On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Albert Cheng, professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. The two discuss Cheng’s recently published research study that captures and evaluates the growth in charter school enrollment and how it is even greater in classical charter schools. They also explore additional results from surveying parents on educational values and education. Cheng also predicts future policy implementation that could arise from these findings.
On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Albert Cheng, professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. The two discuss Cheng’s recently published research study that captures and evaluates the growth in charter school enrollment and how it is even greater in classical charter schools. They also explore additional results from surveying parents on educational values and education. Cheng also predicts future policy implementation that could arise from these findings.
Soren Schwab:
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Schwab, VP of Partnerships here at CLT. And today we have an exciting episode with a guest whom you might know, maybe because of his important work in education reform, maybe because you're a listener of the Anchored Podcast because he's joined us before. I'm talking about none other than our good friend, Dr. Albert Cheng. Dr. Cheng is an assistant professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health. Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, where he teaches courses in education policy and philosophy. He's also the director of the Classical Education Research Lab, where he conducts research on the effects of classical education on character formation. He's a senior fellow at Cardus and an affiliate research fellow at the program on education policy and governance at Harvard University. Dr. Chang also serves on the governing board of Anthem Classical Academy. and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Christianity and Education. He taught high school math at James Logan High School in Union City, California. After completing his undergraduate studies in pure mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006, he later returned to school receiving a master's degree in education from Biola University in 2012 and his Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas in 2016. Albert, welcome back to Anchor.
Albert:
Thanks, good to be back.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, last time when we talked a lot about poetry,
Albert:
That's right.
Soren Schwab:
it was amazing. I really enjoyed that episode. Hopefully folks that are not familiar with you yet, go back to the original episode and learn more about Albert's background and then his interest in poetry and some of the research in poetry and character formation. But today we're going to talk about a new research study that you have conducted about classical charter school demand and growth in the great state of Texas. Before we get to that, remind our audience about the work that you all do at the Department of Education Reform and the Classical Education Research Lab.
Albert:
Yeah, so I work at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, like you just said, and I direct the Classical Education Research Lab. And so the mission of the lab is to bring data, empiricism, social science, and all the modern stuff that we tend to maybe frown at, to bear on classical education, but really a little more seriousness. Really it's to... assess, evaluate aspects of the movement, aspects of the pedagogy, and to use data to inform our practice and hopefully to improve our practice, identify needs. And so really it's just bringing to bear modern social science on classical education.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, it's fascinating. I remember last time we talked, you know, some of the research you've done, like I said, in poetry. And I think we both agreed that a lot of the hallmarks of classical education are not as easily quantifiable. And I bet that's what you guys are trying to do, many of them. And maybe it's not the quality of the dinner table conversation, but that's really hard to quantify. But some other things, including the growth of classical education, the demand, the parent demand of classical education. And so this research, it's hot off the press, and we're really excited. I've read it, it's amazing. And we're gonna talk about some of your findings. So walk us through a little bit of that research study. What prompted you to conduct it? And maybe if you can also tell us, you know, why Texas and why the focus on charter schools and in classical charter schools in particular.
Albert:
Yeah, so this report, and just again, speaking about bringing data to bear on things about the classical movement. So we've seen the articles around, any article you see out there about classical education, there's always a line in there that says, classical education is booming, right? And might cite some data, might cite some anecdotal evidence, talk to any school leader, and they're like, wow, we've got parents lining up to try to get into our school. And so what we wanted to do with this project was to try to put some data to bear on how big is this? How widespread is this? What's the magnitude of the demand and growth of the classical movement? And we focused on Texas, first of all, because they have great data. So the Texas Education Agency does a great job of keeping records. And- In particular, we looked at charters because as public schools, they have requirements to report things like enrollment and other school characteristics on a regular basis to the Texas Education Agency. And so really, it was an easy data lift. And so all we did was we went to the Texas Education Agency website and pulled enrollment in Texas since 2010. And of course, a subset of them are classical charter schools. And so in that sense, we put by focusing on Texas and the charter sector, we can at least get a glimpse of what the magnitude of interest in classical schooling and classical education is.
Soren Schwab:
Would you say that for our listeners that might not be as familiar with the Texas landscape, is Texas pretty charter school friendly or are there maybe percentage-wise more classical charter schools than in other states?
