School choice leaves us no choices

24-HOUR DORMAN TODD DORMAN

‘School choice” sounds great. Who doesn’t like choices?

Well, Republicans running Iowa, that’s who.

You’ve probably read about how lawmakers have been threatening state universities with hell fire and brimstone if they fail to eradicate all vestiges of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. It makes white GOP lawmakers uncomfortable.

They also want an independent School of Intellectual Freedom on the University of Iowa campus. You don’t have to be much of an intellectual to realize this is a Trojan Horse full of disgruntled authoritarians eager to conquer the campus.

Meanwhile, under the Golden Dome of wisdom, now redder than an empty box of Valentine’s bonbons, House Republicans advanced a bill that would bring the same DEI hysteria to Iowa’s private colleges and universities.

Private colleges and universities that refuse to jettison diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programs would lose access to Iowa Tuition Grant bucks. The grants help students who qualify pay for private higher education.

If kids need a tuition grant to pay tuition, they won’t be able to attend a private campus that hasn’t surrendered to GOP edicts. They may want to attend a school educating kids for the diverse world as it exists. Not in this state.

You can send your young scholar to a whitewashed state university or to a private college or university bullied into whitewashing through legislative extortion. Choice!

Sorry, parents and kids who don’t subscribe to the rigid worldview of Trump-era conservatives will need to look out of state. Although they may find other institutions too frightened by the president’s executive orders to resist.

“School choice” began as Gov. Kim Reynolds’ campaign to create publicly funded K-12 private school scholarships. The governor traveled far and wide to proclaim public schools are immoral dens of porno books and drag shows. So, we need to help Iowans flee public schools by giving them money to make private school affordable.

Republicans still weren’t happy. So, they set out to make public schools more like religious private schools. They banned books from school libraries that mention sex acts. They really want to ban authors of color and LGBTQ writers.

They barred students in kindergarten through sixth grade from hearing anything about the existence of LGBTQ people in the world. To do otherwise is “sexualizing” kids. As if the identities of Iowans with lives, careers and families can be reduced to sex acts.

The real point of Reynolds’ drive for school choice is to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to religious schools. And instead of helping people escape from public schools, 70 percent of the scholarships have gone to students already in private schools and for kindergartners starting private school.

Want a school that teaches real history, supports civil rights and doesn’t ban books? Too bad, lib.

And it’s never enough. On Monday, a House bill advanced that would target books in public libraries. Another bill would extend the ban on teaching LGBTQ themes from the current K-6 ban to 7-12 as well.

Don’t agree with the way Iowa Republicans see the world? You’ll just have to live in the world they’re creating. There’s really no choice.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com