Joe Connor: Accessing Government Funding for Education Alternatives

Hi, Jo. Thank you so much for coming on.

Teacher Kids, thank you so much for having me.

It's wonderful to have you here. Joe has a company, which at one hand, I kind of wish I started, but I'm also really glad I'm not running because it seems very complicated. And Odyssey is just an amazing company that helps families get access to state funding to curate their children's education. And I believe you guys are already in Idaho, Missouri, and Iowa, is that right?

That's correct. We're in those three states, and we serve about 66,000 students across those three states.

Amazing. I feel like it's such a needed resource. And of all the homeschoolers I talk to, I feel like what people say they need most most is money. And it's amazing that you are helping them get access to these funds. And so Joe and I met several years ago. Our paths have kind of crossed in various stages. I believe it was Andy Weissman from USV who introduced us when you were thinking about starting maybe kind of stripe for micro schools. And I had just kind of closed up shop on Cottage class. And then you did found a marketplace for microschool and started wonderful education initiatives. You're a teacher, you're an attorney, you volunteered for school closures.org, which was great. And now you have Odyssey, which is so wonderful. So I told people a little bit about it, but I would love if you could just kind of explain more because it is a bit complicated and wonderful, and I think people would love to hear it from you.

Absolutely. So Odyssey is a platform that helps parents easily and securely access funding for K through 12 education. And the genesis of the idea really came from my career, in which for about 10, 12 years, I've been in K12 education. You mentioned a few of my stops, but I've been a teacher, school leader, have my own network of micro schools during COVID Also worked as an attorney during that time as well. And I think the thing that I kept coming back to was it's hard to reform a system when parents aren't treated as the consumer of education. Right. So I think a lot of issues that crop up in K12 in the US are because effectively, school districts are seen as the end user. Right. They're the ones who are hiring teachers, putting standards in place for school days, for curriculum, purchasing supplies, deciding what the school year looks like, what is taught. And so really, the idea for Odyssey comes from the fact that over the course of my career, parents have always been the biggest change agents within the K through 12 school system. I worked at schools in California that had absolutely fantastic parent communities that really embraced the local neighborhood, got parents signed up for schools, found high performing options for students with special needs. And so the whole idea with Odyssey is let's take those funds that are eligible to go to parents and we'll give them to the parents. And then the parents are really the best consumers for their own children. And so then they can use the funds on approved education items within the marketplace. And so that means that a parent, say in Missouri, under our new Close the Gap program that we just launched a few weeks ago, can sign up, they can get approved, and they can receive up to $1,500 in funding. That funding is then eligible to go and be spent on a tutor, or to take a class online, or to go and buy books. And really, it's fantastic because it's a pretty wide variety of products and services that they can buy. All of them are educational, all of them are approved by the state agency administering the program and essentially allows parents to customize their education for their children or supplement their education, which is just an incredibly powerful thing.

Wow. And how much funding does each parent get to use on this platform?

Right. So there's essentially two different types of programs that we help to administer. The first that I mentioned is called the Microgrant. And so those vary by state. In Missouri, for example, you can get up to $1,500. Ohio has a program that is 500 to $1,000. The other program that we administer in Idaho, you get $1,000 per child. So each of these are passed by states, they're state specific. So all of the details in terms of who's eligible and what you need to do to get the funding depend on that state. But typically it's around 500 to $1,500.

Wonderful. And is it different for families who are homeschooling versus families who are doing it supplementally, or is it the same across the board?

It's a good question. So, once again, each program is different by state. But if we, if we take the example of Idaho, which I think is now the largest micro grant program in the country, by the end of the year, we'll have administered approximately $80 million just in the last year and a half. Those grants are eligible for anyone, whether they attend a private school, public school, homeschool, online school. The preference that the state has us administer when we're giving out funds is to make sure that the funds go first for low income families and then whatever is left over goes to families who annual income exceeds $60,000. And so a lot of these programs are quite similar in which they are actually targeted to first serve low income families. And then whatever is left over goes to families beyond that.

Interesting. So your programs are focused on essays and micro grants specifically, is that right? Okay, yes.

So we just talked about micro grants. And then ESAs are the other type of program.

ESAs. I think that I'm not the only one here who's confused. So.

Right. So the major difference between an ESA and a micro grant. And look, this is, you know, these are new policies, so these are new terms. It's completely okay that people don't know them. An ESA is essentially like a micro grant, but it's larger. And so an ESA typically has the state amount of funding per pupil. So we administer the Iowa Students first act esa. Each student who gets approved for it can use the state funding that they provide, which is $7,635 annually, and they can spend that first at a private school. And the requirement is that they spend it at an accredited private school. And the Department of Education stipulates, you know what that means. And then after that they're able to spend any remaining funds on things like technology. So they can buy a Chromebook or a tablet, they can use it for tutoring, behavioral therapy services. And so the major difference is a micro grant cannot be used for school tuition, whereas an ESA can. And two is the dollar amount, which is the dollar amount for an ESA is typically much higher because the way that it's set is usually as a percentage of the per pupil funding, whereas a micro grant is typically supplemental, so it's additional funding. And then the final thing is, ESAs in most states typically rollover year after year. So if, for example, in Iowa or another state, you were to use maybe only 80% of it, that remaining 20% does rollover to the subsequent year. Whereas micro grants usually have a specific time period, say one year, two years, three years in which you have to spend it.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for helping us sort through all these technical details. And so how is this different than, for example, what we see in Arizona? I mean, I get the impression that any homeschooler can get $10,000 or something like that to curate their children's education.

