Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds gave the 2024 Condition of the State address in the Iowa House chambers Jan. 9, 2024. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
After winning her years-long battle to pass Iowa’s program providing public funding for private school education, Gov. Kim Reynolds is taking on a role to help promote “school choice” measures in other states.
The Iowa governor is now the co-chair of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)’s “Education Freedom Alliance,” an initiative launched by the think tank in January to encourage more states to enact measures similar to Iowa’s Educational Savings Account program. One of the main goals of the initiative is “25 by ’25” — aiming for 25 states to have laws with state education funds available to go to private schools by 2025.
According to the EFA website , 12 states have enacted so-called “school choice” laws by 2024, and 16 states may bring legislation on the issue forward in 2025.
Reynolds said every state is different, but encouraged advocates and lawmakers to continue pressing for these measures despite pushback and criticism from both sides of the aisle.
“It is hard, you know, but you just … stay strong, stay committed, have the resolve to follow it through — because really, it is the right thing to do,” Reynolds said Friday at the ALEC convention. “But it is an exciting organization. I am honored, beyond honored, to be a part of it. And I’m happy to talk to anybody, or come to your states or whatever I can do to be helpful. But it all starts with 25 by 2025 and the resources that you’re putting into it.”
Reynolds spoke about her years-long effort to pass the ESA program providing government funding for private school costs for Iowa K-12 students. The Republican governor said in a talk with Linda Nelson, the CEO of the conservative think tank, that she wants to work with ALEC and state lawmakers to encourage other states to be a part of what she called “education revolution that we’re seeing happening across this country” in encouraging state funding for private school scholarships.
The Iowa governor said she was “really proud” of the work done to pass the 2023 law , after it failed to advance in two previous legislative sessions.
There was not sufficient support among Republican majorities to pass a version of the ESA program prior to 2023, Reynolds said, as many lawmakers representing rural school districts were concerned about the impact it would have on K-12 school funding in their areas. The governor said she worked on finding a compromise, but that when she realized “it’s not going to happen,” she took another tactic — weighing in on GOP primaries.
“I was either going to sit on the sidelines and continue to be an enabler and not get this done, or I was going to really get in the fight and really make sure that we had (enough votes),” Reynolds said. “Because I was hearing it from the parents and from families as I traveled the state, you know, they wanted that opportunity to choose. And a lot of times they would choose a public school, but they wanted that choice, especially after COVID.”
The governor endorsed candidates in nine Republican primaries during the 2022 primary elections, when multiple incumbent GOP lawmakers lost to challengers. In addition to making primary endorsements, Reynolds said radio and TV advertising promoting the ESA program were important to “provide cover for our lawmakers” and “keep that momentum going” for the measure, passed two weeks after the 2023 session began .
After she and Republicans across the ballot saw major victories in the 2022 midterm elections, when governor won reelection with 58% of the vote, Reynolds said that she decided to pursue a more ambitious version of the ESA program than she had tried to pass in previous years.
The ESA program provides accounts to students equal to the per-pupil funding total received by public K-12 schools, to use for private school tuition and associated costs. While previous versions of the legislation that did not make it to the finish line set income limits on the program, the 2023 law allows all Iowa K-12 students, regardless of family income, access to the state-funded accounts beginning in the 2025-26 school year onward.
“Literally what we did really was we put education freedom on the ballot,” Reynolds said. “And I am telling you Iowans responded in a really strong way, by large majorities.”
A 2023 Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll found that a majority, 62%, of Iowans oppose using “funds for public schools to help parents pay costs of non-public schools or homeschooling.”
Iowa spent $129.9 million on the program in the 2023-2024 school year, when the income limit for opening accounts was at 300% of the federal poverty level — roughly $23 million more than the state expected in its first year of implementation. An audit released earlier in July by state Auditor Rob Sand, the sole Democrat to hold statewide office, found that the state will pay more to the company managing the ESA program than initially predicted because of contract amendments.
The contract with Odyssey, a New York-based company, was amended to include a transaction fee of 25 cents per $100 of qualified educational expenses — a change Sand said could cost the state “more than double by fiscal year 2027.”
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