2021

Amid a growing teacher shortage in Iowa, attacks on teachers’ abilities to teach are driving more away from Iowa schools. Neal Patel, a science teacher in the Johnston Community School District, announced at a committee meeting last Thursday that he plans to resign at the end of the school year. He cited the toxic environment…

At a regularly scheduled school board meeting for Urbandale Community Schools, students, teachers and parents took the podium to defend books in the school’s library. “Parents do have the right and responsibility to monitor what their children watches or reads, but not to make decisions for all students and parents,” said Miriam Woods, a former…

Maybe you’ve heard about the recent push to investigate and remove books from school libraries in Iowa. If you don’t have much time to dig into the details, here’s a quick guide to the big points of focus, what’s happening, and why. Click the links for more from the initial stories. What’s Happened Across the…

Roads, bridges, broadband, and sidewalks: That’s just a taste of what Iowa mayors are excited to see come to their cities with the passage of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill. Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last Monday after it passed the House of Representatives last week. Iowa will get about $5 billion…

At a school board committee meeting in Johnston Thursday night, Iowa Sen. Jake Chapman said there should be criminal charges against teachers who allow children to read books he believes are obscene. He later followed up in a Facebook post saying he would prepare legislation for the upcoming session that would allow felony charges to…

When asked what career fields will have a lot of good-paying jobs to fill after the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Craig Levine’s answer was simple: “All.” “Everything, I mean from the person doing the dirt work to clear up the old highway to the person putting in the new highway to…

If you listen to the students, they will tell you they are fed up with adults. More specifically, with parents or other community members making spectacles and sparking controversies at school board meetings. While mask mandates remain contentious, the focus has shifted toward books in high school libraries such as Waukee’s Northwest High School. People…

Iowa labor leaders expect a tremendous boost in construction work and the economy following the signing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which will bring about $5 billion in federal money to the state. “This is the greatest single piece of legislation for the American worker in 80 years—since the New Deal,” said Jeff…

You’ve likely seen the outrage videos and news coverage spreading around Iowa social media in recent weeks: LGBTQ characters—and specifically LGBTQ sex—in books that are available in Iowa high school libraries. Parents and members of the public have shown up at school board meetings to read sexually explicit passages from the books and insist the…

In a surprising development today, the Republican Party has come out against the UAW strike and has begun to attack striking workers. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which fully backs and works closely with Sen. Chuck Grassley’s reelection campaign, put out a statement today accusing UAW workers of “jeopardizing entire crops and the livelihood of…