Right. So in Arizona, they do have an ESA there. It's called the Empowerment Scholarship Account. It actually was the very first ESA pass in the country. And there the details once again are dependent upon the state. So there's typically two ways that parents in Arizona can qualify. They can either qualify under a recent expansion, which is universal, which essentially opens up the esa for all 1.1 million children in Arizona, or they can qualify under the original ESA program or which primarily provided services for kids with special needs as well as a number of other categories. And so depending on how you qualify, you could receive anywhere from say, 6 or $7,000 to at the upper end of the range, if you're a parent with someone who has special needs, some of those placements you would get 20, 25, 30, $35,000. So it's all really dependent upon the state law and essentially how you qualify for it.

Wow. So interesting. And can we expect that this funding is going to continue or is it something that's being allocated because of COVID and it's going to dry up? What's the future looking like?

Great question. So I think like a lot of things, Covid accelerated changes in the K through 12 sector. And so ESAs really do predate that. As I previously said, Arizona was the first in the country to pass it. Florida had passed one prior to Covid. But what I've seen at my work at Odyssey has been that parents and kids were incredibly affected by Covid, especially with the significant school closures. And what's happened is that parents now have, I think, a different perception of and a different value system of what they're looking for in a school. And that is translating into more support for these types of flexible funding programs. And so the best way that I can really, I think, illustrate that is poll after poll done over the last couple of years since we were kind of in the midst of COVID show that parents support these ESA programs that by a wide majority, and it doesn't matter if they're Democrat, Independent or Republican, parents are highly supportive of these types of flexible funding arrangements. I feel confident that these will continue to persist into the future. And I think it's important to note that the majority of these programs are funded by the state. So there were some programs that were micro grants that were essentially funded by the federal government. They were giving funds to the state. The state then decided, hey, you know what we're going to do? We're just going to directly fund families. Most of that funding as it is kind of across the K12 sector, is drying up. So almost all ESA and micro grant programs are now funded by the state. There's almost none that are continuing to fund it with federal funds. So I think in terms of their staying ability, they're fairly stable.

Fascinating. And so what about corporations? I was under the impression that corporations were providing some of the funding.

Right. So what you're talking about is a test.

This is. I'm going to give you a score at the end. You have so much knowledge. It's wonderful. Thank you so much.

So in some states, there are programs that are called tax credit scholarships or even tax credit ESAs. And the distinction between those and, say, the ESA I just described in Arizona is essentially the source of where the funding's coming from. So as you mentioned, it is correct to say that corporations in some states are providing those dollars. What happens is, for some states, they decide, you know what, we're not going to allocate funding for this school choice program directly from the budget. We're essentially going to create kind of this workaround in which we're taking the state's ability to collect taxes. We are delegating that to a nonprofit. And so what that means is a nonprofit gets set up, they then go out, they recruit corporations or individuals, and the pitch is essentially, hey, you have a tax liability, you could either pay it to the state, in which case you won't know necessarily what they spend it on, or you could pay it to us, the nonprofit. We take that money and we turn around and we issue scholarships with it. And so, for example, Illinois has a program called the Investing Kids Act. And in that program, corporations and individuals are contributing annually. And based on the amount of money they receive, they then can issue a certain amount of scholarships. So if they receive $50 million, they're issuing about roughly $50 million in scholarships. So in some states, that is essentially how they fund these programs.

Wonderful. That's so helpful. So let's kind of zoom in on Idaho because I think it might be useful to see how this plays out in one situation. And I've seen you so active in Idaho. I mean, I think when you opened up the program, there were 60,000 of your applications the first day. It's really amazing work that you're doing there. So one question I have is how you vet the programs that come on your platform. Is it entirely decided by the state, or do you have your own standards? And what's included in that vetting process?

