New Hampshire: Legislators Debate School Funding, But Vouchers Set to Grow

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2023 //
1

Gary Rayno of InDepth NH is a reliable guide to education politics in New Hampshire. In this post, he describes the decisions that legislators must grapple with starting this week. New Hampshire public schools and public colleges have never been adequately funded, and the state has the misfortune of having a state commissioner who doesn’t care. He homeschooled his own children, and he doesn’t understand why the state pays for public schools.

He begins:

In New Hampshire, public education is a moving target.

It is a hodgepodge of activities and systems from pre-Kindergarten to its colleges and universities.

But the one unifying force along the spectrum is the state’s minuscule financial commitment.

The state’s contributions to public education puts it in line with states like Mississippi and Louisiana although its per capita wealth averages among the highest in the country.

One district has challenged the state in court, claiming that the state does not provide enough funding for an adequate education. State Commissioner Frank Edelblut doesn’t want any new money for public schools, but he’s quite willing to spend more on vouchers (so-called “education freedom accounts”.) The state contends that only the legislature—not the court—can determine funding for the schools.

To date the program is far more expensive than Edelblut advised lawmakers it would be, about $3.3 million this biennium, when the costs to date are well north of $20 million, much of that money paying tuition subsidies to parents whose children were in private and religious schools and homeschooling programs before the EFA program began.

The program was sold as allowing low-to-moderate income parents to find the best educational environment for their child if he or she did not adapt well to the public school setting.

Tuesday the Senate Education Committee will hear three bills that would allow more students to be eligible for the program, which Edelblut told lawmakers would cost $30 million in each year of the biennium.

House Bill 367 would increase the income threshold for a child to be eligible for the program by about $9,000 for a family of four by increasing the cut from 300 percent of the federal poverty level to 350 percent.

House Bill 464 would allow children to automatically qualify if they are in foster care, military families, homeless, and transients. The cost of the change has not been determined although the bill passed the House.

And House Bill 446 would require the organization administering the program to inform parents they will lose their federal special education rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act if they participate in the program.

This is part of the voucher hoax. Children with special needs lose federal right to services if they switch to a voucher school, but most of these parents don’t know it.

The Senate Finance Committee will also have to decide if the House gave the University System of New Hampshire and the Community College System of New Hampshire, too much money, too little money or enough money.

The university system had hoped to finally return to the level of funding it had more than a decade ago, before the 2011-12 legislature cut it in half.

The House approved almost the $200 million the system received before the slashing, and added a little more so tuition could remain frozen and the Whittemore Center could be upgraded.

The community college system successfully fought off a plan by the governor to merge with the university system a biennium ago but continues to face the challenge of providing education in more technical fields while enrollment decreases particularly in the more traditional areas of instruction.

But the system has continued to freeze tuition like the university system in a state where the students have the highest college debt in the country.

New Hampshire’s education system is jumbled and in flux. One thing that could make things a little easier is additional money, but the only program with open-ended funding is the EFA and that could cost the state nearly $70 million a year if all the students in private and religious schools and homeschools decide to participate.

That is almost as much money a year the university system receives and more than the community college system receives.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Extremism, Funding, New Hampshire

Alabama: Governor Fires Director of Early Childhood Education for Using “Woke” Teacher Training Book

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2023 //
6

Insensitivity and indifference to racism seem to be deeply embedded in the Republican Party. Especially, though not exclusively, in the South.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey just forced Secretary of Early Childhood Education Barbara Cooper to resign over a book designed to train teachers to be aware of the different backgrounds and challenges of their students.

In a Friday afternoon news release, Gina Maiola, communications director for the governor’s office, said Ivey had accepted Cooper’s resignation after learning of a pre-K educator resource book that included “woke concepts.”

The book is the National Association for the Education of Young Children Developmentally Appropriate Practice Book, 4th Edition. It focuses on teaching children up to age of 8.

