I’ve written about the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) before. They are a well-intentioned group trying to improve Iowan lives. They earned recognition in the state back in the 1980’s when they partnered with Willie Nelson and others to protect Iowa family farmers from having their land repossessed by banks. Now they not only work in agricultural advocacy, but public health, clean water, and political campaigns. In fact, the first time I met these folks was when they hosted a birthday party for Willie’s 90th. I’m a big Willie fan.
But recently, I’ve become troubled with the work Iowa CCI has done around public schools. Since October of 2023, 12 Iowa school boards passed an Iowa CCI resolution calling on the Governor and state legislature for a 5% increase in state supplemental aid (SSA) for public schools and phase out the private school vouchers over the next five years. Iowa CCI’s rationale is that while taxpayer money now goes to private schools because of Iowa’s education savings account (voucher) program, Iowa’s public schools – where 92% of the state’s students attend – struggle to meet our kids’ needs.
It is true that over the past 10 years, Iowa’s Governor and state legislature have underfunded Iowa’s schools by passing a paltry SSA rate of just 2% on average, which isn’t enough to keep up with inflation.
Iowa CCI hopes that more cash-strapped districts are signing onto their resolution as they face closing schools, reducing staff and cutting programs to offset gaping budget deficits caused by what Iowa CCI feels is inadequate state funding. Iowa CCI points to public school enrollment declines, caused by the state’s new private school voucher program, as costing more than $700 million in it first three years. Iowa CCI is troubled by the fact that public tax-dollars are currently subsidizing 99% of Iowa’s private school students.
As one Iowa CCI member put it:
“Public schools are the bedrocks of communities across Iowa, and we can’t sit idly by as the people elected to represent us dismantle them, piece by piece. Public schools belong to all of us, and they are at a breaking point. We need to fully fund them and do away with the voucher program. Future generations are counting on us.”
There’s a reason why Iowa, along with almost half of the other states in the country, has moved to education savings accounts or vouchers. The reason is that too many of their public schools, over the past 50 years, have under-performed and have not met the needs of their students – especially black, brown, and poor kids. At times, every state that now has adopted education savings accounts probably increased their public school funding, hoping that their kids would improve their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills. That didn’t happen, at least in enough states to matter over the long term.
At first education savings accounts were associated with Republican-led states, but now even Democratic leaders are jumping on the bandwagon of allowing parents the opportunity and financial support to choose something different than a sucky public school. Besides, if a school is improving the reading, writing, and problem-solving skills of the children of tax-paying families, shouldn’t that school, or other type of learning model like homeschooling, learning pods, or microschools, be considered a public schooling endeavor?
No, ABPTL is afraid groups like Iowa CCI are stuck back in the 20th century, when educational leaders cried for more money and support.
“If we only had more dollars, then we could really improve black, brown, and poor kids’ performance in math and reading.”
Regrettably, more money didn’t work for enough kids. So now we’re seeing a model shift – a different definition of what public schooling, not public schools, means moving forward.
If Iowa CCI really wanted to improving public schooling, then they would advocate for a learning plan for every young learner, identification and hiring of a new type of adult learning leader (who would receive compensation equal to their talent and performance), and support for families, primarily black, brown, and poor, who need an opportunity to get their kids out of terrible schools – right now.
That seems like advocacy worth supporting.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
Leave a comment