We typically partner very closely with the states, and the way that we are guided is first essentially by the law that's passed to create these programs. Usually that will have some criteria as to what the state considers an eligible education expense. Once the law is passed, it is essentially up to the agency tasked with carrying it out to fill in what the Rules and regulations are. So, for example, in Idaho, the program was passed as the Empowering Parents Program and it was then given to the Idaho State Board of Education. Carry out. We partnered with the Idaho State Board of Education to carry out the program and as part of that came up with a list of eligible education expenses. And so, for example, things like tutoring were considered eligible, technology was considered eligible. But something like, I'm trying to think of a good example, you know, if you wanted to buy, say a barbecue grill would not be considered eligible. And so essentially, as vendors are applying for the program, what we're looking to see is that their services and the products that they offer match the regulations of the program. And so they're submitting lots of information that we verify and do background checks on, including kind of corporate documentation. You know, where have they registered as a corporation, what types of goods and services do they sell? Do they have a history of it? We look them up, make you make sure that there's no kind of customer complaints or formal complaints against them. And then really the major thing is making sure that what they're selling in that state matches what the regulations are.

In terms of the curriculum. What kind of vetting do you do? I focus a lot on curriculum and I know that for instance, some curricula says the evolution didn't happen or that climate change isn't real. I've seen math curricula that has errors in the math problem answer key. Is there any level of vetting you do in that regard?

So our level of vetting is mainly focused on making sure that the services and products are eligible and that the vendor isn't going to be able to commit fraud on the platform. The final decision as to what type of vendors and who gets onto the platform with what products and services is ultimately up to the state agencies that we work with in all three states. So ultimately we're doing research, providing facts, providing data, perhaps background checks, licensing in some cases. And then the state or the state board has kind of delegated certain people who's working with them. They're the ones who are reviewing that and determining, okay, we want them as a vendor. No, we don't want them as a vendor. And so those decisions do get made.

So that's primarily by the state, not by Odyssey. And how have you been able to make lower income families aware of this opportunity? I know it's been notoriously difficult for the massive online courses to reach under resourced families. There's been a lot of studies showing that they're privileging the elite. And it seems that you've done quite an effective job. What are some of the strategies that you used?

Firstly, what we make sure to do is to design a process for parents that is as easy as possible to sign up for. And I think honestly there's other things we can do. We can talk about marketing and earned media opportunities. But the number one thing, and honestly the number one blocker in any state for these programs is they can sometimes be quite complex and difficult for parents to sign up. And I'll give some examples of that. But in Iowa, where we run the ESA program, we launched in May and we were able to roll out the first real time identity verification system, which meant that parents went through the application, they filled out basic demographic information, name, address, phone number. They provided some information which we were able to verify, such as Social Security number, ITIN information about the students typically would take parents about 5 to 10 minutes to figure out. And then using the technology that we implemented, we were able to give them a determination answer in less than 1 second in most cases. And so what that meant was that parents were able to easily quickly sign up and have an answer as to whether or not they qualify for the program. The typical standard in many states is not a quick answer, such as the one that I just talked about. Some cases it can take 30 to 60 days. It can require parents to find things like birth certificates, passports, state IDs, have to take photos, scan them, upload them, attach them, go back and forth with perhaps a state agency administering it. And so the number one thing, and really kind of a guiding mission of Odyssey is to make sure that these programs and all the complexity that comes with them are kind of abstracted away and easy for parents to understand. And so that's, I think, the number one way that we make sure that low income families are able to access them by making it as easily as possible for them to sign up.

That's, that's so great, such a wonderful service that you're offering. So maybe let's go into this controversial topic of school choice, because I mean, in my experience and from what I've seen from the research, there's almost nothing that helps a public school more than parents becoming involved in that school. And a lot of people are concerned that as parents start to homeschool as they choose alternative options, it will take some of that energy away from the public schools and funding away from public schools. What is your take on that aspect? I mean, lots of families say to me, I want to homeschool My child. But I believe in public education. I want to support the public schools. And so they're reluctant to make that choice because it feels selfish to them.

I think in many cases the polarization around school choice doesn't exist as much at the parent level. And so what I mean by that is obviously everything in this country right now is highly polarized between left and right. School choice falls along those lines as well. And oftentimes you'll see parties, politicians argue back and forth. But in my experience, generally working with parents as a teacher, as an operator of schools, parents are not ideologues when it comes to their kids education. In other words, they're not going to pick something or not go to something because of the right supports this or the left supports that. All parents do share, I think, a fundamental desire to do what's best for their children. And so whether that is in a state like my home state now of New York, right, where a parent maybe is going to sacrifice work, an extra job to afford perhaps a local Catholic school that they feel like gives them a very high quality education, or if they're going to move to a high quality school district, parents are always willing, I think, to make that choice, typically in my experience. And so I think that public policy should be able to support those parents regardless of what that choice is, whether that's public school, online school, charter school, private school, homeschool. I think one of the great things about the United States is the fact that we do have a federalist system which allows 50 states to each run their own systems of education. And unlike actually many other advanced countries, one of the unique things is that most of that control is both at the state level and the local level. And I think a really good data point that most people are surprised at is roughly in terms of funding. The federal government only contributes about 10% to the average funding of every student. So that means the majority is actually coming from state and local. And so I think as much as possible we should be enabling policies which let parents choose what is best for their son or daughter and try as much as possible to leave politics out of it.

