In a surprising move, a bill that was once pulled from consideration has been re-instituted and pushed through an Iowa legislative committee.

District 24 Senator Jerry Behn says Senate File 372, commonly known as the Education Savings Account bill, was originally aimed to give state funding to students who attend nonpublic schools and/or receive private instruction. The bill was initially pulled from consideration, but then it was brought back for discussion and amended to only include students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 federal designations. Other parts of the bill basically stay the same.

Behn argues the bill allows for parental involvement for the students and he has studied research of other states that have developed a similar system and had positive results.

“School choice like that actually helps impact on public schools as well. There’s never been an observed impact where it shown to academically hurt students that remain in public schools. Twenty-nine of the studies found that it actually improved performance of nearby schools and two studies showed no observable impact. My point is if 29 out of 31 times there was a positive impact it appears to me that that’s something we ought to take a look at and get started with.”

We’ve previously reported that Greene County School District Superintendent Tim Christensen is opposed to the entire bill saying open enrollment already allows for student choice. He added in his statement that he was unsure of where the state would get the funding to pay for this program.

Behn says the majority of the students that would qualify for the savings account are already receiving funding from the state, so they wouldn’t receive additional funding. However, if a child’s parent and/or guardian decided to utilize the program, the state would pay up to 87.5-percent of the state per pupil funding, which Behn points out would be about a $1,000 savings to the state.

Paton-Churdan School District Superintendent Kreg Lensch has also released a statement to Raccoon Valley Radio regarding this bill. He says, “They can call them anything they want, but these are vouchers.  I cannot understand how anyone could support the idea of spending taxpayer money on private education. This would only divert more money from public schools.  There has not been any substantial research done to say vouchers do anything to improve student performance.”

The bill made it out of the Senate Education Committee and is now eligible for the full Senate to debate.