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George Khalaf is a trusted authority on K-12 education policy, data, and political strategy at the local, state, and national levels – and he’s here today to answer your questions and concerns about Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs)!

Could the government start regulating my child’s education if I take ESA money? What does the evolution of an ESA program look like? Will states with private school ESA funds eventually support homeschool students, too? We’ll tackle these questions and more in this episode.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us George Khalaf. George works for an organization called First Day, and you'll hear a little bit more about that and what they do. At Veritas, we've worked with them for years now. But before we get into that, George. Welcome.

George Khalaf:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on, Marlin.

Marlin Detweiler:
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Your background, your education, your family, that sort of thing.

George Khalaf:
Absolutely. So, I was born in Lebanon. I'm actually going tomorrow to visit family. So I was born in the north of Lebanon, near the Cedars. I moved to the United States when I was five years old. Have been in Phoenix, Arizona for the vast majority of my life. 30 years this coming year. I'm married, with two beautiful boys and a third on the way, due at the end of October.

Marlin Detweiler:
A third boy?

George Khalaf:
Third boy.

Marlin Detweiler:
Boy oh boy!

George Khalaf:
And I love what I do, as you mentioned, I run a marketing firm that specializes in K-12 education. That was something I cared about even before I had kiddos. But now it's especially top of mind and top of heart. Now that I have, we have two, fourth and third grade going into fourth and third grade. And then obviously a little one third little one on the way.

Marlin Detweiler:
Very good, very good. Well, the organization that you founded, with your partner, Jenny, that we've had some interaction with, and she's been on the podcast as well, but the organization's called First Day. Tell us about its mission and purpose.

George Khalaf:
Yeah. So First Day in the name. I'll start with the name. And the reason why it's called First Day is, first day of school. I know some folks around the country, I know Arizona. We've already starting school. This week was the first day of school for some folks. I know that.

Marlin Detweiler:
Oh my word.

George Khalaf:
Yes, Sparky. That's for. And that it won't be until Labor Day. We're going to be halfway through the semester by then. I might get a start early August, but the emotions that we feel as parents around the first day of school, it's a tremendously important time. As you get older, the emotions that you feel as a kid. Marketing education is not like marketing.

I like to say toasters or protein bars or whatever it may be. Those things are important and you need them, but not like essentially, sort of the future of a child. That's really what we're marketing is 12 years worth of and engagement, obviously with the good work and the great work you all do at Veritas, that affects a child's entire life as they go into adulthood.

And so that's the name behind it. And so what we do is we're a full service marketing, strategic consulting and public relations firm solely focused on nontraditional K-12. So not that we're opposed, but we don't really do tons of work in the public district schools or public charter schools and even the the typical full time, in person private school.

Most of our clients are folks that educate online curriculum, serve kiddos that are in a little bit of a different way, kind of what we like to call lovingly the unbundled or home educating or homeschooled as they're traditionally known, families. And we serve anyone who serves them, and we do it in a myriad of different ways.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Very good. Well, we got connected for a number of reasons, but I think it was primarily around the whole idea of funding being available for private education, for homeschooling, education, and the, acronym is ESA. Tell us what ESA stands for.

George Khalaf:
The ESA stands for, a couple of different things depending on your base, but essentially it's an education savings account. Or in Arizona it's called an empowerment scholarship account. But basically those are dollars available to a parent from the government that amounts to about 90% of what that child would be allocated in the state's general fund budget to not get super wonky and sort of how they fund the budget.

So in Arizona, that's an average of $7,600. In Texas, that's going to be about 10,000. And Utah about $8,000. So it depends on the state what the amount is those dollars get given to parents, essentially every year. And they can use those some states more permission, you know, more permissionless others. There's a lot more hoops that you have to jump through. We can talk a bit about that.

Marlin Detweiler:
Those who hold off on that till we get further in here. When I first heard of that, and I live in Florida most of the year in Florida, of course, is one of those states you mentioned. But all, frankly, for us, one of the easiest states to deal with and not because I live there, but because of the rules that they've come up with.

And they're now somewhere between $7,500 and $8,000. You may know the number of the top of your head. And I wondered, boy, that seems like an awful lot of money to be making available. And then I found out that they've do it in many respects as a budget savings item, because the alternative sending children to public schools is a lot more money.

And so they're buying down discounts. In a sense, by making this money available, that people make the choice of getting out of the public system purely from an economic standpoint, is that your understanding of their motivation or is there more to it?

