--- title: "Multiple Choice... What's Love Got to Do With It?" slug: "jason-van-heukelum-winchester-public-schools-multiple-choice-whats-love-got-to-asu-gsv-2026" author: "Jason Van Heukelum, Ted Dintersmith" date: "2026-04-13 12:00:00" category: "Premium" topics: "ASU+GSV 2026, conference transcript" summary: "A panel moderated by Michelle Rhee explores the state of school choice in America, featuring perspectives from charter school advocates, operators, and a Chicago-based leader confronting anti-choice political forces." banner: "" thumbnail: "" --- > **ASU+GSV 2026 Summit** | Monday, April 13, 2026, 4:45 pm-5:35 pm ## Speakers - **Jason Van Heukelum**, Winchester Public Schools - **Ted Dintersmith** ## Key Takeaways - A panel moderated by Michelle Rhee explores the state of school choice in America, featuring perspectives from charter school advocates, operators, and a Chicago-based leader confronting anti-choice political forces. - The discussion highlights dramatic progress -- over half of the top 100 schools in New York City are now charter schools, and 82% of Republicans and 68% of Democrats support school choice -- alongside serious setbacks in cities like Chicago, where a union-aligned school board voted to block federal scholarship tax credits. - Panelists debate accountability frameworks, with Ian Rowe warning against the national trend of eliminating standards (like New York's Regents exams) in the name of equity, and advocate for the new federal scholarship tax credit as a bipartisan bridge that could generate $25 billion in privately funded scholarships for both public and private school students. ## Notable Quotes > "Sometimes the obstacle is the way. We actually have to preserve our standards to allow kids to have the dignity to demonstrate that they can meet high standards." > > — **Ian Rowe** > "Why are we having this debate about governance structures when we should all be working together to advance our students?" > > — **Phyllis Lockett** > "Money was once originally allocated in communities for education to educate. Done. Period. End of story. There were no other rules." > > — **Jeannie Allen** > "Parents want a great school. They really don't care what the governance structure is." > > — **Kevin Chavous** > "Our school districts have the power and have the resources to lead... the future of work is going to be managing humans, agents, and robots. How are we preparing our young people for that?" > > — **Phyllis Lockett** ## Full Transcript Today we're talking about school choice and what love has to do with it, how much parents love the schools that they send their kids to, how much kids love the schools that they're in. And when you think about school choice and the landscape right now, you can see it in two very different ways. On one hand, you could say, well, with the proliferation of charter schools and micro schools and ESAs, we have never been in a better place as it pertains to school choice. And if you look at it from another direction, you could say, well, in some communities, there are different structures and forces at play right now that are really inhibiting the growth and proliferation of schools of choice. So we are going to talk about that landscape today, and I'm going to start with Jeannie. So Jeannie, tell us where you think we are on the long arc of the school choice trajectory in our country. Thanks, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. I don't think I've ever seen so much love in this movement in a really long time. I've been doing this almost four decades, and every day, month, and year has not gone by without enormous combat where we actually lose people on the battlefield because it's just not for the faint of heart. And in the last few years, I think largely not just because of the demand created with state laws and policies, but the supply of people who have been willing to create incredible opportunities for children. It is now so overwhelming not to embrace them and see what they're doing that it's become a political tipping point. It's no longer a hard, fast, red, blue issue. And by the way, both of those colors of parties have never been huge fans of these issues. I mean, there were years when you couldn't even get Republicans to want to see an educational freedom program, a charter school law, beyond a very modest and very weak law, get done. And so now you see people racing to help understand what it is that they can do to open up places where students and families can truly flourish. Thanks. Okay, Kevin, a huge part of the school choice movement over the last few decades has been centered around charter schools. And when charter schools first sort of came on the scene, the whole notion was we're going to create better opportunities and outcomes for families who need those options the most. But if you listen to a charter school detractor these days, they would tell you that we are far from living up to that promise. When we were talking the other day, you were telling me a little bit about the data that's just come out of New York. Can you maybe tell the audience a bit about that data? And just from your vantage point of funding charter leaders who are successful and allowing them to grow, where do you see where the charter school movement has been, where we are now, and where we need to go? Sure. Thanks, Michelle. So, you know, charter schools