Tell us about the work that you guys have done.

So we were founded in 1998 by two gentlemen, Teddy Forsman and John Walton, and they started out to give 40,000 scholarships for four years.

They had 1,250,000 applications for the 40,000 scholarships, basically making this big, loud statement that there are a lot of people that weren't happy with what they were getting in education, that the school they were assigned to by zip code wasn't working for them.

fast forward you know in the middle of it the gentleman decided you know what we have to keep doing this because there's a lot of kids out there that need another alternative to their assigned public school so they kept doing it and then and as that's happening school choice is happening around the country we now have like you know 30 some states that actually have some form of school choice But this is taking it to a whole new level because this is making it possible for all 50 states to be able to have kids participating in school choice.

Now, there is a little every taxpayer in the country can get this dollar for dollar credit, every taxpayer with a tax liability.

But the children in a particular state cannot benefit from this scholarship if their governor does not opt into the program.

So that means like, you know, if you're located in the state of New York and Governor Hochul has indicated she's going to opt in, she hasn't done it yet.

What does it mean that you guys are going to be one of the national administrators of this program? What does that fundamentally mean?

Tell us about the work that you guys have done.

So we were founded in 1998 by two gentlemen, Teddy Forsman and John Walton, and they started out to give 40,000 scholarships for four years.

They had 1,250,000 applications for the 40,000 scholarships, basically making this big, loud statement that there are a lot of people that weren't happy with what they were getting in education, that the school they were assigned to by zip code wasn't working for them.

Fast forward, in the middle of it, the gentleman decided, you know what, we have to keep doing this because there's a lot of kids out there that need another alternative to their assigned public school.

So they kept doing it.

And as that's happening, school choice is happening around the country.

We now have like 30 some states that actually have some form of school choice.

What does it mean that you guys are going to be one of the national administrators of this program? What does that fundamentally mean?

How big of a deal is this?

Well, thank you so much.

Well, this is a really big deal.

Um, getting these regs out yesterday, there were a lot of things we couldn't do or act upon until we knew what the regulations were gonna be, and I've been poring through them.

I'm not all the way through everything, but I have to say that e- everything I've seen so far, I...

I- it's not anything unexpected.

Um, and I do think that they really tried to draft these rules in a way that was gonna make it workable for the states, workable for the SGOs, and give access f- for a lot of kids to, to go to private school.

So, uh, do you think that, uh, th- those concerns about taking money away from public schools, uh, is a legitimate concern?

Was it about opportunity? Was it about expanded opportunity? Was it essentially just helping educate for a modern society or addressing needs or problems? What was their big, bold vision?

So Ted always said, you know, monopolies deliver a bad product at a bad price.

And he and John came together around the idea that the poor people were getting a bad deal in this country.

They didn't have options.

If you were wealthier, you could opt out of a bad school.

You can either move yourself to a better school district or you could pay to go to a private school.

Poor people didn't have that option.

And please elaborate on it.