Republicans offer school reform plan

DES MOINES – A trio of GOP legislators Tuesday proposed statewide content standards for schools, exit tests for graduating seniors and entrance exams for teachers to bolster Iowa's public education system.

Republican Reps. Mike May of Spirit Lake and Jodi Tymeson of Winterset and Sen. Kim Reynolds of Osceola said the reform initiatives were designed to inject greater accountability, standards and transparency into an Iowa school system struggling to stay competitive with other states and nations.

“As a proud product of Iowa's public schools, it is very troubling to watch our once great educational system slip into mediocrity,” said Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn, who joined the three legislators in announcing their party's schoolhouse initiative.

Noting reports indicating that one in two Iowa high school graduates need some form of remedial class work when they get to college, Strawn said Republicans are proposing three common-sense solutions to set high academic standards, test students and teachers to ensure those standards are being met, and keep parents and taxpayers fully informed of students' progress.

May said statewide academic content standards are needed that align achievement with the demands of a global economy. Rather than setting a “top-down core curriculum” program focused on inputs, Republicans want to establish outcome standards and give local teachers, parents, and school boards the flexibility to design their programs within the statewide guidelines, he said.

“Our students are capable of being the best in the world and we must establish standards that will prepare them to compete in the global economy,” said May, a retired classroom teacher who taught for 33 years. Another provision of the GOP plan would institute exit exams for graduating students and entrance exams for new teachers.

Teachers who failed to demonstrate proficiency in the subject matters in which they teach would be encouraged to get more training or pursue another field, May said.

Students who failed to demonstrate minimum qualifications for graduation because they might not test well would have the opportunity to show proficiency via alternative assessments, such as portfolios, that they have mastered the content standards, May said.

“This is not meant to be a high-stakes test because if you've set content standards, it's not going to be a secret what the expectations are,” Tymeson said, “and so students are always working toward the expectation of what the outcome needs to be and what they need to know to be able to graduate.”

Reynolds said legislative Republicans also want to restore the performance measures by requiring the development and publication of comprehensive performance measures on an annual basis that allow parents and taxpayers to evaluate the performance of their local schools. The yearly report cards would include the “true cost” of educational delivery in each Iowa school district and comparative rankings with similar Iowa school districts.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said he welcomed bipartisan ideas to improve Iowa's educational system, but he contended minority Republicans “consistently failed” to back up their words with action during recent legislative sessions.

“Over the last three years, Democrats have raised state standards for all students to make sure they are ready for the jobs of the 21st century, increased teacher pay to 25th in the nation, made preschool accessible to nearly every four year old, and kept higher education affordable for middle class families,” he said.

“If Republicans have a record to run on – it's the record number of times they have voted ‘no' in the last three years,” McCarthy added. “They voted against training for teachers to meet Iowa's new core curriculum, expanding access to early childhood education, and funding for schools hit by the natural disasters of 2008.”

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