During an Iowa Press interview in June following the primary, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand argued for restricting eligibility for Iowa’s Education Savings Account program: “We shouldn’t be giving private school vouchers to the wealthiest families in the state of Iowa who are already sending their kids to private school anyway and making no sacrifice […]

  School choice can sound like an abstract policy debate. It is often discussed through legislation, funding formulas, enrollment numbers, and sometimes court decisions. But on the first day of school, it becomes personal. It looks like a child walking into a classroom where teachers understand how to help them learn. It looks like parents […]

  Critics of Education Savings Accounts often argue that the program offers little to rural Iowa because most private schools are located in larger communities. The enrollment data says otherwise. As I wrote back in April in the 2022–23 school year, the last school year before ESAs, through 2025–26, 186 rural public school districts saw […]

Based on negative press coverage in other states, a common claim made about Iowa’s Students First ESA program by critics is that parents could use the money for amusement park tickets or a family vacation. No, they can’t. ESA funds are restricted to accredited nonpublic school tuition, fees, and a defined list of eligible educational […]

Video has surfaced of comments State Auditor Rob Sand, the Democratic nominee for governor, made at the Iowa State Education Association’s delegate assembly in April. Discussing Iowa’s Students First Education Savings Accounts, which he continues to call school vouchers, Sand said: “We have a school voucher system that has no oversight. Right? No oversight. That’s […]