The Battle Over Iowa's Schools

I admit I might be a bit biased in this situation as I sit on the school board of my child's private school. But I prefer to look at it as I can see it in a way that most other Iowan's can't.

What is at issue is some recently passed legislation that is now on our governor's desk to sign, establishing bank accounts for every child in Iowa with the amount of money that is typically doled out for every child in Iowa by our government and paid for with our taxes. It amounts to just less than $7600 per student. As it gets phased in over the next three years, it will essentially allow parents to decide where that money goes, i.e. if your child goes to the local public school, they will get that money and if your child goes to a private school, they will get that money. Unused money will always go to the local public school and for every child already in private school, the public school will still get $1200 given to them. On the face of it, it sounds like a pretty fair things to all involved. We all pay taxes, or at least the wealthiest 50% of us do, and that money follows our child where they go. 

But... like most political issues, there are two sides.

Up until next year when the start of the phase in begins, the public schools have been given all the money for every student in the district regardless if they attend private school. They keep that money and spend it lavishly. In our district, they have been throwing up new buildings left and right, new sports complexes left and right, creating hiring bonuses for new teachers and upgrading everything. They can afford to because they are getting paid for students that aren't attending their school. They are loathe to give up all this money. Even with all this money, they still regularly test behind private schools on state standardized tests, by wide margins, every single year.

The private schools on the other hand are struggling, especially those that aren't in wealthy suburban enclaves. Their tuitions are a tiny fraction of the $7600 per student government reimbursement because that is all the rural market can pay, along with any taxes that they may or may not have paid for the public schools too. For many years, they too have gotten a small government subsidy from our paid taxes of around $1600 per student, but that money is given to the nearest public school by law (passed years ago), and they in turn pass the money onto the private school. At least they did so until it recently became known  that they aren't required too and have started withholding this money. In fact, the local public school superintendent, last year year came to our small private school and asked if it was alright that they don't give us that money, (which makes up nearly 50% of our budget) from now on because they have better uses. Only with lawyers getting involved did they back off but I have no doubt that it was only for a period of time until they solidified their defense and then they would have taken that money too and the private school would have immediately been out of business. 

Financially the private schools have been on shaky ground, at least the majority of them which aren't located in wealthy enclaves. With inflation hitting hard and hitting parental savings accounts, are enrollment numbers have plunged along with our budgets. We can't pay our teachers nearly as much as public school and honestly, their pay is absolutely horrible for what they do. So with all the signing bonuses and raising of salaries, our schools have been decimated of teaching staff. The few we have are those senior teachers looking to coast out their last few years in school with small class sizes and more freedoms to teach the way they think works best for the particular student at hand. As a result, our children consistently outrank their peers in the public schools on state standardized tests.

So obviously this new legislation will be a boon for private schools when it is completely phased in over three years. Not only will it increase the amount of money we get paid from our taxes by 475%, but it will allow us to bridge the pay gap between our teachers and those in public schools. Most likely, it will increase our student population as those who desired to go to our school but couldn't afford the modest tuition we had to charge just to make ends meet, now will be able to do so. 

It will also likely be a blow for the public schools used to getting a lot of money for each of our kids. They will probably loose students too meaning even less funding. After years of pork barrel spending, they are going to have to learn how to live on a budge much like the private schools have done all along. Their argument is that it is going to hurt public school kids and I'm sure it will. I guess it all came down to, is the harm of a small minority of kids acceptable to not "harm" the majority, when the majority has proven that they can't use that money efficiently? I also put harm in quotation marks because isn't poor testing scores harming them too?

Despite my children being in a private school and me being on the school board, none of this will affect me assuming our governor signs the bill and most assuredly she will since it was her idea. My youngest child will be out of the private school (which only goes through 5th grade) and into the public school by the time we are phased into it. I will also have completed my third and last term that I can serve on the board and so will be allowed to have a couple more nights a month to do something else. But I can't be excited for what I see as the salvation and rebirth of our small school into something greater than it has already been for my two kids who test scores are grades above their actual grade and are both in enrolled in talented and gifted programs. 

(Not really related to the main point but proof of how well our school does with what little dollars we have; nearly half of all our classes test into the gifted and talented programs run by the local public school. The public school grades which are 30 times larger than ours, usually only places 2 or 3 students total out of 350 students.)