Albert:
Yeah, so Texas is charter friendly. They've had a charter law since the mid 90s. And so they've been around for, or charters at least there have been around for quite a while. Certainly charters are proliferated in certain cities more than others. I mean, that's just local education politics at play. And so really Texas is a pretty robust charter sector. In terms of classical, if you think about some of the major classical networks out there, Great Hearts, Founders, Valor Education, I mean, Great Hearts has a large presence in Arizona, but they've got a large presence in Texas as well. And then you've got those brands that are also anchored in Texas. I mean, not there explicitly, right? Founders has a lot of schools in Texas, but they actually have a couple here in Arkansas,
Soren Schwab:
market sell.
Albert:
So it's a unique state, not only because it has a robust charter sector, but you've got a lot of classical charter networks here as well. Not to mention several independent classical charter schools that aren't a part of the network.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, yeah, one of our friends, Aristotle at Classical Academy, I think they're
Albert:
That's
Soren Schwab:
in
Albert:
right. Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
Houston area too. Yeah, no, fascinating. Well, let's get some numbers then. Did we hear the anecdotes? And so I'm so glad that we can finally put some numbers. And I think I tweet about that at least once a week, right? And it's anecdotally that almost every classical charter school I talk to tells me that they have a wait list of 2, 3, 4, 500. But
Albert:
Yup, yup,
Soren Schwab:
you
Albert:
yup,
Soren Schwab:
know,
Albert:
yup,
Soren Schwab:
it's yeah, anyway, so...
Albert:
yup.
Soren Schwab:
Maybe we start with talk a little bit about that enrollment growth.
Albert:
Sure.
Soren Schwab:
What is the data? What does the data show?
Albert:
Yeah, so I'll give you a small snapshot first. I'll tell you kind of if you zoom backwards further in time. So if you just compare the 2019-2020 school year to the 2021-2022 school year, okay, so that's kind of your, those are the bookends of the pandemic, of the pandemic, bookending year. So enrollment in traditional public schools in Texas, according to our calculations based on the Texas Education Agency data, declined about 3%. So enrollment declined in the traditional public school sector, which actually kind of reflects the national average on that statistic. Meanwhile, charter schools in Texas, through that same time period, have increased enrollment by about 9%. Opposite direction, you actually have growth in the charter sector in Texas. And by the way, that 9% is a little bit north of the national average around that time. So nationally, it was about a 7% growth rate for charter schools nationally. So Texas charter schools have grown a little bit above the national average. But then if you zero in to classical charter schools... enrollment growth was 21%. So we're talking just in that window 2019 to 2021, at least those falls. Right, 9% in other charter schools, 21% in classical charter. So big growth. And so if you really zoom out, because we did this whole report looking at data back to the 2011-2012 school Essentially, it's about a sevenfold increase in student enrollment at classical charter schools in Texas alone. And by the way, this is, we didn't even count waitlisted students, and so this is actually understating the demand. Some networks in Texas have waitlists that are in the several thousands, and so lots of interest in this, lots of growth in the sector, and so really we're seeing really kind of what we're feeling anecdotally, what pundits and pundits and others have observed. Like James Hankin at Harvard wrote that article at exit, you know, or and called it another, I think, first things article called a Renaissance and classical ed. It's being born out in the data and at least with the snapshot of classical charticles in Texas, that's what we're seeing.
Soren Schwab:
That is, yeah, absolutely fascinating. So 21%, 21% classical charters compared to, what was the percentage, 9%
Albert:
9%
Soren Schwab:
for,
Albert:
in other charters, right?
Soren Schwab:
and then negative three, four,
Albert:
Yeah, there's
Soren Schwab:
for.
Albert:
an exit there for declining enrollments in the traditional public schools.
Soren Schwab:
So some listeners might hear this and immediately say, well, those schools were just open. They just happened
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
to be open.
Albert:
yeah,
Soren Schwab:
And, you know,
Albert:
yeah.
Soren Schwab:
was that, did you find that that was
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
a factor?
Albert:
I think so. So we didn't have data to look at that directly, but I mean, others have. And so certainly a lot of the decline is driven by some of that parents leaving for schools that are open, right? So there's plenty of data out there showing how private schools, charter schools were more likely to have in-person instruction during the pandemic. So I think that's a major driver. And it seems like at least classical charter schools may have capitalized on that.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, well, but then we can also ask, so if families were leaving the public school and they look for other options, there are plenty of traditional charter schools, there's plenty of online academies that if they just wanted something that's quote unquote open that they could have chosen. So anything in the data that kind of show to what else can you attribute that massive growth in the classical
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
sector in particular?
