Why Rebecca Schweitzer Believes Public Money Belongs in Public Schools

By Rebecca Schweitzer | Iowa Citizen & Community Writer

My name is Rebecca Schweitzer, and I’ve lived in Iowa long enough to care deeply about what happens to the kids growing up here. I’m not a politician. I’m not a lobbyist. I’m an Iowa citizen who pays taxes, follows local policy, and believes that where public money goes matters — especially when it comes to education.

Let me say this clearly upfront: I have nothing against private schools. Parents who choose private education for their children are making a valid, personal decision — and many private schools do remarkable work for their students.

What I do have a problem with is using public tax dollars to fund them.

That’s not an attack on private schools. It’s a principle. And it’s one I think most Iowans — regardless of political affiliation — can understand when we strip away the talking points and look at what’s actually happening with our money.

Two Different Systems, Two Different Rules

Private schools operate outside the public system by design. They set their own admission standards. They can turn away students who don’t meet their criteria. They aren’t required to accept children with disabilities, students with behavioral challenges, or kids who are simply harder to educate. They answer to their own boards and their own mission — not to taxpayers.

That’s their right. I genuinely mean that. Private institutions should be free to operate by their own standards.

But that freedom comes with a trade-off: they shouldn’t get public money.

Public schools don’t get to pick and choose. They take every child who walks through the door — the child with severe learning disabilities, the kid experiencing homelessness, the student who just arrived from another country and doesn’t speak English yet. They are accountable to the public in ways private schools simply are not. They publish their budgets. They report their outcomes. They answer to elected school boards that you can show up and address directly.

That accountability is exactly why public schools deserve public funding — and private schools, which don’t share that accountability, don’t.

Iowa’s Voucher Program: Public Funds Without Public Oversight

Iowa’s Education Savings Account program sends public tax dollars to private schools with minimal strings attached. Supporters frame it as “school choice” — and I understand why that language is appealing. Of course parents should have choices for their children.

But school choice and taxpayer-funded school choice are two very different things.

As Rebecca Schweitzer — an Iowa taxpayer — I’ll put it plainly: if you want to send your child to a private school, that is absolutely your right. What shouldn’t be your right is asking me and every other Iowa taxpayer to pay for it. Especially when the private school receiving that money doesn’t have to meet the same standards, serve the same populations, or provide the same transparency that public schools are required to provide.

We are writing checks with public money and asking very few questions about where it goes or what results it produces. That should bother everyone — conservative or liberal — who believes in responsible government spending.

Public Schools Are Being Shortchanged

Here’s the other half of the equation that rarely gets told alongside the voucher story: Iowa’s public schools are receiving funding increases so small they don’t keep up with reality.

Iowa’s allowable growth rate — the annual increase in per-pupil public school funding — has consistently fallen behind the actual cost of running schools. When you factor in rising special education costs, mental health support needs, staff salaries, and basic operating expenses, a 2% funding increase in a 6% cost environment isn’t an investment. It’s a slow cut dressed up in positive language.

The result is playing out in districts across Iowa right now: larger class sizes, eliminated programs, teachers paying for classroom supplies out of their own pockets, and support staff stretched so thin that kids who need the most help aren’t getting it.

This is happening at the same time public dollars are flowing to private institutions with no requirement to serve those same struggling kids. I find that unacceptable — and I think most Iowans would too if they saw the full picture side by side.

The Students Absorbing the Consequences

The students left in underfunded public schools aren’t there by accident. They are disproportionately children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children whose parents don’t have the time, resources, or information to navigate private school applications and voucher paperwork.

In other words, the kids who need the most support are concentrated in the system receiving the least investment. And the voucher program accelerates this dynamic — when higher-income, easier-to-educate students leave, they take per-pupil funding with them, but the public school’s fixed costs don’t shrink proportionally.

I don’t think most Iowans who support “school choice” actually want this outcome. I think they’ve been sold a clean idea without seeing the full picture.

What Rebecca Schweitzer Believes

I believe private schools should exist and thrive — funded by the families who choose them and the private donors who support their missions. That is the appropriate funding model for a private institution.

I believe public schools — which serve everyone, turn no one away, and answer to taxpayers — deserve robust, honest, inflation-adjusted public funding that reflects the actual cost of educating kids in today’s world.

And I believe that when public money leaves the public system without accountability, oversight, or equivalent obligations, it isn’t school choice. It’s a subsidy — and Iowa’s public school students are paying the price for it.

Iowa has built its identity on strong public education for generations. That legacy doesn’t maintain itself. It requires Iowa citizens like me — Rebecca Schweitzer — to pay attention, ask hard questions, show up, and insist that public money serves the public.

I live here. I vote here. And I think we can do a whole lot better for the kids of this state.

Rebecca Schweitzer is an Iowa-based writer and community advocate based in Des Moines. She writes about local policy, education, and civic life from the perspective of an engaged Iowa citizen. Find her on Substack, X, and her website Iowa Raised Rebecca Schweitzer Unfiltered.