COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (KMTV) — A group of Council Bluffs public educators are questioning Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn's commitment to Iowa public schools. Iowa was consistently a top-five state in education in the 1990s. Now, it has slipped to 27th in national assessments and some neighbors worry budget cuts are to blame.
WATCH KATRINA'S STORY BELOW
Retired Council Bluffs teacher Randi Kennedy remembers when Iowa's public education system was the envy of other states.
"I was very proud to say Iowa was ranked so high. I felt very good about being a teacher in Council Bluffs," she said.
Kennedy and others support Democrat for governor, Rob Sand, arguing that Iowa's Education Savings Accounts — known as ESAs or vouchers — should have a greater level of oversight than they do currently because private schools are receiving taxpayer funded tuition.
"Private schools should have the same requirements as the public schools in terms of who they serve and how they evaluate teachers," Kennedy said.
Council Bluffs School Board Member Patrick Peters attended the press conference in a personal capacity. He says more than $300 million in taxpayer funds now go to Iowa private schools.
"I think it's really important that when a candidate says they want to expand ESAs even more, what that means to the other school districts," Peters said.
The Lahn campaign spokesperson emailed a statement: "Zach believes that school choice is a foundational freedom that Iowans should have. Zach believes rural schools are part of the foundation of these communities and he will fight any efforts at school consolidation, period. Zach has said that the governor should be the #1 advocate for Iowa’s public school kids. His goal is to make Iowa’s public education so good, that public schools can compete with any private school."
Peters says that, unlike public schools, private schools don't have to accept every student. That means, he says, fewer resources to meet the higher costs of educating students with special needs.
“I’m proud that our district is able to accommodate that, and make those accommodations for those students, but it makes the difficult choice of balancing the budget — it makes it that much harder," Peters said.
Lahn has also been questioned about the financial viability of a private school in Kansas he co-founded. Nonprofit news outlet The Kansas Reflector reported that Lahn has loaned the school $4.5 million.
The campaign's full statement on the matter reads:
"Yes, the school is financially viable. The loans to the school only consisted of one during the struggles of Covid, and another to finance the purchase and construction of a new building on the campus."
Kennedy says her colleagues who are still in the classroom are overwhelmed: "They don't have the resources that they used to have."
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