Albert:
yeah. Yeah, and we can get into this. I mean, we did a parent survey to try to make sense of all this data. And so I can get into that a little bit, but I'll actually point listeners to a study that was recently put out by the Urban Institute. So they're an education, they're a policy think tank or actually maybe a research firm. I don't know what they call themselves, so
Soren Schwab:
Ha ha
Albert:
be
Soren Schwab:
ha
Albert:
careful there. But the Urban Institute, so Tom D is a education economist out at Stanford and he had a team. did a study on essentially trying to explain the declining enrollments in traditional public schools. And what they found was that the increase in homeschooling and increase in private school enrollments doesn't fully explain the loss of enrollment in traditional public schools. And so I'll have to look up the number exactly, but I think it's... still well over half of the enrollment loss is not accounted for. And so there's speculating things like, you know, even declining birth rates and all that. I mean, that all matters in the long run. And certainly there is data to suggest that a lot of the decline in the traditional public schools is at the early grades. And so that's probably a combination of it might be declining birth rates, but also parents who are making that decision for the first time. Where do I send my kid to kindergarten? They're choosing a home school, the kid is choosing to go to private school, they're choosing to send kids to a classical school perhaps. So yeah, a number of factors. And so it's tough to really nail down, but you're seeing different pieces of data kind of emerge and at least a coherent story is being told in that data.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, yeah. And especially in Texas, even before the pandemic, classical charters were thriving. It's not like they were doing, yeah, there were some schools here and there. And so, did you notice any particular trends in grade level? I mean, is all that growth kind of kindergarten to third grade, or do you see that growth across the board?
Albert:
Yeah, so we did two breakouts of the enrollment growth, just to try to make sense, to disaggregate it a little bit more. So one of them is grade level. And so there's definitely growth across all the grade levels. Interestingly, most of the growth, or I should say more, I shouldn't say most, more of the growth is concentrated at the upper grade level. So we're talking about seventh, eighth, high school levels. And... I think some of those grade levels grew by even to a factor of 10. So we're talking even bigger than the average there. Whereas maybe in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, maybe the growth there was a factor of four or five. So definitely we found lots more growth at the upper grade levels. And now we suspect much of this is driven by just the natural way schools age. When you form a new school, you start with the early grades and you build up, you add a grade each year. And so since you have smaller cohorts of students at the upper grades now, any kind of enrollment growth there is gonna be magnified percentage-wise, right? And we actually, another way to, another kind of piece of confirmatory evidence in the data about this is, we look at some of the class with charter schools in our data. They didn't have high school grades that existed until, you know, in the middle of our data window.
Soren Schwab:
Right.
Albert:
And so that really explains why you might have percentage, in percentage terms, why much more growth at the upper grade levels.
Soren Schwab:
Right, and you mentioned earlier the waitlist that are partly unaccounted for. Yeah, you can't have
Albert:
and
Soren Schwab:
a lot
Albert:
like.
Soren Schwab:
of growth if you're maxed out in space and you just can't
Albert:
Yeah, that's right.
Soren Schwab:
just
Albert:
That's right.
Soren Schwab:
have more kiddos. But
Albert:
Yep.
Soren Schwab:
it's still encouraging to see those numbers. And I was at a classical charter school and we always felt that sixth grade and eighth grade melt, right, where we just lost
Albert:
Oh yeah.
Soren Schwab:
so many kids because they wanted to go. And that's something we can talk about later on too, right? Some of the... the opportunities maybe were some of the dissatisfaction that parents might still have related to, certain extracurriculars or sports,
Albert:
Sure, yeah,
Soren Schwab:
or
Albert:
yeah, yeah.
Soren Schwab:
just
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
some things that families might not care as much about K-6, K-8, but then maybe in high school.
Albert:
Sure. Yeah, no, absolutely right. That's absolutely right.
Soren Schwab:
What other question I have, and that's just, and I'm sure we all in the classical renewal movement deal with that, right? I mean, the... the accusation that, yeah, this is only benefiting, you know, the white suburban,
Albert:
Yeah, sure.
Soren Schwab:
you know, wealthy families or whatnot. In that growth data and with those enrollment trends, did you look at kind of racial ethnic backgrounds as well? And if there's any increase there?
