at the turn of the 20th century where we’ve emphasized life skills and at the cost of giving students a really robust liberal education, education in those rigorous and core academic subjects, and I worry that we’re going to repeat history here.

[00:03:19] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, I totally hear you on this. I mean, I feel like with my younger teenager, I’ve wanted financial education to be happening because of the purchase of the lattes and the boba teas.

[00:03:33] Albert Cheng: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:03:34] Mike Goldstein: And so, We started just recently instituting a co pay system where, yeah, sure, you can go out for sushi with your buddy as long as you pay 50 percent of it.

[00:03:48] And then it triggers this, like, real life calculation of like, huh, to have an hour of fun with my buddy, I would have to babysit for two hours to cover that. And, you know, I wonder sometimes about the school’s ability to deliver, you know, what It works better often in context, um,

[00:04:11] Albert Cheng: yeah, that’s, that’s a great point.

[00:04:13] Mike Goldstein: So I hear you on that. Yeah. Schools to do too many things.

[00:04:17] Albert Cheng: Yeah. Well, speaking of making schools do a lot of things, you’ve got an article, I think I, you know, I, I also came across this article, but please share it. It’s on civic education or at least related to it.

[00:04:27] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, so our friend Rick Hess at America, American Enterprise Institute wrote a piece for education next, and it was called Civic Education Needs Considered Perspective, Not Urgent Catastrophism.

[00:04:43] So that was a very hard title, Albert, for me to say, but the sub was students should learn this isn’t the first time America’s future presumably hinges on a presidential election. And so what, what Rick was going for, he read Edward Larson’s book, A Magnificent Catastrophe. And that’s an account of the 1800 presidential election, which is Adams versus Jefferson.

[00:05:10] And those two guys friggin hate each other.

[00:05:13] Albert Cheng: Yeah. And

[00:05:14] Mike Goldstein: so each side is basically doing some version of trying to scare voters with, you know, democracy hangs in the balance type of vibe. And in hindsight. That was not true, and for Rick, the moral today is that in civic education, he worries that kids are being taught too much to freak out, that the desire is, I gotta scare the crap out of the kids so they become activists.

[00:05:41] And instead, he thinks modern civic education should often be, teach how robust the founding documents are in our system, and that you can get through a very tortured, hot election, and still, you know, the country holds together. So that was Ric’s take over at Education Next.

[00:06:02] Albert Cheng: Yeah, I think that those are, those are wise words.

[00:06:05] Yeah, I, I too enjoyed reading the At least his summary of that account between Jefferson and during that controversial election. So history is a great teacher. It offers good perspective, I think, that we all could use more of.

[00:06:18] Mike Goldstein: Exactly.

[00:06:20] Albert Cheng: Well, that’s the news for this week. Coming up after the break, we have Katie Everett from the Lynch Foundation to talk about what she’s been up to.

[00:06:27] So stick around.

[00:06:40] Mike Goldstein: You are listening to LearningCurve podcast from Pioneer Institute. I am guest host Mike Goldstein here with Katie Everett, the executive director of Lynch Foundation. Katie, you and I are Go way back, 20 plus years of Boston education reform efforts, and somehow you found a philanthropy job that lets you be you, which for our listeners is big personality, strong opinions, way more authentic and open than most people in the philanthropy space.

[00:07:14] So my first question is, how did Carolyn and Peter Lynch find you back in 1997? And have they always let you be unfiltered you?

[00:07:23] Katie Everett: Yes, actually, they have. Ironically, I met Peter first when I was working at the Catholic Schools Foundation at the Archdiocese of Boston, which for the Catholic Schools Foundation is a fundraising, scholarship fundraising organization for kids to attend Catholic schools in the city of Boston.

[00:07:42] And, You know, three months into my job, they restructured and I had to report directly to the board chair, who was Peter at the time. And in all of my 22 years of extraordinary experience, I had a few words of advice for him and recommendations and I, I sort of spoke my mind right out the gate with him.

[00:08:00] And we always have had that very direct and honest conversation, which I think unfortunately doesn’t happen for folks in his position quite frequently enough.

