Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

In 2017, the Iowa legislature responded to concerns from Governor Terry Branstad and amended Iowa law to ensure that when government employees are forced out of their jobs, the reasons must be made public and not shrouded in secrecy.

The goal was commendable. The governor was right. People deserve to be told “why.” It is called public accountability.

Since then, the transparency promised six years ago has diminished.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

FOX News canned Tucker Carlson last month. I didn’t watch his TV show, but I’ve seen enough segments to recognize his face and, eight of ten times, recall his name. The New Republic provided a sampler of what it described as his “fascist” commentary. Not pretty.

As soon as I heard the news, I started asking myself if Carlson had ever appeared in Iowa. I assumed he had.

Carlson was in Des Moines as recently as July 2022. I found a 26-photo gallery in the Des Moines Register chronicling his appearance at the FAMiLY Leadership Summit, hosted by The FAMiLY Leader and its founder/president-for-life Bob Vander Plaats. How I missed that story, I’ll never know. Every Republican of note is pictured, with Governor Kim Reynolds speaking and looking on, her face frozen in an expression of fond admiration.

The biggest stories of the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session are well known. Before adjourning for the year on May 4, historically large Republican majorities in the Iowa House and Senate gave Governor Kim Reynolds almost everything on her wish list. They reshaped K-12 public schools; passed several bills targeting LGBTQ Iowans; enacted new hurdles for Iowans on public assistance; cut property taxes; reorganized state government to increase the power of the governor and “her” attorney general; and undermined the state auditor’s ability to conduct independent audits.

Many other newsworthy stories received little attention during what will be remembered as one of the Iowa legislature’s most influential sessions. This post is the first in a series highlighting lesser-known bills or policies that made it through both chambers in 2023, or failed to reach the governor’s desk.

As the Iowa House and Senate debated one appropriations bill after another last week, Democrats repeatedly objected to plans that imposed status quo budgets or small increases (well below the rate of inflation) on services for disadvantaged Iowans.

Iowans with disabilities or special needs were not a priority in the education and health and human services budgets that top Republican lawmakers negotiated behind closed doors.

Sami Scheetz represents Iowa House district 78, covering part of Cedar Rapids.

On May 4, the Iowa legislature concluded the 2023 legislative session—one that will arguably go down as the most harmful and destructive in our state’s history.

The list of catastrophic legislation Republicans have imposed on the people of Iowa is lengthy:

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.

There’s an old story about how to boil a frog. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will quickly jump out. But supposedly, if you put a frog in tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog stays until it boils to death. 

Like the frog, Iowans failed to recognize the danger of political climate change. And Iowa is now boiling.

Reshaping K-12 education has been a major theme of the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session. In January, Republican majorities quickly approved Governor Kim Reynolds’ plan to divert hundreds of millions of public dollars to private schools. In March, the House and Senate passed a “bathroom bill” prohibiting transgender people from using school facilities that align with their gender identity.

Last week, House and Senate Republicans finished work on another two major education bills. Senate File 496 will impose many new restrictions on public schools, while Senate File 391 will lower standards for teachers and librarians and relax several high school curriculum requirements.

The Senate approved both bills on straight party-line votes. Four House Republicans (Michael Bergan, Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, and Hans Wilz) joined Democrats to vote against Senate File 496. Ingels and all Democrats present opposed Senate File 391.

Reynolds is certain to sign both bills and claim victory for her stated goals of empowering parents and giving school districts more flexibility. This post will explain how key provisions changed before final passage, and which parts of each bill didn’t make the cut.

The Iowa House and Senate finished work this week on several priority bills for Republicans, and leaders are closer to agreement on the next state budget.

The accelerating pace raises the prospect that the Iowa legislature may adjourn for the year close to the session’s scheduled end date of April 28. Stalemates over policies related to education and COVID-19 vaccines pushed the last two legislative sessions well into overtime; the 2021 session ended on May 19, and last year’s work wrapped up on May 24.

This piece highlights where things stand with high-profile bills approved in either the House or Senate this week, and other legislation that will likely be part of late deal-making. Forthcoming Bleeding Heartland posts will focus on many of those bills separately.

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.

When I was a kid, Mom warned, “Make sure you keep a screen door between you and the Fuller Brush man. They won’t leave, and all they do is to sell, sell, sell.”

I remember that caution as I’m reading House File 654, the bill Iowa House Republicans recently approved. Among other things, the “firearms omnibus” would encourage public schools to implement age-appropriate gun safety instruction from grades K-12, “based on the eddie eagle gunsafe program developed by the National Rifle Association.”

