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As State Auditor, I've been sounding the alarm on the unaccountable private school voucher program for years. Politicians who like to lie say it's because I'm against private schools. That's not true at all.
What I am against is waste, fraud, and abuse of Iowa tax dollars, and the private school voucher program has been the second biggest invitation to all three since it was enacted.
As it stands, the private school voucher system requires no accountability over how tax money is being spent. There are no audits to check. There are no limits on raising tuition, meaning that private schools can hike costs and make tuition as unaffordable as it was without the voucher, boosting their own bottom lines and once again blocking Iowa families from being able to afford it. There are no income limits, meaning the wealthiest Iowans are getting the same $7,500 per kid to send them to the schools they would most likely already send them to than low income or middle-class families.
This year alone, the voucher program was estimated to cost $350 million in tax dollars. That's money meant for our public schools being diverted to this unaccountable program. A report found that 80 percent of that money went to children that the Reynolds administration estimated would have been in private school anyway; meaning 80 percent of "school choice" funding isn't giving a choice to anyone who didn't already have it. As we face down a nearly $1.4 billion budget deficit, and as funding for our public schools is already not keeping up with inflation, we're not in a position to turn a blind eye to the misuse of tax dollars.
Insiders dub this program as "school choice," but my question is: choice for who? There's no "choice" for the families in rural areas, many of which don't have a single private school in their district or within a reasonable distance to shuttle kids back and forth.
There's no "choice" for the families with students with special needs or disabilities, many of whom are turned away from private schools who cannot - or will not - serve their needs. Private schools are not mandated to take the public like public schools are.
My thought there is pretty simple: if private schools want public money, then they should have to take the public. They should be audited and have rules for how the money is spent, like public schools. And we should put the income limits back on the program.
I support Iowa families making the decision that's best for their kids. For some, that might mean a private school. But we shouldn't boost those private schools at the expense of our public schools and the hundreds of thousands of students they serve.
This is personal to me. I grew up attending Iowa public schools when they were regularly ranked some of the top in the nation. Now, I'm sending my own two boys to Iowa public schools, and as a state we've landed somewhere in the middle of the pack.
As governor, I'd work with members of both parties to enact common-sense accountability measures to protect tax dollars. Things like annual audits, limiting tuition increases, and implementing income limits are a few steps we can take to ensure Iowa tax dollars are being spent appropriately, and that we're protecting funding meant for our public schools to get back to those top rankings in the nation.
Rob Sand is the Iowa State Auditor and the Democratic nominee for governor.