Any Iowa student who wants to attend a private school could use public money to pay for tuition or other expenses under a plan passed Tuesday by the Legislature and quickly signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds.
with few limits, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states offer such help, but only to families that meet requirements for income, disabilities or other factors.
The governor and Republican legislators have argued that they support the state’s public schools but that all families should be able to send their children to private school, not just those wealthy enough to afford the tuition. They note that if students opt for private school, their $7,600 in per-pupil support would follow them to the private institution, but the plan would send $1,200 to the public school districts where the students resides.
Democratic legislators and other opponents of the plan countered that Iowa lawmakers have for years provided inadequate support, forcing districts to repeatedly cut their budgets. They said the new plan would worsen that funding problems, especially hurting the state’s largest urban district and some of its smallest rural districts.
Kari Mahler, a first grade teacher in East Sac County Community School District in largely rural northwest Iowa, said her biggest concern with the new program is that it provides public money to private schools even though those schools don’t have to accept all students, including those with disabilities.
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