Republicans promised Iowa's teacher pay would soar toward the top. Instead, we slouched to the middle
Remember that when they tell you how great the 2026 legislative session was
Now that the Iowa Legislature has adjourned, the sales job begins.
Don’t expect subtlety. Expect Republicans running state government to tell you how much better your life will be because of them.
Smart Iowans will be skeptical. If not downright unbelieving.
Why?
First, it’s an election year. Subtlety is in about as short a supply as honesty.
Second, we’ve seen this movie before. Just two years ago, in 2024. That’s when Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican legislators boasted that their law to boost teacher pay was transformative. “Iowa currently ranks in the bottom half of states for starting teacher pay, and with this increase we soar to the top five in the nation,” the governor exulted.
Turns out, this was all nonsense.
Well, not all of it. The part about Iowa ranking toward the bottom was right. But the rest of it was bunk.
The National Education Association’s latest teacher pay report, considered the most authoritative in the nation, came out recently, and instead of soaring to the top five, Iowa finished in the middle of the pack. Specifically, we came in 24th place for new teachers and 30th for teachers overall.
Historic?
More like, “Meh.”
Soared? More like slouched.
Don’t get me wrong. Iowa teachers did get a raise, and no longer are we scraping along in 46th place like we were. But that’s hardly transformative. Meanwhile, the raises failed to keep up with the cost of living, which means that in real terms Iowa teachers took a pay cut over the past 10 years.
The reason we fell so fell so far behind wasn’t just because of inflation, but because the Iowa Legislature waited 11 years to give teachers a raise. No wonder instead of soaring with the leaders we’re crowded in among the also-rans.
The 2024 law did provide a smaller pay boost this year, which might help a little bit with next year’s NEA rankings. But other states won’t remain stagnant. And how long will it be before Iowa lawmakers give teachers another raise? How far behind will we have fallen by then?
The future doesn’t look encouraging.
Iowa is staring at billion-dollar budget deficits because of the disastrous Republican flat tax that slashed millionaire taxes nearly in half and cratered state revenues. We’re also devoting more than $300 million a year to the small fraction of Iowa families who choose to send their children to private schools—most of whom were already paying those costs on their own.
Meanwhile, the state’s Medicaid deficit is expected to reach a whopping $9 billion over the next 10 years.
In other words, Iowa’s fiscal condition is a train waiting to wreck. Yet even now Republicans plan to ask voters this fall to lock us onto this disastrous path by making it nearly impossible to recover the money they gave to the rich, while making it easier to raise more money from the rest of us.
Teacher pay isn’t Iowa’s only priority, of course. We have sky-high cancer rates, our water is fouled and the state economy is a laggard. But what we pay our teachers is no small thing, either. Nearly 9 in 10 Iowa children go to public schools, and the teacher in their classroom is at the heart of making sure they thrive. Maintaining competitive salaries is vital to ensuring Iowa can lure the best in the field.
It’s not like the Iowa Legislature is using other levers to encourage young educators to remain in the state, or to move here. Republican lawmakers have already passed a repressive book ban; they keep trying to whitewash our history standards; and they have threatened to punish teachers who offend them by exercising their free speech rights.
Whoever becomes Iowa’s next governor needs to tackle these problems head-on. Which means we need a serious person who has a plan to fix this mess; someone who isn’t a dud or a huckster so detached from reality he believes phantom Marxists in the classroom or a Satanic Temple with an occasional display at the state Capitol are actual problems.
Two years ago, our state’s leaders boasted they set Iowa on a path to pay teachers more than almost every state in the nation. The governor promised we would soar. Well, guess what? It didn’t happen.
This is a good lesson to remember when Iowa’s Republican leaders inevitably tell you how transformative this year’s session was, too.
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What began decades ago as a “freedom of choice” conversation—I was a legisalator during the homeschooling debates of the 1980s–1990s well—has been reshaped into something far more ideological. It’s now fused with anti-union rhetoric (despite the weakening of collective bargaining), a deep distrust of public institutions, and a growing strain of Christian nationalism.
Throwing public money at private schools feels comparable to offering property tax relief only to 10 % of Iowans-those families whose children attend private schools—or even rebates to those who once did.
Spot on, Ed.