Letters to the editor: Iowa’s foundation is being torn apart – Iowa City Press-Citizen

January 24, 2023 Kim Martel

Whose choice, really?

In the debate over private school vouchers, Gov. Kim Reynolds and her supporters are attempting to frame the decision to funnel millions of dollars away from Iowa’s public schools as “parental choice.”

One problem with this argument is that it isn’t actually parents who get to make the choice to send their kids to private schools. Private schools have the absolute decision-making power over who can and who cannot attend their school, and they don’t have to explain their reasoning.

Here is a list of some of the students and families who will struggle to find private schools who will accept them.

Families with no private school reasonably close to them (a majority of Iowans from rural areas).
Students with disabilities. Students with disabilities cost significantly more to educate than the $7,598 the state will provide to help cover tuition. The federal government only chips in about 15% of what is legally required for them to provide, so special education is a massively underfunded mandate, and one private schools are not obliged to adhere to.
English language learners. Students who are not proficient in English, likewise, require more resources to access education. Private schools do not have to accept students who are not proficient in English.
Low-income families. While the governor’s proposal has income guidelines that purport to help lower-income families, many families who live with poverty experience a broad range of barriers to education. As a whole, students from families with a lower socioeconomic status are significantly behind their higher socioeconomic status peers in terms of achievement and graduation rates, even in free public schools. The level of education in the home, lack of access to preschool, a lack of overall stability, a lack of access to mental health supports; the list could go on. Again, if a private school denies a family access to their school, they don’t have to explain themselves, they can just say no.
Students and families who identify as gay or transgender. Yes, these students exist. They are a minority of students in our schools, but they are real, as are gay parents. Some private schools don’t even want these students to acknowledge their, or their parents’, identity, let alone accept them into their school communities.

A cynic might believe there are families in Iowa who wish to keep their children separate from members of their community, described above. I do not believe most Iowans are this closed-minded. This voucher plan will, however, make it much easier to create a segregated school system. This will not depend as much on parental choice as it will on the private schools’ decision about who they do and do not want to educate.

J.P. Claussen, on behalf of the Iowa City Community School District Board of Education

Law attempts to starve public services

The gift that the Republican legislatures are giving the rich in Iowa in the form of paid tuition is an obvious choice to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. If you want to pay tuition, move to the East Coast, where going to public schools is not a choice because funding has been decimated. If you want a good education for your kids, you have to pay and send them to private schools.

The reason the Republican leadership wants to drain the public school budget is to do what they did with Iowa’s mental health facilities, and Medicaid services: make them private. Look what they did to Mount Pleasant and Clarinda mental health facilities. They had years to improve or address the situations at those facilities to make them better; instead, they did nothing. They closed them and privatized their services. They did the same with Medicaid.

Why employ Iowans to do those jobs when you can give the money to your friends in private corporations?Represent your friends in large corporations and make them richer and let Iowans, whom you are supposed to represent, send their kids to unsupported poor schools and give tax money to private schools to support your wealthy friends. As every poor Iowa kid tries to climb the ladder of success, there is a Republican on the top stepping on their hands and kicking them in the face to keep them down.

Joel E. Wells, Iowa City

Beware, private schools

If public money goes to private schools, those schools will no longer be private. They will eventually lose autonomy, and rightfully so.

Anna Lee Hope, Iowa City

Iowa tearing apart the institution that made America great

Mark Twain said, “Out of the public schools grows the greatness of the nation.” That was a time of great inequality between the haves and the have-nots. I fear that the idea of the state giving money to families to attend private schools instead of their local public schools will diminish the very institution that made our country a great democracy. The public school is the great leveler of the social and economic classes where we learn a common, not chosen, vision of history, the sciences, mathematics, civics and human development. Exemplary schools are a source of pride. We used to feel that way in Iowa and we funded it.

In Iowa, you can attend any public school, which is different from the past. You had to go to your neighborhood school. You may also send your child to a religious or other private school based on your beliefs and your child’s interests. However, common belief was that you must fund that and that taxes still go to the public school, which is where most learners are. Transportation is funded in public schools. Special needs are cared for in public schools, as mandated by Iowa law.

Private schools do not have to follow the rules set out by the Iowa Department of Education. Why then should they get public money? The school choice that will occur will be on the part of the private school. “Sorry, you’re not our kind of student.” Vouchers will start sorting our children. Economically challenged families may not be able to get their children to private school since they will not have busing. Children with special needs will be sent back to public schools for lack of trained teachers. Public school test scores will not reflect a broad cross-section of our society and will be used to denigrate our public institutions further. Finally, there are many parts of the state where there are no private schools. Corporations may set up schools that chase the money, but they would be looking for a profit.

Finally, there will be many lawsuits based on the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of religion. Many private schools in Iowa are Christian, as I am. We, the taxpayers, will be paying for these lawsuits.

This is a time of great division in our land. Let’s come together to support our children, their families and the educational staff that are the basis of this democracy. There is no freedom without responsibility.

Ken Fate, Coralville

Children are getting terrible advice on LGBTQ questions

Stopping a child’s puberty with drugs and giving him the opposite gender’s hormones is extremely unethical. Whatever the child’s emotional issues, let him cope with the healthy development of his body as it happens.

I think children are getting the wrong kind of counseling from the experts of the LBGTQ community. Keep these people away from your kids.

Don’t give someone gay pornography. Encourage chastity.

William Owens-Holst, Coralville

Expand access to Alzheimer’s drug treatment

I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s disease in 1987. Twenty-six years ago there were no drugs to delay the disease, and an Alzheimer’s diagnosis was a slow death sentence. This loss caused me to become an advocate for ending Alzheimer’s, and we donated my mother’s brain for research at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Finally, in 2021 and 2023, research has resulted in the Food and Drug Administration approval of two drugs for Alzheimer’s treatment for people with early diagnosis. The drugs are lecanemab now known as Leqembi and aducanumab now known as Aduhelm. Alzheimer’s researchers agree from the strong clinical trials that treatment with these drugs changes the course of the disease in a meaningful way for people with early Alzheimer’s.

But because of decisions by the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services, Medicare will not cover this treatment. The Alzheimer’s Association has filed a formal request asking CMS to provide full and unrestricted coverage for Alzheimer’s treatments that have been approved by FDA. Please join me and contact members of Congress to demand that CMS take action. You can take action by visiting alzimpact.org.

Gary Wicklund, Coralville