Editorial Roundup: Iowa

Des Moines Register. February 18, 2024.

Editorial: Hands off the AEAs. We aren’t seeing proof of an Iowa special education crisis.

No solution can be usefully tailored if the problem is ill-defined. Iowa needs to be sure it’s asked the right questions before it starts crafting answers.

But that premise is no more established today than it was Jan. 9 when Gov. Kim Reynolds first jolted educators and families with a plan to blow up the half-century-old — venerable, some would say — Area Education Agency network that facilitates services for children and some adults with disabilities.

Republicans in the Iowa House introduced and rushed through a pair of hearings new legislation that would adapt a handful of Reynolds’ ideas and order a task force to study the future of AEAs over the next 10 months. A Senate committee passed a version that hews closer to Reynolds’ original plan.

But it is still not evident why anything is so wrong as to warrant overhauling the AEAs before any such task force does its work.

Because nobody has brought forth reliable evidence that special education is in acute crisis in Iowa, legislators should strip all but the task force language from House Study Bill 713 and leave the topic alone until 2025.

Don’t craft solutions until you can define the problem

Reynolds’ proposal would have created a free-for-all for special education appropriations and lopped off about a quarter of the AEAs’ services and tens of millions of dollars in funding, leaving school districts scrambling to fill the void. It produced blowback unprecedented in Reynolds’ seven years as governor, with Iowa House Republicans refusing to advance her legislation.

One reason for the discord about the prescription for special education is that there is still very little agreement about what problems exist.

The state paid the consultant Guidehouse for an outside evaluation of AEAs; its report was not publicly available when Reynolds argued that other states do a better job teaching residents with disabilities and spend less money to do it. Ever since journalists obtained the Guidehouse report, Iowans have critiqued its methods and reasoning. For instance, Guidehouse asserted that Iowa’s per-pupil spending for special education exceeded the national average, citing federal data that is hard to believe because it shows 12 states spent $0 on special education.

Former Iowa Department of Education director Ted Stilwill, in a post on the Bleeding Heartland blog, said the report’s state-by-state comparison of test scores was facile at best because of numerous variables, most importantly how each state defines disabilities, that are difficult to take into account.

No solution can be usefully tailored if the problem is ill-defined. Iowa needs to be sure it’s asked the right questions before it starts crafting answers.

Legislators made improvements, but their bills still move too quickly

Neither bill that survived last week’s “funnel” deadline slows down that much, however. And while the House bill in particular is far more thoughtful than Reynolds’ offering, each piece of legislation goes further than is warranted right now.

Each bill would eventually allow districts to choose third-party providers for at least some services presently handled by AEAs. This would, at minimum, complicate budget planning at the AEAs. It also bears watching as another case of state privatizing essential government functions, with Medicaid and Reynolds’ education savings accounts being the most high-profile examples. In this case, AEAs provide specific subject matter expertise that might not be widely available in the marketplace.

“I think you’re going to see the vast majority of schools stick with the AEAs,” said Sen. Lynn Evans, an Aurelia Republican who is a former teacher and school administrator. Democrats countered that that seemed contradictory to the idea that AEAs aren’t doing an acceptable job.

The AEAs would mostly lose their autonomy under both bills. The Senate plan would create a much larger Division of Special Education in the Iowa Department of Education, while the House version would move more cautiously on that change.

“I’m pleased to see something come together that has at least some input from people who are the stakeholders,” said Rep. Sharon Steckman, a Mason City Democrat.

House version also keeps the AEAs as the sole provider of special education services.

“This is not the final product,” said House Education Committee chairman Skyler Wheeler. “We have been working on resetting the conversation.”

Lobbyists and legislative Democrats were correct to call the House bill encouraging. But the bar for legislation on this topic can’t be “less damaging than originally feared.”

Good idea: Handle minimum teacher pay separately

It wasn’t clear why that plan was combined with the special education bill in the first place, other than the governor’s affinity for schemes that offset increases in state spending: Raise teacher pay by siphoning money from AEAs. Cover women on Medicaid for a year after the end of pregnancy, but decrease the number of women who can use Medicaid in the first place.

The job is not finished for AEA defenders

Last week’s developments good news for Iowa families and for educators. But advocates who helped to kill Reynolds’ proposal should keep up the pressure.

Legislators can do better than stepping back from the brink. They should focus their energy on identifying members for a task force and sharpening its charge. Wheeler said he did not view this topic as a partisan one, and he’s right. In order to figure out precisely how to best serve Iowa’s children, lawmakers should put the rest of the bills on hold until we all have a much clearer picture of what’s happening.

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