A bill introduced last month to the Iowa Senate hopes to change the face of Iowa public education and provide students with more variety in their educational choices.

Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, introduced Senate File 29 to the Legislature in early January. It’s been in subcommittee since Jan. 12. The bill, which has drawn criticism from some Iowa Democrats, would abolish the Iowa Department of Education and move its responsibilities to the Department of Management and local school districts.

The bill also would set up an Education Savings Account (ESA), which would provide a grant for families that wish to enroll students in nonpublic schools or in a competent homeschooling program.

Senate File 29 comes at a time when the conversation on school choice has taken a national spotlight.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has long been a champion of the school choice movement, backing legislation to create programs similar to the ESA, and has put a focus on charter schools in Detroit. But many cite DeVos’ efforts as a syphon that has drained money away from public schools in her home state.

Iowa Sen. Herman Quirmbach believes that Senate File 29 will do the same to Iowa schools.

“It’ll bleed both students and dollars out of public schools,” Quirmbach said. “It’s ironic that this is being pursued by some of my more conservative colleagues who represent more rural districts because it’s going to hit those districts the hardest.”

Quirmbach said the ESA, which would function much like other voucher programs, has the potential to cripple small towns in the state that lean on their public schools to stay afloat.

“School consolidation is a really traumatic situation,” Quirmbach said. “How many times have I heard from people in small towns, ‘If we lose our school, we lose our town?’ I can’t tell them they’re wrong. What young family would ever settle in a town that doesn’t have a school? Pursuing vouchers is going to hurt the constitution that these people primarily represent. It’s a disaster.”

Quirmbach believes open-enrollment programs mandated in Iowa Legislature provide enough choices for students without pulling taxpayer funds out of public schools.

Iowa legislation already gives students the option to open enroll to other school districts and provides some degree of financial support for students who wish to attend private schools.

This isn’t the first time that Zaun has pursued this kind of legislation. In 2012, Zaun filed Senate File 2214, another bill to dismantle the Department of Education and put regulatory power into the hands of local school districts.

At the time, the bill died in subcommittee; however, with a newly-elected Republican-controlled Legislature, SF 29 has the potential to gain at least some traction this time around.

Quirmbach, however, is less optimistic about the bill’s chances.

“I don’t think there’s an ice cube’s chance in hell of it actually happening,” Quirmbach said. “There are functions that the Department of Education performs that just have to be performed at the state level.”   

Staci Hupp, communications director for the State Department of Education, said some of those functions include “ensuring high-quality education” and “providing leadership, support and oversight for the state education system.”  

Hupp also said that while it has yet to move from subcommittee, the Department of Education is keeping an eye on the bill.

While the bill would move much of the regulatory and teaching power to local school districts, it would put some financial and logistical decisions in the hands of the Department of Management.

“The Department of Management’s responsibility is to … manage the state’s finances,” Ben Hammes, communications director for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, said. “They’re also the ones that put the budget together and that work hand in hand with the governor’s office. They provide a framework for integrating that budget and planning it and they improve decision-making.”

Hammes also said that it was too early to tell what kind of impact SF 29 would have on the Department of Management.

A fiscal note provided by the Department of Education to the Legislative Services Agency attempted to estimate some of the cost associated with moving fiscal and regulatory responsibilities to the Department of Management and local districts and creating an ESA.

According to the note, there would be no change in cost if the Department of Education staff currently in charge of its authorities and duties were to simply move over to the Department of Management.

But while there may be an overall reduction in cost for the duties moving to local area districts, those districts would need to hire more staff to oversee those functions, creating a statewide increase in cost related to those duties.

While the note was unable to provide an estimated figure for the cost associated with abolishing the Department of Education due to the complexity of such a move, it was able to estimate the overall cost of the ESA.

If Iowa were to adopt an ESA, it would cost taxpayers about $240 million, assuming the number of students enrolled in nonpublic schools stayed the same.

In a 2012 letter to the Urbandale Patch, Zaun defended his plan to dismantle the Department of Education.

“What is often overlooked is the fact that without the Department of Education, all local districts would have the power to make changes and innovate on their own, without the bureaucratic headache,” Zaun said in his letter.

Zaun was not able to be reached for comments on his most recent bill.