When the costs of supporting your family rise faster than your income, painful cuts have to be made that will lower your family’s standard of living. So it is, too, for our public schools. Compared to when she became governor, under Republican Kim Reynolds state support for public schools has fallen far behind inflation. At the same time huge numbers of taxpayers’ dollars have been siphoned off to pay for private school vouchers.
This year the gap is worse than ever. State Senator Herman Quirmbach stated, “Under Gov. Reynolds, annual state funding for public K-12 schools has now fallen more than half a billion dollars behind inflation.” Quirmbach added, “Public dollars should go to public schools. Instead, Reynolds’ private school voucher program this year will eat up $340 million of your tax dollars, even as the public school funding shortfall grows to $526 million, as the attached graphs show.”
“The graphs also show the shortfall is now more than $1000 per student for regular program kids,” Quirmbach stated. “The situation is even worse for students receiving special education. Funding for the kids who need the most help has fallen as much as $3500 behind inflation compared to nine years ago. At the same time, voucher recipients get $8000 per student, 85% of the people who get vouchers already can afford private schooling, and the private schools that benefit from vouchers don’t have to accept students with disabilities.”
Iowans used to be proud that our public schools were among the best in the country. Nowadays U.S. News and World Report ranks Iowa’s pre-K to 12 schools only #27. Many schools can no longer offer competitive pay to attract and retain top quality teachers, and some teaching vacancies aren’t being filled at all. Educational materials and facilities are in danger of becoming out of date. The attached graphs tell a sad story.
We owe Iowa children better.
Sen. Quirmbach, Ph.D., is the Ranking Member of the Senate Education Committee. He was an economics professor at Iowa State for 29 years.
