Jeff Morrison is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and the publisher of the Between Two Rivers newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at betweentworivers.substack.com and iowahighwayends.net.

The Iowa Department of Education’s press release from December 19 said, “State projections developed prior to the passing of the Students First Education Savings Account (ESA) program showed a downward trend in public school enrollment starting in the 2023-24 school year. Likewise, the National Center for Education Statistics projects enrollment at public schools to decrease by 2.7 million students by 2031, a decrease of almost 5% nationally.”

The statement, on its face, is true — but it obscures some essential elements.

• There are now fewer students in Iowa public schools than any time in the modern era, edging out the previous low of 2010-11.
• Excluding a pandemic-related drop between 2019-20 and 2020-21, the percentage loss of public enrollment between 2024-25 and 2025-26 is more than double the greatest loss since 2001-02. It’s the largest percentage loss, period, since 1982-83 to 1983-84.
• The numerical drop in two years (FY25+26) is greater than that of any period in the last four decades (since FY84+85).
• State enrollment projections made through and including 2023 did show a downward trend, but they did not expect the low public numbers seen in the last three years, nor did they anticipate enrollment in private schools surpassing 40,000 for the first time since 2000-01.

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 

Everyone at one time or another has been driven crazy by a backseat driver, sometimes sitting in the front. “There’s a stop sign.” “You’re too close to the curb.” “That car is turning.” “Slow down.” 

There are three general reactions, and none are productive. The driver may nod and ignore, begin to second-guess themselves, or explode, making the remainder of the ride resemble a “red wedding” from “Game of Thrones.”

Second-guessers like to make sure other people are doing things the same way they would do it. When that happens, everyone wants to shout, “If you’re so good at it, why didn’t you do it yourself?”

Ben Nizzi is President of Ironworkers Local 67 in Des Moines.

In more than fourteen years as a member of Ironworkers Local 67, I have never seen our union make an elected official a dues-paying member. Not once. Until now.

A few weeks ago, Ironworkers Local 67 welcomed Iowa State Senator Zach Wahls into our union. This is the first time in our history we have extended this honor to an elected official. I want to explain why, because it speaks to Zach’s character and why Iowa workers need him in the U.S. Senate.

Steve Peterson is a former teacher from rural Winneshiek County.

Decorah has a long tradition of strong public schools. But budget shortfalls have eroded what our school can provide for our students and our community. In our case, fewer elementary teachers already mean larger class sizes for our youngest students. But I fear the worst is yet to come. 

Districts across the state are grappling with how to deal with a decade of underfunding and a more than $300 million a year voucher program that siphons off public money to fill the balance sheets of private schools. 

Cuts don’t discriminate–rural, urban, or suburban. Our public schools are in trouble. And the pain is being felt across the board. Once again, the Iowa legislature failed our public schools this session, approving yet another meager 2 percent increase in state funding per pupil, which fails to keep up with rising costs. The shortfalls that follow have forced a record 200 districts–or two-thirds of Iowa’s schools–onto a “budget guarantee” that ensures school districts with declining enrollment will see only a 1 percent increase in yearly funding, even as costs rise well beyond that figure.

Xavier Carrigan is a Democratic candidate in Iowa’s third Congressional district. The State Objection Panel will consider a challenge to his nominating papers on March 24.

Tomorrow morning, a decision will be made about whether I will appear on the ballot for Iowa’s third Congressional District.

A formal challenge has been filed against the petition signatures we submitted. The Secretary of State’s office initially indicated that we had met the required threshold of 1,726 signatures based on a preliminary review. After a more detailed examination, the objection asserts that the valid total is closer to approximately 1,640.

We will respect whatever decision is made.

But before that happens, it’s important to be clear about what this campaign was and what it was not.

It’s that time of year: days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and transparency advocates are celebrating open government and freedom of information.

To mark Sunshine Week, I decided to examine how open the Iowa House and Senate are to the public and the news media. I’ll compare how each chamber handles access to proceedings, with some tips on how to follow meetings or debates at every stage of the process.

While the internet has generally made it easier to track the legislature’s work, there’s room to let much more sunshine in. The House and Senate have each adopted some practices the other should follow, and could take inspiration from other states to get Iowans more engaged with lawmakers’ work.

Robin Opsahl, Brooklyn Draisey, and Cami Koons collaborated on this article, which was first published by Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Following the second “funnel” deadline of the Iowa legislative session, lawmakers often aim to shift their focus from policy to budgeting. But as lawmakers hit week 10 of the 2026 session, it appears agreements have not been reached on some of the top priorities laid out by Republicans at the beginning of session — primarily, eminent domain and property taxes.

