Des Moines, Iowa — Republicans in the Iowa Senate have voted for the governor’s plan to provide state scholarships for low and middle income families — to cover private school expenses for 10-thousand children.
Senator Jeff Taylor, a Republican from Sioux Center, says some parents feel like their values are under attack in public schools.
Senator Jackie Smith, a Democrat from Sioux City, says public tax dollars should be used for public schools.
Senator Amy Sinclair, a Republican from Allerton, says it’s elitist to deny the choice of a private education to the poor among us.
Households with an income at or below 400 percent of the federal poverty level could apply for the money. For a family of four, the cut off would be a maximum income of about 110-thousand dollars a year. Sinclair says this bill matters for parents who’d get to move their children out of a public school that’s not a good fit.
One Republican senator from a rural area and all the Democrats in the Senate voted against the plan. Senator Kevin Kinney, a Democrat from Oxford, says there are no private school options in most rural areas.
Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls of Coralville says taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be directed toward private schools that can reject student applicants for any reason.
There is an impasse among Republicans on taxpayer funded private school scholarships, as the proposal has stalled in the Republican-led House. On Tuesday night, the House passed an education bill that outlined measures that would give parents more options to monitor what their child is reading or seeing at school. Some of those ideas were incorporated in the bill that passed the SENATE Tuesday night.
