Welcome to The Lost Debate, a show for Politically Ecclectics. I'm Ravi Gupta, and this is a special

episode. I just did a debate at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., all about whether

Democrats should embrace educational savings accounts, which are, you know, a version of educational

voucher that allow families to go to private schools on public

dollars. Obviously, you listeners know I'm a supporter of charter schools, which are non-profit

institutions by and large that are public schools that are run independent of school districts.

This is a bit of a leap for me. I decided, hey, you know what? You know, we've been debating

and discussing E ESAs on this

podcast for the greater part of two years now. And although I hadn't fully, and maybe I'm not even

still fully, 100% on this issue, I felt like it was important to articulate why progressives and

Democrats would consider these and should consider them. It was a spirited

debate. I had a lot of fun. And this is very much within our values, you know, going to a

Republican think tank as Democrats to have a discussion about a substantive policy area. I was one

of four participants, so you'll hear a bunch of other voices. They'll all be introduced in this audio.

So we can just jump right in.

Good evening, and welcome to the American Enterprise Institute

and to the latest installment of our Ed Policy Debate series.

I am Nat Malkis, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Education Policy Studies at A.E.I.

And it is great to see a room full of people.

And welcome to those of you who are on the live stream as well. State private school choice programs

have increased steadily since the 90s, but the past decade has seen some pretty dramatic expansion.

And today, the most popular program for private school choice is undoubtedly education savings accounts or ESAs,

...