Opinion: Get ready to fight for our public schools

After hearing the news that Gov. Kim Reynolds won another term, and that the Republicans gained ground in the Legislature, my thoughts immediately gravitated to this often-uttered phrase: It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Reynolds was just announced as the incoming chair of the Republican Governors Association. That means she is in charge of the mean and misguided policies that the group champions, and it also means Iowa will become a testing ground for the most egregious policies in the country. If you thought that last year was contentious, hold on to your potato chips, friends. This year will be a new experiment in Republican Utopia 101.

What are we expecting? Here is a preview:

There is a new committee in the House with a curious name: the Education Reform Committee. The committee is being chaired by Speaker Pat Grassley. Expect Reynolds' hand-picked Republicans on this committee, probably to avoid the embarrassing (or courageous, depending on your viewpoint) lack of votes for her so-called school choice plans, like last session.

Governor Reynolds is trying to turn Iowa into a national petri dish for bad education ideas. A bill to move taxpayer money from public to private schools, curriculum mandates and book bans might be only the beginning.

Reynolds has been promoted by another private education guru — Corey DeAngelis. He is a self-styled private education advocate, but follows in the footsteps of such people as Betsy DeVos, who are determined to tear apart public education and replace it with a cobbled-together system of private and charter schools with no accountability to the public for the tax dollars they covet. These charter and voucher schemes have caused scandalous outcomes in other states, including discrimination, plummeting scores, lack of qualified educators, and outright fraud.

DeAngelis bragged on Twitter last year that “Governor Reynolds to become the first Governor to sign the Education Freedom Pledge," which outlines her commitment to use public money for private schools. Reynolds is using her office and authority to ingratiate herself to education profiteers, give away our tax dollars to out-of-state corporations. These schemes are rife with fraud in the other states that have implemented these arrangements.

The school privatization movement is not an Iowa value. Iowans value our public schools and the shared responsibility to give every child their birthright: an excellent, free and accessible public education. By doing this, we are creating an educated populace, our future workforce and the parents of the future. We owe these young Iowans and future Iowans our best effort to provide a modern, historically accurate and culturally relevant public education for all.

Privatizing Iowa’s schools by funneling money into vouchers and allowing charters to cherry-pick students is not the Iowa way. Instead, Iowans should be working together to protect and improve our schools, not undermine and weaken our valued schools.

Specifically, Governor Reynolds and Republicans should be lowering class sizes, ensuring truly universal an statewide free preschool, paying teachers and associates more, appropriating more money to state supplemental aid for every student, expanding supports for low-income students and expanding funding for English language learning. These are all proven ways to raise test scores, achievement, and grade-level competency.

Instead of concentrating on making schools better for the vast majority of students, Reynolds is planning to funnel public money to private schools. That is not what Iowans want.

Claire Celsi is a state senator representing West Des Moines, Clive and Windsor Heights in Polk and Dallas counties.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: Get ready to fight for our public schools in Iowa