This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, January 26, 2016. I'm Caleb Brown.

2011 was supposed to be the big year for educational freedom as it happens 2015 turned out to be as good a year or better

Jason Bedrick policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom runs down the state level wins for school choice in 2015.

2011 was celebrated as a year of school choice and you make the case that 2015 was better. So on what metrics was 2015 better than 2011?

Right, well when the Wall Street Journal declared 2011 year school choice, there were 13 newer expanded programs, educational choice programs around the country.

This year, there were 15 states that adopted 21 new or expanded

educational choice programs. So I mean this is the biggest year yet for educational choice.

All right, so let's walk through some of the details here.

What were some states that had some notable changes in educational freedom?

Yeah, I mean, I guess some of the biggest or the biggest would be Nevada, which enacted the first

universal education savings account.

So we've been talking for a while now about moving from school choice to educational choice.

The education doesn't just take place in the four walls of a traditional classroom.

And education savings accounts recognize that. They empower families to and education

dollars on a wide variety of products and services,

including tutors,

textbooks, homeschool curricula, online learning, they could even save it for

later to go to college.

So Nevada has the first, Arizona a few years ago adopted in ESA, they were the first ones, but it was limited at the time to students with special needs.

Nevada has the first one that is almost universal.

Anybody that had previously attended a public school qualifies to receive an ESA.

All right, what are some others?

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