The school spending con
Hiding Iowa's cheap education policy
Hey, Iowa: You’re making more money now than ever.
The typical Iowa household earned $72,429 in 2021, according to the Federal Reserve.
You’re rolling in the dough, Iowa.
Not buying it?
Well, duh. Why would you?
Eggs are more than $5 a dozen. Gas prices are still high compared with what they were. Even a 9-ounce box of Cheerios is more than $4.
Over the past year or so, inflation has gone up faster than since the days of disco.
So why is Pat Grassley turning a blind eye?
The other day, the Republican speaker of the Iowa House fobbed off worries about shortchanging Iowa schools by saying: “We’re spending more money today on K-12 (State Supplemental Aid) than we ever have in the state.”
In other words, the paycheck for Iowa schools is bigger than it’s ever been.
Just like your paycheck is bigger than ever, right?
This is the state of the debate over school funding in Iowa. Republican politicians have tried to hide their stinginess for years by claiming public school kids are getting more money now than ever.
Gov. Kim Reynolds even trafficked in this con during her condition of the state address Tuesday as she bragged about how much money Republicans have put into K-12 education over the past 10 years – without acknowledging the bite inflation is taking out of school budgets.
They say these things to try to fool Iowans into thinking they’re prioritizing your kids.
They’re not.
As The Gazette in Cedar Rapids reported this week, K-12 spending increases have averaged about 2% a year over the past decade.
In some years, these increases have kept up with inflation; in other years, they didn’t. Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, Iowa’s cheap education policies are beginning to catch up to us.
Still, Republican lawmakers don’t seem to care.
Oh, they’ll say that how much you care about education isn’t connected to how much you spend on schools. Then, like last year, they’ll stick Iowa’s kids with a 2.5% increase when inflation was triple that amount.
The governor spent more mental energy last year trying to siphon money away from the 9 out of 10 kids who go to public schools so she could hand it over to private and religious schools. And she and Republican legislative leaders are planning another raid this session – all of it backed by the idea that Iowa schools are getting more money now than ever.
Just like you’re making more money now than ever.
Well, don’t be fooled. Just like the cost of eggs and cereal and gas have risen, school costs have gone up, too. And when revenue doesn’t keep up with expenses, your kids pay the price.
It would be nice if instead of just using inflation to bash Joe Biden on the campaign trail, the governor and state lawmakers would factor it into their budgets. But Reynolds is sticking with the same tired song this session, again proposing a 2.5% increase for Iowa schoolkids.
According to some forecasts, inflation is expected to fade a bit this year, to 3%. But the forecasts are uncertain, and even that amount is higher than what Iowa school kids would get under the governor’s plan.
Educators, recognizing that inflation has burrowed into local school budgets and past increases were inadequate, wanted 5% this session.
That was never going to happen, not with the revenue pressures Republicans created because of the top-heavy tax cuts they passed last year.
They also know they have to conserve some cash to pay for their private school vouchers.
Reynolds even tried Tuesday to sell Iowans on the idea that teachers, school boards and parents who want lawmakers to stop shortchanging their kids’ education aren’t “putting in the work” to make their kids’ lives better. She wants you to believe that the people trying to take $100 million away from the vast majority of Iowa kids going to public schools so they can turn it over to private schools are the ones who are “really focused on our children.”
Well, I think the governor’s eyesight is screwed up.
I’ll have more to say about the voucher plan later. The governor has revamped it so that public school students will get hurt even more than they would under her previous unsuccessful proposals.
In the meantime, Republicans are trying to convince you the kids they want to leave behind are getting more money now than ever.
It's not true. Look at your paycheck. You know.
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Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
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Fern Kupfer and Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias, Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up
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Ed I agree with your financial assessment but I feel you need to talk more about supporting private schools, which for the most part are Christian schools, making the policy unconstitutional. I have no issue with private schools which is a parental choice. Supporting them with public education dollars is promoting one religious view over others. Even though the vast majority of Iowans are Christian as is the United States we don't have a national religion. Our constitution is very straight forward in separating church and state interests and taking tax dollars for private schools is clearly not constitutional correct. I do believe however that if you send your kids to a private school and the private school cannot provide the class you child wants to take or doesn't have the facility to accommodate extracurricular activities, the public schools should make them available to all tax payers.
Ed - I'm a new subscriber today. Thank you for your good work. I grew up in Iowa, now living in Rock Island. But when people ask me where I'm from, I answer, "I live in Illinois, but I'm from Iowa."
I am a skeptic regarding our public schools ability to fix themselves, irrespective of funding. I acknowledge your point regarding the last year, but in the long term national trend, including Iowa, public school funding has exceeded inflation even while achievement declines. In my opinion, the delivery model is broken, so I empathize with the idea of redirecting funds. The industry needs disruption.
Iowa spends over $11,000 per student. Could our community do a better job if we controlled all of that funding locally? I would love to see that question explored.
BTW, I'm a substack writer, too. Check out Uncommon Sense at https://joelelorentzen.substack.com. I address this very discussion in an essay called Dichotomy of Scale. Let me know what you think.