After a deadline of June 30 passed for the 2024-2025 school year, the Iowa Department of Education announced it had received 35,417 applications for the Student First Education Savings Account program. The program helps students get in a private school classroom with taxpayer-paid tuition and fees.
Drew Zahn of The Family Leader says Gov. Kim Reynolds believed in the ESA program so much she publicly campaigned against fellow Republicans who opposed the school choice.
“That's how much she believed in it. She was a leader,” he says of Reynolds, a Republican who is currently serving her second term.
AFN reported in a 2023 story Gov. Reynolds had backed the legislation for three years only to watch some Republicans join Democrats to kill it.
The bill finally passed and was signed into law last year, making Iowa the third state to approve such a measure. The other states are West Virginia and Arizona.
“For the first time," Gov. Reynolds said, "we will fund students instead of a system, a decisive step in ensuring that every child in Iowa can receive the best education possible."
Zahn says critics were wrong when they warned the program will “siphon” money from public schools. He says the program has also improved and expanded since last year, when only 9,000 slots were available from 29,000 applications.
