A proposal from Governor Kim Reynolds that would establish publicly-funded scholarships for students to attend private K-12 schools is finding bipartisan resistance in the Iowa House, at least for now.

District 79 Representative Dustin Hite chairs the House Education Committee, and a bill dealing with several education issues proposed by the Governor’s office has been broken down into various components in his chamber, and he says Student First Scholarships did not find support on his committee for several reasons before last week’s funnel deadline.

Hite says the proposal, if approved, would provide approximately 2/3rds of what a school district would receive in per pupil funding and instead allow a household at below 400% of the poverty level to use those dollars to attend a private school. The remainder would go into a fund to support school districts with less than 500 students in enrollment.

Hite says concerns remain about allowing Iowans to use public dollars at private institutions, saying that could open doors that may not be able to be closed in terms of potential regulations down the road. He says the cost and potential impact on smaller, rural districts that may also be struggling is weighing on some of the minds of his colleagues, even with the additional funding mechanism that was not included in the 2021 bill — and Hite is unsure if the votes exist to fully support the measure as it is written.

“Like you saw last year and you saw this year, us in the house are deliberate on this, and there’s a lot of folks that have concerns about these — and I’ve expressed those concerns before, about the funding public schools receive, the possibility of the government coming in later and saying ‘you’re taking our money, so we’re going to tell you what to do,’ all of those things, and I think there are folks who still have those concerns.”

“I don’t know as we sit here today, there is enough support in the Iowa House, but that’s part of the process as we work on bills and work on compromises.”

Governor Kim Reynolds has been a proponent of the move, claiming the scholarships would give more freedom in school choice to families who might not be able to attend a private institution without those dollars; opponents have also argued the scholarships are essentially school vouchers, and those tax dollars will not be held to the same accountability standards of public schools and could, over time, drain resources for those districts as more families take advantage.

“We’ve got great school districts across this state that are doing phenomenal things, but even as good as they are, sometimes they don’t meet the needs or values of the parent, and I think it’s important that every part has that option, just not those who have the means,” Reynolds told KRLS News last week.

The Student First Scholarship bill has survived last week’s funnel deadline despite lacking support in the Iowa House Education committee, as House Speaker Pat Grassley has moved it to the Appropriations committee.