A constructive agenda for Iowa's public schools

Boone Community Schools’ orchestra survived the Great Depression, but it couldn’t survive the 2025-26 school year.

In an emotional scene, its school board voted unanimously to cut the 100-year old program. The two largest public school districts in Iowa have also announced multimillion dollar budget cuts eliminating staff, closing schools, and cutting programs that serve kids and families.

Gazette columnist Althea Cole this past week took Iowa Democrats to task for what she called a “far-fetched” education agenda that called for a 5% funding increase to state aid and ending the deeply unpopular school voucher program. For context, state aid for public education has exceeded inflation just four times since 2011, meaning every other year schools don’t have enough money to cover rising costs. This year Gov. Kim Reynolds has proposed yet another 2% increase that fails to keep up with inflation.

Cole dismisses the Democrats’ proposed 5% per-pupil funding increase as a relic of the nostalgic 90s. But Iowans who were around at the time may also remember the 90s as the last time Iowa ranked in the top five for education among states that measured their kids' performance by the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

That’s why 10 school districts have adopted the resolution from Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement demanding a 5% funding increase for public education, phasing out vouchers, and accountability for public dollars going to private schools.

In my decade as a high school teacher, I saw my own class sizes balloon, enriching course offerings cut and students in special education failing to have their needs met, all while elected lawmakers scolded us to do more and more with less and less. The Republican experiment in education is a failure.

Cole deserves some credit, however, for recognizing a way out of the “painful choices” that emerge from overspending and a “lack of fiscal discipline.” While she may not remember the 90s, Cole surely remembers 2023, when Iowa had a nearly $2 billion budget surplus.

This year, however, will mark Iowa’s first budget deficit in a decade and the largest in a generation. Taxpayer funded vouchers for private education will be one of the line items blasting a hole in our state budget.

Eliminating vouchers now won’t claw back the $700 million we’ve already given to private schools, but we can avoid a worst-case scenario. After Arizona launched their voucher experiment in 2022, the conservative Heritage Foundation ranked Arizona No. 1 in school choice. Today, Arizona ranks 48th in education, tying four others for highest high school dropout rate. This year Arizona is set to spend over $1 billion on their voucher program. Do Iowans want to learn the same lesson?

Iowa leaders need to double-down on what common sense and school finance experts like David Backer tell us to be true, "Schools need money to do well … given less, they do less." As a parent of two kids who attend Iowa public schools, I believe we owe them a vision of thriving public schools that can do more with more.

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for 10 years. He currently lives in Huxley.