[00:08:09] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, so he loved the vibe of like someone just talking to him, not as if they’re kissing his butt, and that’s you all the way. And so, Katie, he made his fortune, if I recall, like in the 80s, he was picking stocks for Fidelity’s Magellan Fund.

[00:08:25] And he wrote a book and his strategy at the time was very kind of down to earth, like, hey, you pick stocks one at a time and you got to thoroughly investigate them, that there is no formula per se, was one of his mantras. Did that blend over into the family’s philanthropy strategy?

[00:08:46] Katie Everett: Yes. It’s exactly how we manage his philanthropy.

[00:08:49] Mike Goldstein: So like, what does it mean, I guess, to a listener if they’re like, Hey, you get five proposals to improve education for kids and they seem plausible. What does it mean to hand pick them without a formula? Like what actually happens?

[00:09:05] Katie Everett: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s, you know, people don’t love to hear this, but I think there’s some analysis clearly to the work and then there’s just this, like a gut, right?

[00:09:13] Like, is this person legit? Do they care enough? Do they teeter enough on the edge to really push the envelope to create social change? Like, Mike, let’s be clear, you’re clearly one of those guys, and you’re the reason, you know, it’s the reason why we invested in you and not one of your other peers, right? I mean, there’s that intelligence and emotional and academic intellectual and practical and emotional intelligence combination that we don’t see, you know, you see it, you know it.

[00:09:40] And that’s the folks that we want to invest in, the folks that are going to push the limit. They’re just that crazy, just a bit crazy enough.

[00:09:47] Mike Goldstein: So when you push the limit, so let me back up for a second. So Peter was married for many years to Carolyn Lynch, obviously somebody very close to you. I got the chance to meet her a few times.

[00:09:57] She’s passed away. And she was like a world renowned bridge, like a card player, contract bridge. And, you know, A big piece of that game is you got to count your losers. Like, you know, which cards can you throw away and which ones can you try to turn into winners by finessing it or trumping it or whatever.

[00:10:16] So when you do your strategy and you push the envelope, it means you have some amount of losers. What do you do? A lot of foundations get stuck here because on one hand they say they embrace risk, but then when they have a loser, they sort of hate to admit it. And I feel like you guys are a little bit different, or you personally are a little different.

[00:10:39] You’re like, hey, we made a good bet at the time and some things haven’t worked out. How do you deal with the foundation’s investments that have not worked out the way you want?

[00:10:48] Katie Everett: Well, I mean, I think, well, I think the only way to learn is through failure. And I think we’re really comfortable with that. I mean, I think even that’s how Peter invests in thousands of stocks, you know, a small few are going to be 10 baggers.

[00:11:01] And that did definitely trickle into philanthropy. I mean, the only big difference between the philanthropic investment is it’s not that bad of a loser, right? You’re, you’re not doing damage, but you’re not creating social change, right? So the risk, the idea that there’s such risk averseness Philanthropy is comical to me, right?

[00:11:19] Like, people in foundations have taken their jobs way too seriously, right? Like, yes, it is serious work that we do. We’re trying to create social change and trying to really move the needle on some of this stuff, but the evaluations and the analytics, right? Thanks. Like, cut, cut it out. Like, knock it off.

[00:11:37] Like, we, what we get to do is an extraordinary privilege, and we can’t take advantage of that privilege or squander that opportunity to really push the envelope. Like, that, that’s what philanthropy was founded on, right? Things that the government cannot do, that we can experiment and try. Like, Carolyn also was a scientist, right?

[00:11:53] Like, she’s really comfortable in that experimenting. And so, like, And Peter, like you said, like, invests in, like, there’s no formula, right? So they’re very comfortable with that. Like, we invest in all sorts of social entrepreneurs and innovators across all spectrums of, like, life cycles of their professional career or their organization’s life cycle.

[00:12:16] It runs the gamut, and that, I think that’s what philanthropy should be.

[00:12:21] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, and so, to that point, We’ll get in a bit, we’ll get to, you know, Catholic schooling in Massachusetts and Boston and so forth, but help us understand As I recall, you anchored early on as a charitable foundation. In Catholic schools, Carolyn and Peter already believed in the Catholic school mission.

