“School Choice” is a pretty name for a very bad idea

Sarah Hettinger

Osceola, Iowa

“School Choice” is a pretty name for a very bad idea—sending public money to private schools in wealthy suburbs. As chairperson of the Iowa Senate, Amy Sinclair has led this charge. Our Republican Representative in the Iowa House, Joel Fry, helped out.

Dismantling public education in the United States is one of the most alarming of the goals of Project 2025, the Republican blueprint for the next few years, and Amy and Joel have been alarmingly obedient.

It sounds as if it might be fair to divide the total education budget by the total number of students and come up with an amount of money which a student might carry somewhere. However private schools are not required to accept students with any sort of difficulty—behavioral, intellectual or physical. These students cost more to educate and private schools rarely accept them. If students in private schools become problems, they can be found upon the Monday in the public schools.

And public schools must do their best for these little (or sometimes large) morsels of humanity. But now they must do it with less money. And without significant help from the Area Education Agencies.

Breaking our AEA’s into little pieces was another very bad idea, and again Chairman Amy Sinclair obediently led the charge. Republican Joel Fry obediently helped out.

As many many parents and teachers have testified, our stable AEA’s produced order out of chaos, enabling students to seamlessly pursue carefully constructed educational and behavioral paths—leaving teachers better able to teach and students free to learn. All that smashed, and for no apparent reason.

Universal Public Education has been the foundation and the glory of the American Experiment, giving us all an equal shot at the American Dream: the ability to feed our families and participate in our democracy. These are difficult goals and we often fall short, but we can’t just abandon one another.

It would be a mistake to send Iowa down the sad path of Republican Project 2025. And any elected Republican has no choice but to be obedient—or a more pliable candidate will be selected to oppose them.Please do vote for the Democratic candidates: Nicole Lowe for Iowa Senate and Sonya Hicks for Iowa House. Also Karen Varley if you live in those three Western Clarke districts.