George Khalaf:
I think there's more to it. I hope there's more to it.

Marlin Detweiler:
I do too, but that's what you.

George Khalaf:
But in general, in general from a budget perspective, at a minimum state save 10%, no state funds, 100% of the general fund allocation. But it's a key thing. And again, we're going to get a little bit wonkish for just a second, that doesn't even factor in local tax dollars. Often many states fund education through local tax dollars or federal monies that, for the most part, stays with the state.

So it's an even greater cost savings. But just to be fair, it's at least a 10% cost savings. So that to me is, yes, a big motivation. I personally would hope that we talk more about the motivation than the fact that not every kid gets educated the same way we need to do that. But of course, the budgetary considerations are a part of it because, as we know, government's main job is to dish out tax dollars. And so if it can save them some and give parents choice, of course that's a win win.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, yeah. It's my understanding that, is that a lot of this got some traction at state levels because of the Supreme Court ruling not too long ago. Are you able to speak to that off the top of your head?

George Khalaf:
The Supreme Court ruling?

Marlin Detweiler:
A Supreme Court ruling that essentially, we may be going down a path that we can't complete the journey on here. But that essentially, I'll call it, liberalized the interpretation of how state funds could be used in families wanting private Christian education.

George Khalaf:
Yes, yes, I know what you're talking about. So that did affect it for some states, because for some states they leaned on the Blane amendment. That was the case out of Montana that went up to the US Supreme Court. That is the case. But we've had actually ESA’s for before that case came down. But many states that kept getting stopped in the courts, but that really opened it.

So that took a major argument that opponents of school choice used when states passed it. And so they had to go through other means. And now typically they're attacking it in other ways, but they no longer can do so because of the fact that these dollars go for religious education. That is.

Marlin Detweiler:
Correct. So we're trying to keep track on our website. I'm not prepared to give the URL with states that are in fact, using or making ESA funds available so that our constituents can find that. But would you like to know your website? Because I know you have a map that people can refer to as well.

George Khalaf:
Yeah. So, our website is https://www.firstdaypr.com/ folks can go there to get connect with us, ask any questions and be able to see more information about empowerment scholarship accounts. There are about 17 to 18 states, depending on how you exactly define it. That gives some version. Now, some of those states that I will say are exceptionally limited.

For example, they can only be used for in-person, traditional private education. Actually, about 5 or 6 of them are that way. And then another handful are more limited. There's only 5 or 6 states that are very open. I'm proud that Arizona is one of them. Florida is very open. Utah, Arkansas, West Virginia, a couple of others, Iowa and Alabama and others are getting there, Georgia.

But there's still a little bit more limited. You know, there's one important thing depending on where folks obviously, we know folks listen from around the country, even if your state doesn't have the perfect program today, what we are seeing happen is that you incrementally called incrementalism in public policy. You pass some version of it, and then you build on it and build on and build on.

In Arizona, we started in 2012, and it was not until 2021 that we were able to get full universal. So it was a process to get there.

Marlin Detweiler:
Sometimes we call it the camel getting its nose under the tent.

George Khalaf:
There you go. Yeah, that's another way of saying the exact same thing. Exactly.

Marlin Detweiler:
That's great. That's great. So tell me, let's take maybe you can do this in what might be a typical fashion. Believe me, I understand because we're dealing with approvals in all the states that you've mentioned. But can you describe what might be typical or maybe commonplace in how a family listening to this might look find their state has that as funds available and then, get into the process of getting access to those funds.

George Khalaf:
Yeah. So typically and again every state is going to do a little bit differently. As you mentioned, family would go online to their state Department of Education or whatever that it's called. It could be sometimes the Superintendent of Education's website, you name it, you fill out an application. That application gets approved typically by the state, sometimes what we call the ESA administrator, or is the company that's been contracted by the state to administer the program.

Then once your approval, once your contract has been approved, or once you've been approved, you sign a contract and then you get access to the portal for whatever that state. So there's a handful of companies that run these programs. The administrators, you log on to that respective website by creating a login, and then that's when you'll figure out how often money's come and how you can, you know, spend them.

Typically monies come once a quarter. Right. That's the typical way they divide it into four, a handful of states paid upfront. That's rare, but that's the typical experience. And the typical experience is a lot of states have application windows for parents. So Arizona and a couple of others parents are able to apply year round.

But many states have application windows that are open typically that are in the spring. Some states have them throughout the year. But the typical time, if they have one window, they open it in the spring time, obviously in anticipation for the next, for the next calendar year, for the next school year.

