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
I was a few weeks from college graduation, on my way to my first teaching job interview. I was driving a jacked-up, dented 1967 Ford. As I reached town, I started to coast feathering the gas pedal only when necessary. I didn’t want a bad muffler announcing my arrival.
I was wearing a borrowed tie and a too tight sport coat courtesy of the dreaded freshman 15, still lingering after three years. Sweat trickled down my back as I stepped out.
The principal asked questions about classroom management, curriculum and where I saw myself in five years. The questions were challenging, but I thought I handled most of them.
Then came the hardest question.
“If a group of teachers went downtown to a bar after school, would you go?”
I hesitated and stammered, “I’m not sure.”
He chuckled and said, “I wasn’t trying to trap you. I just wanted to know if you’d be social with your colleagues outside of work.” I’m pretty sure he was trying to trap me. I got the job anyway.
Like my interview, it’s time for voters to question the two finalists to be Iowa governor. The best way to conduct these interviews is through joint town halls with both candidates answering unscripted, uncensored questions from bipartisan audiences.
Political debates are fine, but they’re scripted and filtered through moderators who may or may not ask the questions on the minds of voters.
Here are some sample questions to get the interviewers thinking.
- What three problems would you tackle first? What steps would you take to solve each?
- The legislature approved a budget that spent more than $1 billion more than projected revenue. How would you close the spending gap?
- Do you only favor voluntary efforts to clean Iowa’s rivers, streams, and lakes or would you pass laws to protect water from nitrate run-off?
- Would you ban eminent domain for private company projects?
- Do you support banning books in schools and public libraries?
- Do you believe there are Iowa public school teachers indoctrinating students to hate America? If so, please give specific examples.
- Will you stop requiring mandatory vaccines for children enrolling in public schools?
- Would you advocate teacher-led prayers in public schools why or why not?
- Do you support mandatory Bible reading in public schools?
- Will you support expanding mandatory topics of collective bargaining for educators beyond base salary?
- Do you believe public schools have been underfunded? If so, how would you pay for increasing funding?
- Do you support requiring students to complete courses in the Center for Intellectual Freedom at Iowa universities?
- Do you support a law requiring private schools who accept vouchers to accept all students who apply?
- How would you balance family time with your job as governor? How often would you be out of state for personal reasons?
- Would you commit to working with the other political party to solve Iowa’s problems? If yes, give some examples of your bipartisanship of the past and examples of current problems that might be solved with bipartisan compromise?
- What are some steps to protect and enhance rural health care?
- Are you in favor of privatized Medicaid in Iowa?
- What current or past politician would you like to emulate?
- What steps would you take to identify and reduce Iowa’s cancer rate?
- What policies of the former governor do you agree or disagree with and why?
If a candidate won’t interview with voters, think carefully if he’s the best fit for the job.
Top photos of Democratic candidate for governor Rob Sand and Republican candidate for governor Zach Lahn were originally published on their campaign Facebook pages.