Why the floodgates are open to help the wealthiest Iowans pay for their private education

Iowa Republican lawmakers have passed a bill to boost K-12 education funding by 2%—not nearly enough to keep pace with what’s needed for a once-thriving public school system. Meanwhile, Governor Kim Reynold’s budget includes a 44% increase for vouchers.

“My kids go to one of these schools where we are going to see cuts.”

Things got personal for Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott (D-West Des Moines) during the Senate debate on the State Supplemental Aid (SSA) rate. She’s got two sons—one in junior high and one in senior high in central Iowa.

Iowa K-12 public schools would receive a 2% increase in per-pupil funding next year, under legislation the Iowa Senate approved this month. This means the state will provide about $160 more per student, taking spending for each pupil from $7,826 to $7,988.

But is it enough?

“It will be roughly $8,000 per student to build your regular program budget,” explained Mike Owen, who’s the deputy director at Common Good Iowa, which is an advocacy and research group that helps come up with policy solutions. “The increase has been held at an average of 2% for 15 years now. In the immediate years before that, the number was on average a little over 3%.”

Senate File 167 sets the State Supplemental Aid (SSA) rate for the upcoming fiscal year. The SSA is the growth rate for public K-12 school funding, which is allocated to schools on a per-pupil basis.

During debate on the SSA rate, Democrats repeatedly called for their GOP colleagues—who control both chambers of state government in Iowa—to set a higher rate in 2025. Dems argued that the 2% rate will put 159 Iowa school districts on the budget guarantee process, which involves property tax increases for local taxpayers to cover a district’s budget shortfall.

Trone Garriott’s kids’ school district is on that budget guarantee list—among about half of the state’s districts.

“Property taxes are going to have to go up just to scrape by,” she said. “Meanwhile, parents like me get to see up close and personal the people who are going to lose their job, the great teachers that are going to go elsewhere, the programs that are getting cut, the class sizes that are getting larger, the opportunities that are getting missed because this body and the state Legislature won’t invest in the majority of Iowa’s kids through our public schools.”

Trone Garriot said Iowa’s public schools do an “incredible job” with the resources they have and are “the cornerstone of having a strong state.” 

“But I’ve seen over the years that the impact of funding is not keeping pace with inflation,” she said.

Schools have lost ground, she continued. “It’s just not enough—if cost of living and everything is going up by 3%, health care insurance premiums are going up by a lot more, and insurance costs for buildings are going up like 20%.”

“Yes, technically the amount of money has been increasing every year. But it’s not increasing as fast as costs. So that means every year schools are having to cut something to make it work, and there’s nothing left to cut.”

Reynolds rolls with 2%

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds had the initial proposal for the 2% rate. The House then proposed 2.25%, but the final bill passed by the Senate and sent to the governor’s desk still includes the 2% SSA rate.

Joshua Brown, president of the Iowa State Education Association, said students deserve the best education possible—and that requires more funding.

“Our elected leaders have a fundamental responsibility to invest in Iowa’s future by fully supporting its public schools, which are open to everyone,” he said. “This means ensuring our classrooms have enough dedicated, qualified professionals to give each student the attention they need.”

“Our public schools require at least 5% in SSA funding to maintain manageable class sizes, offer competitive salaries that attract and retain exceptional teachers, and provide essential support staff, including counselors and nurses.”

In West Des Moines where Trone Garriott’s kids go to school, the chief financial officer said the governor’s idea of funding is inconsiderate.

“Public schools need to be given the same priority they deserve—to educate almost a half million students in Iowa,” said Kurt Subra, West Des Moines Community School Chief Financial Officer. “Two percent over the long run is not a model that it’s going to sustain public schools.” 

He explained that, over time, it could translate into cuts for his school district of about 9,000 students. “It means fewer programs. It means larger class sizes, it might mean fewer buildings, and just fewer staff members overall,” Subra said.

“How do you make it work? And how do you sustain and remain viable as a district over the long run?”

Vouchers divert funds from public education

Compared to the 2% increase in public school funding next year, the governor’s budget shows a 44% increase for vouchers. Vouchers are set to cost Iowa taxpayers almost $1 billion to fund private schools. 

Critics argue the voucher program, implemented by the Republicans and Reynolds, undermines the foundation of a robust public education system.

“If state leaders believe that spending more than $1 billion over the next three years on private school vouchers, which serve only a fraction of our students, is a good idea, then increasing funding for the majority of our students in public schools should also be their priority,” Brown said.

“This is the fastest-growing portion of the state’s budget,” said Sen. Janice Weiner (D-Iowa City). “We’ll be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on vouchers right as the governor runs massive budget deficits for at least the next five years.” 

Families have begun submitting applications for Reynold’s Students First Education Savings Account (ESA), the voucher program. Beginning this year, all of Iowa’s resident K-12 students are eligible for the ESA program, regardless of how much their families make.

“The floodgates are now officially open for the state to subsidize private education for Iowa’s wealthiest families,” Weiner said. 

Brown said it’s a huge loss for public schools. “At the same time, it’s a huge subsidy to private and religious school systems,” he said. “Arguably in most cases, it won’t do anything to expand access to those schools because a lot of the students who are getting that help already go to the private schools.”

In fact, ESAs are now just leading to private schools raising their tuition, according to a study from a Princeton University researcher.

“Private schools have already raised the cost of tuition to continue pricing out the students the voucher program was purported to help,” Weiner added. “The program explodes state spending at a time when revenues are declining, it does nothing to help public schools, where the vast majority of Iowa students learn, and it does nothing to lower costs for working families.”

Trone Garriott said the governor has made it a priority to give public money to private schools, and that’s seemingly more important than balancing the state budget. “We’re looking at a $900 million deficit budget for next year, and about a third of that is money that goes to private schools.”

“So even when state revenues are falling behind and we don’t have what we actually need to keep our state government functioning, she’s still willing to spend a lot of money doing this private school subsidy thing—and it’s not benefiting our state.”