obviously started in the early 1990s, so it's been a little over 30 years. And there's now about 4 million students in charter schools nationally across 40-plus states. And I think from the long arc, to Jeannie's long arc, I think when I think about what we're sort of all in this effort to do is to create more schools that families love and where students thrive. And I think in a lot of ways we're on this arc where we're trying to break apart the notion in our country that where you buy your house determines where you can go to school and what opportunities you have. And we're really democratizing that in terms of making that available for all. And so when I think about the charter school movement, I think we are in some ways a real beacon for that because as a foundation, charter schools typically do not have geographic restrictions. And so that part, I think, is sort of front and center and part of the reason why I would argue that they've been seen as such a threat by many defenders of the status quo. What you were saying in New York, so the study just came out that about 15 percent of all the kids in New York go to charter schools. That's about a third of African-American students in the city. And over half of the top performing 100 schools now are charter schools in the city. So I think, you know, over time we are seeing that really, really amazing schools and really networks of amazing schools now have been are showing what's what's possible. Do you think in New York parents actually differentiate between the traditional public schools and the charter schools anymore or way beyond that now? I mean, I think that parents are, you know, we talked to lots and lots of parents and families. Parents want a great school. They really don't care what the governance structure is. They want a great school that meets the needs of their students. I also think they want choices, right, because not every student is the same. And families are different. And so I think that those two pieces together are really important. What I would say is in a lot of ways I think, you know, the scale now at 15 percent of all the students, it's charters are not going to get undone in a place even like New York, which obviously had two mayors ago who wanted to literally kill charter schools. I think that there's been a sort of enough power, frankly, built up to change that. But you know, in other many other places charter schools are growing very quickly. So you know, Texas obviously it's gone from five or six percent of the students to seven or eight percent of the students adding hundreds of thousands of students every other year. So we see lots and lots of growth and opportunity across this nation. So you often hear this that once parents get a taste of something that they're not going to be able to let it go or they're not going to be willing to let it go. Phyllis, you have a very different point of view on this because you are in Chicago. This is not an environment that is friendly to school choice right now. Tell us a little bit about what's going on in the city, number one, and then sort of the takeaways that you have from the experience there more broadly in the country. Yes, we are not feeling the love for choice in Chicago. It's very different than it was 20 years ago when I helped to launch New Schools for Chicago. And we had a very phenomenal CEO of our school district who agreed and supported a portfolio approach that held schools accountable and forced closure if they were not performing and ensuring that anyone running a school had to earn the right to teach our students. And we had a mayor that was very supportive of advancing schools and replicating schools that were performing well, as well as the business community that was behind it. Today, 20 plus years later, we have our mayor who was a former CTU, Chicago Teachers Union, organizer. We have an elected school board, which is very, very different, 21 people, actually. School board that is majority anti-charter, and triangulating between some of the policies that are being put in place to put a stranglehold, not only at the local level, but now at the state level, makes it really challenging. In fact, our school board last week voted on a referendum, they approved a referendum to our governor to demand that he does not take any federal dollars that would advance anything that would relate to a voucher or a scholarship for private schools. So we are in a very, very different environment. And you were saying that lessons learned are takeaways, because I cry about the situation. We've also had a number of charter schools that have closed, partly because they are fighting for their lives. They have been unionized and can't afford to keep the clip level on the salary schedule. And again, listen, I am a deeply committed Chicago Public School advocate. My parents were unions. educators in CPS, but we can't balance our own books. We're leaning in every month to, you know, cover the payroll, leaning into a line of credit. So, you know, it's just not sustainable for anyone and I think the original concept and that we held dear in Chicago when we launched this work, well this wasn't just about charter schools, this was about creating space for innovation, for trying new things and for collaborating and sharing it with the rest of the district. And one of the things I'm most proud of is that we