“Beginning this year, all Iowa resident K-12 students are eligible for the ESA program, regardless of their family income.” – Iowa Department of Education press release
Iowa Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner has issued the following statement regarding the opening of the application period for the state’s Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).
“The floodgates are now officially open for the state to subsidize private education for Iowa’s wealthiest families,” Sen. Weiner (D-Iowa City) said. “The Republican private school voucher scheme disproportionately benefits the two-thirds of families who already send their children to private school.”
“This is the fastest-growing portion of the state’s budget,” Sen. Weiner said. “We’ll be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on vouchers right as the governor runs massive budget deficits for at least the next five years.”
“Private schools have already raised the cost of tuition to continue pricing out the students the voucher program was purported to help,” Sen. Weiner said. “The program explodes state spending at a time when revenues are declining, it does nothing to help public schools, where the vast majority of Iowa students learn, and it does nothing to lower costs for working families.”