Do Parents Know What’s Best for Their Kids?

Mairead Elordi: Welcome to Tough Questions with Robert Enlow, where we tackle the biggest myths in education, and we give you the real story. Today’s tough question, do parents really know what’s best for their kids? Robert, thank you so much for joining us today.

Robert Enlow: Thanks for having me. It is the myth that I have heard every day of my career since 1996, that parents don’t know what they’re doing.

Mairead Elordi: Absolutely. And we hear this question so much, and some people argue that parents shouldn’t be making educational decisions, that the system or the experts know better, but others say that no one knows a child the way their parents do. So who’s right?

Robert Enlow: Well, I would always, and first, default to parents, right? So in 1925, the Pierce v. Society of Sisters case in the United States Supreme Court made this very clear point.

For those who don’t know about this case, in Oregon, they had passed a law requiring every single family to attend a government-run school, a public school. And a family sued, and the Supreme Court ruled and said, the child is not the mere creature of the state. And I think that’s a really important line for us to remember.

So look, do educators deserve a special place in our life? Of course. But parents are the first educators.

Parents know their kids best, and we should always default to them when it comes to educational decision-making, much like we already do when it comes to health decisions.

Mairead Elordi: And why do some people think parents can’t be trusted? Where does that mindset come from? Is it academia, government, the education establishment?

Robert Enlow: You know, when you start having a system where almost all of us went for such a long time, where everything is done for you, you begin to just presume that the government knows best and that educators know best. And you know, for those families who were lucky enough back in the day to pay twice, once in taxes and once in tuition, and send their kids to a different school, those kids were being either religious or, you know, wealthy, that’s, of course, not who it was. The origins of this kind of thinking, in my opinion, are very complex.

But they come down to, one, what happens when you’re involved in a system where your house price determines your education, when those things are so linked, right? In the 1950s, there were around 50,000 to 60,000 school districts in America. Today, there’s like 13,000 for a population twice as large, right?

So you think about the fact that your house price has become so integral to your educational choice and options, and how constricted that has become over the years. I think if you go back to the 1920s, there were even more districts than that. So when you realize that your choices have been constricted by your house prices, and then you just presume that that’s the way the education gets done, some of it is, it’s just what my mom did, what my grandma did, so that’s what we do.

Some of it is much more nefarious in origins, right? There are people who legitimately, for whatever good intention they might have, think that parents aren’t smart enough to understand how to educate their children or to do what’s best for their children. I think Milton Friedman had the best line when it came to this.

He says, that, I believe, is a gratuitous insult. He said, and because this charge is often leveled at poor parents, not very often leveled at wealthier families. It’s generally leveled at poor parents and families of color by folks who oppose school choice, right?

So people who oppose school choice are saying to black and brown families and to poor families that those families don’t know enough to educate their kids. I find, like Milton, I find that a gratuitous insult, and I find it aberrant to think about. It’s just such a hateful thing to say in so many ways, right?

So how dare we think that we know better than parents, right? All we’re arguing is that families, it’s not that families don’t have the aptitude or the capability, it’s just they don’t have often the information or the power. And school choice is changing that, it’s giving families power to make better choices, and so I think the origins of why parents are not trusted are twofold.

One, it’s kind of the way we’ve always done things. There was a lot of that going on. COVID changed that dramatically.

And then two, I think there’s a real concerted effort by some folks, often the opponents of school choice, to just simply say parents don’t know best what’s in the best interest of their kids, and we do know better. And like Milton Friedman, I find that insulting to families.

Mairead Elordi: And just diving into the data here, what do studies show about student academic and social outcomes in school choice programs?

Robert Enlow: You know, that’s the most underreported thing about school choice is the social and civic outcomes. When you look at the outcomes of families who are in these programs, their children are more tolerant of other people’s opinions. There are studies, and I mean, this is a critically important thing.

So if you’re going to a school and you want to create better citizens, you want them in a school choice program. If you’re going to a school and you want your kid to be more tolerant of other people’s opinions and have a more decidedly open mindset, you want to send your kid to a school that uses vouchers. This is the data on the sort of social outcomes, and it’s really important.

Kids are more tolerant. Kids are more engaged. And the studies we’ve done in Indiana, families, when they choose, they get more involved with their kid’s school.

They get more involved with their kid’s teacher. There’s a ton of social benefits that are being underreported and overlooked. And that’s unfortunate because family, I mean, I think about this, family empowerment studies like that that show an incredible increase in parent satisfaction or an incredible increase in parent attitudes towards school and actually involving with school and then kids’ tolerance.

If that were the only metric that they found positive in traditional public schools, that would be blown. Trumpets would be blowing all over the world. Right.

This is big data. I think it’s big and important that these families are showing that their kids are doing better. They’re more satisfied.

They’re more engaged. I think that’s tremendously important.

Mairead Elordi: It’s true. It’s almost an unexpected boon of school choice programs. People talk about the academic side, but the social side also sees such improvement.

I think that would be surprising to a lot of critics. Yeah.

Robert Enlow: Let’s go back to the academic side. Look, let’s be clear. Kids who are in choice programs tend to perform better on state tests.

All right. But the key thing is that they also, and the data is coming out, they’re attaining at higher rates. So they’re graduating at higher rates, they’re matriculating into college at higher rates, they’re persisting in college at higher rates.

