One issue State Representative Ralph Watts is hoping lawmakers work on during the off season is that of education.

“There are a lot of indications that we aren’t doing as well as we think we are.  We aren’t as good as we profess to be.”

Watts says issues like the Common Core Curriculum and other programs that come from outside Iowa are unnecessary.

“It’s as if we are starting all over again and we’ve never had an education program, and we don’t know how to educate our kids.”

He says he’s confident there are enough smart people in Iowa that can figure out what a child needs to know by the time they graduate third grade.

“Under the new Smarter Balanced Testing (program), (students need to pass a test) that takes longer than a law school admissions test just to go from third grade to fourth grade.”

Watts says his hopes is that educators in Iowa will come together and stop being complacent so that the state can have an excellent education system like it did before.