Ep. 36 "The Only Place in America Where Choice Isn’t Always Welcome - Education" - Guest Michael Benjamin

Education freedom takes a lot of work to secure, and Michael Benjamin isn’t afraid to do it. Over the past decades, he has served children in southern parts of the U.S. as he’s fought for school choice and helped create programs that assist low-income students get the education they need. His work as a choice-advocate has spurred on generational change and growth. 

Resources mentioned in Today’s Episode: 

• Michael helped co-found this extraordinary foundation that helps K-12 students from all backgrounds get scholarships they need: Step Up For Students 
• Visit the American Federation for Children, where Michael is Senior advisor in Florida. This organization helps “fund students, not systems” and gives kids their choice of K-12 education. 

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Transcript

Michael Benjamin Interview Transcript

[00:00-34:47]

ADAMS: My guest today is Michael Benjamin. He is the senior advisor for the American Federation for Children and is based in Florida. Michael, welcome to The State of Education. 

BENJAMIN: Thank you, Melvin, I appreciate it. 

ADAMS: Absolutely, it’s great to have you. We’ve been together several times recently and I always enjoy working with you. We’re excited to hear your story and about the work that you’ve been doing in Florida and other places across the country, advising, and advocating for students. 

But first, why don’t we start off by you sharing a little bit more about your own life and your background and the things that brought you to the work that you’ve been doing? 

BENJAMIN: I guess I could start with this: I was born and raised in New York, then I came to Florida in ‘92. I was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, studying economics and philosophy. I was in the class of ‘88, which dates me, but I spent about 10 years in business and financial service, and the Lord called me out of that. 

Essentially what I call it is a Solomon Prayer. I was working with youth groups, and looking at how they wanted to be adults one day and kids the next. And it was a very interesting point to begin working with children. 

But one of the things I noticed was that when I walked into the room, there was a very unusual connection, or kind of pull, that I had with kids. And it was on many different, unrelated occasions, that they would give me permission to speak into their lives. 

And one day I just had this kind of internal conversation with God like… in the Tampa Bay area, the triangle is basically Tampa Proper, Clear Water, St. Pete and there was a bridge or a causeway between each. 

And I found that for example in St. Pete, it’s a 30-minute ride but many kids never left St. Pete, never drove over to Tampa (this is 25 or so years ago) and after working with these youth groups, I started finding that some weren’t reading on grade-level, they weren’t traveling—so how would they experience something outside of their own neighborhoods? 

And I said, “Lord, who’s going to help these kids?” And I felt impressed upon me, “You.” Or “Why not you?” and I personally thought it was some bad pizza I ate. You know, I come out of this ivy league education, I’m 10 years in financial service, I’m licensed 

I’m not thinking about giving up my Johnson and Murphy shoes and Armani suits. But as the Lord would have it, just like I came to Florida from New York, it was one of those… I was planning on going to Atlanta and it was one of those pick-up-your-bed-and-walk-type situations. 

And I said, “It doesn’t really make sense. What I heard essentially pressed upon me was, “I didn’t ask if it made sense, I’m telling you to obey.” So I moved to Florida, all of these things ensued and I left the financial service world after about a decade and literally went right into a nonprofit, mowing 3.5 acres by hand, going down into 5 of the worst crime zones in the west coast of Florida and working with youth. 

And that was my first step outside of the corporate world, or what the normal track would be as most of my peers had done. And then I’ll fast forward to the education spot and I’ll pause. 

So after doing that for a number of years, there were about 400 kids in the program at the same time in St. Pete and Clear Water. And by God’s grace grew the program to 1600 kids and it was considered one of the 5 best programs of its kind in the state of Florida by the [indecipherable: 04:00].

And one of the board of advisors wanted me to use my educational experience, my professional business background and working with kids together. And there was a historic African-American school in Tampa: St. Peter Clavers, it’s about 150 years old, and it was in jeopardy of closing. 

And so they’d gotten a grant. The [indecipherable 4:27] Foundation had provided a grant and it was in order to create a business office. So I came over and took over their financial aspects and allowed the nun to do the educational aspect. 

And in the course of speaking with the people who were philanthropic to the school, I asked them: how do you want to give, how do you want to connect to the school so it doesn’t seem like you’re giving money time after time and it seemed like it was not gaining ground. 

So I came up with a financial plan. And finally, I asked one individual, and I said, “I can’t keep doing this I need to find a new revenue stream.” And he said, “Interesting. There was a representative who passed a bill that would become your new revenue stream.” And it became the Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship, which is the program in Florida that leads the nation as an example. 