[00:12:42] It sounds like at the time they met you in 97, they were already part of that world. And over time, you continued to invest there, but you also looked at the school district of Boston. You also looked at the charter school sector of Boston as that grew. Can you just trace, like, the big picture education?

[00:13:00] What happened over the years? What were the areas that the Lynch Foundation was investing in?

[00:13:07] Katie Everett: Sure. I mean, so yes, we’ve always done, education has always been a pillar of the foundation, and traditionally it started with Catholic school education, and that had a lot to do with Caroline and Peter.

[00:13:19] Believing deeply that the Catholic school system is the greatest, most successful anti poverty strategy our country has ever experienced. And that it has been a social and economic mobilizer for immigrant families across the country. And so that’s really why that investment strategy for Catholic schools existed.

[00:13:37] And then, you know, what happened was the market crashed in 2008, and it sort of rocked us a little bit to the core. We were aggressively invested in the market, and so we lost a significant portion of assets. It gave us a time, Peter, Carolyn, and I, To sit back and say, why do we invest in these things, where are there other opportunities, should we diversify our portfolio, not just our stock portfolio, but like our philanthropic investment portfolio.

[00:14:05] And really, it came to the conversation of Peter and Carolyn were public school educated, both their fathers were teachers, Carolyn’s went on to be a school leader and a superintendent of vocational schools in the state of Delaware. And getting back to, you know, there might be other opportunities and, hey, what’s this charter school stuff, really?

[00:14:24] And it started there and it led us down this really extraordinary path of almost two decades of pretty aggressive investments in Commonwealth charters and the alternative schools of education and leadership development programs. And to really diversify and think about cross sector, you know, families choose schools for different reasons and could we create opportunities and equity across a portfolio of schools.

[00:14:52] Mike Goldstein: That’s so interesting. I don’t think I realized quite that the 2008 market crash had kind of triggered this parallel look at your philanthropy portfolio. So, take, uh, so that was, whatever it was, 15, 16 years ago. How would you describe the Foundation’s current look at the education sector? Opportunities and challenges.

[00:15:16] What’s your big picture take on Boston, Massachusetts?

[00:15:22] Katie Everett: My big take on Boston education right now is, I guess, I’m glad my kids are out of the, are in college and no longer in the K 12 grade. I think it’s been super unfortunate, a disgrace. I’m going to go back. Okay. It’s been an extraordinary disgrace. And everyone loves, we’re going to, you know, hang our hat on eight years ago, that charter question, question two, that that’s, it’s all, you know, it’s all lies there.

[00:15:47] I mean, it lies with the inability for folks who invest in education to step away from their intellectual academic perspective on what education reform look like. And not think about it from a practical perspective. You know, I think Boston Public Schools is probably the worst it’s been in, in my 20 some odd years of experience.

[00:16:09] I think the charter schools have been gutted. There’s been extraordinary leadership change, transition, and we’re seeing, you know, kids and families suffer from that. I think the irony is the place of great strength has been our Catholic schools, and that has a lot to do with, they stayed open during COVID.

[00:16:25] They really stayed committed to their core mission. around serving all kids, you know, being there for families and kids, parents are first educators and building off of that, you know, their enrollments, the, I think that’s been growing, you know, consistently for the last two years, we’re up again this year.

[00:16:43] You know, the headline is, of course, the, you know, the newspapers want to say, you know, the Archdiocese of Boston closed 10 buildings in the last three years, and that’s true, and I would say, because we right sized the system, we just had too many buildings, and we’re serving more kids in less buildings, and that’s smart.

[00:17:01] Right? That’s smart for kids. That’s not smart for systems. It’s smart for families. We can provide more. So, it’s just, it’s a weird, you know, if you told me this was where we’d be five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it is, it is really extraordinarily challenging to invest in education in the city of Austin right now.

[00:17:20] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, and just to amplify a little for the listeners, basically, if you look at the market share of who educates kids in Boston, you’ve got, you know, the school district has, you know, in the range of 50, 000 kids, and then you have the charters in the range of 10, 000 kids, you have the Catholic schools as another kind of third pillar of school provider.