Marlin Detweiler:
I've been involved. You wouldn't know this church, but I've been involved in classical Christian education now since 1992. Wow. And I have watched its value and benefits be realized by tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of students. And it is making a dramatic impact. But one of the things that was always the case was just like a lot of things in life.

It was not available to a lot of people because they couldn't afford to pay for education twice, once through their tax dollars and a second time through tuition. And that tuition was, of course, after tax dollars, making it even more expensive. And so this kind of arrangement being made available has opened up the doors to people who haven't previously had opportunity or access.

Have you seen that a lot? What kind of expressions of gratitude or other ways of it being communicated are you hearing?

George Khalaf:
On a daily, weekly basis? We hear from families that say, this is it. If it wasn't for this, I would not have access to it. And the unfortunate reality is there's been a state I'm going to pick on Illinois for a moment that had a version of a state program and they rolled it back. So imagine, Marlin, they gave families opportunities and then they took it back.

And then to hear those stories is the most heartbreaking. But look, one of my biggest motivating factors for what I do in life. Well, first and foremost, it comes from God as a Christian, but is because of my experience I had to. I just went to public school. My parents didn't know. I mean, we probably wouldn't have sort of been able to get the access to the ESA, but they didn't know that any type of program existed.

They didn't know charter schools were around, and my parents couldn't afford it. My dad had to work a couple of jobs, but he came from Lebanon. My parents were learning English. My dad to, you know, go to school and have a job at night and have a job during the day. And three kids and, you know, thank God for my mom and her being able to stay at home for the most part.

And so what this affords is us, for us to unlock that. I've been talking a lot about vision and hope. This to me unlocks an ability for people who may not otherwise have hope for a new future. Not that their public school is bad, it may be for some people, but for those that desire for something else, especially to desire for classical Christian education and to have their children educated in a way that aligns with their family values.

It's this or it's nothing. There's no other opportunity like that. So that's why I'm a big believer, and it's one of those, for me, die on the hill type things. I will advocate and defend ESA's and tax credits and all of the things that are in this bucket for the rest of my life, because of the importance that it affords families across the United States.

Marlin Detweiler:
I couldn't agree more. What states do you see on the horizon? And I'm not asking for insider information here. I don't know if you have access to things that you're not permitted to talk about. But to the extent that you're able to talk about things, what information do you see on the horizon that will be coming to people who don't live in any of the states currently listed, might look to for hope.

George Khalaf:
Yeah. So this is a state that's already passed. It's happening, but it's happening in the 26-27 school year. So it's a year from now Texas. So definitely I don't you know nobody can ever sleep on Texas. It's a huge state with a larger than life personality. It's going to have a large program right off the bat. They passed funding for 100,000 kiddos approximately.

Beyond that, Louisiana is a state that unfortunately had a program, and then their elected officials couldn't agree and their program got rolled back. So that's one I would watch. Tennessee has a limited program that is only for private, private school full time, in person. There's a lot of folks there. We've been proud to work for some with some folks in Tennessee that are working on that.

Hope to get that to homeschool families. North Carolina and South Carolina have programs, but again, they're limited. And then really we get into the Midwestern states. Both North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas all try to do some version, and then they were stopped. I also would be remiss to say, I don't know if it's quite on the horizon, but Pennsylvania and Ohio are two states that should not be as difficult as it is.

But Ohio, unfortunately, just had their courts once again roll back a long standing program there, the Ohio voucher program that they call it, their choice program. And then Pennsylvania has been working at it for a little bit. But those that I mentioned at the beginning, typically they're southern states at this point, they're the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak.

But I'll tell you more less until the tell the folks that are going to listen, they're listening. We're running out of low hanging fruit. Moving forward, these states are going to get really, really difficult, and we're going to need folks to stand up and advocate for this, because it's not going to be easy after a couple of years. I mean, it's not easy now, but get even.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, I had an order. I wanted to take things in in our discussion, but I'm going to move out of order here a little bit. What might federal legislation might put states in a, in a different position that are otherwise not considered low hanging fruit?

George Khalaf:
Yes. So, there's a lot happening at the federal level, amazingly. And it's taken us a long time to get here, and I cannot underscore that enough. It's years and years and years of people advocating for this, and we finally got a taste of it. Not fully. I'll explain why. So there is the Educational Choice for Children's Act, which is the main bill federally, ECCA for short, that has been put forward for the last number of sessions and the House and Senate and signed by the president, just recently passed a federal tax credit program that allows families to as as donors, as contributors.

