Iowa Senator Herman Quirmbach has issued the following statement regarding persistent underfunding of public K-12 schools in Iowa.
“Public school funding has failed to keep pace with inflation, and Iowa’s students are paying the price,” Quirmbach (D-Ames) said. “Over the years since Kim Reynolds became governor, state support for our public-school kids has fallen behind inflation by a whopping total of $2.1 billion in today’s dollars. The shortfall this school year alone is $440.3 million. State revenues could easily cover this shortfall without incurring red ink, but instead legislative Republicans are hoarding this amount to pay for tax cuts for the rich.”
Quirmbach has calculated this year’s shortfall to be $822 per regular student. “For that amount,” Quirmbach suggested, “public schools could provide every student with a new laptop computer complete with the latest educational software. Or, that money could pay the salary of a teacher’s aide to double the amount of personal attention every first grader could get in helping them learn to read. That’s the kind of help our kids are missing out on.”
Area Education Agencies (AEAs), which help support the education of kids with special needs, came under fire from the governor this year. On top of that, some special education students will lose out on as much as $3,235 per kid in 2024-25 because of the shortfall.
Notwithstanding the financial crunch in the public schools, the governor and legislative Republicans are intent on funneling money to private school vouchers. “The voucher bill may go as high as $240 million this school year, with the large majority of those funds going to families whose kids already go to private school,” Quirmbach said. “Next year the income limits on the voucher program come off and families with incomes of a million dollars and more will still get subsidies.”
Rural schools are the hardest hit. They just don’t have the economies of scale of larger districts. The Orient-Macksburg district has already voted to dissolve. “I’ve been told so many times that if a community loses its school, it loses its town,” Quirmbach noted.
“Our children deserve better from their elected leaders,” Quirmbach said. “It’s time for Gov. Reynolds and Republicans in the Legislature to start making Iowa’s students, in every area of our state, a real priority.”
Sen. Quirmbach, Ph.D., is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee.