It’s not the curriculum I question, it’s the messenger and what’s behind bringing the NRA into Iowa’s public schools.

Once in the door, they’ll “sell, sell, sell.” And the NRA is not just peddling brushes. 

They’re selling gun culture.

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.

Way back in 1996, Alanis Morrissette asked, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?” She might have been thinking about a “black fly in your Chardonnay,” but today her question is relevant for Iowa Republican legislators.

Here’s a good definition of the term: “Irony occurs in literature and in life whenever a person says or does something that departs from what we expect them to say or do.”

Ronald Reagan hasn’t roamed the Oval Office for 34 years, yet even now, you’ll hear GOP candidates quote the Gipper: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” 

They love to quote it. They just don’t love to do it.

Amy Adams is a mom of three and a former educator living in rural NE Iowa. Currently, Amy works as the Partnerships Director for Progress Iowa. 

Whether it’s at local school board meetings or in Congress, the words “parents’ rights” are everywhere. As a mom and as a former educator, I certainly have expectations about parents’ rights. Like many, I want my kids to go to quality, safe schools where each will have opportunities to grow and learn.

But looking closely at the legislation passed here in Iowa and the U.S. House of Representatives, these so-called parental rights bills are far from what most families want or need for their children and their schools.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

What started as Governor Kim Reynolds’ bad idea has become worse. Her “parents’ rights” bill, passed by Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate, is back to the Senate because the versions differ. A committee of both may take up the bills—keeping the worst, I’m sure.

Des Moines Register reporter Katie Akin correctly characterized the House-approved version of Senate File 496 as “a Frankenstein-like education bill.” It’s like saying a giraffe has a long neck, a pig has a full stomach, or a shark has sharp teeth.

This monster has bite, and it chews an arm and leg off public education, educators, and each local school’s historic purposes and practices.

Both chambers of the Iowa legislature have approved versions of Governor Kim Reynolds’ so-called “parental empowerment” bill, which would rewrite many state policies related to public schools. The state Senate changed some parts of the bill before approving Senate File 496 along party lines on March 22.

The House adopted a more extensive rewrite before passing the bill on April 4, by 55 votes to 42. Six Republicans (Michael Bergan, Austin Harris, Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, Brian Lohse, and Hans Wilz) joined all 36 House Democrats to vote no.

This post walks through the provisions in the governor’s initial proposal (Senate Study Bill 1145), noting how each section changed during Iowa Senate debate, and again when House Republicans approved a 38-page amendment before sending the legislation back to the upper chamber.

Reynolds is likely to get most of what she asked for, but the bill that eventually lands on her desk may contain quite a few additional changes to Iowa Code.

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.

As a teacher I joked, “I hope I die during teacher in-service, because the transition won’t be abrupt.” Those meetings were deadly dull, and about as relevant to teaching as Lawrence Welk to rock and roll. 

But there were exceptions.

During one of those deadly sessions, the principal wheeled in the Betamax, and we watched “The Road to Abilene.”  It’s a simple story, and it might help answer the question, what happened to Iowa?

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

I read in the Cedar Rapids Gazette that Iowa Senate Education Committee chair Ken Rozenboom told his colleagues, “We want everyone to be clear about the role that parents have in their child’s education.”

Rozenboom was floor managing Senate File 496, the wide-ranging education bill that originally came from the governor’s office. The Senate approved the bill March 22 on a party-line vote of 34 to sixteen. It’s now pending in the House Education Committee.

Among many provisions, the bill bans books that include a sex act (emphasis added). Erin Murphy reported for the Gazette,

LATE UPDATE: Republican lawmakers kept this provision in the final version of Senate File 496, which Governor Reynolds signed in May. Original post follows.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

One state registered a significant increase in cancer incidence from 2015 to 2019, the most recent year for which data is available from all 50 states. That would be Iowa. The only one.

According to the Cancer in Iowa 2023 report, only Kentucky ranked ahead of Iowa in the rate of its residents’ cancer cases. But Kentucky’s rate has decreased recently, while Iowa’s grew.

The reasons for those facts remain a mystery. University of Iowa researchers are trying to figure it out.

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.

Given the travesties and tragedies Governor Kim Reynolds has already visited upon Iowans, with the help of a GOP-controlled legislature that rubber-stamps her agenda, it is long past time to retire the phrase “Iowa nice.”

Let’s also give a rest to the most famous line from the movie “Field of Dreams”: “Is this Heaven? No, it’s Iowa!”

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.

On that first day of school in 1979, I oozed anxiety. After all, there were 30 sets of unknown eyes waiting for the show to begin. I was the show. Am I going to be the tough guy not smiling until Halloween or the open arms teacher? Will my deodorant hold so I don’t pit-out before first period?

