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 

It’s 90 degrees before 9:00 AM. Not a whiff stirs Old Glory. Bicycle tires stick to steaming asphalt, and shirts gain water weight on short walks. But two towns north, thunder begins its base drum rumble. Old men look skyward, rub weather forecasting knees and announce, “storm’s coming.”

It’s a pop-up storm full of sound and a little fury, not lasting long. 

But the political storm now threatening Iowa’s public schools could be long-lasting and destructive. And worse, it’s man-made. Schools may be able to survive by spotting this perfect storm and mitigating the damage. 

Three storm fronts are advancing.

Without warning on June 30, the Trump administration froze $6.8 billion in federal funds allocated to K-12 public schools, which Congress approved four months ago. This move may kill programs needed for some of the most vulnerable students. Specifically, the freeze will impact students from low-income families, some special education students, and English as a second language learners. It also blocks federal funding for staff development.

Most funding for Iowa public schools comes from a mixture of property taxes and state aid. After a protracted fight between Republican leaders of the state House and Senate, the legislature increased state funding for the coming year by 2 percent, which is just $162 per student. School districts will need to make quick, painful, budget decisions.

The second storm front is fueled by the dismantling of the Area Education Agencies (AEAs) during the 2024 legislative session. AEAs have supported Iowa’s schools since 1974. Although educators haven’t felt the full impact (because some provisions are only going into effect this year), some services will become harder to find and more costly, especially in rural Iowa.

Instead of allocating funding to AEAs, now school districts will receive the funding and will pay for selected services from the AEA or another entity. AEAs will continue to receive 90 percent of special education funding, with the other 10 percent provided to the school districts. But beginning this year, school districts will receive 100 percent of the media and education services funding, and they will be not be required to spend that money on AEA services.

It’s a mystery why Governor Kim Reynolds pushed to overhaul the AEA system. She didn’t apply the savings to any pet program, and she didn’t listen to stakeholders. My guess is it’s her belief that private is always better than public. But it isn’t. Private companies exist to make a profit—AEAs don’t. 

I represented the professional and support staff at Northwest AEA for 27 years. For the 2024-25 school year, it had a professional staff of approximately 189 people, covering 34 school districts in ten counties. Following layoffs and voluntary resignations caused by legislative changes, the Northwest AEA now has approximately 50 fewer professional staff covering the same area. School superintendents should be sounding storm sirens, but they walk a tightrope between putting an optimistic spin on things and telling the truth. 

The third storm front is Iowa’s expensive, unregulated private school voucher plan, which the governor was able to ram through the Iowa House on her third try in 2023. For the coming school year, there are no income restrictions: every private school student will qualify for a $7,988 voucher toward tuition at a private school. Earlier this month, the state Department of Education announced that it approved 43,784 applications for “education savings accounts” (vouchers). That will cost taxpayers about $349 million. 

Iowa is publicly funding a two-tiered education system, which is separate and unequal. Private schools may reject students based on their own criteria, even if they have the voucher money in hand. Public schools must accept all students. Private schools are free to raise tuition to whatever their board chooses. Private schools are not audited. Public schools are.

But the storm will intensify as Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” goes into effect. Under the budget reconciliation measure that Republicans in Congress approved in early July, those who donate to private and religious school scholarships will receive a federal tax credit of $1,700, starting in 2027. There’s no cap to the cost. States may choose to opt in or out. There’s little doubt Iowa will opt in.

Sirens should be blaring. We can’t let public schools be blown away. We need to use our voices and votes to stop the storm.

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Top image: Official White House photos taken on March 20, 2025, at an event where President Trump signed an executive order dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.