Yes, I mean, I agree. Ultimately a parent is going to make the best choice for their own child. And it would be actually quite strange for a parent to leave their child in school while they were suffering or not learning as much as they could be learning because they felt that they, it would somehow hurt the public school if they stayed. Parents don't typically make decisions that way. And, and it's quite intriguing to me that school choice is one of the rare issues where Republicans and Democrats are collaborating with each other. It's. I mean, I can't even really think of another issue where that's happening, which maybe that can be the beginning of collaboration in other areas. However, I really do want to push a little further on this. And if I was your friend and I came to you and said I decided to homeschool my child, but I feel really guilty. I feel like I'm hurting my public school by pulling my child out, what would you say to me?

It's a good question. I think ultimately there is an issue going on with the public school system that is larger than any one child. So, I mean, I've talked about this a lot previously, but, you know, in the last five years, just in New York City alone, this, the doe, the agency that runs the New York City school's largest school district in the country, has lost more than 100,000 kids. And so I think ultimately, I don't see, I guess, a lot of scenarios in which parents are coming to me with that concern. Usually the concern is I don't think that the school my child is zoned for, which is how parents end up at certain schools. I don't think they're providing an adequate education. I think there are safety issues. There's been lots of fights. I don't really love the curriculum. I'm more interested in something like a Montessori or Reggie Emilio. And I think that's ultimately where most parents decide that, hey, I want to go to a different school. I want to try something else. And I think that happens. And especially in a place like New York State, right, where there isn't actually many school choice programs that would support a parent homeschooling, if you do that, you're doing entirely out of pocket. I don't really think whether or not school choice exists in New York would affect that individual parent decision. As to whether homeschool. They've obviously decided that there's some reason to remove their child from the public school and homeschool. And I will say this. I think traditionally, homeschooling has been thought of as something that people only on the right do. But my experience with it has actually been that, once again, it is actually something that is bipartisan. There are people who want to do it for cultural and religious reasons, and that is both liberals and conservatives. Oftentimes, parents want to be heavily involved in their child's education. And one of the ways that they can do that in the U.S. and this is actually Distinct once again, from a lot of advanced countries, is they do have the right to homeschool in all 50 states. And so I think school choice is almost kind of ancillary to that individual decision.

That's a very good way of framing it. And I'm curious actually how this became a right wing issue in the first place, because when I think about school choice, I think about it giving more equity. A parent who didn't have the resources to choose a private school now can choose a private school or now can homeschool, whereas before they were relegated to public school. Why do you think that this issue has really been spearheaded to the right, although now there are a lot more progressives who are getting involved?

Absolutely. So I think that historically there has been a broad coalition that does support education reform. I previously worked for public charter schools, and So I remember 10, 15 years ago, typically there was at the state level and at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats who would work together to pass charter laws to support facility funding for charters. Once again, not a political scientist, but I think a lot of things became polarizing and kind of the middle evaporated somewhat. But I do think that with private school choice, which is distinct from public school choice, that historically Republicans have supported it. And when you look at a lot of the states as to who voted for it, you will find Republican governors, Republican legislators behind it. I think that that is increasingly changing, though, as we get into states, for example, like Pennsylvania, where there is a divided government, there is a Democratic governor, and there is Republican legislature. And one of the things that's very interesting is that the governor has come out in favor of a school choice program there, a private school choice program. And I think part of that really gets to the fact that when you look at polling, not of politicians, but of voters, of individual citizens, people who are Republicans support these at the greatest margins. But close second and third are independents and Democrats. And they do support these programs. And so I think that that will obviously be a big agent for change as to why members of both parties support these types of programs. Because I think once again, Covid has really accelerated a lot of changes. Increasingly, parents are choosing many alternative options. You interview lots of great people on your podcast and know many of them, but you know, they're looking at micro schools, they're looking at learning pods, they're doing homeschool co ops, they're doing homeschooling, online schooling, every type of curriculum under the sun. And so I think increasingly school choice policies. So that's what you want to classify Them are a good idea whose time has come in which the funding will allow that individual parent to choose what it is that they want to do. And I think it's honestly a really exciting time to be in K12 because there are so many options that are springing up, and many of them are organic and grassroots. They were created during COVID maybe in response to a crisis of schools being closed and parents needing something. And so, increasingly, I think you will see more bipartisan support. I think you're beginning to see kind of early seeds of that.

Do you think that when parents are given the choice, most parents choose wisely?

I think most parents choose what they think is best. I think there's been a lot of surveys done as to what parents focus on. And there are interesting things that parents focus on. I mean, in some places they're focused mainly on safety. In other places they're focused on curriculum, teacher quality. I think that it's dangerous for me or for any board or entity to say, hey, this is what we think is best, and we're going to institute this across the country or across the district. I think in many ways that's how we got to the state where we are today, in which there is a broad segment of the population that's unhappy with the standardized education that's being given out. And so I think ultimately that being serious about parents and empowering parents and giving them choice means that they are able to make their decision and that there are ways to help them do that. But then ultimately, it's up to them to make that decision. And not every decision necessarily is going to be good. But in terms of do we trust parents more, or do we trust a school board or a central school district office, I feel strongly that we should trust parents more because they ultimately have the right incentives. They want what's best for their kids, and they're going to do what it takes to give them that.

