Iowa Republicans Taking a Wrecking Ball to Education
2023 Might Be A Banner Year in the Destruction of Education
Iowa Governor, Kim Reynolds, along with her MAGA-Republican colleagues in the statehouse, are rushing to try and outdo Ron DeSantis of Florida in taking a wrecking ball to public education. The source of this desire by extremists in the Republican party is related to the conspiracy theories they see under every bush and in every classroom and their basic mistrust for public school educators.
In January the GOP controlled government in Iowa passed a historic private-school voucher bill. It will siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools and direct them toward private schools with no strings attached. No accountability, no mandates, no assurance that the money will be spent on student’s and their educational needs. It is a bonanza for private religious schools, and private for profit schools that will now see Iowa as fertile ground for their scam schools.
But the wrecking ball doesn’t stop there. The Iowa House Republicans released their top 13 priorities for the 2023 session. Of the 13 priorites, eight are related to education both public K-12 and post-secondary universities. Here is a quick run-down on some of their so-called “education” priorities:
HF 4 - Provides an alternative to teacher licensing making it easier to obtain credentials to teach. This is in response to the teacher shortage Iowa (and the nation) is experiencing in part because of the war on public education Republicans have waged. Teachers are harrassed, demeaned and are even called “sinister” by lawmakers, so many are quiting. This is a problem created in large part by Republican policy makers and now they are trying to solve a problem of their own making.
HF 5 - This is the “curriculum transparency” bill that will require schools to post all of their teaching materials online so parents can review them and libraries must list all their books online so parents can review them and request some be removed. Not only are these requirements onerous and time consuming, there is no funding to help schools meet this requirement. It is another unfunded mandate, which by the way, would never be hoisted on private schools. It is another manifestation of the intense mistrust of public schools and educators. Most school boards already have policies to allow for parent inspection of teaching materials and review of library books. Again, the Republicans seem to want to create draconian policies for problems that do not exist.
I’ll come back to HF 7….wait till you see this one.
HF 8 - Prohibiting Gender Identity/Sexual Orientation Instruction to Children
Not to be outdone by Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill for K-3 children, Iowa is rushing to erase anything except heterosexual orientation. Children will not be able to talk about their two mommies or two daddies. The explicit message in this bill is that any marriage except between a man and woman, is illicit or wrong. The public message of Republicans is that children need to be protected from “groomers.” You know, those sinister teachers that are trying to teach children to be gay.
HF 9 - Parental Notification on Gender Identity. This bill will require school employees can’t hide information about a student’s requested gender-transition or identity from the child’s parents. School employees cannot facilitate, encourage, or coerce students to withhold information from their parents. While I am sympathetic to informing parents about important issues their children talk about at school, the intent of this bill is again erasure. Transgender students are to be outed, even when parents could be abusive or even violent when learning of the gender issue their child is facing. There is no requirement to encourage students to seek counsel or support, only reporting to parents. And it reduces gender to the assigned sex on the student’s birth certificate.
HF 12 - Teaching the Crimes of Communism Bill: the Republicans are so worried that our country is on route toward Communism that they feel the need to force schools to teach the conflict between Communism and Free Enterprise, which is identified as the founding principle of the United States. (Never mind that free enterprise system of the 18th and most of the 19th century was based on enslaved labor and the fortunes made were exploited from free labor). The intent of this bill is clear…own the libs because liberals are all secret socialists.
Here is the reality check: Most history and government classes in high school include a comparison of totalitarian forms of government such as Fascism (not mentioned in the bill), monarch and Communism with the American form of democracy. This is a fake solution has been conjured by the Iowa GOP for a non-existant problem. No funding is attached to this requirement.
Finally, here is the one I am really worried about…
HF 7- The Teacher Prepartion Program Reform Iowa MAGA Republicans so mistrust education that they want to “reform” how teachers are being trained. To that end, this bill requires the 3 Iowa Universities to submit a report to a House Education Committee information regarding how their teacher prep programs include the following topics or issues:
Teaching with a humanizing orientation.
Education core pursuits that center equity.
Peacebuilding.
Reflective professionals.
Authentic formative assessment for economically, academically, culturally, racially,and linguistically diverse children.
Diverse perspectives in United States history.
Inquiry based Global competence education.
Teaching for prejudice reduction.
Education for informed and responsible global citizenship.
Critical media literacy.
Culturally responsive classroom.
Anti-oppressive literature instruction.
Anti-racist and anti-oppressive teaching and learning.
Support for educators committed to critical pedagogy and anti-racist and anti-oppressive education.
Equitable and democratic education.
How education is never neutral.
Choosing an explicit anti-oppressive stance.
Oppressive forces in education.
Diversity and identity in kindergarten through grade twelve education.
Compulsory heterosexuality.
Queer identities at all levels of kindergarten through grade twelve education
Once the Universities submit their report which is due by the end of February, the education committee will spend the year “studying” the results, and issue their own report and recommendations by Dec 31, 2023. That will set up a new round of draconian bills to be passed in the 2024 session.
If you read through this list, the purpose is clear. The MAGA Republicans in Iowa want to re-create teacher prepartion in their own image. Teachers in Iowa will no longer be trained to be sensitive to the varying cultural backgrounds of an increasingly more diverse population. They will no longer receive training to taking an “anti-oppressive stance.”
Maybe most important, they won’t be trained to teach diverse perspectives in U.S. History. This is about how to teach or not teach Black History. MAGA Republicans will attempt to pass a teacher training program that promotes “Patriotic History,” “Americanism” and talk of enslavement and Jim Crow will be relegated to a short paragraph of “unfortunate” events.
I wish I had better news to give you today. The next election isn’t until 2024, so we will be subject to a MAGA Republican cabal in the State of Iowa. My only hope is for the historic Iowa pragmatism, realism and commitment to truth will prevail before this group can finish their wrecking crew objective.
Dan, thanks for this summary. It’s frightening what they’re doing. The governor’s comment at the parent’s event the other night about public schools “indoctrinating” children is appalling. The world is changing, Iowa is changing, and they want to drag us back into the 1950’s.
Sadly, this falls right inline with the goals of Christian Nationalism. Ruin the public schools, go with private religious schools so a Christian curriculum can be taught, and then exclusion and segregation can be put in place. Very sad, very scary.