Cooper was unable to be reached Friday afternoon. The NAEYC said in a statement Friday evening that the program had been used for almost four decades and served as “the foundation for high-quality early childhood education across states and communities.”

“While not a curriculum, it is a responsive, educator-developed, educator-informed, and research-based resource that has been honed over multiple generations to support teachers in helping all children thrive and reach their full potential, ” the statement said. “Building on the good work that is happening in states and communities, NAEYC looks forward to continuing its partnership with families, educators, and policymakers to further our shared goals of offering joyful learning environments that see, support, and reflect all children and their families.”

In her email, Maiola said the governor’s office received a complaint about the book teaching white privilege, structural racism and messaging promoting “equality, dignity and worth” around LGBTQIA+ identities.

An Alabama Reflector review of the book, running over 800 pages in electronic form, found it focused on encouraging teachers to be aware of inequities, implicit bias and the diverse backgrounds of children in order to be better teachers and create welcoming environments for their students.

The book does not appear to tell teachers to discuss these issues with children directly.

“Teachers need to be particularly aware of providing supporting environments and responses to children who are members of marginalized groups and those who have been targets of bias and stereotyping,” one passage said.

Please open the link and read the rest of this shameful episode.

Categories Accountability, Alabama, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Curriculum, Research, Stupid

College Board Announces Plan to Revise AP African-American Studies Course, Again

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2023 //
47

The New York Times reported that the College Board plans to revise its controversial AP African-American studies course. Last year, it was about to roll out a syllabus when a writer in The National Review said it was a radical Marxist course that would teach students to hate America. The state of Florida, under Governor DeSantis’ direction, negotiated with the College Board to remove topics and authors that it wanted removed. DeSantis announced that unless the course satisfied Florida, the state would ban it.

The College Board revised the course to satisfy Florida, and many schols of African-American studies objected.

Now the College Board says the course will be revised yet again, this time to satisfy the angry scholars.

The College Board said on Monday that it would revise its Advanced Placement African American studies course, less than three months after releasing it to a barrage of criticism from scholars, who accused the board of omitting key concepts and bending to political pressure from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had said he would not approve the curriculum for use in Florida.

While written in couched terms, the College Board’s statement appeared to acknowledge that in its quest to offer the course to as many students as possible — including those in conservative states — it watered down key concepts.

“In embarking on this effort, access was our driving principle — both access to a discipline that has not been widely available to high school students, and access for as many of those students as possible,” the College Board wrote on it website. “Regrettably, along the way those dual access goals have come into conflict.”

The board, which did not respond immediately to an interview request, said on its website that a course development committee and experts within the Advanced Placement staff would determine the changes “over the next few months.”

The College Board, a billion-dollar nonprofit that administers the SAT and A.P. courses, ran headlong into a conflict between two sides unlikely to find any room for compromise. Black studies scholars believe that concepts the board de-emphasized — like reparations, Black Lives Matter and intersectionality — are foundational to the college-level discipline of African American studies. Conservatives — politicians, activists and some parents — believe the field is an example of liberal orthodoxy, and they are concerned that schools have focused too much on issues such as racism and systemic oppression.

Stay tuned. If DeSantis boycotts the course, other red states will follow. Will the College Board stick with the scholars or the market?

Categories Accountability, Curriculum, DeSantis, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Florida, Race, Racism

Politico: Rightwing Candidates Trounced in School Board Elections in Illinois and Wisconsin

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2023 //
12

Politico reported that rightwing cultural warriors lost most school board elections, despite their big-money backers. Voters in Illinois and Wisconsin were not swayed by fear-mongering about critical race theory, LGBT issues, and other spurious claims of the extremists. These results should encourage the Democratic Party to challenge the attacks on public schools in the 2024 elections. An aggressive defense of public schools is good politics.

Amid all the attention on this month’s elections in Wisconsin and Illinois, one outcome with major implications for 2024 flew under the national radar: School board candidates who ran culture-war campaigns flamed out.