You can contribute $1,700 of your federal tax liability. But most importantly, then parents can submit to what they call scholarship granting organizations to then be able to take scholarships for open, open use. The federal government wrote it so that you can use it for private school tuition and curriculum and all kinds of fun things. Folks can use it for Veritas. This is the catch, though. That's unfortunate. They allowed governors to opt in their state. So it went from being everywhere in the nation. And that's what we were advocating for. And our firm was advocating for everywhere in the nation, all 50 states. So now a governor has to opt in. So politics will unfortunately once again come into play.

But there's already talk that they're looking to change that opt in protocol, because once they do.

Marlin Detweiler:
The ACCA is a bill that was passed and is not part of the big beautiful bill. Right?

George Khalaf:
It is. No, no, the federal tax, the only federal tax program that we have is part of the big beautiful bill. Okay. Our limited one ECCA looked different than this, but unfortunately, without getting into too many details, the Senate Parliamentary, there was a logistical issue in the Senate that caused the bill to turn into the version that I just described.

Marlin Detweiler:
I see okay, now, can you help us understand? And I guess I'm just asking you to describe how does herding cats work? But can you help us understand how states tend to approach this? In other words, help us understand how they vary in their approach and why?

George Khalaf:
Yeah. So it typically starts with a strong executive. And I cannot underscore that. States with strong governors, governors that believe in these programs typically end up with the programs, even in the face of opposition from members of the legislature. Why? Because the governor has disproportionate power, veto power, no pun intended. And so they use that leverage to get these programs passed.

And they typically approach it for the most part, having it be as open as possible. But we have without getting too much into politics, we have political dynamics in this country that affect both parties, ironically, and some of these southern states that I mentioned, the reason why there's not full school choice is because there's a lot of rural members that view that school choice would harm their public schools and their rural communities that obviously employ many members and constituents of theirs, and probably family members and you name it.

And so but we know that what happens in rural America is not what's happening in urban America and in our suburbs. And so there's this tension between the two that this is not to solve any problem with rural America. It's to help those who do not have access to that. So states start permission, you know, they start open, but then they get tightened down depending on the members.

Because we know elected officials, they often get anxious and often get anxious because of the reelections. And so they fall prey, unfortunately, sometimes to talking points from the other side, that school choice, it's harmful that it takes money away from public schools and that it harms kids, which we know none of those things are true, but sometimes they get into that.

And so these programs end up being a lot more tightened down, in some states.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. So, would it be primarily political, maybe a silly question here that a state like Florida or a state like Arizona would have some of the best laws in terms of the benefit to the home schooling and Christian schooling community than a place like, of course, Illinois or Ohio or Pennsylvania, which don't really have programs at this point.

But what is it about those? Is there something more than politics, more than conservative thinking, that does affect this whole process in terms of establishing it? Is it really a political thing where conservatives support choice and, liberals or progressives don't? Or is there more?

George Khalaf:
So, yes or no, the, I wish it was a simple to say that the average conservative voter in America supports in in the average progressive or liberal does not because actually survey research. And I've got a survey research background and we do a lot of polling on this survey. Research shows that a plurality, actually more than two thirds of Americans on average, across the country, in every state, of every background, of every ethnicity, of every social, economic make up, support, school choice.

There's two words. There's one entity that's two words that does not support school choice. And they stand in the opposition and that's teachers unions. They are the ones in these states that then compel their elected members to not listen to their constituents because their constituents want it and support it. You're talking to African-American voters. Hispanic voters registered Democrats between 60 and 80% in Arizona, 80% of Hispanic voters, regardless of their party registration, support school choice.

Yet not a single elected Democrat today is willing in Arizona to argue for full school choice because of the teachers unions.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, teachers unions have been quite powerful for quite a long time, and the existence of them, when overlaid with the school results do not bode well. They're not a definitive answer. I'm not trying to create a fallacy here of a post hoc, propter hoc, but it does seem to me the teachers unions are ultimately not looking out for the best interest of education, the best interest of students.

George Khalaf:
No, no, they have gone and unfortunately, they have gone political to things that are even outside of education. And they really are just beholden to one mindset. I don't want to see one political party. It's really one mindset, that is left of center. Very much so. And then it's about money. Because the more I think about this, the less students that are partaking in public schools.

I mean, we see this the public school district I graduated from in Arizona is shrinking, even though it's in an area that's growing like crazy. Why? Because that area has the highest percentage of kids that are educated outside of their traditional designated public district school for a whole bunch of reasons, and they view that as competition, where we view it as parents.