[00:17:44] And I agree with your take. That’s the one that at this moment in time seems to be standing strongest. So let me ask you a few questions. So Pioneer Institute had this book three years ago called A Vision of Hope, Catholic Schooling in Massachusetts, and it highlighted why Catholic schools here in Massachusetts are a national leader, even though they were struggling with labor costs and enrollment.

[00:18:11] So this is like the 2021 take, three years ago. And then the year after that, you formed this School Choice and Financial Sustainability Committee. And I think you had like some leaders from college schools and then you had some experts on school choice. What was that committee, what did you all do?

[00:18:31] Katie Everett: Yeah, so we designed a financial model for a school finance model that’s adaptable to any private or tuition based school.

[00:18:43] So school leaders could understand how students or tuitions drives revenues and understand the financial model a little bit better so that they understand recruiting and marketing their school and how critically important it is. And so what we did was we took Leaders, as you said, from around the country that are experts in school choice.

[00:19:05] We took former Catholic school superintendents, CFO, who has, um, worked in Catholic schools and private schools. And we tried to create a model that was really understandable with plug and play for every single state in the entire country to think about their finances and how it drives or tuition drives their finances.

[00:19:25] Because school leaders, not all school leaders can get struck, or school leaders, we had noticed struggled with that concept. And we had seen it really successfully executed and implemented in Boston. We had designed a very specific model for pre k 8 schools or pre k 6 schools. And then we pushed it out into the high schools.

[00:19:45] And we were seeing really some great successes around acquiring and teaching school leaders how to Capitalize on the public dollars that are available even in a state like Massachusetts with the strictest plane amendments.

[00:20:01] Mike Goldstein: So wait, so what’s an example, Katie, if I’m running a Catholic school, what are public dollars that might be available to me as the school leader?

[00:20:12] Katie Everett: Yeah, well, I mean, you get access to, you know, any of the title, like certain title dollars you get access to. You get access to the early education voucher system. Anyone under, or kindergarten under, you can accept based on, you know, income levels, vouchers, state eligible vouchers for anyone to attend your school.

[00:20:33] I guess the greatest example I’ll give you, Mike, is we, we had been building out for the last 10 years, the Lynch Foundation, we’re the only investors in building out early education classrooms, seats within the Catholic schools in Boston. And so we have built or, you know, created. 2, 000 seats across the system, which 80 percent of them are receiving state aid.

[00:20:59] So we had created, not only did we create sort of, you know, a student pipeline, but we created financial sustainability and stability within it. We have over 30 schools participating in that program.

[00:21:13] Mike Goldstein: That’s amazing. So you’re saying there’s all these families in Boston and there were kids were age three and four, they would like.

[00:21:21] to get affordable pre K and it was just really hard to find and Lynch came along, your foundation, and you’re like, we’re just going to go hard at this issue. We’re going to build capacity inside of these Catholic schools that don’t currently offer a lot for three and four year olds and we’re going to show them how to make it financially sustainable because there’s state and federal money that you can use.

[00:21:49] When you’re serving three and four year olds as a private school, is that what happened?

[00:21:54] Katie Everett: Yes.

[00:21:55] Mike Goldstein: So, what’s the demand response been? Like, how have parents responded to suddenly, hey, wow, there’s, you know, St. Paul’s down the street now has either subsidized or free tuition for our 3 and 4 year old. How has the market responded?

[00:22:12] Katie Everett: This is unbelievable. We have waitlists at most our schools, and the, our biggest challenge right now, it’s also changed the grade bands at most schools, so a lot of our, our most successful schools, and I will continue to focus on the City of Boston, because every community looks different, you know, Lawrence schools looks a little different than the Brockton schools and the Lynn schools to the Boston schools, but Boston, our most successful elementary Catholic schools, changed their grade bands, so they serve kids because they serve kids.

[00:22:40] As young as six months to sixth grade, right? And so there’s just smart economics. Like, it doesn’t, it’s not rocket science too. Like, you know, to understand school financing, middle school is super expensive and complicated. So the high schools, our Catholic high schools, most of them serve seventh and eighth.

