Education is the foundation of success. Your ability to read these words is a testament to that statement.

As a state, Iowa is at or near the top of the totem pole in almost every educational category. Our merit shows in our ACT and SAT scores, high school graduation rates, mathematics and writing proficiency, general literacy and even measures such as class size and faculty-peer ratio.

However, despite overwhelmingly sunny statistics, Iowa notoriously and shamefully underpays its teachers. When we say it’s bad, we really mean bad: salaries increased 7.52 percent between 2008 and 2009, and yet we he still have the fifth-lowest teacher pay in in the nation.

More than half of Iowa’s state expenditures go towards funding primary, secondary and higher education. Given the increasing cost of living, combined with the hangover of post-recession stagnation, people should consider expanding, or at the very least maintaining, education funding.

Drinking the “no big government” Kool-Aid of House Republicans apparently means capping state expenditures at $5.9 billion. It means passing legislation allowing for zero education growth. It means promising 50 percent decreases in corporate property tax and 20 percent decreases in private income tax rates, yet somehow keeping the state afloat financially.

The latest fear-mongering revolves around the so-called budget stalemate, with scary words like “emergency funding” and “government shutdown.”

The state of our education, as well as the state of our levees, continue to deteriorate, while the circus performers in Des Moines haggle over abortion, bath salts and fines for smoking salvia.

We’re so glad they all have their priorities in order.