Code Words

I don’t know about you but I think that public funding should be for everyone, that you cannot discriminate. However, states are diverting schools funds to schools where they discriminate against religion, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity and it is perfectly legal!

The Supreme Court in their infinite wisdom has ruled that it is “religious freedom” that they can bar discriminate and that was all the right-wing conservative needed to hear.

Opinion: Your tax dollars for their private school? More and more states are saying yes
Los Angeles Times
By Rekha Basu
February 12, 2023

If you’re attuned to the culture wars, you know that parental rights and anti-wokeness in education are powerful political messages now. The supposed presence of critical race theory in middle school, allowing trans kids to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, books that “groom” kids for any number of scary causes — these topics are frightening parents and bedeviling school boards and classrooms across the country.

[…]

A town hall gathering in Des Moines early this month was billed as a down-home event about “Giving Parents A Voice” and cheering Gov. Kim Reynolds’ signing of a “school choice” law on Jan. 24. The universal voucher plan, which Iowa was the third state to institutionalize (behind Arizona and West Virginia), will by year three allow any K-12 student in the state to switch from public school to private school with up to $7,600 a year in taxpayer funds to help pay the bill, regardless of family income. (Utah’s governor signed a similar law a week later; nearly a dozen other states are considering more voucher legislation.)

Now lets stop for a moment and think about this.

First. Not everyone can go to a private school not when the cost of private schools tuition, according to Private School Review website; “The national average private school tuition is $12,321 per year (2023)” now then how many middle and lower class families can afford to come up with almost $5,000 a year to send “a” child to private schools, I say “a” child because how many families have only one child?

Tax dollars now go to public schools that accept all comers and boast one of the best high school graduation rates in the country (a tick above 90%). Iowa high schoolers also post scores on the ACT that rank in the top three among states where nearly half (or more) students are tested. Ultimately under the school choice law, $345 million of education tax monies a year will subsidize schools that, for instance, require students to regularly only attend certain kinds of churches or, in the case of all 17 Catholic high schools in Des Moines, that forbid bathroom use or pronouns or dress codes that don’t align with a person’s gender at birth. Nor can the state set educational standards for private schools.

Now if you look at the Connecticut non-discrimination law you will see an exemption for religious organization, like in every other state. It is there because of a Supreme Court ruling, adding that exemption prevented the courts from striking down the law as being unconstitutional.

So why the tilt now? Iowans are susceptible to the pressures the whole nation faces: the misinformation industrial complex, the effectiveness of Trumpian rhetoric and divisiveness over wedge issues such as LGBTQ rights, immigration policy and guns, all of which Reynolds rode to victory, twice. Those pressures are exacerbated here by recent underfunding of the state’s solid school system, the shrinking of mainstream newspapers with statewide circulation, the popularity of right-wing talk radio and cable news, and a growing urban-rural divide.

The Republicans have learned that by keeping their base in a state of constant state unrest that they vote their anger.

Second. Where is the $7,600 coming from? The general fund? No, it is coming from the education budget. That causes public schools to lose funding which results in lower teacher’s salaries, which results in mediocre teachers, higher class sizes, lower student scores, deteriorating schools, loss of accreditation, and calls for closing the schools, it is a vicious downward spiral.

Third, “parental choice” is a code word for the conservatives. Just look at what they want out of the classrooms:

Anything LGBTQ.
Any Black history.
Banned books such classic as “Catcher in the Rye,” "To Kill a Mockingbird," "1984," "Brave New World," "The Lord of the Flies," “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and many, many more books. There are something loke 500 books that they want banned.

Many is the stuff they want out of the classrooms are protected by non-discrimination laws and this is an end run around the laws.

Whatever the forces at play in Iowa, with the signing of the school privatization bill three weeks into January’s legislative term, a deeper chill than the already hard freeze of winter is gripping many natives and transplants here. The hostile targeting of already disenfranchised groups, the state’s limits on what can be taught and read, the prospect of religious indoctrination affecting lowa’s long-exemplary educational achievements and the interests of unknown outside groups are the gathering clouds of a worrisome storm. Today Iowa, tomorrow who knows where?