took the replication constructs for charter schools and applied it to replicate high-performing Chicago public schools. One of them was Disney Magnet, which was a replicated school, won a blue ribbon, you know, at the federal level, and is one of the highest performing elementary schools in Chicago. So I think, you know, where the lessons learned and I think even now as we think about all of these various options that the federal government is providing is creating these bridges of collaboration because this just cannot be an us versus them. And one last thing I'll say, we in Chicago, we've got a 83% graduation rate, we've got 57% of those students, of our students coming into high school will pursue a four or two year degree and only 31% will attain in 10 years. And so why are we having this debate about governance structures when we should all be working together to advance our students? So one of the things that detractors of choice say is that there hasn't been accountability, you mentioned accountability, that we've allowed low performing charter schools to continue to operate. I think there's a lot of consternation right now about ESAs and like, oh, we're gonna create the Wild West of schooling. And so, Ian, I'm wondering, like, when you think about accountability, I really feel like there, in order for school choice to grow, not just in red states, but in blue states as well, we do have to address the accountability issue, right? Because we have democratic politicians who are like, we need to have some accountability for taxpayer dollars. But at the same time, there are folks in the school choice movement who say too much structure, too rigid measure of whether a school is successful or not is going to really tamp down innovation and really thinking about like, how do we create schools that are working for individual kids, which is, at the end of the day, what this is all about. So what do you think is the right balance in the whole accountability dynamic? Yeah, so as an operator, someone who runs charter schools in New York State, I do feel like we're at the epicenter of both what is possible on the very good side and some of the greatest fears in the charter sector. On the good side, great charter schools, if you look in a particular state, that usually starts with a great authorizer. So in our case, we've got SUNY Charter Schools Institute, which is a fantastic authorizer, and I'm convinced is very linked to why New York State has some of the best charter schools in the country because of its accountability system. But on the negative side, in New York City, right now there's a legislative barrier. You can't open new charter schools. So even with all that great evidence of demand, we're restricted. You can only open schools outside of New York City regardless of the accountability system. And so what I find interesting about accountability, I think even most critics will say that it's not that there's a lack of accountability, it's just that the accountability system is not tethered to high standards. And I'll give you a quick, what seems like a diversion, there's just a story about Dartmouth College, and for 100 plus years, they had a swim test as a condition for graduation for its students. But four years ago, they decided to eliminate that requirement because there were disparities in who was accessing the support system for swimming, and particularly around issues of race. And so they just eliminated the test because they didn't like the disparities. You know, in this particular case, black kids drowned at almost eight times the rate of white kids. So that actually might be a rationale for preserving standards and preserving an assessment, but they let that go. I think there's a parallel to what's happening in K to 12 education. So for example, New York State just eliminated the New York State Regents requirement. Again, after 100 plus years, that was seen as the gold standard so that you knew if you got a diploma, it meant something. That meant you had basic skills in reading and math, but similarly, because of disparities, the Regents has been eliminated and replaced by something called portrait of a graduate. Portrait of a graduate, very nice, lots of nice words. No one can actually define exactly what it means from an objective perspective. And this isn't just New York, it's New Jersey, it's Illinois, it's California, all reducing standards in their accountability systems. And sometimes the obstacle is the way, right? We actually have to preserve our standards to allow kids to have the dignity to demonstrate that they can meet high standards. And there, great, great round of applause. So I think the balance should be that there should be some combination of objective standards and assessments and then some flexibility so a school can say, we're in the midst of designing a new aerospace and virtues academy. So maybe an individual school can say, these are the things that are special about our school. A certain number of graduates will be on their path to getting a pilot's license or can operate drones, whatever it may be. But this idea that we abandon standards hurts the very people that we are trying to help. And that's how I think we should think about accountability. So if we are making some wrong decisions there in terms of abandoning standards, et cetera, my next question is, what should we be doing? And