Investing in education

Upmeyer Column: Barbecues, days at the lake, and parade season. What’s not to love about summers in north Iowa? Fields are turning greener and the corn is growing taller which means the Independence Day is quickly approaching. I’m looking forward to seeing many familiar faces in Clear Lake on the Fourth of July for the best parade in Iowa!
This past legislative session, we put a focus on improving our K-12 schools and addressed issues that haven’t been discussed in the past. We increased funding, provided schools with more flexibility, and gave schools more local decision-making authority.
This week, I want to highlight the strong commitment that we have made to schools by investing in K-12 education throughout the years. Appropriate funding is an important aspect of ensuring that we have world-class schools for Iowa kids and Iowa is receiving national praise on this subject.
Record investment in Iowa schools
Ensuring that Iowa’s K-12 schools have sufficient resources is a top priority when it comes setting the state budget. Funding for our schools is the state’s largest budget item, accounting for about 45 percent of the entire state’s General Fund budget, demonstrating our commitment to Iowa’s kids. In the upcoming school year, funding for K-12 education will top $3.2 billion, the most in Iowa history.
Since 2011, investment in K-12 has grown by more than $765 million, an increase of about 40 percent. This has resulted in an additional 2,300 new teachers in Iowa classrooms and a lower student-to-teacher ratio. We also have some of the best-paid teachers in the country, ranking 8th highest according to an analysis done by National Public Radio.
In fact, Iowa has been recognized nationally as being a leader in school funding. Only three states have increased funding to K-12 schools in recent years more than Iowa. Additionally, funding increases have outpaced the rate of inflation over the last eight years according to recent reports.
As always, please keep in touch. As legislation moves forward, feel free to send me comments, questions or feedback that you may have regarding issues before us in the House. I can be reached at linda.upmeyer@legis.iowa.gov or 515-281-3521.

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