[00:22:58] And so our really smart elementary school leaders said, you know, we’re not doing a great job at it. And it’s super expensive. And so, you know, And we can serve three and four year olds and actually generate some revenue here. And so you’ll see some of our schools are generating a significant amount of money.

[00:23:14] And we talked about this a lot nationally, and that’s how this committee came about, because we are involved on a national level with the folks at AFC, and they’ve had extraordinary victories across the country, and school choice is expanding all over the place. And they wanted to understand a little bit more about the model, and so they joined this committee, and this now, you can use it, it’s similar, you know, public subsidy, private subsidy, education savings code.

[00:23:40] You can build and plug and play whichever way you want, whatever it looks like, in whatever state or city that you’re in. It’s super interesting, it’s, you know, I think, you’re a math guy, I think, it makes logical sense, right? Like, It’s just not, it’s interesting that a lot of school leaders don’t necessarily think about how much does it cost for you to run this classroom, what’s the expense at that unit, and then think of it collectively as a whole school building.

[00:24:07] Mike Goldstein: So Katie, first of all, I’m a fake math person. I like, I’m good at math. You know, pretending, but I do remember actually one time Carolyn Lynch asked me, maybe was doing like a school visit, and asked me a physics, I think she was a physics major, asked me a physics curriculum question, and I, I still remember, you know, you remember those moments where you’re like, oh, like I had no idea.

[00:24:26] I don’t know if I managed to fake an answer or not. But anyway, to your point, Katie, so let me just say it back to you to see if I understand it. You have these Catholic schools. These Catholic schools were financially struggling. They’re always going to your foundation and saying, Hey, can you help us out?

[00:24:41] We’re teetering. We’re struggling. And as part of a larger national

[00:24:50] So you guys come along a couple years ago, and you do this thing called building a model, but really what you were doing is just forcing a database conversation, for lack of a better word, where you were saying to them, listen, forever, you guys have been K to H. But what I need you to understand is that you’re running grades 7 and 8 at a huge financial loss and you’re omitting the pre K years as a big opportunity cost.

[00:25:20] If you just shifted your model and take the same exact building but get rid of the grades 7 and 8 and free up those classrooms for really little kids, you could actually be running a financially viable school. And you’re sort of saying the tool helped you do the work of convincing people these are the changes that you need to make.

[00:25:44] Is that, am I saying that right?

[00:25:47] Katie Everett: Yeah, yes.

[00:25:48] Mike Goldstein: And so Katie, and then the point about the surpluses, these schools went from places that always had their hand out for good reason, like they were just struggling, to now you’re saying some of them are actually running surpluses so they’re Building up the reserve.

[00:26:04] They’re putting in the rainy day fund. Maybe they have investments that they can make into the building. And it’s not just, hey, we’re going to lynch again for even more grants. Is that also true? Like, are they, how are they using the surplus?

[00:26:18] Katie Everett: Yeah, no, they got to reinvest it back in the school. I mean, some of our, some of our schools have done expansion grants and renovation grants, outdoor classrooms, playgrounds.

[00:26:27] They’re definitely enhancing The facilities that are well over 100 years old.

[00:26:32] Mike Goldstein: Amazing. So that’s going to create even more demand as, you know, more parents at the margin are like, Wow, like the school’s not just a bunch of nice people. It like looks good and all these other things. So you build this model, Katie, and as you, And I both know through lived experience, sometimes good tools are appreciated by our colleagues, and sometimes people kind of sneeze all over them.

[00:26:56] How has your financial model been received by others in the space?

[00:27:01] Katie Everett: That is a great question, and I think it’s, They’re sneezed on, uh, it’s been fascinating, you know, and so we’ve sort of turned it over. I feel, here’s what I think, here’s how I feel, because I don’t know what I think. I feel like we have done a massive service to the entire community.

[00:27:25] Catholic school community. And it, I feel and believe that places like National Catholic Education Association, which is the NCEA, should have this model. They should be doing webinars. They should be pushing out the content. But, you know, that’s not happening. Villanova is a great place. They have a center there where they train every single CFO of all the archdiocese, which there’s about 200 of them across the country.

