Greetings, CharterFolk!

This week, Andy and I are talking with David Griffith, Associate Director of Research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, regarding The Education Competition Index: Quantifying competitive pressure in America’s 125 largest school districts, which indicates the death of traditional public schools has been greatly exaggerated.

For those of you who would prefer a video recording, we provide a link to YouTube as well.

This week some of the topics include:

• Introductions (00:01)
• A brief description of the study, its findings, and their significance (04:07)
• The effects of competition generally (06:54)
• Evolution of the role of competition as advocacy battles intensify and polarization increases (14:54)
• Other creative ideas to increase competition (16:10)
• Interesting findings on variation in competition by demographics of students (24:46)
• Thoughts regarding the ability of new ESAs and voucher programs to increase competition (31:01)
• Upcoming Fordham studies (39:42)

Notes:

You can use the following links to access:

· The Education Competition Index: Quantifying competitive pressure in America’s 125 largest school districts

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/education-competition-index-quantifying-competitive-pressure-americas-125-largest

As ever, I’m eager to hear feedback and suggestions from CharterFolk. So, if you have a chance to listen to the discussion and want to drop me a line with some thoughts, feel free to reach me at jed@charterfolk.org.

If you haven’t yet heard or seen previous volumes of WonkyFolk, you can access them here.

Meanwhile, I thank you once again for being part of the CharterFolk community and for the efforts you are making to improve educational opportunities in our country.