Rob Sand Will Put Iowa’s Public Schools First as Governor

CEDAR RAPIDS, IA – Tonight, during the final gubernatorial debate, Rob Sand is once again making the case for why he’s the best candidate in this race to support Iowa’s students, strengthen public education, and restore Iowa’s schools to their former gold standard.

For Rob, this is personal: he’s a proud product of Iowa public schools, and his own two boys attend them today. “Foundation in Education” is proudly stamped on our state’s quarter, and our public schools were once the crown jewel of Iowa. But after a decade of one-party control, Iowa’s education system has fallen to the middle of the pack while $350 million in taxpayer dollars this year alone has been poured into a private school voucher program without the same transparency and accountability required of our public schools.

“As a father of two public school kids, Rob Sand wants to strengthen Iowa’s public schools by investing in educators, demanding accountability for the school voucher program, and making sure no kid goes hungry during the school day by providing universal school meals,” said Deputy Campaign Manager Emma O’Brien. “Meanwhile, Zach Lahn wants to double down on an unaccountable voucher program, and is so out of touch with Iowa public schools that he claims ‘Marxists’ have hijacked our classrooms. Iowans deserve better than a governor focused on political games and divisive rhetoric. Rob believes we should spend less time playing politics and more time focused on what actually matters: giving every Iowa kid a great education and making sure taxpayers know where their money is going.”

For too long, Iowa’s public schools have been consistently underfunded while hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are increasingly funneled into the state’s unaccountable private school voucher program. On top of that, rural school districts — which often serve as the backbone of their community — are most impacted by the voucher program, being forced to subsidize private school tuition for Iowa’s wealthiest families while many of their communities don’t have a single private school in the region. 

Rob Sand has proposed specific reforms to bring accountability to the private school voucher program and strengthen Iowa’s public schools. His “Accountability for All” plan would make sure there is public oversight of public dollars by:

• Requiring annual audits of the private school voucher program to ensure that the money is spent responsibly.
• Limiting tuition increases so that the schools can’t just hike costs and become as unaffordable as they were before.
• Implementing income limits so that the money is going to students and families who need it the most – not to the wealthiest Iowans who were sending their kids to private schools anyway.
• Ending sweetheart deals for companies like Odyssey, which manages the school voucher program and more than doubled its rate less than a month after signing their no-bid contract, costing taxpayers an additional $2.7 million.

Rob’s education agenda goes beyond voucher accountability. In his “Affordability for All” plan, he has proposed universal all-day Pre-K and universal school meals, investments aimed at lowering costs for Iowa families, and ensuring kids have the foundation they need to succeed in school. Because investing in Iowa’s public schools means investing in Iowa’s kids — and in the future of our state.