Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

They’re finally gone. It’s over. Mom always said, “Nothing good comes after midnight.” I didn’t get it as a teen. I do now. At 6:31 am on May 15 the legislative party under the Golden Dome died, after lingering on life support for nearly two weeks beyond the scheduled adjournment date.

But it’s not majority party legislators suffering from hangover headaches. The real head throbbing belongs to Iowa public schools.

It can’t be cured with sleep or a home remedy. It impacts 480,665 students in 325 school districts. Here are some of those headaches.

INADEQUATE SCHOOL FUNDING

Low funding isn’t a headache to just sleep off. It’s chronic and life threatening to public schools. Over the past fifteen years, state funding per pupil in K-12 schools (known as Supplemental State Aid, or SSA) averaged 3.02 percent. Inflation during that same period averaged 3.50 percent. Schools lost buying power by 7.2 percent over the fifteen years. Schools are like cars; they need maintenance to keep running.

This year, even though Republicans controlled both chambers with super majorities, they couldn’t agree on how much to underfund public education. For two months beyond the statutory deadline, the House and Senate were in a feud. 

The House passed a 2.5 percent increase to SSA, and the Senate passed 2 percent. Both positions were shamefully inadequate. This fight over a half percent lasted until April 8. Not knowing what funding would be, school boards struggled to finalize budgets (which had to be done by April 15). Many districts were forced to consider layoffs for already hard to find teachers and support staff. 

State funding for public schools will increase by $157 per student. My guess is most parents will pay more for clothes and supplies for each of their kids to go back to school than the legislature was willing to provide to educate those same kids.

There have always been legislative fights over funding public schools, but it’s worse now. On her third try in 2023, Governor Kim Reynolds persuaded her legislative lemmings to pass an expensive, unregulated, private school voucher bill. Iowa now has a two-tiered publicly funded school system, which is fiscally unsustainable. The “Education Savings Accounts” (vouchers) will cost the state more than $314 million during the coming school year.  

INDOCTRINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

For a few years, Republican law makers have accused public school teachers of indoctrinating students. Now, Senate File 175, a bill passed mostly along party lines, makes it obvious they aren’t against public school indoctrination at all if it’s based on their own ideology. Starting in 5^th grade, human development courses will be required to show videos and graphics depicting, “the humanity of the unborn child by showing prenatal human development starting at fertilization.” Sponsors of the bill are anti-abortion advocates.

For years, Republican lawmakers hated any kind sex education in schools, but now they’re willing to use the hated class to indoctrinate kids as young as 5^th grade. (State Representative Brian Lohse was the only Republican in either chamber to vote against the bill.)

Anti-vaxxers are alive and well in both chambers. House File 299, which Reynolds signed on May 27, requires schools to publish information on how to obtain exemptions from vaccinations on the school website and in registration materials.

LET THE SCHOOL DO IT

We’ve all seen guys who have overflowing plates leaving the buffet line. Things fall off and they leave a trail of food. Public school plates are overflowing, and legislators just keep adding more. All may be great programs, but when does it stop?     

• House File 316 requires schools to do career planning with fifth and sixth graders.
• Senate File 583 authorizes schools to form school assessment teams to prevent school shootings.
• House File 784 creates personalized mathematics plans and other interventions to assist K-6 students deemed “persistently at risk.”
• Senate File 369 requires high school students to pass the U.S. citizenship test with a 60 percent score or better even though a government class is required to graduate.

Let’s not let our schools die from untreated headaches. The cure is holding lawmakers accountable.