Here is the divide. The republicans, of course support School Choice and a number of items. Thats important. You cant support a School Choice option and leave the Public Schools untapped. You need to make sure states have the right to republicanun run schools the way they should. There shouldnt be a regulatory hurdle that stifles programs. We strangle, i think unfortunately too innovation innovation. And lastly, if the parents, both democrats and republicans, are telling you they want options, be open to options. This will be a challenge for democrats. With over 130 million being invested between 1990 and 2014 from nea and aft into democratic candidates. They have a very fine line to walk because thats a Public School constituency. Money coming from public unions. And yet some of your people are saying we want something elgs. That should be a National Conversation but ultimately supported at the state level. Id say state first, National Conversation but let the states do what they need to do. Awesome. I think we can open it up to the crowd. Well have microphones around. Theyll come out momentarily. I may start with a twitter question. This twitter question was perfectly in matts wheel house. This is perfect. Youve done some of the best research on this. In talking about standardized testing, a question from twitter there were questions about the amount of time. Question about the amount of money. How much money could be saved by eliminating standardized tests and replacing them with smaller , pragmatic, competency tests. Maybe speak to your broader look into the cost of standardized testing because it dovetails nicely. The short answer is we cant save very much money at all. I did a study looking at how much states are spending on nclb required math and reading tests. It comes out to Something Like 30 bucks a kid. Less than the cost of a textbook. I ran some simulations. Lets say you got rid of testing. How much would you save . Across the country it looks like a big number, 6. 7 million, but that number spread across the whole system comes out to, like i said, textbook per kid. Decreasing teacher salaries by 1 , reducing class size. So the emphasis that policymakers are putting on standardized tests and how those tests are used, 30 per kid isnt a lot. We ought to be thinking about not are we spending too much but are we spending too little. Fascinating. Thank you. Now well take a question from the audience. Well go right up front. Is this your first aei education event. We generally have two rules. If youd be so kind as to identify yourself by your name and affiliation and, number two, if you would ask a question. That would just be outstanding. Thank you. Hi. Im jill, vice chairman of Loudoun County school board and coowner of a private educational company. I wanted to talk about what matt was saying when its working through the political system some of these issues, it gets lost doing that political movement. What direction do you see or what any activist in your companies, organizations can focus on some of the localities. Im a bit biased, im on a school board. Im concerned when looking at the state level and trying to advocate for changes and laws, if you dont have the buyin from the school board youll not have a buyin from the paurntrents. Parents. And thats where the power is the buyin from the parents. You are training parents getting good people on the school board. Theres a lot of youd probably have something to share with this as well. There are the lasting change only happens when its from the ground up and true in our traditional systems. To go to School Board Meetings weve made it intimidate inging. Finding solutions to inform parents about what your School District would offer, welcome them to go to things. Go to parent events, so you get to know them and what their needs are, but i think theres got to be both ways, youve got to be looking at how can we reach out to parents and inform them of their options and how can we be listening to them more. More local School Districts, in our Traditional School system did that, we might have a different result. Its when we see parents who are able to make choices in our in schools of choice that are more active. Weve seen a lot of communities people who said, oh, they dont know how to choose schools. They actually know how to choose schools really, really well. So if we help them educate the community about their choices and whats going on, i think well have a better result. I agree. Outstanding. Appreciate it. Other questions . Yes, we have one right up front here if you could wait for the microphone, that would be awesome. Sharon, voice of a moderate. I wanted to talk to you about educating parent as because ive been talking to the suburban moms and basically, they hear a rumor and it gets carried away. Like the Charter Schools are supported by the people who support for profit prisons. You hear these people talking about the schools that are going to have the same structure as a prison and thats why americas going to go down stream. But then people that have dyslexic, learning disabilities have a big problem with common core. Everybody talks about education and theres no one definition of what common core is because nobody seems to get it, but also what is the definition for charter versus School Choice and when you talk about the states and the testing, so were all in the same platform, so people can move from state to state and have the same educational standards, my daughter moved to illinois from. My question is, how do you have a National Standard and still have this debate . Because people relocate and if they relocate from the south to the north, my daughter was two years behind. How do people who are interested in informing the public and public debate standardizing