Legislators are meeting daily at the Statehouse to hammer out a bipartisan plan for education reform (HF 215).
There are many good ideas on the table when it comes to helping local schools and Iowa students become the best they can be—and there is much that everyone can agree on. For example, we want schools to be able to hire the best teachers possible, and to reward them for excellence in teaching and leadership in the classroom.
One thing that we can’t agree with is the Republican refusal to approve any increase school funding for our schools unless all of their education reform ideas are approved. We simply can’t go along with cutting early literacy efforts and giving up on smaller class sizes for young students learning to read. After all, teachers are clear that helping students become successful readers by third grade is essential to improved student achievement.
The House funding proposal is so inadequate that more than 200 school districts won’t have enough money to adopt the teacher quality efforts everyone supports. That’s not good enough.
We’ve seen several years of limited dollars for our schools. We do not support shortchanging local education when the state’s budget surplus is more than $800 million—and that’s after filling our reserve and rainy day funds.