[00:27:51] Like, they should be using it, and we’re talking to them a little bit about what does that professional development look like. You know, there’s Catholic centers at 12 different universities across the country, you know, that should be part of their curriculum, I think. So, it sounds like, the funny part is, it’s like, we thought, oh, this is great, we’ll put this together, and we’ll provide this opportunity of service, super easy, and everyone will love it, and, you know, that’s not necessarily how adoption works, I guess, and the other funny part is, is like, you just said, It was, it struck me when you said we created this model, you know, the reason why we created the finance model and made it adaptable, so if you go in and fool around, like, you can plug in Arizona and you can pull in all the publicly available dollars in that state, right?

[00:28:39] Like, it is unique to every single state and then down to, like, cities and towns, too. So it’s like, It wasn’t, we’re not saying every Catholic school should look like this. We’re saying, here’s a finance model that you can use as long as you pull and plug in, you pull and push in your personal, you know, your school finance, your personal school finances.

[00:29:04] And then pull in all the public resources around it and see what you can do at your school site, because we are all different and everybody’s looks different. So it’s funny, I never thought there would be a problem with people adopting it, but clearly there’s been some barriers.

[00:29:19] Mike Goldstein: Well, I mean, It’s a larger question for everyone involved in any version of education change or reform or improvement, which is, you know, what motivates people or not to use different tools, whether it’s curriculum, whether it’s training modules, whether it’s a financial, you know, financial viability tool like The one you guys have built.

[00:29:44] It’s really uneven. Sometimes it’s like people just don’t seem motivated to use things if it wasn’t sort of built here, built by them. And, you know, sometimes you just shrug where, like, you can understand, hey, I don’t want to use this curriculum because I don’t feel like it’s the right thing. But for like a financial modeling tool, what, do you not use Excel and Quicken because you didn’t build them?

[00:30:08] Like, it’s like, what’s the resistance? It sort of seems like it’s so neutral from a political and pedagogical point of view. It’s just weird, but people in our sector, I don’t know, there’s a lot of friction there to using things created by others.

[00:30:23] Katie Everett: Yeah, I, it’s, it’s stunning, it really is, because it is, if it’s not, if you didn’t create it, you know, then it’s no good, I guess, there’s a lot of mindset there.

[00:30:32] Mike Goldstein: Well, let’s talk about something that is spreading fairly quickly, which is private school choice. We have 20 plus states, particularly with education savings accounts, that are making Private schooling more available to families to choose, with some type of public subsidy for families that are choosing to do that, or for Pioneer actually, you know, doing this podcast on the handful of homeschool parents that are using these education savings accounts.

[00:31:03] So, we have this expanding private school choice. You’ve been part of, if you will, this choice community where the basic idea is we want parents to have options for their kids of a lot of different types of schools. Can you talk about what you’ve seen change over the last year’s big picture when it comes to school choice, both with Catholic schools and religiously affiliated schools, and just more broadly all types of private schools?

[00:31:36] Katie Everett: So you’re talking nationally what we’ve seen is like.

[00:31:38] Mike Goldstein: Nationally what you’re seeing, exactly, Katie.

[00:31:41] Katie Everett: Okay, good, good, good, good. So, I mean, we’re seeing just massive victories and growth. Some retraction, right? Illinois was not, that was a retraction. I mean, there’s a couple other losses. But overall, some significant victories around.

[00:31:55] Parents being able to choose and students being able to choose where they go, because I think we’re up to almost 30 different programs across the state, across the country now, actually, I think the number is closer to 30, Mike. I’m not totally 100 percent on that. And I’m doing this sitting in the state with the largest school choice program in the country, Florida, where there’s like innovation upon innovation of like really cool school models and like, People are moving here to open new schools.

[00:32:21] It feels like it’s very reminiscent of like, I think, New Orleans and, you know, way back Boston, right? Like, where cool places, young, smart people wanted to do smart things for kids to create better opportunities for the future. Like, You know, who would have, who would have thought that that Florida was going to, you know, sort of lead in that arena.