That was then. Now, Iowa teachers have much more to worry about than pit stains

Deb VanderGaast is a registered nurse and child care advocate seeking to advance state and national child care and disability policy, inclusive child care practices and improve access to quality, affordable child care for working parents. She was the 2022 Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 41.

Municipal, county and state governments have a lot in common with private businesses, especially non-profits. They have to raise revenue to support the workforce and resources needed to produce services or products that will attract and retain customers. That’s how they maintain and grow their revenue. That revenue flow makes a business viable and financially stable.

For the state of Iowa, our “customers” are the people and businesses choosing to locate here. They create economic activity that generates tax revenue.

Our “products” are the services, infrastructure, and laws that make it desirable for businesses and individuals to move to Iowa or remain here. If residents and businesses leave, Iowa loses tax revenue and workers, so will have less of the human and financial resources needed to produce quality products and services to attract and retain others.

UPDATE: The governor signed this bill on March 22. Original post follows.

Republicans took another step last week toward making the Iowa legislature’s 2023 session the worst ever for LGBTQ people. After letting similar bills die without committee approval as recently as 2021, the GOP fast-tracked legislation this year that prohibits transgender people from using the school restroom or locker room that corresponds to their gender identity.

The Iowa Senate passed the latest “bathroom bill,” Senate File 482, on March 7 in a party-line vote. The Iowa House approved the bill on March 16 by 57 votes to 39, with five Republicans (Chad Ingels, Megan Jones, Brian Lohse, Phil Thompson, and Hans Wilz) joining every Democrat present in opposition.

Governor Kim Reynolds is expected to sign the bill, along with legislation banning gender-affirming health care for minors. At this writing, neither bill has been forwarded to her office.

Iowa’s GOP trifecta won’t have the final word on the subject, however. Transgender plaintiffs have challenged restrictive bathroom policies in several states, and I expect one or more Iowa students to file suit soon after Senate File 482 goes into effect.

During the floor debates in the Iowa House and Senate, lawmakers pointed to key issues courts will consider as they weigh the bill’s stated goal (protecting students’ privacy) against its adverse impact on a specific group (students whose sex listed on a birth certificate does not match their gender identity).

William R. Staplin shares another cartoon and explains his artistic choices.

The Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual, Intersex, Queer/Questioning, Asexual (LGTBQIA+) community has lived on the margins of cis-gendered societal acceptance throughout recorded history. Mainstream societies have repressed the community in myriad ways: from self-righteous and pious condemnations and public humiliation to the destruction of careers (whether through hiring and firing discrimination or ”Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”), to brutal assaults in farmyards, playgrounds, and towns squares, all the way to targeted murders and lynching.

When the U.S. Supreme Court cleared a path for marriage equality across the country in June 2015, this brutalized community achieved a small portion of equity. Same-sex couples were able to legally wed and include their life partners for medical insurance, hospital visitation, and estate planning, providing some peace of mind for bereaved loved ones at difficult times.

But equality was in some way a mirage for members of the transgender community.

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.

Lately I’ve been thinking about why Iowa GOP politicians seem committed to shouting at the rain instead of solving real problems.

I think the answer might be in a quote from the 1995 movie The American President. Fictional President Andrew Shepard says, “We’re a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.”

Although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not formally declared his intent to run for president, he is already testing messages with Republican activists in Iowa.

A survey distributed to Iowans via text shows the governor’s team searching for points that could persuade GOP caucus-goers, not only highlighting what DeSantis has done in office—the focus of his remarks in Davenport and Des Moines on March 10— but also his military service and relative youth compared to former President Donald Trump.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

Americans, as is our wont, continually focus on “the questions of the day.” Some of those issues change over time, but sometimes it takes a long time. And sometimes it’s a puzzlement why they were relevant in the first place.

A few examples:

LATE UPDATE: Republican lawmakers kept this provision in the final version of Senate File 496, which Governor Reynolds signed in May. Original post follows.

Iowa’s leading cancer researchers released sobering numbers last week. Data from the Iowa Cancer Registry indicates that Iowa has “the second-highest overall cancer incidence of all U.S. states” and is “the only state with a significant increase in cancer incidence from 2015 to 2019.”

In addition, Iowa ranks first for “rates of new cases of oral cavity and pharyngeal cancer,” often known as head and neck or mouth and throat cancers. Iowa also has the country’s second-highest rate for leukemia and ranks fifth and sixth for melanoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, respectively.

Meanwhile, Governor Kim Reynolds is forging ahead with efforts to stop requiring Iowa schools to teach junior high and high school students that a vaccine is available to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV). That virus can cause cancer in several areas of the body, including the mouth and throat.

