School choice is flourishing in America, with millions of kids now using vouchers to attend private schools, going to publicly funded charter schools, benefiting from open-enrollment policies, being schooled at home, and more.

What are the forces that are driving the acceptance of choice programs, does choice increase student performance, and are traditional public schools being left behind? These are some of the questions Nick Gillespie puts to Lisa Snell, the director of education research at Reason Foundation. Snell is one of the architects of the reform that's known as the "weighted student formula," in which education dollars follow a particular student to whatever school he or she attends (extra dollars are added for students with learning problems and other issues). Not only does the weighted student formula give more control and options to students, it also allows for an end-run around conventional school districts, which often soak up huge amounts of per-pupil funding before it reaches the classrom—or a teacher's paycheck.

Snell explains the growing appeal of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), which allow parents to spend money on a wide variety of educational services and hyper-personalize their children's education.

Education reformer Jay P. Greene offers a powerful and uplifting libertarian vision of the role of education that firmly rejects not only centralized control but also stultifying conformity. If you want to get a sense of not only where education policy is headed but the role it can and should play in a truly free society, listen now.

Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason.com Associate Editor talk to Nick Gillespie about the spectacle and substance of Donald Trump's inaugural address, the size and force of the Women's March (which pulled an estimated 500,000 people), and the start of National School Week, an annual event promoting the ability of parents and students to have greater options in K-12 education.

President Trump is full-throated in his support of choice and his controversial pick for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, is a high-profile activist in the school-choice movement. Will the Trump era be the moment when letting parents and kids choose where to go to school becomes the norm? Or will the toxicity of Trump on other issues kill the momentum in favor of choice?

On Tuesday night, Reason's Matt Welch participated in an event at The SoHo Forum with New York magazine political writer and frequent libertarian-baiter Jonathan Chait, author of the published-just-this-week Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail. The proposition under discussion was: "Based on his record of accomplishments, Barack Obama has been a great president." Listen to the event!

Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason Editor at Large Matt Welch join Nick Gillespie to discuss Barack Obama's farewell speech (the one where he talked about the need revive "democratic institutions" after arrogating more and more power to the executive branch), Donald Trump's latest word salad (check out his London Times interview!), and whether Trump Derangement Syndrome is less, more, or the same as previous presidential iterations.

And as a bonus, we each discuss one hugely positive development that has nothing to do with politics. You'll have to listen to get the full skinny, but the answers include HBO's The Young Pope, the Baseball Hall of Fame, and hand-knit "pussy hats."

As Barack Obama leaves the White House, his supporters point to low unemployment rates and low inflation as proof that his economic policies were a smashing success that saved the United States from another great depression.

Gene Epstein, columnist at Barron's and the author of Econospinning: How To Read Between the Lines when the Media Manipulate the Numbers, is having none of it.

In a new Reason podcast, Epstein tells Nick Gillespie that Obama was terrible on economic policy and he doesn't think Donald Trump will be much better, either. Despite deregulatory gestures in some areas (such as energy policy and finance), Trump is full-square in favor of trade protectionism and keeping immigrants out of the country. Free trade and a growing population are essential to economic health.

A lot of people are unhappy these days, writes James Poulos in his brilliant new book, The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves. James Poulos' The Art of Being Free isn't just a pleasant diversion from the dog-eat-dog world of 24/7 news and partisan bickering. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet for the mind, groaning with allusions to history, political science, economics, literature, and pop culture: Socrates, Nietzche, Netflix, The Smashing Pumpkins, Seinfeld, Stendahl, and Scooby-Doo all make appearances in this essay about getting beyond superficial politics to the parts of life that really matter. And along the way, he charts a path that just might lead back to politics that will help us all be free to become whomever we think we want to be.

A late-thirtysomething writer for The Week, National Interest, The Daily Beast, and elsewhere, Poulos talks with Nick Gillespie about how Americans have historically tied ourselves in knots because "we love equality, we want unity, we fear uniformity." Using Tocqueville's Democracy in America as his lantern, he wanders far and wide through today's noisy landscape and brilliantly dispels "the sense of haunted despair" that so many of us wear like our favorite hoodie.

At the Golden Globe awards, actress Meryl Streep gave an impassioned speech calling for creative types to stand up for the little guy now that Donald Trump is just week's away from becoming the 45th president of the United States. Was her speech just more Hollywood virtue-signaling or does it carry the harsh truth that the billionaire developer is going to rule with an iron fist and a harsh Twitter account? And while we're at it, isn't the presidency vastly more powerful than it was when Barack Obama took office eight years ago? What's up with *that,* coastal elites?

In the newest Reason podcast, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor at Large Matt Welch, and Reason.com's Nick Gillespie talk about all this and more.

Glenn Greenwald is arguably the most consistent critic of government abuses of civil liberties, regardless of which party holds power. He's also a champion of whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks, and Edward Snowden, whose work he was central to making known to the broader public. He talks with Nick Gillespie about Russian "hacks," fake news, Barack Obama's out-of-control presidency, and why Donald Trump taking office just might spark a movement to restrain the executive branch.

Nick Gillespie talks with Peter Suderman, features editor for Reason and one of the country's sharpest analysts of Obamacare. Is the nation's mandatory health insurance program entering a "death spiral" and will it be Republicans, of all people, who end up embracing legislation they attacked for the past eight years? Beyond rising premiums and costs in state insurance exchanges, how is Obamacare affecting the majority of Americans who still have insurance via their jobs? And is there really any clear connection between having health insurance and having better health?