Welcome to the Freedom to Learn podcast.

I'm your host, Ginny Gentles.

This season, we're diving into what it means to return education to states, communities, and families.

And we're exploring what becomes possible when education is freed from union dominance and federal control.

Bipartisanship may be rare in Washington, but it still exists.

This week, Christy Wolf of the Bipartisan Policy Center joins us to discuss the Commission on the American Workforces sweeping new blueprint to connect education to opportunity.

And we also discuss BPC's federal education policy action items.

We cover why federal programs remains stubbornly siloed, why Congress hasn't reauthorized major education laws,

and whether the Department of Education is truly a pass-through agency.

Christy shares her views on what interagency agreements mean in practice, the real barriers to state flexibility

from waiver fatigue to talent constraints, and why some of the biggest obstacles to innovation

may actually sit at the state rather than the federal level. With more than 30 years shaping

federal education policy across Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Alliance for Public Charter

Schools, Christy brings a rare, full-spectrum view of how policy is actually made and implemented.

Christy Wolf, welcome to Freedom to Learn. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me, Jenny.

You work at the Bipartisan Policy

Center and bipartisan isn't a word we hear around Washington too much these days. What's the

mission of the organization? Yeah, so the Bipartisan Policy Center was formed about 20 years ago

with a bipartisan, as you would might I'd expect, cohort from Congress,

Senator Dole and Dashel in particular, really wanting to show folks it is possible to get

done things done in Congress, even if you have differing views across a wide spectrum.

It doesn't require you to give up those views.

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