The Des Moines Register editorial board argues in its August 30 editorial on Education Savings Accounts that Iowa should impose more public-school requirements on private schools that accept ESA funds.
Lucas Grundmeier, writing for the editorial board, starts with a fact that isn’t in dispute: Public and private schools have different responsibilities. Public school districts must educate resident students and operate under requirements that do not apply to private schools.
But the differences don’t stop with responsibilities. Public districts also have governmental powers, funding sources and service structures that private schools do not. Those receive much less attention in the editorial.
Compare the resources along with the responsibilities
The Register says framing ESAs as “money following the student” glosses over the additional responsibilities public schools carry.
Then the comparison should include more than the ESA.
For 2026-27, an ESA provides $8,148. Under Iowa Code §257.11B, that payment equals the regular program state cost per pupil. It is not the entirety of the state, local and federal resources available to educate a student in the public system.
Public school districts also have taxing authority. Iowa Code Chapter 298, “School Taxes and Bonds” provides for school taxes, property-tax levies, district income surtaxes and bonds. Private schools cannot levy a property tax or impose an income surtax when expenses rise or another building is needed.
Federal funding is another difference the editorial doesn’t mention.
Title I-A is a formula grant for local educational agencies. Eligible children attending private schools can receive equitable Title I services, but the U.S. Department of Education expressly states that private schools do not receive Title I-A funds. Their eligible students and teachers may receive services generally provided or facilitated through the local educational agency.
Public schools have responsibilities private schools do not. They also have access to governmental powers and funding streams private schools do not.
If we’re going to compare the responsibilities, we should compare the resources too.
Iowa’s special-education system is more extensive than the editorial suggests
The Register spends considerable space on special education and acknowledges that Area Education Agencies serve students attending private schools.
What it doesn’t explain is how far Iowa law goes.
Under Iowa Code §256.12, eligible students with disabilities who are parentally placed in accredited nonpublic schools are entitled to special education and related services from public agencies “in the same manner and to the same extent” as public-school students. The Iowa Department of Education says Iowa’s protections extend beyond the federal baseline, including access to FAPE, Child Find and applicable procedural protections.
The funding arrangement is just as relevant. Those eligible nonpublic-school students are included in the resident district’s weighted special-education count, and the funding for their special-education services remains with the resident district.
That doesn’t erase the difference between the two sectors. A public district must educate its resident students. A private school may determine that it doesn’t have the personnel, facilities or program needed to serve a particular applicant.
But Iowa hasn’t handed the private school the special-education funding and left the public system with the bill. The state created a service and funding structure in which the public agencies retain both substantial responsibility and the corresponding special-education funding.
That belongs in any comparison of who is responsible for what.
Public schools make capacity decisions too
The Register’s capacity argument also needs more context.
Grundmeier writes that private schools can set their number of seats and close enrollment, while public schools have to respond to the students who arrive. He then proposes that private schools accepting ESA-funded tuition should “accept all qualified applicants, even if it requires changing plans on the fly.”
A public school district does have an obligation to educate its resident students. That doesn’t mean every public school building has unlimited capacity or that parents have an unconditional right to the building of their choice.
Iowa law gives public school boards authority to determine which school a child will attend. Public districts can assign students among attendance centers rather than continually expanding a particular building whenever more students want to attend it.
Capacity is even more explicit in open enrollment. Iowa’s rules say a receiving district does not have to accept an open-enrollment request when it has insufficient classroom space. A district’s capacity policy can consider the educational program, grade level, available instructional staff, physical space, pupil-teacher ratios, equipment, facilities, finances and special-education class sizes or caseloads.
Those aren’t loopholes. They’re practical limits.
The Register recognizes one of those limits in its own special-education discussion. Grundmeier calls it “foolish” to expect enough additional special-education teachers and paraeducators to simply appear so private schools can expand their services.
He’s right.
But that staffing constraint doesn’t disappear when the subject changes from special education to admissions.