ADAMS: Yeah. Wow. That’s interesting. So let me just as you a question right out of left field. What do you see as primary causes in our society that most impact children and students? 

BENJAMIN: Well, I think one of the things is the busyness of life. Most of the families that I serve and the families that AFC and other educational choice entities serve are lower-income, working-class families that many times have to hold down more than one job. 

And so just for survival, parents need to rely on their children to grow up a little faster, unfortunately. Sometimes they’re coming home and showering and changing clothes and going back out just to find the best educational environment for their children. 

And so I think with the busyness of life, some adults feel that they have the time to really get to know if a place is a good educational institution. And this goes beyond economics and income. Because the first thing you do when you move is you ask your realtor where the good schools are. 

What makes you think your realtor really knows what’s going on in the school? And then in the present day, we find out that with the pandemic, parents are now starting to find out a little bit more about what’s going on in the classroom—what their children know and don’t know. 

To continue the partnership between parents and teachers allowing access to what’s going on in the classroom and really partnering in that area. 

ADAMS: I think that’s a good point because parents have to be in this conversation and a lot of times, they want to be, but their circumstances might not allow them to be as much as they should. 

So organizations like yours are trying to help them. As I understand, you’re helping them by bringing advocacy, bringing solutions, bringing other alternative options for them to consider, and then engaging with their students in relation to education. Is that correct? 

BENJAMIN: Absolutely. You know, there’s nothing in our life… education is kind of an anomaly there, but like everything we’ve done since we’ve gotten up has been a choice, right? We’ve had what toothpaste we want to use, what soap we want to use, what neighborhood we choose, and what cars we drive. 

But even if it’s within certain economic limitations, we still have a choice among that. What we’re going to eat, which direction we’re going to comb our hair, what clothes we’re going to wear. And then you have an opportunity to sacrifice or not. Right? 

And we find that parents, time after time, are willing to sacrifice for their child’s education. And even with these choice programs, and these education freedom opportunities, parents still have some skin in the game. They still have to come up with some form of financial contribution so that they’re a part of this whole solution. 

A lot of schools have parental involvement requirements. And you know, it’s like anything else. Once you see people reaching out to you, you feel more family-like, you feel more connected, you start finding more time, and we’re seeing the results in the children progressing and having not necessarily better grades, but better learning gains, which is what we really want to see. 

ADAMS: Right, right. You know, it’s interesting. We talk a lot about choice and there are many things in life where we do have a choice. But there are still way too many people across this country, when it comes to the education of their kids, they don’t have much choice because of their own economic situation, where they happen to be living. Not everybody has the ability to just get up and go somewhere else, especially when they have a family. 

Choice in education is something that has been developing over a number of years. It started early on in states like Pennsylvania and Florida. Other states have gotten more involved recently: Arizona and West Virginia just got some major new choice options. 

So we’re seeing movement and probably more than half the states across the union now have some form of educational choice. Others are still very locked down [the idea that] you pay your taxes and the government will educate your kids. And that’s the choice that’s given. 

But let’s talk a little bit more about education choice. So you talked about the tax credit, voucher type-things that you’ve got going there. I helped do some of that here in Virginia a few years ago: the education tax credit program. 

So that started out with vouchers and then it ran into some problems. I don’t want to go too much in the weeds here, but just to help educate folks… So there are vouchers, the tax-credit things, and more recently (and I’m glad you used the expression) education freedom. 

I think a lot of the language there is more around, it’s not so much because of choice, it still puts the focus on the school or the institution, right? You can choose between this institution or that institution, but the focus is on the institution. 

Where the shift in language and the shift in focus right now is educational freedom where the efforts are so that the money follows the child, not the institution. And the parent has the freedom to educate that child how, when, and where they want. Do you want to speak more about that? 

BENJAMIN: Sure. I think all things… these are just mechanisms to get an education.

ADAMS: Right. 

BENJAMIN: It’s a pathway. It’s not the end-all, be-all. I am known across the country for my educational choice commitment. But if you cut me, I don’t bleed educational choice, I bleed kids, so if the delivery system changes, then we need to change with that in order to make sure the children have access to quality education, and that where they’re being educated is also quality. 

ADAMS: Right. 

BENJAMIN: We don’t want to exchange one faulty system for the other. Now with that said, I’m all for education (public school) being on the educational choice menu. But it can’t be the only thing. My child goes to a public magnet school. I took him out of a Christian school and put him in a full-time gifted-certified school. 

