Rebecca Schweitzer: Iowa’s School Voucher Program Spends Your Tax Dollars With No Accountability

Rebecca Schweitzer: Iowa’s school voucher program is spending taxpayer dollars with little to no public accountability—and that’s not an accident. Through the state’s Education Savings Account (ESA) program, public funds are redirected to private schools and expenses without the same transparency, oversight, or audit requirements that public schools must follow.

Rebecca Schweitzer on Why Iowa’s Voucher System Lacks Accountability

Iowa's Public Schools Are Already Struggling

Before we talk about the voucher program it is important to understand the ground it is being built on.

Iowa used to be a national leader in public education. We were consistently among the top states in the country in academic achievement. Our public schools were the backbone of communities across this state, the place where every Iowa kid, regardless of zip code or family income, had a shot at a good education.

That Iowa is being dismantled piece by piece.

For fourteen consecutive years Iowa's per-pupil spending growth for public schools has averaged only 2 percent annually, consistently falling behind inflation. State education funding for fiscal year 2026 is $270 million less than it would be if it had kept pace with inflation since 2017. The shortfall this year alone amounts to more than $1,000 per student, more than half a billion dollars statewide.

The consequences are showing up in real communities. Cedar Rapids is considering closing and consolidating several schools as part of a plan to address a $19 million budget shortfall. Des Moines is dealing with a $16 million deficit. In Boone the district discontinued its orchestra. Iowa school districts are cutting staff, eliminating programs, and closing buildings across the state.

This is the same legislature

that passed two healthcare bills in one week that made things worse for Iowa families. The pattern is consistent: underfund public services, redirect money to private interests, and block anyone from auditing what happened to it. I wrote about the healthcare bills and what they mean for everyday Iowans — you can read that piece here.

What the Program Is

In January 2023 Governor Kim Reynolds signed the Students First Act into law, creating Iowa's Education Savings Account program. The idea was sold as school choice, giving families the freedom to use state funds to send their children to private schools. Each eligible student receives nearly $8,000 in taxpayer funds per year.

In the 2025-26 school year income limits were removed entirely. That means every Iowa family regardless of income can now access public funds to pay for private school tuition. Families who were already sending their children to private schools and had no trouble paying for it are now receiving nearly $8,000 per year from Iowa taxpayers.

Supporters of the program argue it gives families more choice. But choice without accountability is not reform. It is risk — risk that falls entirely on Iowa taxpayers who have no say in how the money is spent and no way to find out.

There Is No Accountability and That Was the Plan

Here is what Rob Sand, Iowa's State Auditor, found when he tried to do his job.

Sand's office requested data from the Iowa Department of Education in May 2025 to audit the program. He did not receive that information until six months later, leaving his office time to perform only the minimum required testing. His conclusion was direct: the state cannot verify that the program has appropriate controls for waste and abuse.

Sand said it plainly: accountability delayed is accountability denied.

But this is not just a delay problem. The law itself was written to block oversight. The authors of the voucher bill made their intentions clear from the beginning. When Sand questioned the lack of oversight provisions in the original bill, an advocate for the bill told him directly: "We do not want public oversight of private schools."

So why would lawmakers write a law this way? Why deliberately block the state auditor from doing his job? The answer is not complicated. If the public knew exactly where this money was going and how it was being spent, the program would be much harder to defend. Private schools that receive public funds do not want to be subject to public accountability requirements. They do not want to have to report to the state. They do not want auditors looking at their books. And the legislators who passed this bill made sure that would never happen.

When you write a law that specifically bars your state auditor from examining how hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent, you are not protecting anyone's rights. You are protecting someone's money. And the question every Iowan should be asking is: whose?

Public Money Belongs in Public Schools

I want to be clear about where I stand on this.

If you want to send your child to a private school that is your right. I support your right to make that choice for your family. Private schools serve communities and families across Iowa and many of them do important work.

But if you choose private school you are choosing to opt out of the public system. That choice should not be subsidized by taxpayers who have no say in how that money is spent, no ability to audit it, and no guarantee that it is being used appropriately.

Public money belongs in public schools. That is not a partisan statement. It is a basic principle of how democratic government is supposed to work. When you send public money to private institutions with no accountability requirements you are not funding education. You are funding a blank check.

Private schools do not have to accept every student the way public schools do. They can turn away students with disabilities, students who do not fit their religious requirements, students who cannot afford fees beyond what the voucher covers. Public schools take everyone. Public schools serve everyone. Public money should fund public schools.

If parents need financial help to send their children to private school, scholarship programs and other resources exist specifically for that purpose. Those programs are private and targeted to families who genuinely need assistance. That is a very different thing from funneling hundreds of millions of public dollars into private institutions with zero oversight and no requirement to serve all students.

What This Does to Rural Iowa

Here is what makes this especially infuriating for rural Iowans. The voucher program does almost nothing for them.

Forty-one of Iowa's 99 counties have no private school at all. Twenty-three more have only one. If you live in a rural Iowa community the voucher program is largely irrelevant to your family because there is no private school nearby to attend.

But the funding loss is very real.