Very great. Very cool. Not everybody might know, but you are involved in a rather significant supreme court case, Espinosa vs. Montana Department of Revenue, regarding whether funds from the government could be used to attend a religious school. Could you tell us a little bit about that case and what happened?

Sure, absolutely. So I think it's helpful to have some context on this case. So one of the reasons historically that private school choice programs could not pass in many states was because of state constitutions which contained amendments often popularly referred to as Blaine amendments. And these Blaine amendments were relics of the 1800s. In the middle of the century, there were large number of Immigrants who were coming to the country, Many of them were Catholic. The country at the time was primarily Protestant. And we didn't have the school system then that we have now, in which public schools are set apart and distinct from churches and religions. And so what happened was there was nativist backlash. There were riots in many cities over kind of new Catholics and the idea that, oh, the pope is going to take over the country. And there was pressure on lawmakers to pass restrictions on funding going to private schools. And so many states passed these, and they now became known as Blaine Amendments. He was someone who popularized the idea of these state constitutional amendments. And so fast forward 100, 150 years, and states are experimenting with new types of education policies in which it could be a tax credit scholarship or an education savings account, but that would send money from the state, perhaps to a Catholic school, Christian school, Jewish school. And those programs were challenged. And so we actually, as an attorney, we represented the Institute for Justice in that case. We were able to. It was quite exciting at the time. We were able to file an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in which we laid out what we thought of as really the right of parents to be able to educate their kids at the school that they wanted. Obviously, there's a lot of kind of legal analysis that goes into it, but at its heart, it was based on the premise that if you have a program that allows parents funding and that they can go to any school, you cannot discriminate by religion. In other words, if it's open to people to go to a secular school, it also has to be open for them to go to a religious school. And so that was essentially the basis of the claim. The Supreme Court did uphold that, and that was actually one of the major reasons that several school choice laws and bills were able to become law and go into effect and hopefully help tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of kids around the country.

Wow. And, you know, for me, it does feel somewhat complicated because I do believe in the separation of church and state. And I have concerned concerns about some of the things that are being taught in religious schools. Not all religious schools, but there are certainly schools that are not using approaches that I would consider evidence based. And the same time, I mean, there are public schools that are traumatizing children everywhere, yelling at them to stand in line and sit in chairs. I think. I mean, I also have concerns about my tax dollars maybe going to a school that is promoting racism or homophobia. Not that all religious schools do that, or even the majority. What are some of what were some of the arguments of the counter side in that case? Right.

So it comes down to kind of a. You're, you're having me recall all my legal years ago, but it comes down to a pretty complicated review of previous Supreme Court precedents over what the state or federal government can and cannot provide aid to in terms of religious organizations, which over, I'd say the last 50, 60 years, I'm not a constitutional scholar, has generally expanded. So, for example, you know, there is aid that is from governments that is provided to Catholic relief organizations, Jewish relief organizations, that's not necessarily considered state supported aid if it's going to multiple types of entities, some of which happen to be religious. And so I think the primary issue it comes down to is whether or not it is actually for the support of the religion or if it's an entity that essentially happens to be religious. And so I think in many cases, you know, you're not going to have state funding that goes to build, you know, a synagogue or a mosque or a church, but you could have state funding that goes to one of those relief organizations maybe that's doing, you know, emergency relief within their community or if it's going to a school that's necessarily run by that organization.

Very interesting. So there's so many different dimensions to this that people may not have realized that, you know, for example, that that government funding is already going to religious organizations or religious funded organizations. And, you know, I mean, it is very complex thinking about public education and accountability and is it the role of public education to uphold some of our democratic values and how that fits into school choice and funding? And I don't know that the answers are necessarily easy. I will say I had Carrie McDonald on the show who, you know, and is an advocate of school choice. And she pointed out that as we've given parents more freedom and choice, parenting strategies have actually improved. People are using positive guidance, there's less spanking. And so, you know, we kind of think about schools as these places that educate our children, that, you know, make sure that kids aren't underfed, aren't abused, all of these things that they're not actually achieving. And as a teacher, you know, when a child is being abused or neglected, you have very little power. And there are so many sad stories of not being able to support children the way we want to. Despite school lunch and school breakfast, children are still starving during the day at schools. And so, I mean, I guess the conclusion I've come to is that overall, by giving parents these choices and opportunity, the Whole system is getting better, but we still need to be thinking about ways to prevent child abuse and neglect and be accountable for education too. What are the skills that every child should know? Should every child know programming? Should every child know how to read? Should every child know math? These are the questions that keep me up at night. How do you think about these skills and how we can be accountable to our kids?