Albert:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we broke out the trends by race, ethnicity as well. So it turns out the two racial ethnic groups that grew the most in classical charters in Texas were Asians and Hispanics. And so I don't quite exactly remember the, I mean, I could kind of maybe briefly, quickly look it up here. So yeah, I mean, Asian students, I mean, growing by over a factor of 10, well over a factor of 10, Hispanic student enrollment growing about nine folds. But you see growth too among black students, for instance. So their growth rate is about, the number of black students in classical charters in Texas is about one and a half times larger today than it was 10 years ago. So... Yeah, no, I think you're seeing across the board interest, which I think is kind of what, kind of aligned with a lot of the conversations that the movement in general is having, right? That this is for everybody, right? This is an education, not just for a particular type of person. It's deeply human, right? It's liberal educations for everybody. And all cultures have... ask these human questions, enduring questions, and have answers for them. And so, you know, how do we continue putting different traditions in dialogue? And so I think you're picking up a lot of that. And so parents across all sorts of racial, ethnic backgrounds are being drawn to what these schools have to offer.
Soren Schwab:
Wonderful. Yeah, yeah. So even more important to have that increased access
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
to quality, and in this case, for classical charter's free education in Texas and beyond. Well, we touched on it a little bit, but you conducted a large parent survey. And I guess a lot of the questions that I have, you could probably answer with the answer
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
that the
Albert:
sure,
Soren Schwab:
parents
Albert:
yeah.
Soren Schwab:
gave you. So first of all, maybe, you know, what methodology did you use? Did you just survey? Did you have kind of... interviews or focus groups, how did you go about that?
Albert:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, what we did was, so we built a survey, a parent survey, and we contacted a variety of classical charter schools in Texas and asked them to help us disseminate this to their parents. And so we got great response. I guess classical school parents are pretty awesome too, in participating in this. So we have a survey. About 430 parents responded to that. And then my co-author, Cassie Siftestad, went down to Texas a couple of times and held several focus groups. So, you know, longer interviews where we could get longer spiel from parents from, you know, why are they choosing these schools? And so, yeah, and so in the survey, we asked, Two things, broadly speaking. One is, so what are your educational priorities for your students? So what do you believe are the goals of education? And then second, we asked them, how satisfied are you with some various aspects of the school, the classical charter school that you send your kid to? So just to maybe walk through some of those findings. So we gave lists, speaking of educational priorities and goals, we listed a bunch of common educational goals. So you have your kind of conventional, utilitarian ones like college readiness, career readiness. You have some of maybe your more progressive education things like fixing social problems, right? Like teaching your kids how to fix social problems. How much weight do you give that as an educational goal? And then we... Listed things that are consistent with liberal education. So pursuit of truth, independent thinking, core academic knowledge, appreciation for beauty, civic virtue formation, or even just more broadly character or virtue formation. And the interesting finding there is that these parents If you kind of look at the way they rank order or weight each of those priorities, they're valuing the things that classical schools say they value. So at the top of the list are things like pursuit of truth, character formation, virtue formation, right? It is all part of like the whole mission of classical education, right? It's like, you know, reconnect knowledge and virtue, right? Grow in wisdom. And so parents... they want that most for their kids. And it seems like they're finding schools that do that. And conversely on the bottom of the list are things like fixing social problems and college and career readiness. I mean, it's not that parents don't think they're unimportant, but certainly relative to some of the things that are more consistent with liberal education, those utilitarian and more progressive ends are kind of a lower priority for these parents. So
Soren Schwab:
Mm-hmm.
Albert:
that's really the main takeaway on that part. And then kind of on the second piece, parent satisfaction. So we listed, we asked them to give their satisfaction ratings to things like teachers at the school, culture, actually I'm calling it culture, but things like climate, order, safety. You know, and so I think at the top of the list was like teachers. And what was interesting there, you know, when Cassidy did her focus groups, I mean, she was mentioning how some parents are like so appreciative that there are these teachers that are what they call overqualified for their jobs because they have PhDs in their content areas. And I'm like, oh, that's like, that's what classical is about, right? You know, we want to hire people that love what they teach, right? They know and they're experts in these fields and they can kind of share that tradition with their students. And so I think that might be driving some of the... why they're so satisfied with their teachers. Maybe the other one more finding, the other interesting thing is, so what are parents least satisfied about? And you alluded to this earlier. So two things really that made the bottom of the list. One is opportunities for extracurricular activities, and the other is facilities. And so certainly the extracurricular sports thing, right? I mean, I guess in Texas, you like
Soren Schwab:
Texas,
Albert:
your Friday
Soren Schwab:
yeah.