Democrats and teachers’ unions boasted candidates they backed in Midwestern suburbs trounced their opponents in the once-sleepy races. The winning record, they said, was particularly noticeable in elections where conservative candidates emphasized agendas packed with race, gender identity and parental involvement in classrooms.

While there’s no official overall tally of school board results in states that held an array of elections on April 4, two conservative national education groups did not dispute that their candidates posted a losing record. Liberals are now making the case that their winning bids for school board seats in Illinois and Wisconsin show they can beat back Republican attacks on divisive education issues.

The results could also serve as a renewed warning to Republican presidential hopefuls like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis: General election voters are less interested in crusades against critical race theory and transgender students than they are in funding schools and ensuring they are safe.

“Where culture war issues were being waged by some school board candidates, those issues fell flat with voters,” said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association labor union. “The takeaway for us is that parents and community members and voters want candidates who are focused on strengthening our public schools, not abandoning them.”

The results from the Milwaukee and Chicago areas are hardly the last word on the matter. Thousands more local school elections are set for later this year in some two dozen states. They are often low turnout, low profile, and officially nonpartisan affairs, and conservatives say they are competing aggressively.

“We lost more than we won” earlier this month, said Ryan Girdusky, founder of the conservative 1776 Project political action committee, which has ties to GOP megadonor and billionaire Richard Uihlein and endorsed an array of school board candidates this spring and during the 2022 midterms.

“But we didn’t lose everything. We didn’t get obliterated,” Girdusky told POLITICO of his group’s performance. “We still pulled our weight through, and we just have to keep on pushing forward on this.”

Labor groups and Democratic operatives are nevertheless flexing over the defeat of candidates they opposed during races that took place near Chicago, which received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from state Democrats and the attention of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, and in Wisconsin. Conservative board hopefuls also saw mixed results in Missouri and Oklahoma.

Democrats hope the spring school election season validates their playbook: Coordinate with local party officials, educator unions and allied community members to identify and support candidates who wield an affirming pro-public education message — and depict competitors as hard-right extremists.

Yet despite victories in one reliably blue state and one notorious battleground, liberals are still confronting Republican momentum this year that could resemble November’s stalemated midterm results for schools and keep the state of education divided along partisan lines.

Conservative states are already carrying out sharp restrictions on classroom lessons, LGBTQ students, and library books. And they are beginning to refine their message to appeal to moderates.

Trump, DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other Republican presidential hopefuls are leaning on school-based wedge issues to court primary voters in a crowded White House campaign.

Open the link. The wedge issues are working against the Republicans. Most people know and like their tearchers and their public schools.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Democrats, Disruption, Education Reform, Elections, Equity, Extremism, Failure, Fraud, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hope, Lies, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Republicans, Supporting public schools

Jan Resseger: Ohio Republicans Want More Vouchers, Eroding Public Education

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2023 //
11

Jan Resseger foresees that the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature is determined to expand vouchers for private and religious schools.

They are determined to divert more money and students away from public schools despite the compelling evidence that vouchers are harmful to students, most of whom will attend schools that are lower in quality than their public school.

Jan explains why public education is essential to our democracy, not as a consumer good, but as a civic responsibility:

If you are a supporter of public education, and in your state you face proposed legislation for school vouchers, you are unlikely to convince conservative Republicans to vote against vouchers.

The issue has become purely ideological—a matter of core belief. The late political theorist Benjamin Barber almost perfectly characterizes the divide between supporters of public institutions and the radical marketplace individualists:

“Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: it dissolves the bonds that tie us together into free communities and democratic republics. It puts us back in the state of nature where we possess a natural right to get whatever we can on our own, but at the same time lose any real ability to secure that to which we have a right. Private choices rest on individual power… personal skills… and personal luck. Public choices rest on civic rights and common responsibilities, and presume equal rights for all. Public liberty is what the power of common endeavor establishes, and hence presupposes that we have constituted ourselves as public citizens by opting into the social contract. With privatization, we are seduced back into the state of nature by the lure of private liberty and particular interest; but what we experience in the end is an environment in which the strong dominate the weak… the very dilemma which the original social contract was intended to address.” (Consumed, pp. 143-144)

Categories Democracy, Education Industry, Ohio, Religion, Research, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Paul Bowers: Beware Nikki Haley and Her Apocalyptic Hero!

