Letters to the Editor: 2025’s Plan for education

“American children… can’t add five plus five, but they can tell you that there are 87 different genders.” Said vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance while speaking at an event hosted by right-wing extremist evangelical leader Lance Wallnau, a member of the New Apostolic Reformation movement that seeks to end the separation of church and state and put the United States under religious rule. Vance went on to claim that schools are teaching children “radical ideas” rather than “reading, writing, arithmetic” and said it is “creeping socialism in our schools.” Vance proposed cutting funding for public education. 

Presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed on Fox and Friends, “You know, they take your kid. There are some places (sic), your boy leaves the school, comes back a girl. Without parental consent.” On another appearance on Fox and Friends Trump said that he would shut down the Department of Education punish schools that teach that America was built off the backs of slaves or the near genocide of native Americans.

Trump and Vance’s comments echo the despicable rhetoric of the Iowa Republican legislature during the debate on implementing school vouchers in Iowa. Gov. Kim Reynolds, at Moms for Liberty meeting in Des Moines on Feb. 2, 2023, claimed “…the radical left treat our kids like their personal property,” and “public schools as institutions dominated by an “extreme and extremely loud minority” hostile toward conservative parents’ values.” (Iowa Public Radio “On Point” Feb. 3, 2023)

Reynolds continued, “They think that patriotism is racist and pornographic library books are education. They believe that the content of our character is less important than the color of our skin. They believe children should be encouraged to pick their gender, and parents.”

At the beginning of the 2022 Iowa legislative session senate President Jake Chapman opened the session by claiming that public school teachers and the media have a “sinister agenda" to normalize children’s deviant behavior. Chapman continued, “The attack on our children is no longer hidden. Those who wish to normalize sexually deviant behavior against our children, including pedophilia and incest, are pushing this movement more than ever before."(Newsweek, Jan. 10, 2022)

Is it a coincidence that public education is under attack not only in Iowa but at the national level? No. There is a well-coordinated effort to destroy public education. Led by Betsy DeVos and self-proclaimed “school choice evangelist” Corey DeAngelis, school vouchers are being pushed in most states.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court passed Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark decision ruling that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. Shortly after the decision Prince Edward County Schools in Virginia closed its public schools, introduced vouchers for white students to attend private schools.  Vouchers have had a racist history even up to the current push to legislate their use in states. When pressed on the risks and unintended consequences of potential exclusionary policies in voucher programs, Secretary DeVos refused to commit to aggressively enforce civil rights protections. In May 2017 in her testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Betsy DeVos declined to say whether she would protect students against discriminatory policies in private schools that receive federal funding through vouchers. (The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers, Center for American Progress, July 2017)

Trump, Vance, DeAngelis, DeVos and Reynolds are simply following Project 2025, the blueprint for the next conservative administration developed by the Heritage Foundation with support from other right-wing organizations, which has primarily gained attention for its 900-page policy roadmap proposing wide-reaching and controversial changes to every aspect of the executive branch. Vance has had a long connection with Project 2025. In June, Vance announced that he had written the foreword for Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’ forthcoming book, “Dawn’s Early Light.”

The goal is to end public education. But dismantling our public schools isn’t just the plan if and it is already happening. Disguised as “school choice,” federal, state, local and private actors have prioritized paying for private and charter schools, hoarding educational resources for the haves and depleting resources for the have-nots. These private and charter schools disproportionately serve Black and Latino students, English Learner students, students with disabilities and students living in poverty. (Center for Research on Educational Outcomes 2017)

According to Education Week Project 2025 would include…

• Passing a federal parents’ bill of rights similar to those passed in a number of Republican-led states, which the Project 2025 agenda says would give parents stronger standing in court “when the federal government enforces any policy against parents in a way that undermines their right and responsibility to raise, educate, and care for their children;”
• Transitioning Title I to a “no-strings-attached” block grant administered by state education departments — which could allow the funds to flow directly to parents in the form of education savings accounts to be used for private school and other educational expenses — before phasing it out over the next decade;
• Distributing special education funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to school districts as “no-strings-attached” block grants or directly into education savings accounts for parents to use on private school and other educational expenses;
• Scaling back the federal government’s ability to enforce civil rights laws like Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination, and Title VI, which prohibits race-based discrimination by moving enforcement of those laws to the Justice Department and requiring that the federal government litigate potential violations in court, rather than through the more common route of negotiating settlements with school districts to change their practices;
• Scrapping the Biden administration’s Title IX revision, which would explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity;
• Allowing states to opt out of federal education programs and devoting their share of federal education funds “toward any lawful education purpose under state law.” The agenda asserts that federal education programs’ “regulatory burden far exceeds the federal government’s less than 10% financing share of K-12 education.”

The website redwine.blue describes the impact of Project 2025 in this way. “We’ve seen efforts nationwide to undermine public education, so it’s no surprise that Project 2025 would come after it at the federal level. The plan suggests eliminating teachers’ ability to organize together, overhauling the U.S. Department of Education’s curriculum to align with extremist viewpoints, and ultimately eliminating the Department of Education. Instead of supporting public education, the plan would divert public money to private and religious school attendance.”

The vouchers have never been about giving more families opportunities or choice. Vouchers have a long history of ulterior motives. Our elected officials supporting vouchers have been disingenuous in the least or outright lying. Public education is the great equalizer and the backbone of our democracy. Public education serves all children regardless of socioeconomic status, disability, race, nationality, creed or language. Those who demonize public are the ones with a sinister agenda not, the individuals working in public schools who care deeply for the students and parents who they serve. Our state and nation deserve better.

Patrick O’Donnell, Sioux Center

‘The truth will set you free’

John 8:31-32 ESV. “The truth will set you free.” A Jewish Jesus was talking to Jews according to John. The Jewish Bible is embraced by Jews, Catholics, Christians and Muslims. There are various versions, interpretations and misuses of the Bible. However, it has guided billions of people for many thousands of years.

Science seeks truth by observation and testing. Our legal system seeks truth by taking into account opposite versions of reality and makes a judgment. The media takes a dialectic approach many times letting the reader decide the truth. Opinion pieces are one-sided. Some time our media promotes lies versus truth in a dialectic process. It is profitable but a disservice to the public.

Universities used to seek truth — religious, philosophical, journalistic and scientific. People in power often are not happy with universities. In the recent past, the powerful around the world in democracies decided to do something about these troublesome university people. [Often described as public/private partnerships, research favorable to the powerful was funded and troublesome, critical departments were underfunded or eliminated].

Then comes the politicians. Those in power increasingly have interfered with universities’ duty of truth telling. Few scholars in our universities are willing to talk about the health and ecological consequences of industrial agriculture (chemical heavy production and animal confinements). However, our private colleges are free from the hand of the politicians and most cases free from self serving powerful interests.

Drake University hosted four conferences in the past month focusing on how to improve human health and ecological integrity in Iowa. Apparently, Big Ag, King Corn, the chemical companies and meat packing companies do not control Drake University. The public is confused.

Iowans are seeking the truth about cancer rates and water quality. It was reported in the Oct. 22 Des Moines Register that Drake University exceeded its $250 million fund raising goal. Good. Many Iowans care about “The Truth" and the future of their state.

Mike Delaney, Windsor Heights

Proverbs and candidate

Evangelical Christians (and everyone else, as well) should consider reading Proverbs 6:16-19, which contains a near perfect description of one of the candidates in the upcoming election.

Jim Walters, Iowa City

Editor’s note: Here is the text of the verse

There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.