by Sen. Janice Weiner, Democrat, Iowa City, District 45
Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers passed an insultingly low amount of school funding for the 2026-27 school year. The measly two percent increase ensures that Iowa’s public schools will remain underfunded and school districts around the state will be forced into steep budget cuts, teacher lay-offs, and service reductions.
At the same time, costs for the state’s unaccountable private school voucher program once again exceeded expectations, putting taxpayers on the hook for millions in higher costs.
The majority party called it “choice.”
Now those same Republican lawmakers would put their fingers on the scale again and shift more money and resources away from public schools – where over 90% of Iowa kids are educated – to support charter school expansion.
SF 2425, which advanced out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on a party-line vote on Wednesday, further rigs the system in favor of private or corporate-backed schools and starves public schools and the students they serve. The bill provides taxpayer dollars to schools that do not have to play by all the same rules as Iowa’s public schools.
Here are some of the bill’s key provisions:
• Funneling state teacher salary funding into the hands of the private profiteers who back charter schools.
• Requiring the public schools whose resources are being drained to open their extracurricular activities to charter school students. Public schools would receive no additional funding for coaches, buses, gear, or uniforms and charter schools would be under no obligation to open their teams or activities to public school kids.
• Directing state aid to private preschools and providing a special early timing for receiving state funds that public preschools do not get.
• Giving a special handout to ONE specific private preschool.
This isn’t choice. This isn’t fairness. This isn’t competition. It’s a handout to private interests that pushes the vast majority of Iowa kids to the back of the line while the privileged few reap the benefits.
Let me repeat: Public dollars are for public schools.