Friday marked the second major deadline of the session, when most bills must be passed by one chamber and approved by a committee in the other chamber to stay eligible for consideration. There are many caveats to this rule — legislation involving spending, taxes or government oversight are not subject to the funnel.

Chamber leadership can also designate bills that have not made it through the committee process required as “unfinished business,” saving the measure from the funnel cutoff – and can also bring back “dead” legislation as leadership-sponsored legislation. Some “dead” bills may be added as amendments to surviving bills in future debate.

Clark Kauffman is deputy editor at Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

In a sharply worded ruling, an Iowa judge has taken federal officials to task for insisting on a court order before complying with the law and releasing a man from the Muscatine County Jail.

In a March 11 court ruling, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger told the U.S. Department of Justice that it was “untenable that federal officials refuse to meet their obligations to follow the law” by knowingly incarcerating a man in the Muscatine County Jail in violation of his due process rights.

The ruling stems from a case involving Andrei Bankevich of Minneapolis, who left his home country of Belarus in August 2021, seeking asylum in the United States.

Jason Benell lives in West Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, Dallas County supervisor candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers.

The latest slate of legislative attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and education betray the seriously myopic view of Iowa Republicans. They might as well amend the state motto or flag to include the phrase “flyover country.”

This isn’t simply a matter of disagreement or a partisan grievance against particular things we may like or dislike. The facts and historical record show diversity has made the United States and states like Iowa strong and a good place to live. This extends beyond cultural touchstones and witty phrases and goes right into the heart of the Iowan economy and social interactions.

Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer.

This week the U.S. Senate has been debating the SAVE America Act, which the House approved on February 11. The SAVE America Act is one snowflake in the blizzard of legislation President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are desperately pushing to protect us from the imagined threat of hordes of non-citizens overwhelming our elections.

The SAVE America Act “builds on the framework” from last year’s SAVE Act; Issue One explained the differences between the two bills here. That post also covers the “Make Elections Great Again” or MEGA bill, which House Republicans introduced in late January. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa’s first Congressional district was one of the original co-sponsors.

I’ll admit that bill’s name reminds me of going to the store with toilet paper on the shopping list. How can there possibly be that many variations of toilet paper? MEGA is one of the newer choices adding to the confusion. Anyway, let’s talk about voting.

Tony Leys is Rural Editor/Correspondent for KFF Health News, where this story was first published.

Leisa and Kent Walker recently received a disturbing notice: The private company managing their son’s Medicaid coverage intends to cut nearly 40 percent of what it spends for caregivers who help him live at home instead of in a nursing home.

Sam Walker, 35, has severe autism and other disabilities. He is deaf and cannot speak. Sometimes when he’s frustrated, he hits himself or others.

Medicaid provides about $8,500 a month for health workers who visit his apartment in the basement of his parents’ home. The staffers help him with everyday tasks, including dressing, bathing, and eating. They also take Walker on outings, such as dining at restaurants, volunteering at Goodwill, and exercising at a recreation center or on park trails. They stick to a strict routine, which soothes him.

His parents say that without the in-home services, their son would need to move to a specialized residential facility in another state. Sending him away would break their hearts and cost taxpayers much more money. They strive to keep him home because they know change makes him anxious.

Despite Iowa’s rightward shift over the past decade, our state is shaping up to be an important 2026 battleground. For the first time since 1968, we have open races for governor and U.S. Senate in the same year. Two of the four U.S. House districts are among the top Democratic targets nationwide. President Donald Trump’s approval rating may be underwater in Iowa, and Democrats are poised to nominate well-funded candidates for state and federal offices.

History tells us that midterm elections often favor the party out of power. Nevertheless, the Iowa landscape is much better for Republicans now than it was during the 2018 election cycle, when Fred Hubbell came within 3 points of winning the governor’s race and Democrats won three U.S. House seats.

It’s time to revisit a topic I explored last June. The GOP’s massive voter registration advantage still makes it hard to construct a winning scenario for Democrats in Iowa’s statewide races—even if Trump’s many failures drive down Republican turnout.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for ten years.

From the Shriners’ Iowa Corn Song to Grant Wood’s American Gothic, Iowa has long been characterized (and caricatured) to the world by our greatest domestic output—and I’m not talking about corn, soybeans, or eggs. I’m talking monoculture.

It’s rare to find the cultivation or domination of a single species, a monoculture, in natural ecosystems. Visit any of Iowa’s state parks and you’ll find their beauty is in direct proportion to their biodiversity, monoculture’s opposite. Biodiversity tends toward balance, resilience, and sustainability as interdependent species of flora and fauna protect each other from diseases, pests, and overcompetition. It’s a messy and imperfect process that often requires a human touch, but when a lack of biodiversity undermines mutual resilience, the ensuing ecological collapse can lead to devastating consequences.

