by Keith Schneider | The New Lede, Iowa Capital Dispatch
April 21, 2024
VENICE, Louisiana — Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern... more
You don’t need a crystal ball to see that private school vouchers appear to be barreling toward passage by the Iowa Legislature, just three weeks into the 2023 session. These vouchers, or education savings accounts, or whatever you want to call them, would give parents $7,600 per year for each of their kids to attend a private K-12 school.
Although the outcome has been easy to foresee, it has not been easy to get answers to the many questions being asked across the state as lawmakers move to make this landmark change in education in Iowa.
Some questions that deserve answers include:
School enrollment data show there are 482,000 students attending public K-12 schools in Iowa. Private schools now serve 33,000 students.
The governor and proponents of vouchers have talked about the "failing" public schools in Iowa. Shouldn’t these officials be called on to cite specific examples of these failures, so Iowans know whether the concerns are legitimate or exaggerated?
This is the governor’s third version of a voucher program. It also is the most expensive. There are no income eligibility limits, and parents earning $15,000 a year who have been sending their kids to a public school receive vouchers of the same amount as parents earning $500,000 a year who already send their kids to private schools.
How does the governor justify giving vouchers to the wealthiest Iowans when other forms of state assistance — such as unemployment benefits, health insurance for the poor, food assistance for low-income people — have been pared back to cover fewer people or for a shorter duration because of worries about the sustaining the cost?
Proponents of vouchers point to the governor having a mandate to enact this proposal. Would people who voted for Reynolds have had a change of heart at the ballot box if she campaigned on providing an unlimited number of vouchers and with no income ceiling for eligibility? Remember, during the campaign the voucher plan on people’s minds was the one that died in 2022 for the lack of enough Republican support. It would have capped the cost of the vouchers at $55 million.
My friend Floyd was educated in the Catholic schools in Winneshiek County long before Kim Reynolds was born. His parents chose the church schools over the public schools because they wanted him and his siblings to have a solid religious foundation to their education.
Floyd opposes the governor’s vouchers for one simple reason: He thinks tax money should be used for public schools, not for church schools, nor for schools that might be started by for-profit corporations.
“Education in Iowa may need some fixing, but the law now under consideration is not the answer,” he wrote to friends last week.
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Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com
by Keith Schneider | The New Lede, Iowa Capital Dispatch
April 21, 2024
VENICE, Louisiana — Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern... more
by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 27, 2024
A fertilizer spill this month in southwest Iowa killed nearly all the fish in a 60-mile stretch of river with an estimated death toll of more than 750,000, according to Iowa and... more
by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 25, 2024
The Iowa Senate on Monday sent a bill to the governor’s desk restricting stormwater and topsoil regulations, a measure Democrats say unfairly limits local control.
The Senate... more
Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 11, 2024
The Iowa House passed legislation Monday on local storm water and top soil regulation after the same bill failed last week.
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