DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Any Iowa student who desires to attend a non-public school could use public money to pay for tuition or other expenses under a plan approved early Tuesday by the Legislature, making the state the third to pass a measure that enables such spending with few restrictions.
Republicans approved the bill despite objections from Democrats and others who argued the brand new education savings accounts would result in reduced funding for public schools. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who made the private school funding measure considered one of her top priorities after failing to pass similar but less expansive proposals twice before, said she would sign the bill later Tuesday.
“For the primary time, we are going to fund students as a substitute of a system, a decisive step in ensuring that each child in Iowa can receive the very best education possible,” Reynolds said in a press release. “Parents, not the federal government, can now select the education setting best suited to their child no matter their income or zip code.”
The bill passed the state House late Monday and the Senate early Tuesday with only Republican support.
With passage of the bill, Iowa joins West Virginia and Arizona as states that provide taxpayer money to assist families pay student tuition and other expenses at private schools with few limits, in line with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states offer such help, but only to families that meet requirements for income, disabilities or other aspects.
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Legislatures are also considering similar program in other states, including Florida, Nebraska, Virginia and Utah.
Iowa Republicans, who hold wide majorities within the House and Senate, approved the bill remarkably quickly, with final passage coming within the third week of the legislative session. A nonpartisan evaluation by the Legislatives Services Agency estimated the measure would cost $344.9 million annually in its fourth yr, after it’s fully implemented. The agency noted its assessment got here without knowing some details, including the fee of paying a business to oversee this system.
The governor and Republican legislators have argued that they support the state’s public schools but that each one families should have the ability to send their children to personal school, not only those wealthy enough to afford the schooling. They note that if students opt for personal school, their $7,600 in per-pupil support would follow them to the private institution, however the plan would send $1,200 to the general public school districts where the scholars resides. The general public funding also can be available to students already enrolled in private schools, with family income requirements phasing out over three years.
During debate Monday night, Rep. Steven Holt, a Republican from Denison, said Democrats were overstating what the private school funding would mean to public schools.
“If in truth an enormous number of scholars were to go away public schools to attend accredited private schools, then it becomes profoundly clear just how vital it was that we gave parents greater alternative, since such an exodus would lay bare the realities that these schools weren’t meeting the needs of our students,” Crawford said.
Democratic legislators and other opponents of the plan countered that Iowa lawmakers have for years provided inadequate support, forcing districts to repeatedly cut their budgets. They said the brand new plan would worsen that funding problems, especially hurting the state’s largest urban district and a few of its smallest rural districts.
They noted that just about half of Iowa’s 99 counties don’t have a non-public school and that almost all of the brand new funding will go to varsities within the state’s largest cities.
“This laws is a blank check to personal schools in Iowa’s biggest, wealthiest cities with no oversight, no accountability. And when all of it falls apart, rural schools that close consequently of this laws cannot just reopen easily,” said Rep. Sami Scheetz, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids.
Kari Mahler, a primary grade teacher in East Sac County Community School District in largely rural northwest Iowa, said her biggest concern with the brand new program is that it provides public money to personal schools though those schools don’t have to simply accept all students, including those with disabilities.
Coming after some difficult years as teachers tried to navigate the COVID-19 crisis, Mahler said, the plan leaves her feeling discouraged.
“It seems like we’re just getting beaten down again,” she said.
Nevertheless, for supporters of the plan like Oliver Bardwell, of Waukee, a Des Moines suburb, the bottom line is to present parents more options.
“Parents need a voice, they usually need a alternative,” Bardwell said at a public hearing last week concerning the plan. “They wish to be heard they usually want their children to have the chance to an education that aligns with their family’s values.”
Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center on the University of Colorado Boulder, said no matter whether public funding of personal schools is fair, research shows that on average, students who leave public schools often don’t profit. Much of that consequence is dependent upon the standard of a non-public school, and that may vary dramatically, Welner said in an email.
“If using a voucher to maneuver to personal school hasn’t been useful, the apparent policy query is why? And the apparent answer is that the private schools haven’t been excellent,” Welner said. “We all know that some private schools are excellent, while others are awful. There’s quite a variation.”
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