Along the way, public schools, and this is data that no one disagrees with, even our opponent friends like Josh Cowan, public schools get better and get better faster when school choice exists. So, you know, just again, those three things alone, kids are doing slightly better. They’re attaining better.

They’re graduating at higher rates, matriculating in college at higher rates. Their social environments are better. They’re in safer places.

They’re in places where they’re more satisfied and more engaged. And public schools get better. I just don’t understand why this isn’t always seen as a win, win, win.

Mairead Elordi: Right, right. Of course, there’s another myth that there’s an accountability gap between public schools and alternative schools that are used in school choice programs. Do you think the parental demand helps schools that are not public schools to remain accountable in a way that it that it doesn’t in public schools?

Robert Enlow: So this word accountability has been overused all over the place and misused all over the place. The first question that’s always important to ask is accountable to whom and for what? Right.

So the to whom question is very simple. If a program is accountable to parents where they are free to move with the dollars that are set aside for their kids, that is accountability. Parents have the first and greatest ability to be the ones holding schools and educators to account.

So that’s the to whom. In traditional public schools, that’s not the case unless you buy a house. The question the next question is for what?

Right. Are we holding schools accountable for the academic performance? Well, if that’s the case, you know, we’ve had some really rough goes in our traditional schools.

Right. And even in our charter schools and some of our private schools. Look, the argument is education needs to improve.

When you say you’re accountable for what? I’m not sure that the way we’ve organized the accountability structures for public schools is what we want to foist on any other education opportunity out there. Right.

So I’m not sure that it has worked very well for our traditional schools and people claiming, oh, my gosh, let’s have a level playing field are using a playing field that’s bumpy, muddy, never worked at all, not showing results for outcomes. I mean, there’s all sorts of things wrong with our current accountability system that people just bow down to a lot. A lot of people just bow down to it as if somehow it’s a good thing because it’s called accountability.

Right. And I don’t think a one size fits all accountability system is any better than a one size fits all school system. OK.

Mairead Elordi: And just as we wrap up here, do you have a specific story that comes to mind of a parent who changed their child’s life because they had the freedom to choose and the impact on the parents, the children and the family?

Robert Enlow: So I have two stories about this. One is a story from a family, a mom who had enough. A mom in Indiana who had two children and was only able to send one, was to use vouchers for one of her children.

And she literally had to decide which child would go to the school that was probably going to save their life. I find that kind of Solomon’s choice awful. And I’m sure families have to take that choice all the time in programs that aren’t universal.

So, I mean, I’ve seen this firsthand, families making these incredible decisions and sacrifices. And I really want to get back to this. Families sacrifice a ton.

Right. I don’t care where you go to school. Families are at the heart of accountability.

Families are the ones that are sacrificing. And this idea that somehow families aren’t and shouldn’t be in charge of the decision making for their children is just ludicrous to me. The idea that you should put someone in place of a parent for educational decision has not worked out in America and I don’t think will work out.

And so this is why universal school choice is so important. But I’ve seen stories like I’ll never forget Kathy Visser in Arizona, one of the first parents I met in Arizona, who basically said, look, I’ve tried a public school. I’ve tried a private school.

I’ve tried a charter school. None of that worked. The ESA program is great for me because now I hire and fire the teacher for my child.

Right. This kind of power. And you see this kind of conversation over and over again, how how it changes trajectories.

You know, a good friend of the organization, Deon Daniels, had this same exact experience, right, where he was able in Indiana to get a voucher and change his life and go to end up going to college and then end up going to University of Arkansas and get his Ph.D. I mean, this is the whole point of educational choices is so it changes the trajectory of families lives over time. And you see stories like that over and over and over again. And we are blessed to have allowed policies that allow millions of families to be able to achieve more choices.

Mairead Elordi: Those are really moving stories, and it really shows that, as you say, families do really sacrifice and the results are clear from the children.

Robert Enlow: So this is a this is an important point to make here. Look, when you have skin in the game, when you’re a parent with skin in the game, you make better and different decisions. The data is really interesting on this.

When a family member gets involved in a choice program, what this data from Patrick Wolf has shown is that over time they become better and better and better choosers. Right. So in the first instance, hey, I would like to try something different.

And then a year later that I don’t want just something different. I kind of like this. And then two years later is I don’t just like this.

I like this with a twist. Right. And so parents get more savvy.

They get more capable when you give them freedom of choice. And so that’s the biggest lesson here is is school choice is the biggest way to empower families to have true power over their children’s life and their future.

Mairead Elordi: There’s nothing like skin in the game.

Robert Enlow: Yeah, I mean, it’s I mean, I use this all the time in speeches like, you know, I was a kid and I said to my mom, buy me a 10 speed. She bought me a 10 speed and I left it outside and it got rusted. And I was like, mom, mom, buy me another 10 speed.

She goes, no. And I said, why not? She goes, well, look what happened last.

I said, OK, fine. She goes, but I’ll buy you. I’ll buy it if you go halfsies with me.

So I worked and I got halfsies. And guess how well taken care of that bike was. Right.

It’s so important that when you have financial skin in the game as a parent, you get the ability to choose for your kid and you often choose wisely and disinterestedly.

Mairead Elordi: Well, Robert, thank you so much for tackling this with us. You know, we’ve seen the myth that parents can’t be trusted, but I think the reality is clear that when parents are empowered, their kids thrive. We’ll be back next time to take on another tough question and separate the facts from the fiction in education.

Thank you, Robert.

Robert Enlow: Thanks for having me.