Oppose using public dollars for private schools

The governor of Iowa must truly believe rural Iowans are dopes. She is tripling down on her attempt to privatize public education this session by running ads paid for by a super PAC in an attempt to convince rural Iowa that she has your child’s back.

Kim Reynolds has underfunded public education for years and now wants the taxpayer to help fund private schools. After keeping it under wraps for some time, she now believes she can push this scheme through for her for-profit cronies and campaign contributors. She is running around saying this is school choice. Iowa parents already have school choice. This is not school choice.

A majority of Iowans believe that public money should not go to for profit private schools. Since when did the governor care about what real Iowans want, though? Private schools decide who is accepted and there are no oversight requirements for the public money that will go to them. You the taxpayer will have no say in what is done with your tax dollars that will be handed out for profit private schools.

Originally coming from a small town in Iowa, I have seen the consolidation of school districts and it has been reported that this legislation will force more consolidation of public school districts in rural Iowa. Towns already struggling to keep hospitals, stores, dentists and other essential needs face the loss of another strong pillar of their economy and identity.

While she has been in Des Moines as lieutenant governor and governor she has supported everything under the sun that takes away from working families and gives to big business. They are the same big business from which she receives many of her biggest campaign contributions.

She has advocated, voted for or signed legislation that has lowered taxes for the rich, stripped away workers’ rights, lowered the minimum wage, gutted workers’ compensation for those injured on the job, watered down unemployment benefits for those who lost jobs through no fault of their own and backed a slew of other anti-blue-collar worker policies.

Her policies have contributed to not only pushing some of the best and brightest teachers out of this state but also skilled labor people. Gov. Reynolds is so far out of touch from working Iowans that it is simply mind blowing. Her policies have had a negative impact on rural Iowa for many years as did her predecessor Gov. Branstad. We watch rural Iowa die a slow painful death, yet we still give elections to the likes of Kim Reynolds and her ilk, by either not paying attention to their policies or simply just not voting because we gave up.

Rural Iowa can no longer afford to vote based on sound bites and picking an “R” or “D” behind a name at the polls. If we allow it, this school voucher program will be one more nail in the coffin of rural Iowa. I urge you to contact your state representatives and let them know we are not willing to decimate rural Iowa any further. Public money does not belong in private, for-profit schools — period.

Rick Moyle is executive director of the Hawkeye Area Labor Council AFL-CIO