Albert:
night lights. Same here in Arkansas and run into this in my role as a board member of a classical school here. Parents not having sports, sports teams is a deal breaker. And so that was one aspect that we found in the data, which I think is important for classical school leaders to pay attention to. And again, it's not that we issue sports, right? I mean, like gymnastic education, this is a part of... forming the whole person, right? So we ought to be, I think, paying attention to some of that. And then facilities is an interesting one because this is really tied up with charter funding laws. And so in Texas and actually across the US with very few exception, charter schools only get access. Or I should put it those like charters do not get access to local revenues. So they don't get local property tax dollars Well, it turns out that school districts A lot of facility Capital costs operating costs that comes out of your local tax dollars. I mean, I don't know if last time you voted in a I don't know if the school board put out a bond measure to expand some building right? I mean, that's that those are local dollars and so I think every every school leader, whether you're in private or charter school, knows the challenges of running a capital campaign, raising funds to find a building. We're always trying to partner with other churches that have empty space or other empty business buildings and scrapping something together to get facilities. I think we're also picking up parents being relatively more dissatisfied with the quality of facilities. I think that's just... part of the story of the challenges of having facilities for charters and private schools in general.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, yeah, wow, that's a lot to unpack. But I mean, I guess it's just good to hear that families sent their kids to these schools for the right reasons. Because
Albert:
Yeah, yeah,
Soren Schwab:
if they
Albert:
yeah.
Soren Schwab:
all said, well, we really just want the career and college readiness and all these other things that, I guess, quote unquote, they could get somewhere else, right? Versus, not a lot of public schools talk about virtue and truth, goodness,
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
and beauty and
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
all the other things, right? And I think it's also for... from a branding perspective for these schools to lean into that. Speaking of value proposition, right? We're different from these other schools and here's why. And parents seem to really appreciate that.
Albert:
Yeah, yeah.
Soren Schwab:
So that's fantastic to hear. Did anything about curriculum? Because of course we heard during the pandemic, the curtain
Albert:
Sure.
Soren Schwab:
was lifted and parents for the first time, quote unquote, first time,
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
realized, oh boy, what are my kids actually reading? And
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
here
Albert:
yeah, yeah.
Soren Schwab:
are some options. generally satisfied with curricular choices
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
or.
Albert:
so generally satisfied. But again, what we found was interesting is that that ranked lower than a lot of the other items. So things, again, like teachers and school communication. And so I don't know how to exactly make sense of it. I mean, it was a little bit puzzling to me. The best kind of post-hoc explanation I can think about is, well, maybe it's the extracurricular bit, right? So they're thinking of. athletics as part of the course offerings that are there. And insofar as classical charter schools don't have as extensive a list of offerings on that front, then that might kind of knock down the satisfaction of curriculum. I mean, the other thing we heard a little bit in the focus groups, I think, is just how for parents switching into a class curriculum, I mean, it's a lot more rigorous than what they might've been used to if this is the first time they're seeing that. And so we did hear a few stories of, wow, this is really hard. And I don't know, I mean, I think there's a lot of conversations to be had around there. I mean, one thing I know in the movement, there's a lot of conversation about, well, how do we balance? How do we really recover scolay? We want our kids to learn a lot, and there's so much. We want them to jump higher and higher. But at the same time, I mean, if the end is contemplation and knowledge, staring at truth, goodness, and beauty, there's a balance to be struck there in terms of learning too much and too little. So I don't know if there's, that might be a conversation to be had. I think the. The best case scenario is, this is not a school in Texas, but the school I'm on the board of, I heard a parent share how their kid said, just groan as a kid could only groan, this is so hard, but I love it. And so I think that's kind of like what we wanna hit. And so maybe there's something to be said for trying to. socialize and acclimate kids to, or really show them the culture really of what Skollay could be. So I don't know, those are my
Soren Schwab:
Yeah,
Albert:
two guesses.
Soren Schwab:
I'm chuckling because it sounds like someone who just taking the CLT, you know, this was hard, but I love it. I mean,
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
I hope that second part is, you know, it's hard, but I also hope that you enjoyed it, enjoyed the passages and the difficult, you know, logic puzzles and whatnot, but it's worth it, right? But yeah, I think, you know, even regardless of, let's say curriculum, if there's a trust in the teachers, because you, I mean, let's
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
be honest, you can teach Shakespeare. through the lens of certain, it'd be terrible, versus teaching Shakespeare, maybe by a teacher they trust and has the same values and ideals and principles. And so, yeah, no, but I like that the parents were honest. Also, clearly they sent their kids there, so they love it. But also
Albert:
Yep, yep,
Soren Schwab:
as the
Albert:
yep.
