Editorial: Killing rural Iowa

We trust that our state legislators are paying close attention to the issues in area school and city elections coming up. No doubt, former Alta-Aurelia superintendent Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, is keenly aware of the difficulties the school board faces in trying to arrange a class realignment that administrators believe will deliver instruction more efficiently and effectively. In this case, the issue is transportation — not enough bus drivers — which really is an issue of money.

Schaller-Crestland is looking at shutting down a building at Early as its Ridge View partner Galva-Holstein has its own budget issues. It’s a long haul from Nemaha to Holstein. And so on at Sioux Central and Laurens-Marathon.

The governor claims a $1.83 billion surplus in the state budget, and wants more income tax cuts. The legislature diverted hundreds of millions of dollars per year to vouchers for private school families that come out of the hide of K-12 public schools like Newell-Fonda, which shuttered the Fonda building not so long ago.

The legislature controls school funding. School boards and superintendents are left to sort it out. Like putting up walls to keep Alta-Aurelia school children out of the Alta public library bookshelves.

The governor got $2 million in tax cuts out of the legislature last session. The tax cuts look pretty sweet until you try to figure out how to get a Hinkeldey from Hanover to Alta and then Aurelia and back. Or do you just throw up your hands and ship them to Storm Lake or Cherokee?

That’s the issue underlying these elections: Consolidation is relentless. It has long been the effect, if not the goal, to create centrally located schools. The pressures are relentless and set friendly neighbors Galva-Holstein and Schaller-Crestland against each other.

Rural schools were magnets of community pride. They are under attack from the legislature and the governor. A lot of folks are running for school board to see what they can do. They are running to save their schools from a state government that does not respond to their real and pressing needs. Does anybody in Des Moines really care that Early will lose a school? Clearly, not enough legislators do. Do they care if Sioux Central or Ridge View can hold things together? Not by legislative appropriations to transportation or buildings, not when you siphon off funds so rich families get a break sending their kids to West Des Moines Dowling High.

By extension, do these legislators care about Early or Schaller as healthy communities? Not much. They are just obstructions to a larger system that sees rural communities as a drain or an anachronism. That is a big part of what is wrong with Iowa. Strong rural schools made us unique — small class sizes, lots of individual attention, teamwork and pride. They make small communities more attractive and sustainable. We are not supporting what used to be our foundational strength — outstanding education no matter where you live, rural or urban, in Iowa. Yet we are abandoning schools and whole towns as we scour for more tax breaks for the big money in Des Moines.

Republicans controlling the statehouse draw their base from rural areas, yet they are actively participating in their plunder. It doesn’t make much sense.