THANK YOU to everyone who made calls, emails and visits to Iowa Legislators around the School Voucher proposal!

According to House Speaker Pat Grassley, it is dead for this session!

From the Des Moines Register:

Iowa lawmakers won't pass Gov. Kim Reynolds' proposal to give 10,000 families taxpayer-funded scholarships to pay private school expenses this year, House Speaker Pat Grassley said Monday.

"When it comes to the school choice bill that the governor proposed, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to put the votes together in the House this year to pass that," Grassley told reporters Monday.

The bill's failure, caused by opposition among House Republican lawmakers concerned it could harm rural schools, represents a major setback for Reynolds, a Republican, who had made the issue one of her top priorities for the year. Reynolds declined to comment Monday.

Iowa lawmakers have returned to the Capitol this week to conclude this year's legislative session after weeks of inaction caused by Reynolds' unsuccessful push to win over enough Republican holdouts.

Reynolds even took the unusual step of endorsing the opponent of a sitting Republican lawmaker who opposed her education bill. The issue has roiled several Republican primary races, and the June 7 election has the potential to deliver Republican nominees for House seats who would be more open to passing the proposal next year.

Reynolds has already said she'd be back next year to push for the legislation again if it failed to pass.

Grassley said lawmakers would continue working with Reynolds on the issue in the hopes of reaching a deal next year. "Obviously, we want to continue to work with the governor to get something achieved," he said.

The measure, Senate File 2369, passed the Iowa Senate in March with all but one Republican senator voting in favor.

Democrats have been uniformly opposed to the bill, which they say would harm Iowa's public education system.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said it's great news that the bill won't move forward this year. She said it's "ridiculous" that the session was extended so long in an effort to pass the proposal. "We're glad that it died because it's not good for Iowa kids," Konfrst said. "Only 2% of Iowa kids would have benefitted from this scheme and we need to focus on the 498,000 kids who go to public schools in the state of Iowa. So it's great news. It's a victory."

How Kim Reynolds' private school scholarship would have worked

Reynolds' bill would have diverted $55 million in state public school funding to provide 10,000 students with scholarships to pay private school expenses. The $55 million would amount to about $5,400 per student, paid using 70% of the per-pupil funding that the student's public school would otherwise receive.

The remaining 30% of the per-pupil money would have been placed in a separate fund to help school districts that share positions like school counselors, superintendents, administrators and mental health professionals.

As part of a push for education-related legislation this year, Republicans have also been negotiating different bills intended to promote transparency around what's being taught in school and provide a parent bill of rights that lays out what information parents should have access to about their child's education.

But without a deal on the private school portion of Reynolds' bill, it's unclear what will happen to the transparency legislation.

"Not everything's settled at this point," Grassley said Monday. Reynolds has said she wants to see the two ideas passed together.

"I believe that we need to do both school transparency as a component of parental choice," she said last week on WHO Radio. "I think those need to go hand in hand."

As always, thank you for activism! Be sure to get in touch if you have questions or comments! -Sue

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.