Legislators cause public school headaches

They’re finally gone. It’s over. Mom always said, “Nothing good comes after midnight.” I didn’t get it as a teen. I do now. At 6:01 a.m., Thursday, May 15 the legislative party under the Golden Dome died, after lingering on life support for an additional 7 painful days. But it’s not majority legislators suffering from hangover headaches. The real head throbbing belongs to Iowa public schools.

Headaches affect 480,665 students in 325 school districts.

Funding

Low funding is chronic and life threatening to public schools. Over the past 15 years, the average increase for State Supplemental aid, (SSA) was 3.02%. Inflation during that same period averaged 3.50%. Schools lost buying power by 7.2% over 15 years.

This year, even though Republicans controlled both chambers with super majorities, they couldn’t agree on how much to underfund public education. For two months beyond the statutory deadline, the House and Senate were in a feud.

The House passed a 2.5% increase to SSA, and the Senate passed 2%. Both positions were shamefully inadequate. This fight over a half percent lasted until April 8. School boards struggled to finalize budgets and started thinking about layoffs for already hard to find teachers and support staff.

The cost per pupil will increase by $162 per student. My guess is most parents will pay more for school clothes and supplies for each of their kids to go back to school than the Legislature was willing to provide to educate those same kids.

There has always been a fight for funding public schools, but it’s worse now. Gov. Kim Reynolds, on her third try, persuaded her legislative lemmings to pass an expensive, unregulated, private school voucher bill. Iowa now has a two-tiered publicly funded school system fiscally unsustainable.

Indoctrination in public schools

Republican lawmakers have accused public school teachers of indoctrinating students. Now, Senate File 175, a bill passed along party lines, makes it obvious they aren’t against public school indoctrination if it’s their own ideology. Starting in 5th grade, human development courses will be required to show videos and graphics depicting, “the humanity of the unborn child by showing prenatal human development starting at fertilization.” Sponsors of the bill are anti-abortion advocates.

For years, Republican lawmakers hated any kind sex education in schools, but now they’re willing to use the class to indoctrinate kids as young as 5th grade.

Anti-vaxxers are alive and well in both chambers. House File 299 requires schools to publish information on how to obtain exemptions from vaccinations on the school website and in registration materials.

Let the school do it

We’ve all seen guys who have overflowing plates leaving the buffet line. Things fall off and they leave a trail of food. Public school plates are overflowing, and they just keep adding more. All may be great programs but when does it stop?

House File 316 requires schools to do career planning with fifth and sixth-graders.

Senate File 583 authorizes forming school assessment teams to prevent school shootings.

House File 784 creates personalized mathematics plans and other interventions to assist k-6 students deemed “persistently at risk.”

Senate File 369 requires high school students to pass the U.S. Citizenship test with a 60% score or better even though a government class is required to graduate.

The cure for these headaches is holding lawmakers accountable.

Bruce Lear taught for 11 years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association Regional Director for 27 years until he retired. BruceLear2419@gmail.com