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2023 //
14

Paul Bowers is an experienced journalist who writes a fascinating blog about South Carolina called “Brutal South.” In this post, he tells us who Nikki Haley, Republican Presidential candidate, is and whom she admires.

In his 2010 book of prophetic wisdom, Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are the Terminal Generation, the Texas televangelist John Hagee recalls standing on a hill overlooking Megiddo in Israel, looking down into the valley, and envisioning a lake of blood 200 miles wide and as deep as a horse’s bridle.

In this and other bestselling books of prophecy, Pastor Hagee takes the book of Revelation literally and then prescribes a political program to bring about the end of human civilization as we know it. This is notable for a number of reasons, not least of which is that he has the ear of Republican presidential contender and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Like a lot of people, my ears perked up when Haley launched her campaign Feb. 15 in Charleston, South Carolina, and brought Pastor Hagee onstage to kick off the proceedings with a prayer. When Haley said, “To Pastor Hagee, I still say I want to be you when I grow up,” I nearly fell out of my chair. Like some kind of theological pervert, I went to the public library that week and borrowed every book by Hagee I could find.

I’ve been taking notes on these books and will probably write a more general synopsis at some point, but this week I want to linger on Can America Survive? It is an audacious book of geopolitical soothsaying, and it raises some questions that it would behoove political reporters to ask Haley on the campaign trail.

This book is, among other things, the most virulent Islamophobic text I have ever read. It repackages the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory for a U.S. audience, warning of an “Islamic population bomb” (p. 37) and favorably citing the British UKIP booster Melanie Phillips’ 2006 book Londonistan (p. 126). Hagee warns of secret Islamist sleeper cells throughout the heartland (p. 11) while advocating for spying on U.S. mosques and pre-emptive military strikes against Iran (p. 50). Hagee questions “radical Islam’s loyalty to America” after citing a random series of newspaper clippings about “honor killings” and claims, without evidence, that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a No. 1 bestseller in unspecified Muslim countries (p. 26).

Please open the link and read on to understand Haley and other Christian nationalists.

Categories Elections, Religion, Republicans, South Carolina

Florida: Legislators Turn Their Backs on Immigrants

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2023 //
12

Fabiola Santiago is my favorite Miami Herald columnist. I share her sensibility. As I read what she wrote, I say “yes” again and again. Recently she wrote about the disgraceful anti-immigrant sentiment expressed in legislation by lawmakers who came from immigrant families. Miami, she writes, was once celebrated for its ethnic mix. Now Republican legislators are obediently following the xenophobic governor, who is a Christian nationalist. Would DeSantis have let them in? Probably not.

She writes:

Immigrant-hate-stoking Florida Gov. DeSantis should be persona non grata in South Florida. But gullible voters eagerly follow charlatans.

There are plenty of reasons to whisk away the welcome mat — DeSantis has attacked practically every distinctive feature we once stood for — none more repulsive than his loathing of undocumented immigrants, encapsulated in an immigration bill making its way through the Legislature.

This is a region risen from the tears and triumphs of decades of immigration, and BD — Before DeSantis — even Republican politicians held us up as an example of the heights a diverse community can reach.

Before the abhorrent “Florida blueprint” DeSantis is peddling nationwide — autocracy, anti-gay, anti-Black and anti-women’s rights, anti-immigrant measures — we were heralded as America’s model city of the future.

