More School Funding, Worse Results? Here's Why

What we do to kids is insane.

Some districts spend $45,000 to $100,000 per student — and the results keep getting worse.

Same zip code. Same bureaucracy. Same "just send more money" sales pitch.

Different outcome than the brochure promised.

Andrew Clark from Yes Every Kid walked onto The Brian Nichols Show to say the quiet part out loud: school choice isn't a thought experiment anymore. It's policy. Federal tax credits for private-school scholarships. Expanded 529s that actually cover K-12 tuition. The question isn't "will choice happen?" It's whether parents will use it — or keep waiting for the district to suddenly get better at the one thing it keeps failing.

🎧 Listen to the full episode (TBNS 1072)

Your Zip Code Shouldn't Decide Your Kid's Future

I don't care what color your lawn sign is.

Two Federal Programs Changing the Game

Here's what a lot of parents still haven't heard.

*One:* federal tax-credit pathways tied to private-school scholarships. Money that used to die in committee rooms is starting to follow families who want a different door.

*Two:* expanded 529 education savings accounts that aren't locked into "college someday." K-12 tuition is on the table. That changes the conversation at kitchen tables from "we can't afford options" to "how do we structure the option?"

Andrew walked through what that means in practice — not as a DC press release, but as a parent-facing reality check. The envelope is changing. Where the money goes matters more than how loud the superintendent's next bond pitch get

The reformers are separating right now. Some want choice as a Trojan horse for more control. Some want choice because they actually believe parents own the decision. Know which camp you're talking to before you hand them your kid's future.

🎧 Listen to the full episode (TBNS 1072)

The Sales Lesson Every Parent Needs

Parents don't buy "policy."

They buy a better Tuesday morning for their child.

If you're trying to sell school choice — to your spouse, your school board, your neighbor who still trusts the district newsletter — stop leading with ideology. Lead with the kid.

You want kids who can think? Let them do. Activity breeds results. Sitting in rows waiting for the next standardized bubble isn't how Benjamin Franklin built a mind — and Franklin didn't need a school board permission slip to become Franklin.

That doesn't mean every parent should yank their kid tomorrow and wing it. It means the burden of proof flipped. The system that spends six figures per child and still can't deliver literacy owes you an explanation — not the other way around.

Three questions every parent should ask:

1. *Where does the money actually go? Not the slogan. The line items. 2. What happens if this school fails my kid? Can I leave — or am I trapped? 3. Who answers to me?* A distant board, or a provider that loses me if they underdeliver?

If you can't answer those cleanly, you're not a customer. You're inventory.

The Bottom Line

More money into the same broken envelope will not invent a different letter.

Zip code shouldn't be destiny. Federal tax credits and expanded 529s are starting to put the pen back in parents' hands — if they'll pick it up.

Be skeptical of subsidies. Be ruthless about outcomes. Sell choice like a product that works for the customer, not a sermon for the choir.

Educated. Enlightened. Informed.

Listen to the Full Episode

🎧 More School Funding, Worse Results? Here's Why | TBNS 1072

Guest: Andrew Clark — Yes Every Kid Yes Every Kid: yeseverykid.com

Follow Brian: @BNicholsLiberty on X, Facebook, and Instagram Show site: briannicholsshow.com

Sponsor note: Cardio Miracle — 15% off with code TBNS at cardiomiracle.com/TBNS

Everything You Want Is on the Other Side of Hard

Parents know this in their bones.

The easy path is "trust the district." The hard path is researching options, restructuring the budget, having the awkward conversation, maybe switching schools mid-year while relatives second-guess you.

Everything you want for your kid is on the other side of that hard.

School choice becoming federal reality doesn't remove the hard. It removes the excuse that "there's nowhere else to go."

Andrew's challenge was clear: stop waiting for the monopoly to love your child more than you do. Use the tools. Ask the questions. Share this with the parent who's still stuck thinking more funding will fix a design problem.

Andrew's sales lesson hit home for me because I live in sales: meet people where they're at. Don't argue epistemology with a mom who's watching her son fall a grade behind. Show her the path. Show her the dollars. Show her she's allowed to say no to a system that treats her like a captive customer.

$20K. $45K. $100K per student.

The numbers don't lie. The marketing does.

When outcomes collapse while budgets explode, that's not underfunding. That's a product that stopped working — and a monopoly that still collects the invoice.

Freedom AND Responsibility: The Pottery Parable

Andrew brought a pottery parable that stuck with me.

Freedom without responsibility is chaos with a flag. Responsibility without freedom is a cage with a report card.

s.

Does that mean every subsidy is suddenly sacred? No. Stay with me.

Changing Envelopes — and Why You Should Still Be Skeptical

I'm a liberty guy. Subsidies make me itchy.

Andrew didn't ask me to pretend otherwise. He made the sales argument I respect: if the money is already being taken and spent, the fight is over who controls the spend — the bureaucracy that failed your kid, or the parent who has to live with the outcome.

Changing the envelope is not the same thing as inventing a free lunch.

You should still be skeptical of any program that grows government while claiming to liberate families. Ask who writes the rules. Ask who can yank the scholarship. Ask what strings come with the dollars.

Skepticism isn't cynicism. It's adulting.

If your child's education depends on the house your parents could afford twenty years ago, that's not "equity." That's a geographic lottery with a school board logo.

Andrew's frame is simple: kids are stuck in envelopes they didn't choose. We keep stuffing more cash into the same envelopes and acting shocked when the letter comes back stamped failing.

More funding. Worse results. Repeat.

That's not a mystery. That's incentives. When the money follows the institution instead of the child, the institution's first job is protecting itself — not transforming the kid.

Yes Every Kid exists to flip that script. Not with vibes. With tools parents can actually use.