When a student leaves a public school to use a voucher the district loses that student's full per-pupil funding. The state gives the district back $1,205 as a consolation payment. That is just over 15 percent of what the district would have received if the student stayed. A district that loses a student to a private school faces a net loss of more than $9,000 in funding.

In 159 Iowa school districts in fiscal year 2026, enrollment declines have pushed budgets onto what is called the "budget guarantee," meaning those districts can only increase their budgets by 1 percent, and that increase must be paid entirely through local property taxes. I have written about how property taxes keep rising in Des Moines while services decline — the voucher program is part of that same story. You can read that piece here. 

The mayor of Woodbine, Iowa, put it simply: "If you lose your school, you lose your town." Iowa's rural communities are watching this happen in real time. And the legislators who represent those rural communities voted for the program anyway.

Who Is Actually Benefiting

The voucher program was sold as a way to help low-income families access better educational options. The data tells a different story.

Private school tuition in Iowa increased 21 to 24 percent after the voucher program launched, pricing out the very families the program was supposedly designed to help. Research from Brown and Princeton universities found that kindergarten tuition alone increased by an average of $1,280 after the program began. When voucher funds do not fully cover tuition and private schools keep raising prices, the families who benefit most are the ones who could already afford private school.

The program is not a lifeline for struggling Iowa families. It is a subsidy for families who were already paying private school tuition and a windfall for the private schools themselves.

Of the 24 new private schools that opened in Iowa under this program, 13 are in the Des Moines metro area. Four are in rural areas. The money is flowing from rural Iowa taxpayers to urban and suburban private schools that rural Iowa children cannot even attend.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst put it clearly: "54 percent of the vouchers so far have gone to 10 counties. So how is this helping rural Iowa?"

Who Passed This and Who Is Running on It

It is worth asking who pushed this program through, what they stood to gain, and who is running for governor on a platform of keeping it in place.

Governor Reynolds signed the Students First Act in 2023. Those who voted for it were rewarded for their loyalty. Those who voted against it were not. Republicans who opposed the voucher bill were primaried by Governor Reynolds and almost all of them lost. Only one Republican who voted against the bill survived his primary, and that was by two votes.

Now Randy Feenstra, the Republican frontrunner for governor in 2026, has been identified by his own opponents as a supporter of Iowa's unaccountable voucher program. His Democratic opponents have stated directly that Feenstra "supported Iowa's unaccountable voucher program that's jeopardizing Iowa's fiscal budget." Feenstra has made no indication he would change course on the program if elected governor. He has instead framed himself as a continuation of the Reynolds agenda, the same agenda that built this program, blocked its oversight, and has underfunded Iowa's public schools for over a decade.

I am a Democrat and I have written about why I believe this matters for Iowa's future — you can read that here.

Iowans who care about public education and fiscal accountability should pay close attention to who is running for governor and what they have said and done on this issue.

What Rob Sand Has Said

Rob Sand, who is running for governor as a Democrat, has been the loudest and most persistent voice demanding accountability for this program.

Sand has called out the administration for blocking his office's access to program data. He has pointed out that while every public school in Iowa gets an annual audit, private schools receiving nearly $8,000 per student in public funds face no such requirement. He wants to impose tighter oversight, require income limits so benefits are targeted to families who genuinely need them, and require private schools receiving public dollars to accept all students rather than selectively enrolling.

His position is straightforward: if you are spending public money you should be subject to public accountability. That is not a partisan principle. It is the basic standard we apply to every other program that spends taxpayer dollars.

The Reynolds administration's response has been to call his concerns politically motivated and to use that accusation to justify withholding the very information that would either confirm or refute those concerns.

That is not transparency. That is stonewalling.

The Bottom Line

Iowa once led the nation in public education. We were something to be proud of. We were the standard other states looked to. That did not happen by accident. It happened because generations of Iowans invested in public schools, believed in them, and understood that strong communities are built on strong schools.

Iowa is spending more than $314 million of taxpayer money this year on a program designed from the beginning to avoid accountability. Rural Iowa communities are losing school funding while urban private schools collect the benefits. Private school tuition is rising faster than the voucher amount, pricing out the low-income families the program was supposedly designed to help. And the state auditor cannot fully audit where the money is going because the law was written to prevent him from doing so.

Iowa's public schools are already cutting programs, closing buildings, and losing teachers. Pouring hundreds of millions into a private school subsidy with no accountability is not a solution to that problem. It is an accelerant.

Public money belongs in public schools. Iowa's children, all of them, in every county, in every community, deserve better than this.

Learn more about who I am and what I write about here.

About Rebecca Schweitzer — Iowa Writer & Community Advocate
Rebecca Schweitzer is an Iowa-based writer and community advocate in Des Moines, Iowa. Rebecca Schweitzer writes about Iowa politics, healthcare, and public accountability, with work featured in the Des Moines Register and The Gazette.. Learn more about Rebecca Schweitzer at iowaraisedrebeccaschweitzerunfiltered.com/who-is-rebecca-nicole-schweitzer-iowa-writer-on-politics-education-and-civic-life.

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