Thanks to Choice Media for making my Friday life easier. It’s been a crazy week with the Jeffco union using kids as pawns. More on that later, but for now, here’s a 5-minute video from the American Enterprise Institute to catch your attention:

Yes, the video features a ghost-girl. Yes, there are more policy wonk hand gestures per minute than should be permitted. Yes, Michael McShane is hawking a book that a little edu-geek like me is a perfect sucker to buy. And yes, it is fun to watch him dodge infographics.

But it’s really the substance of what he’s going after — a comprehensive market-based approach to educational reform — that keeps me tuned in. And hopefully, after the book comes my way, you’ll get a fuller assessment.

In the meantime, you’ll have to make due with one of the other hip and smart education reform thinkers of our day. Check out Andy Smarick’s “A lion in winter and a coming of age” and a compelling argument that fixing our nation’s inner-city schools is moving more the way of chartering as the urban school district fades away.

Agree? Disagree? Whatever. It’s Friday. Kick back, relax, and come back refreshed on Monday. We’ll continue the conversation about helping kids by transforming K-12 education.