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.
It’s been 33 years since Rosanne Barr butchered the National Anthem on live TV at a Padres baseball game. I remember asking then, “What did they expect to happen?”
After all, Barr wasn’t a singer. She was an over-the-top standup comedian also starring in “Roseanne,” a sitcom shattering the myth of the “Leave it to Beaver family” on TV. Not only did Barr screech the anthem, she did it while plugging her ears and giggling. Then she grabbed her crotch and spit on the ground.
The public reaction was fierce. The stands erupted in boos and taunts, and the Padres faced a public relations nightmare complete with veteran groups condemning Barr and calling for boycotts of the team.
It all happened because Padre executives wanted to grab attention, didn’t plan well, and probably thought they didn’t need rules for singing America’s song. Those two off-key minutes caused a Padre dumpster fire taking years to extinguish.
Now, Iowa has a similar fire ready to ignite.
This one will burn Iowa financially because Governor Kim Reynolds and her legislative lemmings rammed private school vouchers into law, without carefully considering the consequences.
The question is still relevant: “What did they expect to happen?”
The number of people applying for her vouchers has already surpassed expectations. As of June 13, the Iowa Department of Education had received 17,520 applications, which is 3,452 more than the Legislative Services Agency estimated for the first year of the “education savings accounts.” More Iowans will surely apply before the June 30 deadline.
If all who have applied so far are approved, taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $133 million in year one (the estimate was $107 million). That suggests the program’s estimated costs of $132 million in year two, $295 million in year three, and $345 million in year four are too low. No doubt, far more money will gush from Iowa’s public schools to pay for more families’ private school tuition.
But because Reynolds administration is opaque, officials are refusing to release demographic information about the applicants. That means it’s unclear how many applicants are students already attending private schools, and how many are students enrolled in public schools. It’s also impossible to tell where the applicants are from.
None of this should surprise those who voted for the private school entitlement. After all, they approved $7,598 per student (this year alone) to attend private schools, with few restrictions and virtually no accountability. That cost will grow each year, because the voucher amount is tied to the state’s per-pupil funding for K-12 public schools.
There are family income restrictions for the first two years of the plan, but after that, all Iowans can apply, regardless of income. Taxpayers should be asking, “What did they expect to happen?”
Although Reynolds touted the voucher law as empowering parents, it empowers only a select few parents for three distinct reasons. First, there are no rules prohibiting private schools from raising their tuition. It’s already happening.
Second, private schools are not required to accept all students. A parent may apply for the voucher, be granted it, and then find no private school will accept their child because of learning disabilities, or other private school standards the student doesn’t meet.
Third, about 40 of Iowa’s 99 counties don’t have any private schools. True, some new private schools or online programs may be approved, but parents will have to ask themselves, “Do we really want our child to attend a new, untested pop-up school?”
Like the Padres of old, Republicans rushed through a bill with little planning in order to gain attention. Iowa will be smelling smoke from this dumpster fire for years to come.
Top photo of dumpster fire in Roseburg, Oregon is by TFoxFoto, available via Shutterstock.
4 Comments
more anti-choice rantings from bruce
Another yawn, predictable anti-choice rant from Bruce. Voucher demand is above expectations which should put public schools on notice. Competition is good and long overdue despite what the teachers union wants you to believe. Some of us Democrats are in favor of vouchers and exercising their freedom of school choice. I like the idea that private schools can turn down applicants and aren’t stuck with society’s misfits.
HHHdemocrat Fri 23 Jun 7:10 AM
Not a rant
@Applicants have to be accepted before ESA finds distributed
@Do we know the number of children already in private schools? Governor should have expected that 100% of these parents would apply, mitigated by (as Bruce says) parents income.
@The notion that public schools need competition is a myth. What every public agency needs is funding commensurate with assigned mission.
@Yes. If demand for ESA substantially exceeds the number of kids already in private schools (we don’t know), that should put public schools on notice.
@Misfits? Who are these kids? Black and brown? LBGTQ? Kids with unsupportive home life? Who are the misfits? In a democracy, all kids need an education.
iowagerry Fri 23 Jun 1:59 PM
On notice indeed!
Public schools have been “on notice” for decades that they have been underfunded, understaffed and overloaded with increasing responsibilities to cure every social problem that arises. Couple that with the never ending criticism of people who have never stepped foot in a classroom and have no idea of the challenges teachers and administrators face. Perhaps if people were willing at least occasionally to view a problem from a perspective other than their own we could create public schools that do in fact serve every student, the academically challenged and the academically gifted. Not every family has two parents who looks like the Cleavers and live this imaginary life where mom is in a dress cleaning the house and putting dinner on the table at 5 o’clock every night when dad arrives promptly at 5 to eat it. The standard rebuttal is that maybe they should. Well we can do that when we start paying people a living wage and develop social programs that address very real needs like food and shelter and childcare. And when we fund public schools and universities at levels that allow them to nurture young minds and young futures rather than creating one more exclusionary sanctum. Public schools should be put “on notice” that this state will stop turning its back on every child in order to serve a privileged few and that we put every resource we have into public education. If you want to put anyone “on notice” put those families and their children on top of your list rather than at the bottom.
marysue Mon 26 Jun 7:40 AM
Dems for school choice
I voted against Reynolds but my family did recently participate in the new voucher program. Without it we couldn’t afford private school. This is a great opportunity for our daughter to escape a marginal public school and some dangerous kids. Just because this was a Republican bill it shouldn’t automatically be discounted. I see in Pennsylvania Gov Shapiro(yes a Democrat) is supporting school vouchers. Might be onto something….
ModerateDem Sat 24 Jun 9:17 PM