This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, March 2nd, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Educational freedom is not the same thing as school choice.

That's a subtle but important distinction that has big

implications for religious freedom and civil society. Andrew Coulson, the

director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, made that case

at the Cato Institute's recent benefactor's summit

held in Florida.

There isn't exactly an educational freedom movement in this country.

There's a school choice movement which is large and growing and overlaps very significantly

with educational freedom.

The things that are trumpeted as selling points of school choice are very important aspects

of educational freedom.

Just ensuring parental choice of schools.

Tremendously important and has cascading benefits.

Rescuing the poorest children from abysmal schools,

raising overall academic achievement, efficiency,

tailoring what is taught to the particular needs of each individual child.

All of these are very important things and we in our research at Cato

provide evidence that in fact market reforms do produce these desirable outcomes and that, you know, and we draw attention to them, we promote these benefits.

But there is more to educational freedom than them. We promote these benefits.

But there is more to educational freedom

...