Miner Queries: Do we want public schools or not?

 Watching the annual school funding battle at the statehouse makes me wonder if parents and grandparents understand the long-term local implications of this fight. The question really comes down to whether or not we want public schools.

As a former school board director, I once had a constituent who was home schooling children ask me, “Why should I pay to educate someone else’s kids?” I replied, “Because we all benefit by living among an educated populace; those kids are more likely to grow up and share the tax burden.” 

And as I’ve said before, some things are too important to be governed by the profit motive.

This brings me to the current statehouse battle between our Republican governor and House and Senate Democrats. Gov.Branstad and House Republicans want to ignore current law requiring the legislature to set school funding within the first 30 days of the session. Senate Democrats acted within that time frame to pass funding of six percent allowable growth for Iowa schools.

Meanwhile the House refuses to take up the measure as schools struggle to plan for next year.  By law, school districts must certify budgets by April 15, which means publishing proposed budgets and holding public hearings before then. While the legislature flouts Iowa law, school districts abide by it.

Ultimately kids get hurt. And these battles have been going on for years.  I read Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities about school funding inequality back in 1991.  At that time, Kozol cited Iowa’s per pupil funding system as one of the more equitable school funding methods.  

Then in 1992, under Republican Gov. Branstad, the legislature removed an automatic calculation of allowable growth based on economic factors and replaced it with the current requirement that the legislature set funding levels. Additional changes over the years have removed provisions designed to help districts weather large changes in enrollment.  Without these provisions, school districts lurch from budget crisis to budget crisis, never able to sustain promising educational programs. Education reform programs also change with the political winds, never allowing time to produce results. 

Yet as education researcher Diane Ravitch points out in a March 11 column on The Huffington Post, “. . . the ‘reform’ narrative is a fraud. Test scores on NAEP are at their highest point in history for white students, black students, Hispanic students and Asian students. Graduation rates are the highest in history for these groups. The dropout rate is at an historic low point.”

So what’s the real agenda? Private companies want to take over education as a way to capture tax dollars for profit. And it’s begun here in Iowa with the introduction of two online academies running as a “pilot” program.  

In Iowa, chronic underfunding has dropped our education spending below the national average, as documented in the National Association of State Budget Officers’ 2012 state expenditures report. Iowa’s 16.8 percent education spending was well below the 20 percent national average, and it helps explain our struggles to maintain our historic quality education.

Additionally, public schools across Iowa have a major economic impact. In many communities, they are the largest employer.  

For the governor and legislature, education should be enough of a priority to pass early and adequate education funding. That is, unless they have something else in mind. 

Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.