I think one way to think about it is if your goal is to raise independent, democratically minded citizens, is the best approach to that something that is coercive, in which there's standards and everything has to be taught in classrooms at a certain grade level at a certain time of year in a certain subject? Or is it actually to provide support to entities and schools that are doing that and allow them to teach it by essentially to. By appealing to families, by appealing to students? I feel strongly that the best system in many cases is one that is decentralized, local, and highly responsive to what their neighborhood, excuse me, their neighborhood or the families in a want. And I think that there, you know, for a long time in the US has been, apart from school choice, a long tradition of religious education in the US Right. Catholic schools predate school choice by decades. They've been around for over 150 years. And there's no indication that the fact that school, the fact that Catholic schools existed served to undermine democratic ideals. Right. And I think that ultimately having a system in which parents and students have opted into certain schools, are excited about what they're learning, have a choice in their education overall, will lead to a better educated citizens and also will lead to really greater life outcomes. You know, we have for many years run school systems the way that we have for decades. And if we look at the results in terms of high school graduation rates, college matriculation rates, college graduation rates, we haven't really seen great results. And if anything, since COVID we've actually seen marked declines in both reading and math. And so I think it's important narrative to not continue doing what we're doing in many cases, but to actually allow new ideas, new modes, new types of education to crop up and for parents to opt into those.

Yes. It's almost like we have come to a point where we're exercising so much control that nothing can happen. There can be no innovation, there can be no growth, there can be no learning.

Yes. I remember being a teacher and having scripted curriculum in which we were in certain subjects literally supposed to read from Today is Monday, October 12th, and this is what we're learning. Everyone in the school district is learning the same thing at the same time. And you're not really supposed to add anything to it or subtract it and you're reading exactly what it is. And I think that those types of systems are really just not responsive to what students need on an individual basis or what they need as a class. And so I think that any type of flexible system is inherently going to be something that's inflexible, top down for sure.

And every family has different needs, every child has different needs, every community, state, government, country. So I do believe that parents are looking for standards and looking to understand what does my child need socially, emotionally and academically. And there are better systems we can develop to help them understand that and how to support their children than a huge standardized system that never changes and is the same for everybody.

Absolutely. And I think that's where there is a huge opportunity to develop and provide curriculum, education, technology, tools, books, different ways for parents to educate their children. I mean, growing up, I don't think I ever heard the word Montessori until I probably was in my 20s. Right. And now Montessori is something that has flourished. I mean, there are startups and schools and there's articles. It's almost, you know, a very well known word. And I think increasingly those types of education pedagogies and curriculum are very exciting because what you're seeing is that parents, whether it's in the school system or outside the school system, are opting in to value systems and curriculums that they really appreciate and align with. And I think a lot of the work that you're doing now, and you've also done historically over your career, is really empowering parents to kind of find what it is that they're looking for. And I think increasingly, as more parents opt into alternatives, whether that's homeschooling or learning pod, those types of of curriculum and books just become more and more.

In demand for sure. And it's wild that 100 years ago every parent used to homeschool their child and we had apprenticeships. And now parents have been conditioned to believe that what they think about their child's education is less than what a school might think. And it's just wonderful to see that parents are learning to trust themselves again and to go out and make these choices and take charge of their parents education. And you're making it possible. So that's wonderful. So back to Odyssey. I think one of the most extraordinary things that you've done is actually build a company that works with the State. I mean, how on earth did you get these states to partner with a technology company? How did that happen? It must have been a Herculean effort.

Absolutely. I think our major focus has always been on increasing accessibility. And so a lot of our early state partners were comprised of people who are really focused on, look, we have this interesting policy idea and we really need someone who can help us carry it out. And so one of the things that we do that's unique in the space is we partner with the state and really run it from beginning to end, which means that we start with outreach to families to make sure that they're aware of this opportunity. In many cases, the programs are brand new. Parents have never signed up for them before. They don't know what it entails, who's eligible for it. So there's a lot of education and training that happens well before the program even opens up. Then after that comes the hard work of processing applications. So we work very closely with the state. The state's the ultimate decider as to what information they need to collect for eligibility. We handle that. We do the identity verification. We actually set up the marketplace, which means that we're working both with national vendors like a Lakeshore Education or Amazon, but also local vendors like a local computer store or tutoring center or music school, to make sure that when parents are approved and receive their funding, that they can have high quality education options that are available for them, whether that's virtually or local. In addition to that, we process all the payments we retain and provide all of the data for the state to be able to oversee and audit. And then finally, we provide customer support. And that's obviously helpful to make sure that parents find these programs fully accessible. So those are, you know, kind of a wide laundry list of things that we need to do very well. And it is challenging at times, but I think it goes back to what our mission is. The reason that I started the company was because after a career in education, I really thought that the most important thing we can do is to empower parents by giving them funding directly and allowing them to spend it on education items and services that matter to them. Right. And that the best person to make that decision is not kind of a central school district office, but it's that individual, mother or father who wants what's best for their kids. So I think a lot of what we do is difficult, but it goes back to making sure that we're always on track for our mission, which is increasing accessibility for high quality education by.

