Poll highlights conflict over Iowa charter schools

(The Center Square) – A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll reports public opposition to the legislature’s new law opening charter schools to private groups.

Under the new law, schools remain public entities in control and funding, but now are no longer limited solely to approval from local school districts.

Gov. Kim Reynolds came out in January in favor of updating the 2002 law on charter schools before the legislative session started.

In her Condition of the State speech she said, “Let’s make choice an option for everyone. We can do that by making open enrollment available in all districts and by allowing our communities more flexibility to create public charter schools where there is a need for an alternative.”

In 2019 the Tax Education Foundation (TEF) crunched the numbers on per student funds provided in Iowa by local, state, and federal taxes: $16,400.

Walt Rogers, a former state legislator and deputy director of TEF, told The Center Square money allocated for new charter school students will be a fraction of that amount and actually much of the tax money would remain by law with local school districts. That is without the student being enrolled there, he says.

“When school choice is implemented, 26 of 28 studies show the public schools get better,” Rogers said.

Rogers emphasized school choice options “make for better students, teachers, schools — just not teachers’ union bosses.” He said competition from diverse parental and guardian choices makes for improvements in all education.

Jake Highfill, a former state legislator, works as a lobbyist for EdChoice, a non-profit, non-partisan educational research firm. He agrees the poll doesn’t reflect reality and told The Center Square: “In Iowa when people hear the phrase charter school, they get scared. But if you poll people about school choice, you get a different answer.”

But the Des Moines Register editorial board said the state is “already awash in education options for children.”

The board also stated Republicans need to go beyond choice to a grand vision. They should “stop talking about the need for more educational options. Instead, they can outline where Iowa is headed. What, exactly, is their end game?”

Highfill believes the only end game should be more and better choices.

That’s what parents want, he said, citing a nationwide 70-30 preference for choices such as privately run, publicly funded charter schools, “It used to be 60-40 in favor of multiple school options. In states like New York and Louisiana where they have lots of charter schools, they really favor that selection.”

The poll demonstrates the Iowa public’s need to be better educated about charter schools, Highfill says. One way to do that is to find organizations that evaluate and set goals for charter school excellence.

The National Association of Public Charter Schools, while advocating such institutions, evaluates states systematically on how well their laws promote charter school performance. Written in 2020, the NAPCS ranking gave Iowa a poor rating.

However in a recent online post, the association applauds the new law.

The organization’s past rating states, “While Iowa’s law does not cap public charter school growth, it … provides little autonomy, insufficient accountability, and inequitable funding to charter schools.” A new rating is expected later this year.

Regardless of Iowa’s structural deficiencies in the law, Highfill believes Iowans will come around to favoring charter schools once they realize who gets the benefit, “There’s a universal truth. If you have money, you already have choice. That’s just how it is. If you’re poor, you’re stuck. This law benefits those who have the least amount of choice.”

Rogers says that time will tell. New private initiative charter schools will take a few years to develop. Then, he believes, Iowan support for such charter schools may well rise to the levels of favorability for school choice in general, 60 to 70%.

A majority of Iowans, 55%, say they oppose the change while 33% favored the law’s alterations. Twelve percent reported they were undecided. Male respondents were divided equally on the topic, while women were 65% opposed.

Supporters of the law say the poll is wrong and doesn’t capture the public’s true outlook toward school choice.

Opponents of the law say the public has it right: it’s a bad law.

The pollsters asked a sample of Iowans to declare their support or opposition to the most important legislative measures passed and signed in the 2021 session.

On this issue respondents were posed an alternative: “Tell me if you favor or oppose the change … ‘Allows groups to form charter schools without approval from the local school board.’”

As the legislature considered the update and the governor signed it, opponents spoke out against the measure in editorials across the state.

For example, Bruce Lear, a former teacher and regional director for the Iowa Education Association, stated in one editorial: “Throwing open the doors for more public schools does not mean more choice for Iowa’s students. It limits opportunity because it spreads the already meager public-school funding even further. It’s like expecting 10 for a soup dinner and 20 guests show up.”

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