Iowa was once respected for the quality of its public schools. Now the Republican elected officials are tearing down the state’s public schools. They launched a voucher program, and they are now expanding it, at the expense of public schools.
There are some things we know for sure about voucher programs after three decades of experience. First, the actual cost always outstrips the projected cost. Two, whatever the eligibility requirements are in the first year, they will be stripped away so that eventually all students will be eligible for vouchers. Third, vouchers may be initially targeted to needy groups, like students with disabilities, but there is no assurance that these children will be admitted to voucher schools. Fourth, most students who apply for and use vouchers are already enrolled in private and religious schools. Fifth, students who transfer from public schools to voucher schools will fall behind academically. Sixth, many voucher schools will discriminate on any grounds—keeping out children because of their religion or because they are LGBT or because they are simply “not what the school wants.”
In voucher schools, schools choose, not families or students.
Ty Harding of Iowa Starting Line reports on the growing program in Iowa.
Iowa has committed nearly $180 million in taxpayer funds to support private school tuition in the 2024-25 school year, which is almost $50 million more than the initial Iowa Legislative Service Agency (LSA) projections.
Initially, the LSA projected Iowa would spend $106.9 million in the first year of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ private school voucher program—called Students First Education Savings Accounts—and $132.3 million in the second year.
However, the first year of the program cost Iowa taxpayers nearly $128 million. The Iowa Legislature allocated $179.2 million to the program for the upcoming fiscal year, according to the state’s recently approved general fund.
These amounts are only expected to increase as restrictions on who can participate in the program are rolled back.
The first year restricted access to students with a household income at or below 300% of the federal poverty guideline, but that restriction will be raised to 400% ($124,800 for a family of four) in the 2024-25 school year, before being phased out entirely in the 2025-26 school year.
Each voucher recipient will receive $7,826 in taxpayer funds to help cover private school tuition in the 2024-25 school year (the amount changes each year based on the state’s per-pupil funding). Predicated on this year’s budgeted amount, the state expects at least 22,897 students to receive a voucher.
Another big change for the upcoming 2024-25 year is that public school districts will directly lose money due to voucher program.
State funding for public schools is primarily based on enrollment weighting and state cost per pupil. Before the voucher law, districts still received those funds from the state even for students who lived in the district but did not attend a public school. Going forward, districts will no longer receive those dollars.
Please open the link to finish reading.
This article in the Gazette shows the negative effects of vouchers on Iowa City, a school district with some 14,400 students. Property taxes are going up, the teaching staff will shrink by attrition, and an elementary school will be closed. The vast majority of students will be harmed by a program that subsidizes the few.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The vast majority of students will be harmed by a program that subsidizes the few.”
This is especially true when the subsidy tends to go to students chosen because of their political affiliation rather than their needs.
Roy, political and RELIGIOUS.
Private choices should be paid for by private dollars. Why should taxpayers be compelled to pay for schools that damage the schools their own children attend and that are open to all while they subsidize select schools for the children of the affluent? It makes no sense, and it is anti-democratic.
The wall of separation, between “Private-Belief” spending and “State-Belief” spending, continues to change. The funders obligation hasn’t changed. They will fund belief-based spending irregardless of their “private” beliefs. My belief deserves funding and your belief does not deserve funding, is a hard sell to the funders. A voucher quacks like a rebate. Granted, where you stand depends on where you sit in the State’s Cafeteria…
I’ve written this before but it has been a while.
How is this not socialism? This is the redistribution of wealth from the childless to those with children. Those of us that are childless have no say in how the families spend the money. They just get free money with no oversight.
At least a school district has board meetings where I can have a voice. Other people just get tax money to purchase whatever “education-related” product they can justify. Why should I help pay for a new computer for my neighbor?
Why should you pay for your neighbors’ children to get religious indoctrination?
Agree. In the realm of capitalism and the American those of rugged individualism, why should any of us pay for our neighbors anything? C’mon, bootstraps! You wanted kids, pay for their services yourself!
(I actually believe in the common good but that requires that we all have a voice in determining the common good. Instead, legislators and governors take massive donations from billionaires and drown the voices of everyone else. As noted on this blog often, if they truly believe that the public wants vouchers, let’s have a referendum. I think we know why that won’t happen.)