in particular, I wanna sort of shift the conversation a little bit right now to traditional public schools. I was at a conference of small and medium-sized superintendents not too long ago. And it was fascinating to me because at this conference, you had a number of superintendents whose enrollments are dropping precipitously because of all of the choice dynamics. And they're in a place right now where they're like, what are we gonna do, right? They're under tremendous pressure from school boards and elected officials. They have budgets that they need to balance. They have empty school buildings, et cetera. What are your thoughts on what are some of the things that traditional public school districts ought to be thinking about in order to lean into the choice dynamic instead of what I think traditionally has been the case, which is like, let me just try to close my eyes and act like it's not there or try to be against it in any way that I can. Are there ways that traditional public school districts can kind of come into the fold on this? Let me jump back to the arc. A lot of what we're hearing here are in states that even a New York that had incredible accomplishments in its early days with charter schools in terms of structure and now with achievement over time, continuing achievement, people are leaving those states. And the states they're going to are the states that embrace education, innovation, freedom, reform, that cross-pollinate all the divides that we typically have in society. That's the arc. Now, rather than sound like Pollyanna, it's not that everything is beautiful in those places either but the reality is what we've seen in 30 plus years versus 185 is when you accelerate the environment for change and open up the ability for educators to create those structures and parents to choose, all of us know this in this room, great things happen. And what happens is instead of fighting that battle in Chicago, they go to open up the school in Arizona or Florida or Indiana or Ohio or an increasing number of states that embrace them that still have to add to it. But you have 140 new entrants in Texas signing up for an ESA. What does this have to do with school districts, Michelle? In all of those places, school districts have opened up to the new innovations. In Lakeland, Florida, Wonderhere, one of the 25 Yass Prize, 2025 Yass Prize winners, Two public school teachers who left the failing Lakeland District to start a school to help kids wonder, a farm school, incredible standards based on all pedagogical science, got a call, knock on the door from the Lakeland School District, they've now voted them in to expand into Lakeland District. This is not a new endeavor. Miami it happened, it's happening all over the country, Phoenix Unified School Districts, so what has to happen for that to happen is that you still have to pass the laws that seem competitive and antagonistic for people to come in, and until lawmakers and advocates know that, it doesn't happen. I'll just end with this one comment. We all think that we have to be kind to each other when we're having a discussion about whether it's a private school, it's a district school, oh I really appreciate your differences, I appreciate and respect that, but I don't really agree on those choices. Wrong, wrong answer. If you actually want students like those in Chicago to start achieving, they have to see states behaving, embracing all of it, it's the all of the above, it's why this is called multiple choice I think. I think that's exactly where we all should be. I can build on that, on Anjini's comments. I think the school districts are in an incredible position to lead right now. I mean we're at the ASU GSB Summit, you know many schools all over the country are struggling with what to do with AI, what to do about advanced computing and quantum that's going to dramatically change the landscape of how we teach and how students learn, and I'm not seeing, in Chicago anyway, a lot of the charter schools that are really at the forefront on this. A lot of folks are protecting and are concerned about privacy as they should be, but our school districts have the power and have the resources to lead, right, to think about what are the strategies, what are the new models that we should be piloting to ensure that our students do have access to equity, economic mobility, and the dream, right? So we are in a fascinating situation where this time of bridging and collaboration that I think was discussed on the prior panel, you hear a lot of that theme during this conference, has to happen if we are going to survive. I was just talking to Johnny about the future of work is going to be managing humans, agents, and robots. How are we preparing our young people for that? So our districts need to be thinking about that and leading and bringing everyone along versus shutting down ideas and new models and opportunities. Michelle, you created, I think, lots of these dynamics when you were superintendent in Washington, D.C. I think, so a few of my superintendent friends, one of the things I've been encouraging, and depending on which state they're in, et cetera, is the idea that if you are losing enrollment, many states now have the ability for parents to cross district lines, which, you know, much of our history has been illegal and people went to jail for those kind of things, which is just