Take a good look at the current race for governor.

It seems that we have two gentlemen with the potential to make it into the seat currently occupied by Mr. Terry E. Branstad.

We all know that Terry has had quite a reign up there at the Golden Dome.

I will be the first to admit that Mr. Branstad has served his time, and now his time has come. Unfortunately, his possible successors, Mr. Lightfoot and Mr. Vilsack, both support the use of public tax dollars to assist private schools.

This presents a problem since some of my hard-earned tax dollars would benefit those who consciously decided to remove themselves from the public school system.

It would be wonderful if our glorious state could give away more money without taking it from somewhere else, but it can’t. This is where you start to see a problem: Where does this money come from?

In the words of economics professor Dr. Van de Wetering, “you take it out of one pocket, and you put it in the other.”

What happens to those who depend upon the first pocket? They get royally screwed.

So who’s catching the flow from pocket one? A variety of institutions, including public schools. The sad part is that standardized test scores in Iowa have seen a steady decline in recent years.

The public school system in Iowa cannot afford to lose money to private schools simply because Iowa’s public schools lag in technology. Iowa’s public schools lag in cutting-edge curriculum and, most importantly, Iowa’s public schools are starting to lag in salaries.

Private schools aren’t in too bad of shape. Dowling High School in Des Moines, part of the St. Joseph Roman Catholic Center, has started a campaign to put a laptop computer on the desk of every student. ISU, are you listening?

Dowling is a fair-sized school, which would require a large number of laptops, which requires a large amount of money. Dowling also happens to be one of the better schools for athletics in the Central Iowa Metro League (CIML). Why? It’s quite simple.

Student-athletes from my high school, East High, as well as many other schools have been swayed to attend Dowling by sizable “gifts,” thereby making a Dowling education totally free. Of course, this is vehemently disputed by Dowling, but ask any public school coach in the CIML and he’ll tell you what’s up.

Private schools in Iowa already receive in excess of $18 million for things like textbooks and other necessary supplies.

Families that have students in private schools receive transportation subsidies from their local public school districts.

In actuality, private schools are already supported by the state. The question is: Do they need more support? I think you know the answer.

It’s not proven that private education is the way to go. Last year, for example, the Des Moines Public School District had more Advanced Placement National Merit Scholars than all of Minnesota’s school districts combined.

Des Moines may be dead, but it’s not dying dumb. My final question is this: What happens to the existing public schools or to those who can’t even afford subsidized private education?

I’ll tell you. If the subsidization of private schools is made law, we will build a permanent class made up of the undereducated, ill informed and poor. Goodbye, democracy. Goodbye, America.

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Josh Hibben

Freshman

Liberal arts and sciences