Three 'school choice' efforts Iowa advocates will push in 2018

Chants of "school choice now" could again ring out through the halls at the Iowa Capitol when the Legislature convenes in January.

An estimated 900 students and parents gathered at the Statehouse in April to demand lawmakers provide more state funding for education options outside Iowa's traditional public school system.

When the 2017 session ended without action, advocates vowed to return.

Those contacted by the Des Moines Register say they'll push for an assortment of issues and programs in 2018:

Establishing Education Savings Accounts for parents to pay for their children's private educations.

Expanding the state's tuition tax credit program that funds nonpublic school scholarships.

Altering Iowa law to allow for charter schools to be run by private organizations.

“We’d like to see all parents be able to access and afford their educational options of choice,” said Trish Wilger, executive director for the Iowa Alliance for Choice in Education.

School choice is a catch-all term that includes nonpublic education — such as Catholic, Protestant and independent schools — as well as home schooling, tutoring and online education.

A wide selection “injects some healthy competition in the educational setting,” Wilger said. “… Our vision would be to see all parents have equal access to all the options out there, the option that best fits their child’s needs.”

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Such efforts are not without controversy. In Iowa and elsewhere, they've been criticized for redirecting resources away from traditional public schools.

Both sides of the school choice issue cite competing studies and examples of successes or failures.

“It's not a silver bullet that is going to cure everything, but (school choice) seems to be playing a role in the states that are doing well,” said lobbyist Drew Klein, Iowa director for Americans for Prosperity.

These are the issues school choice supporters say they will advocate for during the 2018 legislative session:

Educational Savings Accounts

Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs for short, take per-pupil state money and essentially give it to parents in state-monitored accounts to spend on their children’s educations.

They were discussed during Iowa’s last legislative session, but no bill was introduced.

In part, that’s because of a hefty cost that’s made some lawmakers wary; one proposal came with a $240 million price tag — and waning enthusiasm given budget constraints.

Iowa House and Senate Republican struck an agreement last January to fix a shortfall of nearly $118 million in the state's budget. They will need to make up another $37 million in the budget ending June 30 after the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency revised its state budget projections in December.

Despite the belt-tightening, school choice advocates say a scaled-down version of the ESA program could be debated at the Statehouse this session.

“We’re looking at models that have a much lower impact,” Wilger said.

Some states have ESAs that impact a limited pool of students, such as those who qualify for special education. Others offer the savings accounts only to low-income families, or specifically to “switchers,” children enrolled in public schools who switch to private schools; those already enrolled in private schools do not qualify.

Klein said ESA supporters have been discussing ways to divide school funding that would allow students to receive a portion of the per-student money in a savings account while maintaining a portion for public schools.

Whether home-school families would be included is unclear, although some states offer ESAs, with certain monitoring requirements, to home-schoolers.

Klein believes if that occurs in Iowa, it would likely come after ESAs are established.

“Home schooling has been a great option for a lot of Iowa families and we have a large home-school community,” Klein said. “I don’t think we want our policy to communicate that those students or families are any less valuable.”

Charter schools

School choice advocates want to see more flexibility within Iowa’s law to allow publicly funded but privately run charter schools to operate in Iowa.

Such schools operate with more flexibility but they sill must meet state accountability measures. Charter schools receive state funds and do not charge tuition.

Currently, all of Iowa’s charter schools are run by public school districts, which advocates say doesn’t follow the spirit of what charter schools are intended to do.

“It’s a system designed to fail,” Klein said. “You’re not going to attract the high-quality operators and give them the long-term stability they need to build the robust programs we see in other parts of the country.”

Klein noted that charter schools often bring unique programs and concepts. In some parts of the country, they’re also being used to create small or micro-schools, which could bring back a one-room schoolhouse concept for Iowa’s rural communities.

Other ideas include regional charters that offer specialty classes in skilled trades or STEM subjects.

Mark Jacobs founded Reaching Higher Iowa in 2013 to advocate for changes to Iowa's K-12 education system.

The former Reliant Energy CEO once served as board chair for KIPP Houston Public Schools, a nationally acclaimed charter school network that serves low-income students. KIPP has won the backing of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Jacobs wants to see similar charter schools offered in Iowa.

“Every child that attends a KIPP school understands that they’re there for a purpose, to climb a mountain to get to and through college,” he said.

KIPP charter schools largely serve low-income and minority students in multiple states across the nation. The program boasts a 93 percent high school graduation rate.

In Houston, 78 percent of students in the class of 2016 graduated in four years, according to state data. In Des Moines, 81 percent graduated in four years.

“We would like to see the state develop a more robust charter school program,” Jacobs said. “We don’t have the legislative framework that would help charters be successful.”

Advocates say they want more flexibility, and less regulation, than traditional public schools. In other states, charter schools have opened in strip malls and other unique locations. Some offer longer school days or school years and have more flexibility in setting hiring practices and how employees are compensated and trained. Often, charter school teachers are not part of a union.

School tuition organizations

Iowa's School Tuition Organization program incentivizes donations that fund private school scholarships for low-income students through state tax credits. Advocates — especially proponents of Catholic and Christian schools — want to see it continue to grow.

“They’re hitting the cap every single year on the tax credits,” Klein said. “There’s room to expand it.”

The tax credit program was started in 2006 with a $2.5 million cap. It has since more than quadrupled to $12 million.

Advocates want to see that cap grow, and they want the program expanded to allow scholarships for middle-income families that do not qualify for low-income assistance but still struggle to pay private school tuition.

“Our conversations are in the early stages," Wilger said.

Since the program began in 2006, more than $119 million in donations have been made to nonprofit School Tuition Organizations, which are connected to specific private schools. Donations cannot be directed to individual students.

The state has offset those contributions with more than $77 million worth of tax credits since 2006, according to the Department of Revenue.

A 2012 study by the Department of Revenue found that the program helped "maintain access" to Iowa private schools. But it did not expand private school enrollment, which decreased between 2001 and 2010 — and "would have dropped even more without the presence of the tax credit," the study said.

If Education Savings Accounts become law, some advocates see families taking advantage of both programs to pay for private educations.

“The goal should be for us to give families as many options as possible, and let them figure out what works best,” Klein said. “Not everyone has to be in the same system that’s being cranked out, as if they’re a product on an assembly line.”