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
My mom warned, if the Fuller Brush man comes knocking, lock the door.
Back then, fast-talking Fuller Brush salesmen literally would stick a foot in the door to make a sale. Mom knew that once they came inside, it was hard to resist their smooth pitch and even harder to push them out.
The modern equivalent of the Fuller Brush man is the slick-talking career politician who never defines what he’s selling, refuses to admit who he really is, and never explains how he’ll pay for his shiny new ideas.
Zach Lahn, Republican candidate for governor, has his foot in Iowa’s door trying to sell his ill-defined ideas. In his latest TV ad, he claims he’s not a politician. Instead, he pretends to be a farmer, or sometimes an educator—but with zero classroom experience or college education classes.
I love Halloween, but Lahn is trying to trick us by pretending to be something he’s not. That won’t be a treat for Iowa public schools.
So, who is Zach Lahn? He was born in Sioux City and graduated from East High School in 2004. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 2009. After graduation, he became a political operative/campaign staffer for the next several years. In 2014 and 2015 he was the Montana state director of Americans for Prosperity, the organization funded by the Koch brothers.
In 2018, he co-founded the private Wonder School on the campus of Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. The school has approximately 90 students, guided by a student self-learning model with no licensed teachers. Lahn’s six kids attend his unaccredited school. The tuition costs $1,200 a month.
The Kansas Reflector’s Tim Carpenter reported in August that the school has been operating through personal loans from Zach and Annie Lahn: “By 2025, Wonder owed the Lahns approximately $4.5 million.” The same article noted,
The Lahns’ financial intervention triggered, every year since 2021, formal disclosures to the IRS of conflict-of-interest-transactions. The nonprofit’s filings were necessary because the Lahns were not only administrative officers at Wonder but the school’s largest creditor. While Zach Lahn served as board president and treasurer, Annie Lahn was board secretary and a trustee. The structure is contrary to IRS recommendations that nonprofit boards avoid domination by employees or others who lacked independence due to family or business ties.
Before the Republican primary, Lahn repeatedly insulted Iowa public schools, saying in one TV ad, “Too many schools today teach kids to hate our country, our history, and our religion. When I’m governor, we will reclaim the curriculum from the Marxists who’ve hijacked it.”
As a general election candidate, he has toned down his attacks, but during the recent debate on KTIV, he refused to commit to funding public schools above the rate of inflation. Instead, he made a vague pitch for teacher merit pay and suggested a new approach allowing “off ramps” for kids and “innovation” in classrooms.
Both are bad ideas. Merit pay destroys teaming. It’s a popularity contest of the ugliest kind, and school districts that once implemented it as a cure-all discovered it sickened their schools.
The most common way to measure “merit” is through standardized tests, because those who implement these schemes think that’s the easiest way. It’s not. At best, standardized tests are out-of-focus snapshots of how students are feeling that day. They measure if they’ve had enough sleep, eaten a good breakfast, or if they’ve broken up with a boyfriend or girlfriend that day. They measure if students take the test seriously or if they fill in ovals to make nice patterns.
They don’t measure teacher merit. The real reason for merit pay schemes is to avoid paying all teachers a professional wage.
There’s nothing wrong with innovation. But educators don’t need a governor with zero classroom experience telling them the best way to teach. They need a governor who truly supports public schools and will provide the resources necessary for them to thrive.
Does this private school founder really sound like the savior of Iowa public schools? Lock the door by voting for Rob Sand, a candidate who listens and will work with educators to protect and enhance our public schools.
Top image: Screenshot from Zach Lahn TV ad, “Believe.”