Now, GOP state lawmakers stand in solidarity with inconceivable intrusion in our communities by a governor with runaway ambition. Simply put, both versions of the same proposal, House Bill 1617 and Senate Bill 1718, are a slap to the face of our immigrant families — and native-born Americans who have welcomed immigrants into their lives, whether through friendship or marriage.

Families of mixed immigration status, people who straddle two worlds, are a Florida trademark. But if bills pass both chambers, these Floridians could potentially become criminals in the eyes of the law.

If signed by the governor, the new and possibly unconstitutional law would criminalize hosting immigrants in your home and driving them to school, work or anywhere else.

Doing so would be tantamount to harboring a fugitive and abetting them. Who and how authorities get to decide who is here illegally or who isn’t is tough to tell. And neither DeSantis nor the state decides immigration matters.

The bill also mandates random raids on businesses to check employees’ immigration status, again not the purview of state government, and forces hospitals to ask patients for their immigration status.

All of these proposals, which should have been dead on arrival when filed, have passed two House and Senate committees….

“This bill will negatively impact not only tens of thousands of mixed-status families living in Florida but will also impact thousands of businesses across the state,“ former Miami congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell told me. “Immigrants have been the backbone of Florida’s economy from the agricultural sector to the hospitality industry. Will Gov. DeSantis raid every business in the state to enforce this law?”

Perhaps not the businesses of his donors, but he will target those of random Hispanics and other minority groups.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/article274039665.html#storylink=cpy

Pastors in Florida worry that they will face criminal charges if they provide a ride to church services to an undocumented immigrant.

The ACLU of Florida summarized the bills:

Criminalizes Floridians who shelter, support, and provide transportation to undocumented immigrants, including those who have overstayed their visa or who have lived in Florida for decades and have US born children. Makes it harder for immigrants to provide for their families. Harms businesses by authorizing FDLE to conduct random checks of businesses to ensure compliance. Prohibits public funding for community IDs and requires hospitals to inquire of Medicaid patients whether they’re lawfully allowed in the country and to collect that data.

Florida’s hospitality and tourism industry won’t find it easy to hire people to clean hotel rooms, work in kitchens, and do other low-wage jobs. Where will the agriculture industry find people to tend and harvest their crops?

Despite protests, the compliant Florida legislature seems sure to give Governor DeSantis whatever he wants.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida

Cathy Antunes: Dark Money in Florida Elections

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2023 //
2

Cathy Antunes is an education activist in Sarasota, Florida. When she ran for local office, she realized that the public doesn’t pay much attention to local elections. This creates a huge opportunity for extremists with money to win local elections, especially School Board elections.

She wondered who was funding the campaigns of extremists. The Supreme Court’s decision Citizens United gutted limits on campaign contributions, and extremists took advantage of the new situation.

She started digging and found large amounts of money flowing into Florida state and local elections from shell corporations created by out-of-state funders. In other words, the funders were using Dark Money, money whose origins were hard to trace.

She turned her research into an ebook that is on the internet for free.

I hope you will open the link and read the book.

Categories Accountability, Cheating, Dark Money, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Florida

Mercedes Schneider: DeSantis Better Build More Prisons in Florida

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2023 //
22

Mercedes Schneider points out that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis believes he can win over the Republican base by turning stuff he doesn’t like into felonies. With so many new laws on the books that carry criminal penalties, Florida will need more prison cells.

Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and the Republican supermajority in the Florida House and Senate are passing incredibly extreme, right-wing legislation, which will surely help DeSantis to curry favor with an extreme, right-wing Republican base in order for DeSantis to become Republican nominee for president in 2024….

Imposing felonies seems to be the legislative way in Florida of late; as a result of a new law in January 2023, the state’s teachers, librarians, and other school officials are packing up library books for fear of being charged with a third-degree felony for allowing the public access to non-government-approved books. But freedomand liberty.

The abortion ban cited above imposes possible third-degree felonies for any medical professional who assists, say, a woman who discovers at 10 weeks that her fetus has no skull. According to DeSantis’ law, since this woman’s life is not in danger, she should (must!) carry the pregnancy to term and give birth to a child without a skull (a child with a 5 percent chance of living one full week and no more).

