“If your plan is for one year plant rice. If your plan is for 10 years plant trees. If your plan is 100 years educate children.” Confucius.
Our democracy is dependent on well educated citizens, able to make intelligent, thoughtful decisions. All this begins with a strong education for ALL of our children. The State has an obligation to make sure every child in Iowa receives an equitable education, and that is the focus of public education, no matter the socioeconomic background, zip code, or the ability.
There has been much said about SF159 and what is does and doesn’t do for the education of our children. SF159 sets up “Student First Scholarship” a fancy name for voucher. This would apply to only 34 schools and not every building in these districts. If 5% of the students took advantage of this it would cost $5Million. If all eligible took advantage the figure would be more like $52Million. However, many of these schools are in rural areas where there is no private school, thus one of the other parts of the bill comes into play.
SF159 also allows private, out of state, for profit charter schools to open in Iowa. I fail to see how any of this is for the greater good of ALL our kids. Public education has been underfunded for the last decade and this only siphons more away from our goal of an equitable education for all.
The assumption with this bill is students should have a choice and tax dollars should follow the child. I am a strong believer in school choice. Students have choices already; home school, private school, choose online, or open enroll in a neighboring school. The tax dollars do follow the student from one public school to the other. Also, the State already supports private and home schooling to the tune of $57 million for 2021, this includes $15 million that goes towards scholarships for kids that want to go to private school but need financial help.
Some say public tax dollars should follow the student to any school. That would be like saying, “Because I belong to the country club I want my tax dollars to go there and not the local public golf course.” We do hold public education accountable and transparent with those tax dollars. They have a publicly elected Board, they must accept ALL students, adhere to all state and federal testing and regulations. This is not true for private charter and private schools. Public schools have been underfunded for a decade and SF159 takes dollars away from our schools, and especially hurts rural schools.
I believe our private and public schools in Iowa do a wonderful job. I also believe we need to make sure we are giving ALL our kids the help they need to succeed, and not experimenting with their education.
No surprise here, the only thing she cares about is protecting public schools because she is tied to the teachers union.
She is not my representative in the Senate, I have emailed her 5 times and have never heard a response from her. She doesn’t listen to the people of north Iowa.
Kinda like Randy Feenstra. He dont answer either.
The Democrats are racing to pass H.R. 1, the “For the People Act”. This bill has many egregious provisions including virtually eliminating any restrictions on vote-by-mail and significantly reducing the role states play in federal elections. This bill also represents a massive assault on our First Amendment right to free political speech. Please tell your representative that H.R. 1 is not the solution America needs for election security and protecting voter rights.
OHHHHH ! WHAT A SOCIALIST SUPRISE !!!!!!!!