Our VP of Strategy Matt Frendewey recently sat down with Kelly Smith on the Kindled podcast by Prenda. They cover a lot of ground in under an hour: the difference between reform and transformation, what parents are actually telling pollsters, and how to respond to the most common criticisms of education freedom programs.
Here are a few highlights if you want a preview before you listen:
On why “reform” is the wrong frame
Matt’s argument is that reform assumes the system is basically fine and just needs adjustments. What he’s seeing from families is something different. They’re not asking for a better version of the same thing. As he put it: “Parents don’t want better. They want different.” That shift, he says, has been building for years and accelerated significantly through the pandemic.
On what the polling actually shows
yes. every kid. has been polling on education flexibility across multiple states this year, and the numbers are consistent—universal ESA support is running between 66–71% depending on the state. But the stat that stuck with Matt is the flexibility gap: about 75% of families say they want a more flexible education model, while only 28% say the current system delivers it. That’s a nearly 40-point gap between what parents want and what they have.
On accountability
Matt pushes back on how accountability gets defined in education debates. Parents don’t experience standardized testing as accountability, he says, because there’s no real consequence attached to it. Results come out months later, long after anything can be done. Real accountability, in his view, is a parent choosing to send their kid back next year—or not. “There’s no greater accountability than telling a school, I love this school so much I’m sending my kid back here next year.”
On where this is all heading
Matt’s optimistic. Universal ESAs were considered a niche idea not long ago; today they’re the fastest-growing trend in education policy. But beyond the policy wins, what he keeps coming back to is what he sees inside micro schools: kids who are genuinely excited to learn. “When I walk into a microschool and some of these really small startups—to see the joy and the happiness that’s filling the room alongside the learning is just encouraging.”
Give it a listen. The full episode is on the Kindled podcast by Prenda.
