Education and the Opportunity to Exercise Freedom
Tyler Stock serves as Program Officer for Early Education at Welborn Baptist Foundation, where he advances regional education initiatives, he also leads Grow a nonprofit capacity-building platform, and guides learning and data strategy for the Foundation. A Posey County native with a Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Southern Indiana, he previously led the Evansville Regions Collective Impact Strategy (Talent EVV) and the Evansville Regional Economic Partnerships talent initiatives, bringing partners together to strengthen education, workforce development, and community well-being.
Who supports a child’s freedom when the adults around them cannot?
That question lingered with me after our MDLF discussions on education. We explored the roles of government, families, and communities, then examined higher education’s value and future. Across both sessions, I kept returning to the same concern: how do we make individual liberty attainable for people who lack the resources, relationships, or support to exercise it?
In my work at Welborn Baptist Foundation, education and opportunity are closely connected. I entered these discussions with a strong belief in public education. The readings and conversations challenged me to explain that belief more clearly and examine what a credible defense requires.
Indiana’s Constitution describes knowledge and learning as “essential to the preservation of a free government.” That language frames why public education matters to me. Schools help prepare people to direct their lives, evaluate information, and participate in decisions that affect others. I see a strong public education system as a shared commitment to developing those capacities, regardless of a child’s circumstances.
Our discussion pressed on the family’s role. Families should guide their children’s values and have a meaningful voice in their education. However, what happens when a family is in crisis, a caregiver is absent, or parents lack the resources to navigate educational options? Who then protects the individual agency of a child? A child’s opportunity to learn won’t wait for a circumstance or situation to improve… Time is finite and each moment is valuable.
This is where MDLF’s values of personal responsibility and individual liberty come into perspective. Children develop the capacity to exercise responsibility and demonstrate agency through education, relationships, and lived experience. Adults share responsibility for supporting that development, and our public-school systems provide an enduring institution through which communities can honor that commitment.
Still, a promise of access doesn’t provide a final stance on who should deliver education or how much power institutions should hold. William Haupt’s discussion of Milton Friedman emphasizes parental choice and competition. John Stuart Mill warns against concentrating education in state hands and stresses “diversity of education.” Those arguments deserve serious consideration from anyone defending public schools.
A family whose child is poorly served should not be asked to accept inadequate education simply to preserve an institution—echoing the old adage of “well we’ve always done it this way” is just not good enough. Choice can give families leverage and make room for approaches that better meet a child’s needs. Supporting public education means insisting that it earns trust through effective teaching, responsiveness, rigor, and a culture of respect for independent thought.
Another question I wrestle with is whether greater educational choice could deepen existing polarization by separating students into communities with similar beliefs, values, and worldviews, rather than cultivating environments of difference and growth. I remain concerned about that possibility, but we can’t assume that our public education system fosters understanding across differences just because they are public. Every educational setting should be assessed for whether it broadens students’ perspectives or limits them.
I’m left wondering how we can ensure educational choice is present for children with the least support and resources. Access to high-quality teaching, diverse perspectives, and reliable guidance is essential to helping them develop the agency to shape their own futures.
That concern carried into our higher education discussion: do students have the resources and guidance to make informed choices about what comes next? I remain convinced that completing a 4-year degree can be a powerful path to long-term economic mobility. That makes me sensitive of how messages questioning its value reach students who lack financial security, professional connections, or reliable guidance, and ultimately how these narratives influence those for which the stakes are highest for.
Sara Goldrick-Rab and David Labaree’s dialogue made that concern real. Goldrick-Rab describes students whose work and family pressures interrupt education they genuinely want to pursue. Their circumstances challenge assumptions about motivation and remind me that offering an opportunity is different from making it attainable.
Yet defending college also requires acknowledging that its costs and outcomes can make another pathway the better decision. Bruno Manno’s reading highlights alternatives and partnerships connecting education with employers and work experience. These approaches show the importance of private enterprise in helping people develop skills and access opportunity. Daniels’s reading adds expectations for affordability, academic rigor, and stronger oversight.
My concern is whether students receive enough information and support to choose well. Degrees, apprenticeships, and credentials should face serious questions about cost, learning, advancement, and long-term opportunity. We should also ask whether a pathway keeps further education within reach. Ultimately, the central question is whether we, as a society, are doing enough to ensure that those facing the greatest barriers to economic mobility have access to the resources and opportunities needed to untap their full potential.
These discussions sharpen how I approach philanthropy: connect schools, families, employers, and community organizations around students’ needs, then examine whether those connections drive lasting change.
Being an MDLF Fellow means accepting responsibility for testing my assumptions alongside people who bring different perspectives. The network’s value lies in that exchange and how we apply what we learn together. I left this session with a stronger commitment to public education and a clearer obligation to question its performance, protect individual agency, and help more Hoosiers exercise the freedom we value.