[00:32:41] But we’ve seen really different models. Like you said, the education savings accounts have taken off and people are doing interesting stuff using that money. You had homeschool families or that didn’t have access to funding like that now getting access and doing really cool stuff, whether it’s like an awesome calculus tutor or a cool.

[00:33:01] You know, athletic program or theater camp or these fungible dollars to do whatever there’s an academic piece or a learning experience for their kids. It’s pretty remarkable. These micro schools are super cool. The wildflower stuff is sprouting up around the country. No pun intended. But, like, fun stuff.

[00:33:20] Like, it’s fun and exciting everywhere but Massachusetts.

[00:33:24] Mike Goldstein: Yeah, so Massachusetts and some other states we wouldn’t politically expect. These are mostly red and purple states that are expanding private school choice. Let me ask you the biggest critique, let’s say, and certainly in a blue state like Massachusetts, people will push back and they’ll say, well, it’s hard to expand private school choice.

[00:33:47] Without harming the traditional school districts, and you’ve obviously, with Lynch Foundation, have been a donor to traditional school districts, trying to help them innovate and so forth. How do you respond to that basic critique? I

[00:34:04] Katie Everett: mean, I think it’s sort of outrageous that any taxpayer would be upset that we were gonna maybe shrink a system that is consistently unders or not serving our children well.

[00:34:17] Consistently failing. Let’s say failing. Right? We’ve got, you know, 70 percent of our kids are not reading on the third grade reading level in a system like Boston Public Schools. 70%. Not reading. Right? Who would, who would accept a 30 percent grade? 30%. Would anyone accept that from themselves, from their children?

[00:34:37] Like, absolutely not. Why would we accept that? So, like, the argument that it’s gonna hurt a public school system, I think it’s been a disgrace that we have chosen not to harm that public school system. Because, frankly, they have been harming the kids that we supposedly care the most about for decades. So, I think that argument probably, you know, Comes from, you know, a very strategic, very smart, very successful teachers union strategy.

[00:35:07] They’ve always controlled the message, and I’m not anti teacher union or anti teacher at all. My mother was a 30 year public school teacher, like, deep respect for the profession. Union representation has had a solid one voice. One response, answer. And a lot of us, a lot of the public has sort of taken that to be truth.

[00:35:27] And I, I think it’s a disgrace. I think it’s really sad that as taxpayers people aren’t questioning where their money’s being spent. You know, and that it’s the largest budget in the city of Boston is the public school system. It’s the largest line item budget in the city. We should worry about that. 1. 4 billion we’re serving to support, by the way, not 50, I think you said 50, 000 students were there.

[00:35:48] They’re down under 45, 000. That’s how many kids have left that system.

[00:35:53] Mike Goldstein: Yeah. Yeah. No. And you know, it’s like spending 30, 000 per kid per year. You know, I guess one takeaway or one thing that I believe now that maybe I didn’t believe ten years ago, 2014, and it goes to your point about why school options for parents are important.

[00:36:13] It’s that school systems and schools change over time in quality, like, just like all other institutions. And so, you know, ten years ago, I think because I had a charter school hat on. And at that time, the Boston charter schools were riding high, and kids were seeing really large gains in achievement after they joined the charter school.

[00:36:37] And so the families were very happy with that. And I looked at the district, and frankly, the Catholic schools, and I was like, yeah, you know, I’m glad those families have those choices. But it was like, I mean, you know, if you’re poor family, like smart money is on the charters. And unfortunately, that’s changed over time.

[00:36:57] And in fact One of the things that made charters special, as you know, and you know, people would joke about, but some of the DNA of charters was like Catholic schools in the sense of this kind of tough love, where it’d be like, we’re going to really try to get to know you as an individual, build a relationship with kid, with family.

[00:37:16] So there’s a lot of like, investment in the relationship, but we’re going to draw down that relationship account by having really high expectations, both for behavior and for the actual learning that you do. And that part. has eroded. And so, to your point, we’re at this moment where, from a family’s point of view, the best in class for some families is going to be the Catholic schools, particularly when they’ve become financially more viable and they’re able to invest in themselves.