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.

A bill that would bring back the death penalty for those who abduct, rape, and kill minors in Iowa is not likely to become law this year, but that does not mean the concept of capital punishment is off the legislature’s agenda.

Quite the contrary. Capitol punishment—the “ol” refers to the building in which lawmakers meet—is the theme of the 2023 legislative session and state government in general. Republicans are all but certain to inflict it upon us again a year from now.

Steve Corbin is emeritus professor of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a freelance writer who receives no remuneration, funding, or endorsement from any for-profit business, nonprofit organization, political action committee, or political party.      

“Just the facts, ma’am,” was the infamous introductory phrase Sgt. Joe Friday would use when interrogating a witness in the whodunit TV series Dragnet. Jack Webb (1920-1982) played Sgt. Friday during Dragnet’s lifespan from 1951 to 1959.

Dragnet’s civil servant show often dealt with complex social issues. Let’s apply Sgt. Friday’s flat and concise “just the facts, ma’am” line to the current book banning craze before offering an opinion.

As the Iowa legislature’s first “funnel” deadline approaches, Republicans have introduced more than 30 bills targeting the LGBTQ community, roughly double the previous record. More than a dozen of those bills have either advanced from a subcommittee or have cleared a standing committee and are therefore eligible for debate in the Iowa House or Senate.

Until recently, the vast majority of bills threatening LGBTQ Iowans never received a subcommittee hearing. During the 2021 legislative session, none of the fifteen bills in that category made it through the first funnel (requiring approval by a House or Senate committee), and only a handful were even assigned to a subcommittee. Bills consigned to the scrap heap included proposed bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and so-called “bathroom bills,” which require transgender people to use school restrooms or locker rooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate, rather than the facilities that match their gender identity.

In contrast, this week House and Senate subcommittees rushed to pass bathroom bills and measures prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors less than 24 hours after the bills appeared on the Iowa legislature’s website.

How did these policies become a priority for Republican lawmakers in such a short time?

Three factors seem most important.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

Yes, brace yourself. Governor Kim Reynolds has given every indication she wants on the national stage. Anything to get out of Iowa before public schools are shuttered, hog sh*t clogs the Raccoon, drinking water costs more than gas, and the last of the state’s topsoil flows into the sea.

Give Reynolds credit. She’s ridden unbridled ambition, a particle of intellect, a nod from her predecessor Terry Branstad, MAGA hysteria, the Iowa State Fair, and Herculean bullheadedness into Terrace Hill. And she’s stayed there by pushing the red-state agenda that plagues all of America, and has seemingly put ordinary people into a deep stupor. 

Deb VanderGaast is a registered nurse and child care advocate seeking to advance state and national child care and disability policy, inclusive child care practices and improve access to quality, affordable child care for working parents. She was the 2022 Democratic nominee in Iowa Senate district 41.

The LGBTQ+ community in Iowa is under attack, and so are our schools. Many people think the acceptance of queer people in our culture is causing an increase in transgender and queer kids. They think exposure to transgender and queer people in education, books, movies, music, and the community is “grooming” kids to question their gender and sexual identity.

They are completely wrong.

Adolescence is a time when kids form their identities and “try on” various roles as they explore who they are and who they want to be. Our society now allows many more options as acceptable choices for youth to consider, but this increased acceptance has not changed who kids are becoming. Rather, it has allowed adolescents to safely express who they already are. They are no longer constrained by social biases against gay and transgender people.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

An interesting study in contrasts is playing out right now in Iowa. 

One example comes from the Davis County Community Schools in Bloomfield. It is the 96th-largest of Iowa’s 328 public districts, with an enrollment of 1,150 students.

The other example comes from the Iowa legislature and Governor Kim Reynolds. 

The Davis County school board is wrestling with an incredibly difficult decision—whether to hold classes four days a week instead of the traditional five-day-a-week schedule. 

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

Please join me in applauding the leaders of Iowa’s three Regents universities—University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson, Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen, and University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook—for their courageous stand against the Republicans on the Iowa House Education Appropriations subcommittee.

These principled leaders vigorously defended the costs and necessity of diversity education in higher education, during a hearing where Republicans “questioned whether the initiatives were worth the cost,” Katie Akin reported for the Des Moines Register.

Please indulge me as I dare to create a new term for what the Republicans, both in Iowa and around the nation, are attempting to accomplish.

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.

In the responses to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was too predictable and shameful with her shouts of “Liar!”