Triggered by blight which rotted a monocultural food source, for example, thousands of Irish families fled the Potato Famine and settled across Iowa and the Midwest. Decades later their descendants watched dark clouds of topsoil blow away during the Dust Bowl, caused in part by overfarming wheat, a monoculture that replaced what were once thousands of miles of hardy Great Plains.

Today, from waving rows of golden corn tassels to the golden dome of the statehouse, Iowa’s political monoculture threatens the ecological, economic, and social diversity of our state, undermining our interdependence and resilience. And it’s killing us.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Talk about being a slow learner! It took me 75 to 80 years or more to recognize that our national anthem’s ending was not a proclamation, declaration, or a boast about the United States being “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

But there it was in the text for the national anthem on our TV screen. The line about being free and brave ended with a question mark, not an exclamation point or even a modest period: “…the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

I even checked the lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner, to make sure Francis Scott Key penned a question on September 18, 1814, and the ? was not a scurrilous punctuation, stuck in by someone protesting the state of our nation. The accuracy of the question mark was confirmed, of course.

Many readers may wonder — as I do — how could a person have missed the ? for all these decades, through singing the national anthem hundreds of times.

Linda Schreiber writes commentary on selected political or legislative issues.

Big promises, but no appropriations

At the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace, President Donald Trump announced that nine member countries had pledged $7 billion toward rebuilding Gaza — and that the United States would contribute $10 billion.

There is one glaring problem: Congress has not appropriated a single dollar for this commitment.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the power of the purse belongs to Congress. No matter how boldly announced, a $10 billion commitment does not exist without legislative approval. Yet the president presented the pledge as if the funds were already secured.

That is not diplomacy. That is theater.

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 

We’ve all probably been trapped in a no-win situation. There’s no way out. There’s no good choice.

That’s often called Hobson’s choice. It was supposedly named after a 17^th century stable owner named Hobson who had a corner on the market and forced customers to choose the horse closest to the door or take no horse at all.

Customers had no real choice. They could walk or pay good money for a bad horse which Hobson always located closest to the door.

Hobson’s choice is depicted by the cartoon bully scowling, doubling his first, and shouting, “Do you want to get punched in the stomach or face?”

No choice, just an ultimatum.

The majority party in the Iowa legislature has trapped public schools in a no-win situation. It’s Hobson’s choice at its worst because it isn’t about a broken-down horse, it’s about the futures of public school students.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts. 

We all need reminders now and then.

Some of us believe there is only one correct way to think and speak and act in these United States of America. But that is not true.

Americans are not who we are because we are the same. Americans are who we are, and our nation has long been a shining beacon, because we are all different and were brought together by that freedom to be different.

One occasional reader of my stray thoughts suggested I republish the following column from 2017, which remains relevant today.

House File 2676 may not be the most harmful of the 80-plus bills the Iowa House approved last week. And language allowing pharmacists to dispense ivermectin without a prescription may not be the most harmful provision of that so-called “Make America Healthy Again” bill.

But the brief Iowa House debate about ivermectin on March 3 illustrated how conspiracy theories—once confined to fringe elements of the conservative movement—now drive the mainstream Republican agenda.

Clark Kauffman is deputy editor at Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

The Muscatine County Jail was promised a 75 percent increase in potential revenue for holding federal immigration detainees during the first year of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, newly disclosed records show.

In March 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement amended the federal government’s longstanding contract with Muscatine County for the detention of individuals picked up by the federal government, including those wanted by ICE for potential deportation.

The contract change called for increasing the amount of money the county jail could potentially collect for holding federal detainees by $360,000 — raising the upper limit on federal payouts from $479,045 to $839,045.

The bulk of that increase, $340,000 was allocated to the additional expense of detaining individuals in the jail, while $20,000 of the increase was allocated to transportation services, which typically involves taking inmates to and from federal court.

Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources recently issued its 2026 draft of impaired waters. This is a requirement of section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act. Every two years states must list the water segments that do not meet water quality standards. This year the DNR evaluated 1,100 water segments and has listed 723 of those segments as impaired. That means that two-thirds of the water segments evaluated do not meet water quality standards.

The impaired waters list containing those 723 water segments are supposed to have total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) prepared. A TMDL calculates how much pollution can be discharged into the water and still meet water quality standards. The TMDL also includes a Water Quality Improvement Plan that proposes the path to bringing the water into compliance with water quality standards.

The problem with the Iowa list is that there are numerous water segments that have been on the list since 2006 and 2008, with no TMDL having been prepared. Some of those waters on the list since 2006 and 2008 are designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters pursuant to Iowa’s antidegradation policy. These waters are entitled to extra protection.