Providing funding to parents Amazing. I mean, I'm even curious, though, how did you even contact these governments? Do you know people in the government? Did you just start emailing the governor or the education Department? And they're notoriously difficult to contact, and there's so much red tape. I mean, my impression is like, you're not a major lobbyist or you're not Elon Musk. How did you meet these people? I mean, now you have a use case, so you can start bringing that to other cases. But what was the very first step? Did you get lucky and run into someone at a conference? I mean, how did the magic happen in the beginning?

You're right. Now it's much easier. We've kind of established ourselves. We do have incoming from states and state agencies wanting to learn about, you know, hey, I heard you launch this program. It's very successful. Tell me more. But at the beginning, right, we were a new company. And so the way that we honestly got the first opportunity and all of the states that we run now was through a procurement process, which really just means that the government had passed the program. They decided, you know what? We're going to see if there's anyone out there who can help us run it. These are the requirements. And so I had built at that point, a company that, or, excuse me, we had built a platform, a product that provided what it was we thought the states would need to run these programs. And we essentially took what the state put out. We put together a response. So they were asking questions, we were providing answers. We were taking screenshots of the product explaining how it worked. In some cases, we've demoed for state officials, really, with the idea of, look, this product, or, excuse me, this policy is complicated. You need someone who you can partner with to run it. And we think we're the best ones who are quick to do it. And in many cases, that was a very compelling message. I think you have to remember, you know, from the point of view of a state agency, they are often overworked and undermanned, in which case, you know, they often have many positions that are left available for them. You know, obviously they want these programs to succeed, but the program that they be in charge of seeing might be one of 20 that they need to oversee. Right. And so we really designed the platform with technology to automate and eliminate as much as possible of the work that normally goes to the state. And we took that on ourselves. So I think a good example of that is prior to Odyssey, many of these programs were run completely manual, which meant, you would apply online, you would provide proof of your identity, and then there would be someone on the state side who would literally sit there and look at maybe your birth certificate, your government documents, your state id, try to determine, is this fraudulent, is this not? And then approve it. Those types of methods are incredibly outdated and labor heavy. And so in many cases, you would have states that would have to staff up, they'd have to hire temporary staff, they'd have to reassign staff to try to get these programs off the ground. And unfortunately, there's actually many states that still run the programs like this, which cause long delays, both in terms of approvals and denials and payments. And so really, our approach, and I think one that has been compelling, has been to automate and abstract that complexity away for the states, just as we did it for the parents. We do that for the state as well. And so for most of our programs, we don't require dozens of team members on the state side to oversee it, because we're essentially a technology company that has made it easier for parents to be approved automatically. And then there's a record saved within the system, but it's not requiring an individual manual review process. And so I think that's been kind of the secret to a lot of our early success has been focused on how can we simplify this, how can we make it easy for parents as well as for state members.

Incredible. It seems like you really started this at a unique point in history where people were quite desperate for change and you have these amazing legal skills and you brought the two together and were able to partner with the government in a really meaningful way to give families access to this funding. That's phenomenal. You made an announcement recently that you built some very exciting new technology. What is the newest development for Odyssey?

Absolutely. So one of our newest developments is that for the first time ever, we've rolled out what's called biometric identification. And this is another method to allow parents to easily access funds. And so it's an opt in program that allows a parent to take a selfie with their state ID as well as on their mobile phone. And then we're able to actually using technology, match that, confirm that it is indeed valid ID and a valid individual who's applying, and then approve them for participation in the program. And so we rolled that out for the very first time recently for the Close the Gap program. And we've seen incredible success with it in which parents are able to quickly and easily go through the process, verify themselves. And so that's Another way in which Odyssey is trying to make these programs easily accessible for parents. You know, it's a new technology that has been used in many cases in other sectors, but it's the very first application of it within the school choice world. And so we're very excited about that technology and its potential to really make these programs easier to access for parents.

So if I'm a parent that is not fortunate enough to live in Missouri or Idaho or another state that you're in, what does the future look like for me? What if I want to call my senator or local representative? What should I be asking for?

Increasingly, you know, every state is going to pass some type of school choice programs. Many states already have them, and they may be expanding them to include more parents, as of part, potentially eligible. And so I would encourage parents across the country to call their local representatives, call their governor, and to really encourage them to consider these types of programs. You know, in many cases, parents, I think, can also try to find out if there is a program that's available in their state. Oftentimes, departments of education will have that information available if they want to navigate to that website. And then there are also good alternatives to that. A great website is edchoice.org essentially has pretty much all of these programs listed there where you can actually look at it by state. And they also have essentially an application eligibility, in which you can answer a few questions, and they can tell you, would you or would you not be eligible for this program? So that would be my recommendation, which is parents who really believe in this and who want choice should advocate for it. And if you're looking to try to find out if there is a statewide program, you should look at the state department of education within your state, as well as Ed Choice's website.