More troubling to me was Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ flag-waving response: “America is the greatest country the world has ever known, because we are the freest country the world has ever known…”

For one thing, as Huckabee Sanders raved about our freedom, what came to my mind was how soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division had to protect nine Black students from a hate-filled mob in September 1957 as the children entered the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

My favorite memoir is Tara Westover’s EDUCATED: A memoir (2018). Apparently, I wasn’t alone. The book was number one on the New York Times best sellers list for over a year, and voted to the Times’ Ten Best Books for 2018. 

As Westover tells it, her parents, especially her father, were survivalists living off the grid at the base of a mountain in a Mormon pocket of southeastern Idaho. She didn’t have a birth certificate until she was nine. Her father’s distrust and disdain for government was so ferocious he barred his seven children from going to public school.

Aime Wichtendahl is a member of the Hiawatha City Council and first openly trans woman elected to government in Iowa.

When Iowa Republicans gained a trifecta in 2017, I told our city manager, “I don’t know what their economic agenda is, but I bet it has something to do with gay marriage and abortion.”

Fast forward six years and little has changed—except the legislature devotes extra time attacking transgender youth to feed their lives into the never-ending culture war dumpster fire.

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

A recent public opinion poll found that three-quarters of Americans want members of Congress to end their bickering and begin compromising more with their colleagues from the other party.

Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion conducted the nationwide poll in December for National Public Radio and the PBS News Hour.

If such a survey were conducted in Iowa, it’s my hunch the pollsters would find people here have similar views of the inability, or unwillingness, of senators and representatives in Washington to engage in the thoughtful give-and-take art of lawmaking.

It is also my hunch that Iowans are at a similar point with respect to the legislature’s recent string of proposed laws that target our 327 public school districts.

Randy Richardson is a former educator and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association.

The last two presidential elections have highlighted the deep divides between Democrats and Republicans. According to information from the Pew Research Center a month before the 2020 election, roughly 8 in 10 registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values, and roughly 9 in 10—again in both camps—worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States.

Although I’m well aware of this divide and have probably contributed to it in some small way, I still long for the days when a true leader would rise above partisanship and work for the common good of their constituents.

That hope was dashed at the recent Moms for Liberty event in Des Moines on February 2.

Dan Henderson is a lifelong Iowan, retired educator (taught history for 30 years), writer, author, and community activist, living in Washington. A version of this post first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Things We Don’t Talk About Like Politics & Religion.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, along with her MAGA Republican colleagues in the statehouse, are rushing to try and outdo Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida in taking a wrecking ball to public education. This goal of Republican extremists stems from the conspiracy theories they see under every bush and in every classroom, as well as their basic mistrust for public school educators.

The GOP trifecta passed a historic private school voucher bill in January. It will siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools, directing them toward private schools with no strings attached. No accountability, no mandates, no assurance that the money will be spent on students and their educational needs. It is a bonanza for private religious schools, and for-profit schools that will now see Iowa as fertile ground for their scam institutions.

But the wrecking ball doesn’t stop there.

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

The poet Maya Angelou said it best: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

For the third straight year, Governor Kim Reynolds told Iowa she wanted public money to fund private schools.  She told us who she was. The 52 percent of Iowans who oppose public funds for private school costs should have believed her and voted for her opponent last year.

But the election is over, and we still need to protect our public schools. 

“Strong Island Hawk” is an Iowa Democrat and political researcher based in Des Moines. Prior to moving to Iowa, he lived in Washington, DC where he worked for one of the nation’s top public interest groups. In Iowa, he has worked and volunteered on U.S. Representative Cindy Axne’s 2018 campaign and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 caucus team. 

I love a good argument. Maybe that’s because I hail from a family of lawyers and big talkers, all of whom very much like to argue. In any event, I love crafting a solid case for my position. Even more than that, I love to break down and pick apart weak arguments.

Over the past month, Governor Kim Reynolds’ private school funding plan has come under scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans alike—for good reason. I somewhat empathize with what Reynolds advocated. I transferred high schools, and it was certainly good to have the option—although for me, the better choice was transferring back to public school.

The co-authors of this commentary are Tim Urban, president of Urban Development Corporation and a former Des Moines City Council member, and Lawrence Streyffeler, a retired Des Moines Public Schools elementary school principal.

The recent attacks by parents and politicians on our public schools are poisoning public education. Many states have recently empowered private education institutions by supporting charter schools, homeschooling, and state-funded vouchers for students to attend private schools instead of their local public schools.

Proponents argue that the declining quality of student performance in public schools warrants giving parents a choice where to educate their children. They often cite parents who want to enrich their children’s education, but cannot pay for it.

Such student outcomes are self-fulfilling In Iowa when public schools are starved.