Education and the Arts
- Keep the money focused on kids. The legislature should require districts to spend 65% of education dollars directly on the classroom, which includes infrastructure, teacher salaries, materials, sports, etc. Currently, Iowa spends 61.4% of tax dollars on the classroom and opts to allow local districts to spend money on top-heavy administrations and meaningless professional development rather than on our kids. If we mandated districts spend 65% of education dollars on kids, Iowa would increase student funding by $131,378,000 next year—new textbooks, lower class sizes, meaningful field trips—all without raising taxes. Teachers could receive $250 a year to purchase materials instead of paying for them out-of-pocket as many I know do.
- Require a standard of decorum and teach virtue. Education starts at home. However, for those students without this teaching, schools should model civic behavior and never work against parents’ teaching of upstanding behavior. Every Iowa child should take an etiquette class in which he or she learns how and why to write a thank-you note, hold a door, tie a tie, give a toast, celebrate a touchdown (going to one knee, handing the ball to the referee, or pointing to the credit of a teammate). The state should reward districts with incentives that implement uniforms giving students some pride and setting the purpose for coming to school. Currently, clothing gives rise to gang behavior, is sometimes far too revealing, and serves as a status symbol. Also, the state needs to allow and encourage traditional models such as same-sex classrooms which help focus students and allow for different modalities of learning. In addition to honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day should be important days on the school calendar. As an Iowa graduation requirement, all students should be required to participate in a community service project.
- Model the real world with consequences and demand discipline. Districts must have the ability to refuse students with chronic, intentional absenteeism. Currently, public schools spend too much money on students who refuse to attend, and it is therefore withheld from students who do attend. Once a truancy officer forces the recalcitrant student to school, there is little education taking place and instead, many behavior problems which impede the learning of other students. We should reward districts with incentives that have a zero-tolerance policy for fighting, who suspend students who verbally abuse educators, vandalize the school, or intentionally disrupt the learning environment for others.
- Allow students the ability to explore the trades and tailor education to student needs. Instead of gutting vocational programs and insisting that every student must go on to a four-year college, we need to decrease the number of students dropping out of school. To accomplish this, we shouldn’t hike the compulsory attendance age to 18; rather, we should make learning relevant and develop partnerships with our community colleges wherein some students can see the relevance of their education in application to a trade. Students need options instead of a one-size-fits-all education.
- Test students on knowledge and content. Currently, the Iowa Test of Educational Development does not test for any core knowledge. Current educational theory in America has one response—you can always look it up. This is not good enough. Students should be able to leave high school with core knowledge of authors and literature, civics and American history, geography, etc. As a state, we can require students to pass a citizenship test which every immigrant to our country has to take. We should get rid of cheap, easy-to-score multiple-choice tests in favor of writing which better demonstrates student knowledge. Iowa should have state standards based on knowledge and writing similar to the NY State Regents.
- Require P.E. classes with individualized performance and serve healthy school lunches. As a child, I benefited from the Presidential Fitness Challenge because it gave me a personal fitness goal. Today, there are P.E. classes where one teacher has 85 students. Currently, students can be exempt for P.E. simply because they have a full schedule; instead, all students should take P.E. without exemption. The athlete can work on strength or conditioning while the other students focus on individualized, personal wellness (aerobics, personal fitness goals, etc.) As long as school lunches are subsidized, we should serve only the healthiest of food rather than contributing to the obesity epidemic among youth.