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Whose priorities for Iowa?
Nick Covington
Jan. 11, 2023 6:00 am, Updated: Jan. 16, 2023 10:31 am
On Jan 9th, Priorities for Iowa, Inc, a Des Moines 501(c)(4) a Super PAC claiming to be “an Iowa-based organization” announced a six-figure ad buy in support of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ school voucher program. Priorities for Iowa Political Fund, a political action committee (PAC) is registered at the same address. The group claims to have the interests of Iowa parents at heart, a brief look at the donor disclosures for the PAC tells us otherwise.
According to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan nonprofit who tracks money in U.S. politics, in 2020 the largest donation to Priorities for Iowa Political Fund, $750,000, came from billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth C Griffin, founder of Miami-based hedge fund Citadel LLC. Griffin is one of the top 50 wealthiest individuals in the world today. Similarly, the largest donation of the 2022 election cycle came from the managing partner at Oak Hill Capital, a New York private equity firm.
I would assume that most Iowa parents don’t have access to the kind of private wealth that would allow them to influence the educational opportunities for parents in New York or Florida. So as an Iowa parent of public school children, I’m concerned about the outsized influence of out-of-state money on Iowa politics. I’m also wary of the interest that hedge funds and private equity firms have on desiring the tax dollars that educate all of our kids. Especially considering that as far back as 2016, the National Education Policy Center warned that “the charter industry as a whole is beginning to resemble a playground for private equity.” When it comes to turning a profit off of our children’s education, whose programs will be the first cut? Whose buildings will close? Whose teachers will be overworked and underpaid?
I hope Iowans will be smart enough to think twice about whose interests are represented in the ads you’ll see promoting the governors’ education bill. If you want to know who these voucher programs are made for and whose views on schooling are represented in the Iowa Legislature, look no further than the New York and Florida hedge fund billionaires who plan on using our tax dollars to remake the Iowa education system in their image.
Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for 10 years. He is also the co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational nonprofit promoting systems-based thinking and grassroots organizing in education.
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