horrible and I hope something that is in our rear view mirror. But I think enterprising, so, you know, the town where I live in Colorado, there are billboards on the roads entering into the city, which basically advertise for parents who are commuting into the city, why don't you bring your kid with you and enroll in one of our schools? And I actually think that's a very healthy dynamic if you think about it from a family perspective, that I think the most forward-looking superintendents, in addition to what Phyllis is talking about, are also thinking, if I have extra capacity and I'm doing a great job with my families and students, why do I continue to have these barriers based on where people buy their house of who I can serve? And so I think most enterprising superintendents that I know are really thinking, like, I'm in a dynamic marketplace and I need to, if I want to succeed, I need to serve more customers. And I don't do that by putting up walls and trying to negatively impact the sort of competition, but I am trying to do it by creating more opportunities. And I would just quickly say, it might be counterintuitive, but something I think public school leaders should be doing, I know it sounds like blasphemy, but is supporting their governors to sign on to the federal tax credit, which some people may be familiar with, but that's the new provision that will allow federal taxpayers who owe at least $1,700 to transfer that money to a scholarship-granting organization. I think Jorge Lorza is in the room, but DFER has estimated that single provision could generate like $25 billion in privately funded scholarships for kids. One of the big criticisms of this initiative, though, is that there's a perception that this money will only be used for private school tuition, but more and more scholarship-granting organizations like Children's Scholarship Fund are now saying, no, no, we're going to have that money now be available to public school kids. So that's SAT prep, after-school tutoring, special education services. So rather than see a huge amount of money now only be used in private school settings, I think public school leaders should see that this is a huge opportunity for their kids and create one less reason for kids to leave the public school system and go to a private school. And this is the really interesting thing. I like to put it this way. It's like giving away money for free. You write the check and the next year, that check goes to help a child, or several, and the next year you get the money back. So why oppose it? By the way, go Governor Polis. And I just want to piggyback on something you said, Kevin, and I think it really gets to the heart of what we're all trying to do. Money. Can we all start helping each other understand that money was once originally allocated in communities for education to educate? Done. Period. End of story. There were no other rules. Here's a school. It's in your hometown. Send your child. We're paying for it. Districts are a modern fixture. It doesn't mean they're bad. Yes, 74%. By the way, it's only 75% in our estimates of students are in traditional public schools. Maybe many of them by choice. We estimate probably of those, given the open enrollment, probably 25% of those are choosing. So maybe 50% are commandeered there because of where they live. If you think about it that way, you think about, we're just talking about what is being offered to a student so funding can support that education. It's really just government. It's American government 101. If we start talking about it that way, instead of you have this, I have that, I have a different sector than you have, we'll get a lot farther faster. Okay. Well, if we operated with common sense in the education realm, and we'd always done that, we'd be in a much different place, but we don't, and that's part of the problem. I mean, the way that you sort of described the federal tax credits and the fact that now, you know, potentially traditional public school district students could take advantage of them through these multiple ways. It just sounds so like obvious, like, okay, how could we be against this? But the reality is that there are tons of people out there advocating right now, particularly to democratic governors, that they not opt in to the program. And Phyllis, you were talking in Chicago about sort of the sort of political aspects of this. Our school board has no jurisdiction over federal allocation, but have literally approved a referendum last week. But again, the fear, I'm sure, well, you know the fear. And I think we've got to, again, unpack the core purpose of why we're here, and what we're going to do collaboratively to advance our students is a lot of money at risk. And our governor is balancing the pressures, because can you imagine what it would mean for our students to get access to after school programming, who can't afford it, or to SAT or ACT prep, and opportunities that they deserve and can't get access to right now? It would be a game changer. If kids, if, the way that I understand this, if governors are not opting in, then those tax dollars will be going to the federal treasury, instead of staying in their communities. To other states. Or other states. So my question is this, like, given that that is the case, like, are we ever going to get beyond the partisan politics in education? Like, could we