So is there anything important about Odyssey that we've left out that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to get across to listeners?

One of the most important things that we provide for parents is customer support. These programs are new. They require parents to approach education in a way that can be quite alien. Right. For a very long time in the US Everyone received very similar education. You went to your local school district, you got whatever it was that they provided, you graduated, you moved on. This is kind of a sea change in the way that we approach education. And so one thing that we have found very important is to provide customer support directly for parents. And so we have a fantastic customer support team based all in the US across the entire country, so we can cover all of the time zones. And they are available seven days a week for our parents answering any questions about eligibility, about the application process, about funding. And I find that that's a very important aspect. In addition to all the technology that we've talked about, it's also very important to actually have someone on the other end of the phone that you can pick up and you can answer any questions about. So I think that the success of a lot of these programs requires serious hard work for implementation. And a big piece of that is providing customer support to those parents when they need it.

I think that's quite brilliant, Jo, because for parents, the thing they lack the most is time. And so to be able to get help in the early hours of the morning or at night, right after the kids have gone to sleep on the weekend is so vital, especially when so many families still don't have access to Internet as well, to be able to pick up the phone and call and get someone to help them walk them through what they need to do. So great. So this show for me is about learning and a passion for learning. I think I love learning. I love growing as a person. It's incredibly exciting to me and I appreciate so much how you are allowing more families to give their children access to high quality education. So I was wondering, is there anything that you're learning now that you're excited about? Ideally, completely unrelated to anything we've talked about today. It could be how to bake brownies, Anything, any facts or just a topic you're pursuing that's been fun for you, I guess.

Most recently, I've been reading a lot of history about the nomadic empires of Central Asia. Kind of maybe an obscure topic, but one of the ways that I like to learn read is I always like to have one book that's fiction and one that's nonfiction. And my rule with nonfiction really is I just kind of go where it takes me. And so probably maybe a year ago, I had started with World War II, which then led me to read about, you know, books about the inter period between World War I and World War II, then World War I, and kind of kept working my way back. And one of the things I don't think I really understood well was how much of world history, whether it was Chinese history, Indian history, Middle East, Europe was really affected by these nomadic empires, whether it was the Mongols, the Huns in Central Asia. And so right now I'm reading a really interesting book about that and it has taught me some fascinating things. I think the number one thing is we Think of our world today as very global and interconnected. But the reality is that it's actually been like that 2000 years ago where there was kind of extensive trading going on along the Silk Road, back and forth between different empires, between different people. There is in some cases some really fascinating amalgamations of different types of cultures. Probably one of the most interesting is in Central Asia there was kind of a rich tradition of Greek Hellenistic culture that was left by Alexander the Great that was then later kind of combined with Buddhist art and culture and religion and really led to these interesting kind of what are called Greco Bactrian empires. And so things like that I think are just so fascinating because I mean, who knew, right? And it's not maybe the type of thing that you learn about in your history class. So anyway, probably a little bit of answer out of left field, but that's something you learned about.

That is a fantastic answer. And as a digital nomad myself, I certainly relate and how amazing it is of be exploring the world and how incredible. Do you remember the title of the book? Or maybe you can tell us and we can.

I will have to follow up on it maybe. Hold on, I think I can get.

Perfect.

So it's called Empires of the Steppes. So a history of nomadic tribes who shaped civilization. And so it is this very interesting kind of theory that in a lot of cases these nomadic tribes and cultures influenced some of the most powerful civilizations that we learned about in history and in many times ended up kind of melding cultures together and creating these interesting combinations. And so anyway, it's very interesting. I'm about halfway through it, so really looking forward to continuing that.

That's so cool. And I have to say you're such a beautiful example of a well educated person yourself. I mean, I feel like you could be a professor at Stanford. You've been an attorney, you've been a teacher for children, you're working on these amazing policy issues. And people don't have to be just one thing in their life. And as an entrepreneur, it's such a gift to have that flexibility, to be able to travel between different worlds. And the fact that you're reading about history while you're building a very modern company focused on policymaking, those two things really inform each other. You have to be an artist and a scholar and a philosopher to be a great entrepreneur, I think. So it's wonderful that you are many things.

Absolutely. I think growing up our family always valued learning highly. And just the idea that we had access to great education, great books and it's something that I hope to continue with my family and make sure that they care about too.

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for helping us navigate the ins and outs of school choice and essays and microgrants. It's been very illuminating for me and I'm sure a lot of people understand the topic better.

Thanks so much for having me on. I've really enjoyed my time.

Thank you so much for your work giving families access to customized education. It's so exciting and I can't wait to see what's to come and support you in whatever way I can. It's just a phenomenal company and I'm just so happy you're doing it.