Iowa reclaims its position as a leader in education reform

Opinion
Iowa reclaims its position as a leader in education reform
Opinion
Iowa reclaims its position as a leader in education reform
Condition of the State Iowa
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds waves after delivering her Condition of the State address before a joint session of the Iowa Legislature, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Iowa has long served as the nation’s unofficial weather vane when it comes to presidential politics. But this year, the Hawkeye State has positioned itself to be the leader on policy reform that hits closer to home.

This week, Iowa Gov.
Kim Reynolds
signed the nation’s first school choice bill of 2023 into law. Spearheaded by state Senate President Amy Sinclair, state Speaker of the House Pat Grassley, and state Senator Brad Zaun, the Students First Act will be one of the nation’s most inclusive education savings accounts (ESA) programs once it’s been fully phased in over the next three years.


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The bill makes it so that every student in Iowa will be eligible to receive more than $7,000 annually into a government-authorized savings account to spend on education-related expenses outside the public school system. Iowa joins eight others states that have such programs, including Arizona and West Virginia, where 100% and 93% of students are eligible to participate, respectively.

The move positions Iowa — one of the first states in the nation to create an individual tax credit program — to reclaim its role as a leader in state-level education reform. It also suggests Iowa will continue to drive American politics, at both the federal and state level, in presidential election years, on and off.

Already, lawmakers in more than a dozen other states, including Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and
Utah
, have followed in Iowa’s footsteps and introduced educational choice programs or expansions in their states this session, setting 2023 up to be yet another blockbuster year for state-level education reform.

This momentum shouldn’t come as a surprise. Following years of incremental reform at the state level, the American school system’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic opened parents’ and lawmakers’ eyes alike to what was — and wasn’t — happening in the classroom. Extended school closures, teacher union intransigence, and underwhelming student achievement forced parents across the nation to engage more heavily in their students’ academic careers and ultimately rethink what education should look like.

As a result, in 2021, 19 states enacted 29 pieces of school choice legislation, including seven new programs and dramatic expansions of existing ones, as was the case in Indiana.

In 2022, Arizona made its first-in-the-nation ESA program universally available, and five more states expanded eligibility and/or the scope of existing programs. Importantly, the Arizona program withstood an attempt to recall it by ballot box, further strengthening the legality of such choice programs. The
West Virginia
Supreme Court also upheld the Hope Scholarship program, an ESA program that nearly all Mountain State students can access this semester if their parents so choose.

EdChoice’s
monthly public opinion tracker
, conducted in partnership with Morning Consult, consistently finds that about two-thirds of the public and school parents support school choice initiatives, such as ESAs. In fact, 72% of voters think “improving K-12 education” should be a top priority for state lawmakers, according to
a post-election poll of voters
commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation.

Families understand now more than ever the importance of an education tailored to meet their needs. Whether inside traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms, at the dining room table, outside through a microschool, or places we haven’t yet considered, there is a recognition that learning can happen anywhere.


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If the first weeks of the Iowa legislative session are any indication, lawmakers across the nation finally seem to agree.

Chantal Lovell is the vice president of communications at EdChoice, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to empower every family to choose the learning environment that fits their children’s needs best.

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