get to to a point in the next five or 10 years where everyday parents are finally like, okay, this doesn't make any sense, right? Because my sense of this is that the average parent has no idea what is going on with this tax credit debate. They don't know that their governors or their state legislators are even considering this. If you tried to explain it to them, they would gloss over, they would have no clue. The average informed, well-informed business person doesn't know what's going on with it. I've had people hear me or other people say something. They're like, what are you talking about, taxes? They actually pay for accountants. Right, so they have no clue. So my question is, that is an environment, in my opinion, that is ripe for the special interest to just drive whether this decision gets made or not. So do we have any hope of trying to change that dynamic? Or is this just too hard and too in the weeds and too far away from like, can I buy my groceries tomorrow? Well, I run schools, so I'm a generally optimistic person. But when I started running schools in 2010, there actually was a lot of bipartisan support around charter schools in particular. It was almost as if there was an agreement that we would park our differences at the door. If we disagreed on social welfare policy or the environment, we can fight like hell on all these other issues. But when it came to this issue, we can all agree that a kid, particularly a low-income kid in the Bronx, if his school has perennially only graduated 18% of their kids able to read, that that kid should have a shot. I think we can get back, I think we can get back there actually. And the federal tax credit may be the vehicle to do so. So as I think you mentioned, Kevin, there actually has been a Democratic governor, Jared Polis in Colorado, who has signed on. Folks like Jorge Alorza, Arne Duncan, Rahm Emanuel. So prominent Democrats are coming out and saying, you know what guys, this is kind of crazy that we're against this. So my hope is that that actually does become a vehicle that more and more Republicans and Democrats come to support something which I actually think is really brilliant and creative. Because a state loses zero dollars, right? So this is all federal tax money. And as Jeannie said, it's repurposed. An individual has to pay 1,700 bucks anyway. So what if you just now transfer that money? So I'm optimistic. My hope is that a new alliance forms. But here's the deal. At the end of the day, those governors, those leaders who continue to graduate kids with an inability to read, at the end of the day, those parents, like they're starting to do, will start moving with their feet too. So a lot of this is on the onus of parents themselves too to recognize that your kid deserves a great opportunity to go to a great school. And if it's not being provided to you in your state, leave. Can I just make a comment also about bipartisanship? Ian's experience, Kevin, I think you'd say the same thing nationally, but in Colorado, D.C., clearly Michelle, Chicago, all of the stuff that was done was rank and file very united. It's really when you get to the top levels. They used to say that when a president mentions school choice, we're screwed. Because whoever's on the other side immediately runs the other way. And I think we have to remind ourselves that most of us are not walking around or at our kitchen tables and our offices and our cars going, I really don't like that school because it's run by a Republican. I really don't like that program because a Democrat started. And so if we can just get above that and realize that we actually do have a rank and file support and we should be saying to people, not like, oh, when is it gonna be more bipartisan? We should be like, where are you? You're on the wrong side. All right, I do not have time to get into another topic which I'm fascinated about, which is micro schools. Quick, quick, because we only have a few seconds left. Okay, so this is the lightning round. One thing that you are most excited about or most worried about in the school choice movement as you look at the next five years. One thing that you either want to happen or not happen. Real quick. I'll go. I think the diversity of school operators and entrepreneurs in terms of diversity of model, diversity of leadership, diversity of where these amazing schools are starting, that gives me immense, immense hope. Ian. I'm really excited about the growth of classical schools. I just was at their conference, bigger than this one, which is quite amazing. And parents seem to be very interested in schools that are focused on the good, the true, and the beautiful. I'm excited about micro schools, and I'm worried about micro schools and that they're going to be treated like the orphan child of the education movement. Close us out, Phyllis. I'm hopeful for parents who are gonna fight tooth and nail to make sure their kids get in to whatever school, whatever type it is, that is the best that their child deserves. Great. Join me in thanking our panel. --- *This transcript was put together by our friend [Philippos Savvides](https://scaleu.org) from Arizona State University. The original transcript and additional summit resources are available on [GitHub](https://github.com/savvides/asu-gsv-2026-summit-intelligence). Licensed under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).*