Rural Iowa is Gambling on Education
by John Drury
While campaigning across Senate District 6 this past year, I had many
discussions about rural economic development. Iowa’s Senate District 6
includes Worth, Winnebago, Hancock, Franklin, and Cerro Gordo County,
excluding Mason City. It’s a rural district with Clear Lake being its largest city.
Another
topic often discussed was public education. Iowa is known for its great
education system. For years, that has been the case. Iowa has
consistently been at the top when it comes to education. In fact, we
have beaten the odds, Iowa’s personal income level is way below average
and typically income level relates to test scores. However, in Iowa, we
have low wages, but our test scores have been high. We have beaten
those odds because we have properly funded our education system, and
because of our commitment to strong rural communities.
The Iowa
quarter was released this year and on the back it says “Foundation in
Education.” Ironically, in a recent survey sent to 2,300 Iowa K-12
teachers, a whopping 75% said their class sizes have increased, only
24% said their materials are up to date and accurate, 62% spent more
than $200 a year of their own money on classroom supplies, and 59%
report that professional development resources at their schools were
cut.
It would appear as though our strong foundation is crumbling. I talked to parents, teachers, school administrators, and students across district 6 who were all concerned that the Iowa legislature is shortchanging our education system.
There is
a common theme of my conversations on economic development. People
can’t seem to figure out why we don’t seem to get much development
north of Highway 20. Our population is on the decline and many have
suggested that this is purposefully being legislated. The legislature
has said no to any real local control on large-scale hog confinements,
they have not promoted the family farmer, they refuse to discuss
raising the minimum wage, and they have no strategy for economic
development. All of these have worked against any real growth in our
area. Mason City likes to boast about its retail expansion west. Sure,
you can get a cheap TV, but does that bring good paying jobs and
attract people to live in our communities? It’s doubtful.
Both
Worth County and Franklin County have each approved a referendum in
support of bringing casino gambling to their county. The opponents of
gambling are rightfully concerned about the social ills and the effect
that a casino will have on already existing and struggling businesses.
Any disposable income will be sucked into the casino and main street
businesses will dry up and blow away, they say. The executive director
of the Worth County Development Authority has said we need a casino to
fund our schools. Proponents argue that the state has left them with
nothing else to spark growth and create jobs.
The sad
truth is, they are both right. The social ills of gambling are real and
the potential effects of casinos on struggling businesses shouldn’t be
ignored. And the legislature has obviously decided that we are no
longer going to properly fund our schools and that as long as we put
the right words on the back of a quarter, that ought to be good enough.
We are
in pretty sad shape when we are willing to gamble on our families and
struggling main streets just to fund a basic service like education.
I’ve
said all along that if Iowa is going to have casino gambling, there’s
no reason why north Iowa shouldn’t have one. But I am concerned that
north Iowa is looking to a casino to solve all of our problems. If we
are to have a casino, then it should be because there is a demand for
recreation, not because we want our children to have the latest
textbooks.
We need
real solutions to economic development that celebrate Iowa and its
people and ones that will grow our economy and our communities from the
ground up. For the state legislature to not have a long term strategy
to grow rural areas of the state is unacceptable. Our future should be
an investment, not a risk.
Blog For Iowa 
Thanks, John, for your post–and for running against Gaskill for State Senate.
I think you left out 2 points in your assessment of why Iowa is well rated in education despite our low personal wealth.
1. We wrote the test–the Iowa Basic Skills Test, I mean. We wrote it, so we should score well on it, don't you agree? To the extent that the test may be culturally biased, it is to our advantage. As our culture changes from lily white, watch our test scores come in line with the rest of nation.
2. Our low wages are in part matched with low housing costs. So we are not as poor as it seems when we are ranked against other states.
LikeLike