And I was going to say the main catalyst, by the way, for school choice. So didn't even touch on this is what happened four years ago was a horrible event in our nation. Five years ago was Covid. That was it. Covid was the biggest catalyst behind school choice. We've had school choice for a long time. We had zero states that were full.

S.A., what we call universal. So every child has access to them. We are now up to 17 to 18, as we mentioned. And it was literally because of what parents saw during Covid that propelled that conversation.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Let me just say parenthetically, if you're children, if you're listening and your children are in an institution including ours, our online school, you should not assume that you can implicitly trust the educator to do with your child what you want them to do. You need to be an active parent involved in your child's education, knowing that they're getting what you think they should.

George Khalaf:
Yeah, that's I mean, that's our job as parents. And look, it's hard. I've got two kiddos third on the way. I know you've got kiddos yourself that you, that you all raised. That's it's not for the faint of heart. Yeah, but it's also the most joyful thing in the world to be a parent. It's a joy, the most joyful thing.

And that's what gives me energy. And I know what gives you energy. And you're great team to do all the great work that you all love and that you all. But I could not echo that enough.

Marlin Detweiler:
So let's move to the federal level a little bit. Tell us what the big beautiful bill did. You mentioned the tax credit. I was completely unaware of that. I'm more aware of what's happening with 529 plans. But tell us what the bill did for, well, you call and I don't mind the term alternative education.

George Khalaf:
So. So two big things. One, it passed this tax credit at the federal level. So for you, for those folks that are in states that have a tax credit, it would function similarly to your state tax credit contributor $1,700 parents goes to a scholarship granting organization and could seek a scholarship from them to educate their child in the way they see fit.

And it's going to be available in states where the governor, for now, opts in a lot more details to come. I know I gave a very truncated tons of questions that I'm sure that the listeners have and that I have that will be teased out in federal rulemaking on the 529, which is exciting. In the original Trump tax cuts in 2017, they expanded or 18 they expanded 529 to include K-12 expenses.

They just doubled that amount. So now a family could use up to $20,000 for a K-12 expense from their 529, which is obviously a big deal.

Marlin Detweiler:
Is that per a family or student?

George Khalaf:
I would need to double check on that. I would need to double check on that. I do not have that off the top of my head. But I believe it would be per kiddo because it's per 529 accounts. I'm fairly certain it's per account, so it'd be for.

Marlin Detweiler:
An a 529 account. Just to be clear, is a parent can say, I want to put this amount of money away per year for my child's education. And you're saying that that is probably $20,000 a year per child, and that becomes then tax deductible on one's personal income tax at a federal level. So if I make $100,000 a year and I put 20,000 in an account and my 100,000, if that's my taxable amount, that reduces to 80,000.

It goes into the 529 account. And out of that 529 account, I can spend it that year for that child's education. That year.

George Khalaf:
That is correct. And some folks obviously what, what typically 529 are known for is that they accrue your credit for college, so you can use it for college tuition and dorms, but now you can use it for K-12. But to but to clarify, the contribution amount I believe is higher than 20 K. It's just what is allowed to be expensed on K-12 expenses every year. Just to clarify, I believe the contribution amount varies.

Marlin Detweiler:
You can get a greater deduction if I put more in. I just can't spend more in that year.

George Khalaf:
That's correct.

Marlin Detweiler:
My point was yeah, it it can pass through the account. It's not like it has to sit there for a year or two. It can pass through. And what it has the effect of doing is making, my educational expenses tax deductible in simple, terms. In terms of its effect.

George Khalaf:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think folks that have an HSA, health savings account, this would function the exact same way. It allows you to make your health care expenses up to a certain amount. Pre taxes would allow you to make education. Now proponents of school choice obviously we like this because anything that allows parents to do this is good particularly you know this would definitely benefit parents that have more means because you're able to contribute more and save more on your taxes.

But the unfortunate reality is this is still their parents dollars, right? So they're still paying tax dollars. And if they're educating their kid on other, other places. So if you're in New Jersey, you're still paying a lot in and property tax. It's going to the local school. And now you're using your own money for this. But at least it's better. It's better than nothing. Definitely. Definitely.

Marlin Detweiler:
And without the ESA's accounts, or without regard for the ESA accounts, the people that come to us, the tens of thousands of people that we have the pleasure of serving, can actually set up a 529 that will allow for deductibility of their, of their contribution, which can be used then for expenses. So they're having the ability to pay for something pretax rather than after tax. And that's a thing.

