In January, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA)
signed
a “seismic”
school choice
bill into law. The legislation created “education savings accounts,” effectively vouchers, that would allow students to use those funds toward private school tuition.
At the time, Reynolds said, ”
Public schools
are the foundation of our educational system, and for most families, they’ll continue to be the option of choice. But they aren’t the only choice. And for some families, a different path may be better for their children.” She added they will be “funding students instead of a system.”
On Wednesday, that universal school choice starts to go into effect. And it has already been a huge success.
Reynolds
tweeted
moments ago that the state received more than 1,000 applications for education savings accounts in just 30 minutes, writing, “Today marks an important milestone for Iowa’s education system as universal school choice becomes a reality for Iowa Families!” The educational benefits are yet to be seen, of course, but this fact is still significant because it shows there is early buy-in from people in the state.
Today marks an important milestone for Iowa’s education system as universal school choice becomes a reality for Iowa Families!
In just 30 minutes, 1000 applications have been submitted!
Iowa families can now apply for ESA’s at: https://t.co/HCEUiPbiVt. pic.twitter.com/PekvjCWPD7
— Gov. Kim Reynolds (@IAGovernor) May 31, 2023
The bill itself is also important because it represents a key milestone in breaking the traditional public school monopoly, at least in Iowa. The understanding that monopolies are bad for consumers is intuitive for people when it comes to most industries. The logic is simple: Absent competition, firms do not have an incentive to provide a quality product because consumers have nowhere else to go. As such, prices rise and quality falls.
However, many people simply forget this when it comes to education. Economist Thomas Sowell
pointed out
that traditional public schools are given special treatment in that, unlike a grocery store or a restaurant, for example, traditional public schools have to convince nobody that it is in their best interest to attend them. The state simply forces a certain group of people to attend a certain school, no matter how dismal the educational quality is.
The good thing is that people are beginning to wake up to this reality and fight back in favor of educational freedom. Over the past few years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic,
charter school attendance
,
homeschooling
, and the number of children
eligible for vouchers
have all skyrocketed. A significant reason was that school closures, which were
largely
due to self-interested
teachers unions
, exposed the traditional public schools for what they really were — and many parents didn’t like what they saw. Amid the wave of school choice bills that has swept the nation recently, the numbers will only grow.
Iowa may be one of the first to implement such significant school choice reforms. But as the movement to dethrone the traditional public school monopoly continues apace, it certainly will not be the last.
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Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.