Soren Schwab:
movement is scaling, here are some things we at least need to keep in mind.
Albert:
Yeah, yeah,
Soren Schwab:
I guess broader picture.
Albert:
yeah. And that's just
Soren Schwab:
Yeah.
Albert:
one point on that, Sohan. I mean, I think that's the whole point, one of the points of bringing data to bear on this, right? Like, you know, again, I mean, data doesn't, even as a social scientist myself, I'll be the first in line to say like data, it's not the end all be all. I was at Hillsdale recently and some of the students were joking, so you're a logical positivist, right? I'm like, no, I'm furthest from that. But... Anyway, I'll joke it aside, but this is what data can bring to bear, right? And so certainly as the movement grows, we always talk about there's a teacher pipeline problem, a school leader pipeline problem. Surveys and data gathering can be informative for these kind of strategic planning purposes. And so this is really the value that we can bring. by doing things like this and thinking about it and reflecting on it.
Soren Schwab:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, if nothing else, I mean, this quantifies the demand is there,
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
right? There's clearly demand for what we think is the best form of education. And it comes with challenges. As you're reflecting on this study, the survey and a lot of the other studies and research that you've done, what are some of the potential policy implications? Are there things that you look at and say, oh, here are some opportunities
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
down
Albert:
yeah.
Soren Schwab:
the road?
Albert:
Yeah, I think so certainly on the funding piece and the facilities issue. So my colleague, Pat Wolf has been really pushing this for several years, just document, again, it's another data thing, right? Documenting the funding inequity between charters and the districts that they're in, or at least the, you know, compared to the schools of the districts that they're in, right? And so there's gaps of several thousands of dollars on a per pupil basis. And so he's been able to use that work and use that to flag that and point that out to policymakers to rectify the problem. So there are places, jurisdictions and states now where, you know, they fix the funding laws. And so the inequity between charters and the traditional public schools and those home districts. aren't as big. And so I think there's an opportunity here to think about how to do that, particularly if there's this demand for these kinds of schools. I think the conversation about how do we make these offerings, how do we widen them and then broaden them, that's a fair conversation. Related to that is... We talked a little bit about the wait lists earlier, you know, the thousands of students on wait lists for some of these classical charter schools. Yeah, how do we enable these networks or other independent, you know, folks that aren't part of networks, you know, how do we make it a little easier for them to navigate the process of getting a charter? setting up a school so that you can meet the demand. So clearly the supply side needs to catch up. And so
Soren Schwab:
Mm-hmm.
Albert:
some of these issues can be addressed by policy. But others, I mean, just you got your listeners here, school leaders and leaders of associations. I mean, those folks need to continue doing their work, building schools and leading in that. make it possible so that when the policy environment is ripe, people can capitalize and actually build the school.
Soren Schwab:
Well, what a wonderful positive note to end on. Albert, really grateful. Give our congratulations to Cassidy as well. Really fascinating study. Thanks for sharing it with us. And what's kind of next for you? Is there
Albert:
Yeah.
Soren Schwab:
already the next big study on the horizon?
Albert:
Yeah, there's a couple things. So I don't know, I'll plug the SEL conference, come to my panel if you wanna hear some stuff.
Soren Schwab:
I'll be there. I'll
Albert:
Yeah,
Soren Schwab:
be there.
Albert:
it's a panel. We'll showcase actually some of the research I've done in partnership with Sager Classical Academy, which is another local classical school here in town. And so, yeah, we'll talk about that poetry study, but also one that we're going to release soon is one about reading historical drama. And what that does in generating historical empathy and understanding, you know, characters, or in this case, historical figures better. And so there's virtues attached to doing history. And so does reading historical drama have an effect there? So that's
Soren Schwab:
Amazing.
Albert:
on the, I'll maybe leave that as a teaser and not say.
Soren Schwab:
That's a great teaser. You might have to get you back on once that is completed. Thank you so much again. We're here with Dr. Albert Chang, who is an assistant professor at the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Albert, thank you so much for joining today.
Albert:
Hey, thanks. Pleasure, Thorin. Yeah, love talking with you and all the things that are going on in the movement.
Soren Schwab:
Thank you.