With Governor Kim Reynolds releasing details about school choice legislation, lawmakers are now hard at work determining what may get into the bill.

The Iowa Senate is working on the issue in the education committee and District 24 Senator Jesse Green says funding should not be a problem for parents to send their child to whatever educational route they want to go. For example, Green attended both public and private schools growing up and says the cost per pupil from the State Supplemental Aid is now about $7,000 and private school tuition is less than that. 

“I think what you could see is a big savings. But I want to reaffirm my statement that we need to identify what will give the best quality education to every child in the state and then we find the money to do it appropriately. But I could see a situation here where it saves the state money.”

Greene County School District Superintendent Tim Christensen argues against school choice or having school vouchers.

“I think it’s dangerous. Our country is built on public schools and I think that’s kind of the backbone of everything that we have. I think that’s very important that we maintain that. Related to that, we talked a lot about money at the state level that they don’t want to increase student’s supplemental aid because they don’t have the money. If we go to a voucher system you’re going to pay for students to go to private school and homeschool, those are funds right now that aren’t being spent and it’s going to increase the educational budget immensely.”

House District 47 Republican Phil Thompson serves on the House Education Committee and says they are moving at a much slower pace than the Senate and there is no consensus of what the House is leaning towards for this issue.