Vote DeJear for public education

I’m trying to make sense of Kim Reynolds’ logic. She is against using taxpayers’ dollars for loan forgiveness for college students because not everyone goes to college and yet she wants the taxpayers to fund private school tuition which clearly would not be attended by most of the students of Iowa. She argues that parents need choices. I would argue that there are choices within the public schools and there is always the opportunity to create more within the system.

My children went to K-12 public schools in Cedar Rapids.They had many choices within the public school system. I chose to enroll them in an alternative program at Johnson Elementary. This program combined grade levels, so there was a first and second grade classroom and a third through fifth grade classroom. Grades were not given and they had the same teacher for multiple years. My kids thrived in that environment. They had enrichment classes in middle school and the choice of many AP courses at Washington High School. As a teacher, I taught a very innovative class at Franklin Middle School which combined both Language Arts and Social Studies. Years later, successful graduates told me that that class was a pivotal one in their education.

We don’t need to fund scholarships for private schools. We need to fully fund the public schools so that choices can be made available for all students. To make this happen, I encourage everyone to vote for Deidre DeJear for governor.

Gloria Zmolek

Cedar Rapids