definitions of which is what a chart e School Charter school is, or this is what the common core is. Thoughts on that. I chime in and just say its really hard to educate people about you know, kind of everything about education. Sort of our pet issue, but i think about noneducation areas and how little i know about them and how hard it would be to educate me if i wasnt particularly interested. Just try to rain the information down. I think when education does become politicized, that can work against, attitudes about the common core, so you think the hypothesis in louisiana, common core is a really hot topic. You think all the public attention its getting, people would be more informed about it in louisiana than elsewhere, but when you ask people to respond theyre more than likely to get them wrong than in any other places. More than anything, it seems that the Political Polarization had pushed people away from the knowing the simple facts about things. So kind of depressing response. Increasingly polarized times. So, when i hear you mention for profit prisons, Charter Schools, challenge is is a definition thats indemic just to Public Education. Think about the buy america campaign. Buy an american car and someone will say half the parts are coming from another country. Is it really an american car . I think what we need in america is not a common core conversation, but a conversation about a common core. A core that links us across space and time to what are the principals that make this country great. What are the values that we think are important to one generation to the next and what role can education play sustaining the economic social well being of this nation. A common core con verversation gets us on the same page to say what do we think is important and then we can maneuver from there. For me, from a Civil Society standpoint, we need to have a heyer conversation, then work lower. Great. Lots of comments that were related to the finding that, to opponents to School Choice tends to skew old. Supporters tend to school young. Im interested the responses of folks on the panel of why we think that is or the people who dont want change are the status quo and typically, theyre older people who think the only thing was this kind of school they went to, but the fact is, that school is no longer the same way it was. Or youve had in a lot of the population, had teachers who have been at this for a long time and dont want change. The young people are the ones who have just come out. Trying to either enter the teaching profession and have found it to be very hostile for them. Or theyve been in schools themselves and are experiencing it. And understand freedom. I think millenials understand more the freedom to choose. Youve got the status quo thats going to fight for no change then young people who want change. You also have an ageing population, those 65 and over. They tend to vote a lot. And theyre going tovote a lot and theyre going to make sure were not spending enormous amounts of money on something thats not going to support them. Whether its support for medicaid or other educational issues. For me, im older, i need to make sure i protect this, versus the younger generation. I have an older daughter. She lives off us still, so she can be more liberal about her ideas, but at the point she starts paying her own bills, she becomes more conservative. Awesome. Great. Maybe another question from the audience. We have some more off twitter, which i am happy to go to. Yes, right here. Hi, im jordy, working at the nea. So, i have a comment, which doesnt follow your rules. Just end it by going, eh . I wanted to bring the attention to the sample size of 1,000 and then mentioned that the subset was a quarter of that, so, were only talking about 250 people who are potentially involved in making choices that are actually about their students, but to what mr. Robinson said, that voters tend to be people that are not necessarily in that demographic, so they may not have all of the correct information. Thats the comment. The question sort of stems from that. Whats the anticipated impact provided everyone could have as much choice as they want about the type of school they send their child to on Public Education . And the second part of that is if theres a an expanded ability to choose within Public Education, what does that look like . Public School Students remain the majority. Within the next decade, theyll probably remain the same. I think youve got to make the math easy. 50 million. K12 students in place right now. If you open up with esca vouchers, tax credits, you see more students leave, but whats more important to me in terms of impacting education is what and how we deliver education. Theres some parents who said i have enough money to pay for a private school at a very elite place in this city because i put my kid in Public School because i believe in the mission and the its close. Theres a transportation factor, so, for me, i dont see Public Education as some would say being destroyed by School Choice. Thats not even an admission. Its to diversify how we deliver to an adverse group of americans. I think the impact is on how you structure the Choice Program. If we say were going give a 10,000 voucher to the first hundred parents who show up on tuesday at 10 30 a. M. At the office to apply, thats going to attract a very Different Group of parents and have a very different impact. Than a different kind of Choice Program like the one we have here in d. C. Where you go through a lottery rank the schools that you want and i think the main drawback is that theres still a default school, which is the school in the area where you can afford to buy or rent real estate. You can imagine a version of that that broke down the barriers and provided to