[00:37:48] So, it’s like, these things change over time, which is a good reason why you want Different types of providers. Like Boston in 20 years will be different and I don’t feel like I can predict which horse is going to be leading the race, but I would be psyched to know that families have a lot of options.

[00:38:05] Katie Everett: Yeah, I completely agree with you, and I think our biggest problem is, like, for us, is we’re focused on the here and now, where we need to be focused on the ten years from now, right? Because high school looked the same for my, my parents as it did for me. As it did for my own kids.

[00:38:23] Mike Goldstein: Yes.

[00:38:24] Katie Everett: Focus on it being different for our grandkids.

[00:38:27] Cause we’re clearly not making any traction. So we need a long term plan to figure out like, what is going to be the thing that actually disrupts education? Cause we’re not tending to the soil anymore, but we’re still using the same model. So what’s wrong with us? Right, right? So, like, I just feel like we’re so not focused on the thing, the right thing, right?

[00:38:50] Like, part of me feels, well, I feel heartbroken, I feel saddened, I feel like, again, in philanthropy you do no harm, necessarily. And I feel like we did really good work and my, like, with you, Mike, with some really awesome, awesome educational leaders, and it’s deteriorated. Like every investment we made in Boston Public Schools has been completely gutted by the current administration.

[00:39:17] All gone. Right? And it’s heart wrenching to see kids suffer for adult failure. And so, how How do we solve for the human error? Because it’s all about the human capital. But you just said, and you’re right, it ebbs and flows. So how do we get consistent? And does that mean, like, by the grace of God, is AI actually going to be the technology that is the final disruptor for education?

[00:39:44] I mean, we can hope and pray it will be, because it’s got to be something.

[00:39:48] Mike Goldstein: It’s got to be something. I am here as guest host Mike Goldstein with Katie Everett, who is the executive director of the Lynch Foundation. And you’ve been listening to Learning Curve podcast from Pioneer Institute. Katie, thanks for joining us today.

[00:40:06] Katie Everett: Thanks!

[00:40:19] Albert Cheng: Well, I really enjoyed you, Mike, and your conversation with Katie. I learned quite a bit about what the Lynch Foundation’s been up to and the good work that they’re doing.

[00:40:28] Mike Goldstein: It was a great interview. Enjoyed talking to Katie.

[00:40:31] Albert Cheng: Well, folks, that’s going to bring us to the end of our show. And before we wrap up though, I do want to give the tweet of the week.

[00:40:38] Actually, you know, maybe just piggybacking off Mike’s remarks about Rick Hess’s article about avoiding the temptation to, uh, see this election cycle as a catastrophe. I thought I’d share a tweet that I found quite uplifting. Of course, I had to comb through all the political stuff that shows up probably on everyone’s feeds these days.

[00:40:56] But this one, if you are listening and you don’t know Malcolm Geitz. I just want to introduce you to him. He’s a priest, a poet, actually plays in a band over in the UK. And he’s got a series in which he invites you into his study to discuss literature, poetry, pipes, the latest malts, if you will. But the one that showed up on his Twitter feed or the one I was sharing most recently is is a discussion of passage from the third volume of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, where the Rohirrim show up and turn the tide, really, of the battle in the Siege of Minas Tirith.

[00:41:36] So go check it out. I mean, he has an excellent reading of it, points out lots of fascinating and insightful bits of that passage. Listen to it, be uplifted, enjoy the beauty of that verse, and hopefully, you know, you are filled with encouragement and hope, as I was when I heard him read that. And, uh, of course, Mike, I want to thank you for co hosting this week.

[00:41:59] Pleasure to do a show with you. I think this is our first one together.

[00:42:01] Mike Goldstein: It was. Albert, thanks so much for the time today.

[00:42:04] Albert Cheng: And don’t forget to join us next week for another episode of the Learning Curve Podcast. We’re going to have Tom Segev, who is an Israeli historian and journalist, an author of State at Any Cost, The Life of David Ben Gurion.

[00:42:17] So please join us next week and I hope to see you then.