And so if things change, I give him the opportunity. There were only three full-time gifted schools in the entire county. And so when it opened up in second grade, I gave him that opportunity because he looks at the world differently, he has a 147 IQ. 

Look, if these teachers understand how he looks at the world, then I need to give him that opportunity. And then I do what I need to do according to our values at home to make sure that he understands how he operates among folks. 

But any decision that is made for a student to be in a school, other than the school that’s assigned to them by their zip code, is exercising choice. Whether you use your own money or taxpayer dollars. But there is no government money, it isn’t owned by the government. 

And quite frankly, even if it were government money…let's be realistic, let’s stop hoodwinking people, right? If this country goes to war with another country and decimates its infrastructure by bombing. 

After it’s over, even if it’s the same people that were holding up Americans and doing despicable things on video to Americans, we go back in a spend public dollars—taxpayer dollars, government dollars—and rebuild the infrastructure of a country that swore their hatred or whatever…at least the leadership of that country. Because most of the time it’s not the people it’s the leadership. The leadership makes it look like the people are following that. 

So it’s really a farce to think that these funds cannot be used to help the least of our own but yet can do it for a country whose leadership hates the United States. So we have to empower parents to choose all educational options that are on the menu. 

Whether it’s your traditional public school, charter school, homeschooling, virtual schooling, Christian, parochial, whatever it is—and allow the parent to choose what is best for that child. And in their educational path, it may change over time. And so we’re more for supporting the parent and the child than preserving an institution or a delivery system. 

ADAMS: Absolutely. So as you have been engaged with the AmericanFederation for Children, I know the tax-credit program is a primary source that you use to help fund scholarships in this way. Are there other particular things you’ve found yourself doing there to empower parents and help students find better options? 

BENJAMIN: Well in different states, and according to the temperature of the legislature and the governor, you look at what is viable to get past. 

ADAMS: Right. 

BENJAMIN: Right now there seems to be a very big move towards ESAs where you can have (let’s oversimplify) let’s say like a credit card or debit card type of situation where you can pay for tuition, educational services, transportation, tutoring, different things like that. 

And so that’s been a mechanism. For example, the 1.1 million students in Arizona now have access to a universal ESA—the ESA means Education Savings Account. 

In Florida, we use the corporate tax-credit scholarship which redirects the corporation’s tax liability and can be used to fund these scholarships for lower-income to working-class families. 

And so it really depends on the state, the climate of the legislature, the support of a governor, but what we’re really starting to see is that folks are really sobering up. 

If they weren’t receiving a year’s worth of education in a year’s time prior to the pandemic, what in the world do you think they’re getting now as they’re falling behind? And with school closures alone? 

And then how does a kid respond to not seeing their friends and finding some type of encouragement for wanting to go to school? Some are losing their love for learning and things of that nature. The parent, as we talked about before, may have more than one job. 

A good kid in front of an iPad or something, meaning well, and for three hours doing what they’re supposed to do, they go to take a break, they turn on ESPN or something just to see what happened and next thing you know, they pass out or… it’s just that normal human frailty creeps in. 

As AFC continues to be at the forefront of this, supporting legislators that support educational choice, educational freedom, and those that empower parents, standing in the gap and saying, “Hey legislators, if you are standing in this gap for this, we want to help support you.” 

And so, again to revisit your question, it really depends on what revenue works best in that area. After Katrina in Louisiana, the traditional public schools became all charter schools. 

And you know, you would hope that everyone would work together to educate the children. We know that it’s not the teachers, we know who the normal culprits are and sometimes they put golden handcuffs on excellent instructors who know they can reach their kids. 

But the framework they’re put in, they’re not free to be able to reach the kids that they need to. They’re beholden upon a system that is more persistent about preserving itself than reaching our children. 

ADAMS: So let’s dig into that just a little bit. I think the American people need to know what’s really going on and we know who the normal culprits are, as you put it. But without going too deep into that, what are we talking about? Unions? Associations? The overall educational system is driven from where? 

BENJAMIN: Well, I think that one of the challenges that the educational choice arena is that sometimes we’re not as compassionate as we need to be. That we’re sometimes too zealous in support of one thing and do not realize that these folks are not our enemy. 

ADAMS: Yeah. 

BENJAMIN: They’re folks that are trying to do the right thing. They may very well believe what they’re being told. But if you use common sense, right? Let’s just use the word “voucher”, right? That’s a word that’s been demonized or whatever. 