all families the kinds of choices that only affluent families currently enjoy through the ability to choose where to live. Now, just providing that choice on its own isnt enough. My brookings colleague, russ, in collaboration with klein is is here today, have done work documenting how choice actually functions in more than 100 districts around the country. So, its not just about choice is this great thing. Its going to raise all votes and its all going to be great. But it matters to you provide accessible and accurate and relevant information to parents to help them make informed choices. Do you have a system thats accessible to everyone and not just the people who show up on tuesday at 10 30 . Do you cover transportation costs or is it only a choice for parents who can somehow figure out transportation and so on and so forth. The second question of what it looks like. It varies a lot. But i think we have some clear ideas about what it ought to look like, which is going to determine the effect it has on the kids who make the choices. You wanted to jump in real quick. When we have black friday, we see hundreds of thousands of people standing in line to buy products. If we had black friday every friday, you wouldnt have that many lines in place. That means people wouldnt wait. Same with choice. When we give Parents Choice and we see thousands line up and take advantage, its because they want Something Different and now, they have an option to do so. But if you made it every day, we dont know this internally thousands of seats in states that are still unfilled. Theyre available. People qualify. But they just havent had it, so theres more work we have to do. Just because you make it available, doesnt mean everyone will jump. I would point to d. C. Real quick. D. C. Experiences as we brought up. Weve seen that take off, the traditional Public Schools improved dramatically. Do things to try to aattract parents. I wouldnt say to its not about trying to abolish or dismantle Public Education. I think its helping to create a more Thriving Market for all sorts of schools to be available options. So, that you dont just have this really crappy school that youre assigned to. That all of your options are better because of it. Great. One question from twitter. Another is kind of spread. I think people that are digging into the report itself, which is awesome, about the urban really rural split. Something you brought up is that theres a suburban urban split but it seems to be a lot of rural folks who were not fans of school vouchers, tax credits education savings accounts, even though we might think of them in a republican constituency that might do that. Gerard is nodding, so maybe well get him go first. This is a really good question. And actually, this kind of goes back to the other on what were some surprising findings. We did see in small town and rural areas based on where and how would you describe where you live and there was substantial support. Among rural and small town americans. Had a significantly higher support for vouchers compared to urban folks and thats another finding that goes against conventional wisdom. And so, but the thing and i didnt pull out rural respondent as much because the sample size is a little smaller than those who were in the urban pool of respondents. So the margin and just to get to the point made earlier about the sample size of the roughly 250 School Parents in the survey, i i mean, theres 70 plus years of science that have gone into survey design and constructing these surveys so they can reflect, truly reflect, the population youre trying to evaluate. And so, we through randomization and what they call random digit dialing and with some waiting after the field work, which is an Industry Standard approach to correcting for demographic discrepancies, we can get an accurate reflection of School Parents within a margin of error even with serving 250 folks. I think thats the witching hour, so if we could have a round of applause. [applause] great having you. On this weekends newsmakers, our guest is matt schlapp. He talks the 2016 election, the role of the tea party and his own thoughts on recent republican candidates including donald trump on immigration. I actually heard him on the radio saying what he was talking about was illegal in print. I think his tone and the words he chose are different than what i would choose but the fact is when you have a broken immigration system it is hard to characterize the nature of the illegal immigrants. That being said, i believe immigration is a wonderful part of our history. It is a part i embrace. It is a part of our economy that we have to get right. I think what president obama has done with these executive orders has made the system worse. We destroyed the ability to get bipartisan compromise on the steps we need to take as congress. I think it is easy to attack donald trump. I think they ought to listen to what he is saying. I know donald trump. He is not a racist. He is trying to characterize the fact that a broken immigration system can lead to a lot of problems like crime. The challenge back to his critics are do we know everything about this population that we think . This is legal population. We have to know. I think we ought to embrace all of those folks who can make america stronger, debtor and help grow our economy. You can watch the entire interview today at 10 00 a. M. And 6 p. M. Et on cspan. Coming up next, from washington journal, a discussion on the current state of the American Dream. Then, remarks from Mike Huckabee , ben carson and jim webb at the National SheriffsAssociation Annual conference in baltimore. Ms. Burke host we now continue this discussion. And daily beast correspondent Eleanor Clift. Eleanor, talk about what definition you use for the