The newly signed into law Student First Act is receiving both positive and negative feedback.

The Iowa Legislature passed Governor Kim Reynolds’ proposal to allow for public taxpayer money to be used for students to go from a public to a private school. District 24 Senator Jesse Green voted in favor of the bill and has supported parental choice in education since the beginning. Green was educated both in a private and public school setting, while also being involved in the home school setting as an adult.

“I have seen the benefits of what can happen in a child’s life when they are placed in the right environment. And the reality is, is it’s not every adult has the financial means to find that right environment. That’s been my driving vision on my position on this bill and why I’ve been pretty unwavering on my position on this.”

Green points out the main concern that he’s heard is this new law will hurt public schools and he says the money that is used for this program is additional money and not using existing money. Paton-Churdan Superintendent Kreg Lensch argues that these vouchers will total $900 million in the first four years that it is implemented, followed by a yearly appropriation of $400 million, which he believes there’s a disparity between this new law and what the Legislature has done for public schools in the last handful of years.

“Heard a lot for years from the Legislature about not having enough to give us (public schools) more than two-percent (through State Supplemental Aid). Now they (the Legislature) come up with hundreds of millions of dollars for this program. It just scares you down the road to, ‘What’s going to be left for public schools when it comes time for funding?’ To me, rural Iowa is just getting left behind in this entire legislation. It’s not really about choice, to me it’s not even really about ‘public vs private education,’ it’s just bad fiscal policy. Usually that catches up with you. Most of these people that passed it probably won’t be in the Statehouse when that happens.”          

Green adds everyone’s values will be respected with this new law and he thinks there will be new private schools that could be established around the state. Click the link below to see the full bill. 

https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=90&ba=HF%2068