But if you went to war and you came back and you were on the GI bill and you were able to get an education or a house, based on a voucher, it may not be a bad thing. Vouchers seem to be a problem for the establishment from K-12, but not 13th grade or college. 

I say 13th grade to be light just if someone goes, “Let’s do said 13th grade” and then they’re like, “What was he talking about?” But in college, there’s a pell grant. God forbid you have a hard situation and the best cardiologist or surgeon is at St. Anthony’s hospital and you use Medicaid—a voucher—to get treated. 

It’s not a problem beyond K-12. Well, shouldn’t that make you just go, “What’s up with that?” So I had a conversation with a retired head of a union and he was open to conversation and I finally just said, “Look. I’ve been thinking about this and praying about this for a while and this is what I think it is. 

You tell me if I’m right because you might not want to flat-out say it. But is the main issue collective bargaining? Is the fact that you can’t collect teachers’ dues with the private schools and these choice schools really the challenge? 

“Because human frailty says that folks always want to control other folks somehow.” And then I said, “Wait, if charter schools are on the books as public schools why would the traditional public school leadership be against charter schools—its own self? Right?” 

But they can’t collect dues from them either because they’re privately run public schools. So that’s what it really seems to come down to. And then you got this inverted situation where the majority of… and listen, I’m not about partisan politics. 

Even when I vote, I cover the top and if it lines up with my values, that’s who I’m voting for. If it crosses the line, so be it. But it’s clear that unions believe certain things. 

Martin Luther King got assassinated supporting unions. So I’m not against unions. But if the teacher’s union supports 80% of a certain party and that party has the majority of the students that would benefit from the scholarship program, but yet they don’t support it with their vote, but yet the other party who typically does not support that constituent base that would be supporting… would be availing themselves of the scholarship program but stand in the gap to do it because it’s morally right, you gotta look at this inverted thing and tell that something’s up. 

ADAMS: Yep. 

BENJAMIN: And a lot of it comes down to, “I want to have a career in politics and they’re telling me that if I want to have a career in politics, this is the order of the day, this is what you’ll do or we won’t fund you and you’ll be out.” And who suffers? 

ADAMS: Yep. Follow the money. 

BENJAMIN: And who suffers? The students suffer. The children suffer. But from those that have that mindset, they benefit from whatever’s important to them: whether it’s financial stature or power. And they’ll be long gone by the time they could see the results of their handiwork with the kids. 

ADAMS: Great. A couple of quick questions for you: what is your philosophy of education in general? 

BENJAMIN: We need to teach children how to think. 

ADAMS: Absolutely. Alright. So what is one of your most rewarding stories about helping low-income students? 

BENJAMIN: Well, I can give one very specifically. Most folks will probably know her by now but let me stick with one where I went back, I was with AFC, I was with Step up for Students, which I co-founded with John Kurtley who is a phenomenal patriot and supporter of educational choice. I’ve seen this man give stuff that is inconceivable towards this effort and still has the same fervor and fight to this day. 

So I was there for about 12 years. The national movement was looking to replicate what we did in Florida and other states across the country. John released me to go with AFC and then they asked me to take over their grassroots, advocacy, mobilization, and faith base and try and come to do what we did in Florida. 

Which is an interesting balance as a national director at that time where I was a part of this huge management team. I’m now a senior advisor for the last couple of years. But essentially what you have to do is as you’re touching on different things, dig deep in one or two states and just have a presence and just start to replicate yourself in that state until someone takes it on and so forth. 

And that way, even though you’re national you have a local or a state presence. But I remember was away from Step up for Students for a while and John had called me back and they were doing a big rally and they just wanted to say, “Hey, you’ve done this from 1300 people to 6,000 people and you’ve been through all the logistics.” 

They just wanted me to come and walk around. You know, it’s a lot of people to manage. I remember I was towards the back just kinda hanging out—you know when you have a kind of new team you just try and stay out of it, right? 

But I knew so many people, they were coming up to me that I realized as the march started going toward the front, I said, “Let me go to the front just to make sure things are together” because if the tip of the spear goes bad then everyone's kinda like the pied piper, leading the wrong direction. 

So I go up front. I see a bishop and a pastor that I knew (they’re well-known). And while I’m up there and we get to a point where I’m saying, “Let the back catch up” and we’re just kind of marching in place, a parent says something to me. 

I perceived it was like… well let me just give you the illustration. So the parent’s talking to me and he’s like, “Mr. Benjamin?” and I’m like a decade into AFC at this point (I’m 12 in years this year) and then the grandmother says something and then there’s a grandson. 