Surely such cruelty is not good for any forthcoming DeSantis-as-Prez campaign.

A man who sneaks into town to sign such a bill into law under cover of darkness surely knows as much….

So, here’s the rub:

In order to get the Republican nomination, DeSantis needs all of this punitive, “felony” legislation. However, in order to win the presidential election, such fascist extremism is DOA.

Republican megadonors are noticing DeSantis’ extremism.

On April 15, 2023, the Financial Times published an article, entitled, “Top Republican Donor Sours on Florida Governor’s Stance on Social Issues.” From the article:

Top Republican donor Thomas Peterffy [worth $26B] is halting plans to help finance the US presidential bid of Florida governor Ron DeSantis due to his extreme positions on social issues. 

“I have put myself on hold,” the billionaire told the Financial Times. 

“Because of his stance on abortion and book banning . . . myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.” …

In January, Peterffy told the FT that he was a fan of DeSantis and was “looking forward” to backing a presidential bid by the governor.

But now, he says: “I am more reluctant to back him. We are waiting to see who among the primary candidates is most likely to be able to win the general, and then put all of our firepower behind them.”

Ahh, the DeSantis quandary: How to sell out to the base and also win the general election?

Might be a good idea to sign into law Florida legislation that does not include the words, “third-degree felony.”

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Politics

Iowa: Legislature Will Spend Millions to Kick Poor People Off Food Stamps

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2023 //
41

This is a story I don’t understand, so I’m sharing and hoping someone can explain my questions. Iowa is a red state. The legislature is about to make it harder for poor people to gain access to federal aid for food, a program called SNAPor . Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal government’s most effective food assistance pipeline. The legislature knows that about 300,000 Iowans rely on SNAP to feed themselves and their family. But they think that Iowa can save money by reducing SNAP beneficiaries, also that getting food aid reduces the incentive to work.

So here are my questions:

How can people be so cruel?

Why do these legislators get re-elected?

As a reader of this blog, you will not be surprised to see which billionaires are behind this effort to take food access away from hungry families.

Kyle Swenson of the Washington Post reported:

The state legislature, with the support of the Republican supermajority, was poised to approve some of the nation’s harshest restrictions on SNAP. They include asset tests and new eligibility guidelines. By the state’s own estimate, Iowa will need to spend nearly $18 million in administrative costs during the first three years — to take in less federal money. The bill’s backers argue the steps would save the state money long term and cut down on “SNAP fraud.”

The measure is part of a broader national crackdown on SNAP, the federal program at the heart of the nation’s welfare system. The proposed legislation was not a homegrown effort but the product of a network of conservative think tanks pushing similar SNAP restrictions in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and other states. But experts say Iowa’s represents the boldest attack yet on SNAP, and Republicans in Congress have signaled a similar readiness to impose limits on federal food assistance.


“There are pockets where you are seeing a movement toward more restrictions to kick people off SNAP,” said Diane Schanzenbach, a professor at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. “But the SNAP program is really well-designed. It’s effective and efficient, and it does a tremendous amount of good. Generally, proposals to change it usually are going to make it worse…”

Iowa’s food bank operators say any new restrictions on food stamps are likely to fuel a surge in demand. But they are not sure whether they can absorb it because they are still reeling from a decision last year to scale back SNAP benefits.


When the coronavirus pandemic started in 2020, the federal government temporarily raised its allotment of SNAP dollars for the 41 million Americans in the program. Then in April 2022, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) decided to end those emergency SNAP benefits a year early, leaving the 286,874 Iowans with less money each month for food.


Nonprofits also felt the impact when the federal money disappeared. Data collected by the food banks show the smaller SNAP payouts drove more Iowas to seek their help than at any point during the pandemic emergency. After April 2022, the 15 food banks that fall under the umbrella of the Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) began seeing “numbers that we hadn’t seen for the past two years,” said Daniel Beck, the network’s data coordinator.