There is a meaningful difference between requiring a public district to provide an education to its resident students and requiring every individual private school to accept applicants without regard to available classrooms, teachers or programs.
A school can be full. A program can lack the personnel to take another student. Recognizing that isn’t avoiding accountability. It’s recognizing reality.
Accreditation isn’t based on faith
The Register proposes making accreditation reports public and says Iowans shouldn’t have to take private schools’ “fitness on faith.”
Whether additional accreditation information should be public is a legitimate question. But the phrase understates the oversight already in place.
Iowa requires nonpublic schools participating in the ESA program to be accredited. The Iowa Department of Education recognizes two accreditation routes for nonpublic schools. Independent accrediting organizations must be recognized by the State Board of Education as reliable authorities concerning educational quality.
Accredited nonpublic schools also report student information to the state. For the 2026-27 school year, the Department of Education requires nonpublic student-data submissions three times during the year, including students participating in the ESA program, followed by assessment-accountability certification.
ESA students face another statutory requirement. Iowa Code §257.11B requires participating students to take applicable state and federally required assessments and requires those results to be reported to the Department of Education. The department must compile the results to analyze proficiency, academic progress and graduation rates among ESA participants.
That’s not taking a school’s fitness on faith.
Whether Iowa should disclose more accreditation information is beside the point. The Register’s claim that Iowans must take private schools’ fitness “on faith” overlooks the accreditation, reporting and assessment requirements already imposed on ESA-participating schools.
Financial accountability is not the same as public-school regulation
This is where The Register‘s argument moves well beyond protecting taxpayer dollars.
The editorial proposes extending public-school rules involving library lists, curriculum and the Pledge of Allegiance to private schools accepting ESA-funded tuition.
Whatever the merits of those policies, they don’t tell taxpayers whether an ESA dollar was properly spent.
Administering the Pledge every morning is not a financial control. Neither is imposing a particular curriculum requirement. Those policies govern how a school operates.
Iowa’s ESA law deliberately distinguishes between regulating the public money and controlling the private institution that receives a parent’s tuition payment.
Section 257.11B contains specific provisions addressing fraudulent ESA claims and misuse of funds. Improper payments can be recovered, accounts can be closed, fraudulent conduct can result in criminal penalties, and substantial misuse can be referred to the attorney general.
The same section also makes clear that ESA participation does not turn a nonpublic school into a state agency. The Register’s proposal is not limited to preventing fraud or ensuring that public funds are properly spent. It would use the receipt of ESA funds as a basis for imposing additional requirements on a private school’s admissions standards and educational program.
Those are substantive policy choices, not ordinary financial safeguards. They would make a private school’s acceptance of ESA-funded students contingent on complying with public-school rules governing admissions, curriculum and daily operations.
Where Accountability Should End
The Register is right that public and private schools aren’t the same. They aren’t supposed to be.
The problem comes when the differences in public-school obligations are presented without equal attention to the governmental powers and funding streams that accompany them.
Public districts can levy taxes. They receive and administer federal Title I funds. Iowa’s special-education funding for eligible students attending accredited nonpublic schools remains with their resident districts. Public schools themselves make capacity decisions based on space, staffing and program limitations. Meanwhile, accredited nonpublic schools already operate under accreditation, reporting and assessment requirements.
None of that means ESA spending should escape scrutiny. Iowa law already provides mechanisms to investigate misuse, recover money and punish fraud.
The Register is asking for something more.
Its proposal would use a parent’s choice to use an ESA at a particular school as the reason to extend additional government control over the private school’s admissions, curriculum and daily operation. Iowa Code §257.11B currently draws the line in the other direction: the state may regulate the ESA program without subjecting participating private schools to the full range of rules that govern public schools.
If Iowa crosses that line, it won’t merely have added more “accountability” to ESAs. It will have changed what it means for a school to remain private while participating in school choice.