Cherie Mortice is the board president of Iowa CCI Action, Born and raised in Des Moines, she was a public school teacher for forty years. In this piece for the Des Moines Register, she explains where Reynolds is going wrong.
Teaching in an Iowa public school district for 40 years gave me many experiences that demonstrate the importance of strong schools for students, families, neighborhoods and communities. Iowans love our public schools because they are universally accessible, do not discriminate, and are accountable to us, the public. They are a source of pride, growth, and sustainability for our communities, especially in rural Iowa.
Gov. Kim Reynolds and her allies including state Rep. John Wills are waging a war on Iowa’s public education system. In a recent guest essay in the Register, Wills and Lisa Nelson from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, mislead us. They are trying to sell us an unpopular private voucher scheme that is going to bust our budget, further divide us, and lead to a decrease in student performance and achievement. We aren’t buying it because we know private school vouchers undermine our public schools and communities by taking public money intended for public schools and funneling it to private schools with no accountability. Dollars spent on educating our students are best spent where there is public oversight and transparency, which private schools don’t have. The public is with us on fully funded public education: According to a March 2023 Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll, 62% of Iowans oppose Reynolds’ private voucher scheme and for good reasons.
Independent studies in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., show that student performance and achievement decrease as voucher programs expand. Vouchers also bust budgets. Look at Arizona, where the voucher program is estimated to cost $1 billion per year. That’s 1,400% higher than what voucher proponents initially projected.