“When people get more SNAP, they don’t need food pantries as much,” Beck said. “That just a fact…”

Iowa ended 2022 with a general-fund budget surplus of $1.91 billion. But at the start of the 2023 legislative session, Republicans made clear that limiting access to SNAP was a priority because of cost concerns.


“It’s these entitlement programs,” House Speaker Pat Grassley (R), grandson of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R), told reporters in January. “They’re the ones that are growing within the budget, and are putting pressure on us being able to fund other priorities. And so I think it’s time for us to take a serious look at what they are.”
If budget concerns were not driving the legislation, political opportunity was. In November 2022, Republicans expanded their majorities in both statehouse chambers.


In January, 39 Republican House members sponsored a bill that would require an asset test, meaning families and individuals are barred from accessing SNAP, Medicaid, and other assistance programs if the value of their cars, farm equipment or other items are too high. The measure would also create more paperwork for recipients, and ban those using SNAP from buying candy and soda, as well as fresh meat, white bread, baked beans or American cheese, among other items. None of the 39 legislators, including Grassley, responded to requests for comment.

The proposal’s backers argued that SNAP assistance de-incentivized families from working or from taking on more hours at the jobs they already had. They also pressed the case that the current program would eliminate “SNAP fraud.”
Republican supporters point to Iowa’s SNAP error rate of 11.81 percent in 2019, which the state was fined for, even though it was in line with the national standard in 2021. (The Agriculture Department warns that the error rate is “not a fraud rate” because it also includes underpayments and eligibility mistakes.)

Northwestern’s Schanzenbach noted that other states are moving toward fewer eligibility requirements, not more, because around 40 percent of SNAP recipients nationally are either elderly or disabled. “They have stable incomes then, so there is just not really much of an upside to having them certify more often,” she said.
Eventually, Iowa legislators stripped the food restrictions from the SNAP bill after a number of prominent players in state business — including the Iowa Beverage Association, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry and Tyson Foods — lobbied against the bill.


But the version of the proposal that the legislature would later vote on kept the assets test, tasked the state with contracting with a third-party vendor to conduct rigorous identity verification and authentication on recipients, raised the monthly income threshold of SNAP participants to 160 percent of the federal poverty level for households and gave recipients only 10 days to respond to paperwork mistakes or discrepancies before they are cut from the program.

Enacting the bill is expected to cost Iowa more than $17 million in the first three years, far more than the $2.2 million the state spends each year to administer SNAP. (The federal government funds SNAP and splits administrative costs 50-50 with the state. Last year, Iowa received $60.4 million in federal SNAP funds).


Most of that amount would go toward hiring workers and installing systems to process, authenticate and monitor compliance.
Opponents in the Iowa Capitol and beyond wonder if the expense is really necessary to police the rolls of a federal program that for many recipients is still not enough to live on….

As the SNAP bill wove through the statehouse, a long list of interest groups came out against it, including the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, the Iowa Catholic Conference, and the Iowa Farmers Union.


Its biggest proponent was the Opportunity Solutions Project, a Florida think tank that has successfully shepherded similar bills through other statehouses.


The nonprofit says it shares “high-quality research and data analysis with state lawmakers to ensure new laws are carefully crafted to expand opportunity and freedom for all.” According to OpenSecret, the group had registered 57 active lobbyists in 22 states in 2022.


The OSP is the lobbying arm of the Foundation for Government Accountability. Both groups are run by Maine state legislator Tarren Bragdon, who started the FGA in 2011 with three employees and less than $60,000 in the group’s bank account. According to tax records, that money was a grant from the State Policy Network, a major funder for right-wing think tanks and organizations that has been linked to conservative superdonors such as Charles Koch and the DeVos family. OSP did not respond to calls for comment.

Categories Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Health, Iowa
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