This is the Kader Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 31st, 2004. I'm Caleb Brown.

One of the key problems in states that have embraced new learning options for students is navigating

that new landscape to make the best choices for young people.

A new policy analysis by Cato's Colleen Ronsich and Jamie Buckland take stock of how states have moved forward since

adopting robust choice options.

One of the problems that I've been hearing about among states that have robust school choice options.

West Virginia, of course, is a new entrant in that area.

But among those states, a lot of parents don't believe they're eligible or don't even

know where to begin to take advantage of school choice programs so a lot of

parents just sort of leave it on the table.

What have you seen, Colleen?

Absolutely seeing the same thing and getting the word out is one of the big challenges with these

new school choice programs.

West Virginia is a pretty exciting state because their education savings account is

nearly universal and will eventually become universal.

So it's a good test market, test case to look at,

and that's why Jamie and I decided to delve into navigation services.

So Jamie, what does that mean?

Navigation services?

Well, I think in order to choose the best learning environment for a child that is school age, K-12, you first need to understand what your

options are and then once you have chosen an option there are systems to navigate applications, what have you.

So what we see is that families don't want to just know the surface level information that maybe

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