George Khalaf:
It's an amazing thing. I mean, and look I, you know, I, I would love for the right to be as low as it can be, but if it's going to be where it is, then, then obviously this is why the federal government builds in these sort of dynamics, but this is a big deal. And again, I will admit I should have been more aware of this over the years.

Apparently my wife was aware of it. I was I was not, but it's important for folks to be aware to ask if you have an accountant or your CPA or somebody, because your state likely has an allowance for this, because every state does a little bit differently, even though it's a federal program and it is very helpful. And now it's become even more helpful.

Marlin Detweiler:
What are there other federal plans that you think are in the works, or that the Trump administration is likely, to pursue?

George Khalaf:
So there's a lot of federal programs, without sort of going into all the details that are around kiddos with unique needs. So definitely, if you have a if you have a kiddo that has a unique need, autism, Down's syndrome, you name it, there's a lot that's available there. But beyond that, really the big thing that folks are focused on is making this federal tax credit that I mentioned earlier better because we want it to be available in every state.

We do not want to let the governors of California and New York and New Jersey, you can see the theme of the states that I'm mentioning, say, Illinois. Say, no, I do not want to participate in this program. We want them to not have a choice in that, because we want kids across the country to have access. So that's really the biggest thing.

And of course, for anyone who's following the news, you can tell there's a lot that's changing from a federal perspective around education funding in the education department with I want to say one thing that everyone is clear about this. Any change that happens with the Department of Education means that moneys that they dole out will be given in in unique ways.

There's very little that's actually being held back. It's not about adjusting money, it's more about who controls what happens. And is it the Department of Education that set aside or is it someone else? But beyond that, and the federal tax credit, those are really the two big federal pieces right now.

Marlin Detweiler:
There are two objections that sometimes people will come up with. One is just the general principle objection. I don't want the government subsidizing me. The other is I don't want to take money that is directionally coming from the government. And we do need to understand, and this may be part of your answer, that all may the government has it got from us in the first place.

But I'm concerned that if I take money from the government at some point, they may tell me what I can do, with the education that I was otherwise planning on doing things. And they may tell me I can do. I can't do the things I need to do or insist on doing, insist I do things I don't want to do. How do you address those concerns?

George Khalaf:
Amazing question. I talk about this all the time. So a couple of things. One, first and foremost, I'm going to start with what you sort of outlined about the money piece. This is our money that we gave the government that they are giving back to us, that once it comes back becomes our money. So so legally, don't think of it as tax dollars for folks that are listening.

Think of it as as your money that you are allocating around wherever it originated from, wherever the original source, legally. And any state that has these programs legally, it becomes your money. Second, in any state that's passed these types of programs, we have built in strong protections in those states from the government, no matter if it ever changes hands, whatever state that you live in, from the government ever telling folks, anything about how they educate their kids.

And most importantly, you re-up it every year. And so, for example, if a state changes directions, God forbid something happens and they're trying to sort of tighten the program or tell Christian parents they can't teach Christian values, then then you can step back if we ever get to that point. But again, you're protected in the state law.

You're also protected with 30 or 40 years of jurisprudence from the US Supreme Court and others because of the great work that our homeschool community did long before educating kids outside of the traditional means was a popular thing to do. We've been fighting these battles for a long time in this nation, and so that's another big thing.

We have a lot of federal laws on the on the books. And I'll say one last important thing. It may this may not be for everybody. I run into parents sometimes who say, George, this is great, but this is not for me. And I said, you know, it's okay, it's okay, I know I have it before you let yourself continue.

So in Arizona, we have what's called affidavit homeschooling, an ESA, homeschooling, homeschool via affidavit. Do not accept USA dollars, but please don't advocate so that another family who does not have the means, who is not able to do that in USA, don't advocate for them not to have an ability. You know, we've seen this happen, and I and I take great offense to Christians that also use the word to argue against school choice.

Marlin, to use verses in Exodus and different things like that which we can get into it. And another time. And so that's another that's really where I leave us off. Is that just because it doesn't feel right for you? You choose to do what's best for your family, but do not take that right or do not advocate to take that right away from from other kids and other families that just do not are not able to do it on their own financially.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. That is we've run over a little bit and that's a great place to stop. George, thank you so much for joining us today.

George Khalaf:
Thank you so much from me, Marlin.

Marlin Detweiler:
And folks, thank you for joining us on another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of Classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time.