This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, December 15th,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Battle for Educational Freedom is a long slog,

but with big victories for the side of choice, innovation, and

entrepreneurship in recent years. Ben Toma is the Republican speaker of the

Arizona House of Representatives. We discuss the wide variety of education options in Arizona,

the advice he has for other states pursuing school choice, and why giving parents a wide variety

of options for their kids is less controversial in a purple

state than you might think.

I like to tell people that I thought I couldn't be any more in favor of school choice and then I had three kids and the

notion that some central authority in this case the state,

specifically can tell me and my family,

give us a bunch of money and then we will decide one where your kids go to school and two what will be taught there.

And that has always struck me, since becoming a parent,

I've become sort of radicalized just by that process

of understanding that these are impressionable young people and that I'm their primary teacher.

Arizona has been a leader in school choice for a long time.

In fact, setting precedence at the Supreme Court with various programs that Arizona has.

To what do you owe that success?

Well, first and foremost, I think it's important to note that there is a

Libertarian undertone to Arizona in general. We're kind of the Wild West in many ways, you know, home with a

Maverick at least some time ago and and there's always been kind of this

...