Playing a long game to downgrade public schools

Iowa Senate President Jake Chapman’s recent rant that public school teachers are part of a “sinister agenda” is a continuation of the assault on public education which started decades ago by the Republican Party. Former Republican state Sen. Mark Zieman once referred to Iowa public employees, including teachers, as “bottom feeders.”

Iowa home schooling regulation allows a parent or their designee to educate children under protections provided by law, without requiring standardized testing to see if home-schooled children are progressing academically. Restricting professional educators’ authority to determine curriculum shifts more control to Iowa’s Republican trifecta through legislation that proposes such alarming ideas as banning books and history lessons that offend those who believe their values should be the only ones Iowa’s children are exposed to. Add to their strategy the long-term underfunding of public education from preschool through the Regent’s intuitions, and you create a state of less well-educated citizens.

Now the Governor is pushing legislation to use public tax moneys to fund private education, a further weakening of public education. Banning books, using public money to subsidize private schools; all of this is couched in the language of parental control. But make no mistake; these strategies aren’t about parental control or choice. It is about controlling the means to educate Iowans with the long-term goal of a less educated citizenry without the critical thinking skills and understanding of our history to see how an elite class is grabbing control of the levers of power.

Carolyn Stephenson

Cedar Rapids