I come to find out that the grandmother was the parent that I was working with years ago, the parent was the student. And the student is now the parent that has their child on the scholarship in the same institution. 

Now, first of all, I felt old, right? But it was like… especially like at the beginning and the beginning core, we were grinding so much. And there were so many people that had contributed towards the success in Florida. But I just think back in the beginning when John and I were two bachelors running all around the state—we were just grinding to make sure that this thing had roots and we were just doing what we needed to do. 

And I guess we didn't really stop to smell the roses or see the lives that were truly affected. And that literally stopped me in my tracks and made me realize what had happened just by saying yes to God. Because there’s no way I could have organized Florida in and of my own humanity.

And so when something’s bigger than yourself, you know that there has to be something at work. And so I worked in agreement and stayed in step with the Holy Spirit in order for that to happen. And you see the manifestation of kids getting access to quality education. Getting jobs, having careers. And I found that to be extremely rewarding. 


ADAMS: Absolutely, that’s a great story. Everybody out there is trying to make a difference. I think about donors who are always such a huge part and carry such a huge role in the success of all of these organizations that are working in this capacity. 

Whether it’s the ones who are benefitting from the tax-credit basis or they’re just outright donors to this organization, like our own, you know. All of us want to have an impact. We want to leave the world a better place.

And in all reality, what your story illustrated was, that when you’re doing the right thing, when you’re touching the next generation, we can always see, over time, generation impact. We don’t see it always right now. But if we’re faithful and consistent and keep working hard, keep giving, keep praying, keep voting, and keep doing all of the things necessary to bring about these kinds of changes for our children, families, and communities, we will see generational change. 

I think what’s happened in this movement over the last 20 years has been phenomenal. And I think with COVID and all of the things that are going on right now, it’s just increasing. 

And I think there are some very good days ahead for our children, for our country by improved education. And I want to thank you for the role that you’ve had over these years, I pray God continues to bless you. Let me ask this: how can our listeners learn more about your work and engage in some way? Where can they learn more about that? 

BENJAMIN: I would say that one of the best places to go is federationforchildren.org website. It is just phenomenal how things have been built out to be very palatable for those coming in that have knowledge and expertise about it or those that have no idea and want to go from not understanding this issue to understanding this issue. 

And I think that as an organization, American Federation for Children is very fair, very open to sharing the research, the polling, what has been the arguments against, what are the arguments for…

But you know, for example, even with Step up for Students, when we started in Florida, it was 15,000 children that would qualify for free or reduced lunch. Now with the combination of everything that’s under its hospices (32:12 ?), it’s over 163,000. 

ADAMS: Yeah. 

BENJAMIN: Well you just don’t hoodwink people like that and just all these people go on to it. These are not $10,000 or more dollar places most of the time. I mean these are neighborhood schools educating children that don’t have to get up at ridiculous hours and be bussed to neighborhoods they wouldn’t otherwise frequent. 

You know, I would say to donors, “You’re doing the right thing. I know the economy is challenging and folks look at it and try to figure out what's going on and some might hedge and say, ‘We’ll wait.’ You’re doing the right things. We’re giving our gifts and talents, we’re able to have success and it’s not to be for ourselves.

“So if you’ve had a partnership with organizations where you know how they’re spending the money, you can see the results, you know you’re helping the next generation—know you’re doing the right thing and stay at it.”

ADAMS: Yeah. 

BENJAMIN: And we just need to be there to support our parents in and share information about what it is, share information about what it’s not, have pow-wows where we sit down and just allow folks to have discourse. 

But the bottom line is that locally you have to get involved. You have to know what’s going on. Just like you found out with the pandemic, there are other institutions where you don’t really know what’s going on. Like school boards, you may not know what’s going on. 

Your state legislator. Just remember: you put them in the capital to represent you. Don’t let them be in the capital coming back and representing the capital to you. Keep them accountable, let them know what you want, and watch their votes. It’s all public stuff. 

And don’t get overwhelmed by trying to do everything in a day. Just learn one new thing a day, a couple of new things a week, just so that you know what folks are doing, what they’re supporting, and whether it supports your values or not. And if it doesn’t, you’ve got to speak. And if you don’t, someone else is going to speak toward your child’s future. 

ADAMS: Absolutely. Very well said. And this is ultimately about our children, it’s about the future of our country. And so thank you, Michael Benjamin, for spending time with us today, thanks for all you're doing and we look forward to connecting with you further down the road. 

BENJAMIN: I look forward to it, Melvin.