Statement by Senate Education Chair Herman Quirmbach on the Governor’s newest education reform plan

Iowa Democratic Party

“After six months, more details of Gov. Terry Branstad’s education plan were released today.

“Democrats welcome the Governor’s education focus and are open-minded about his newest round of education reform proposals because we share his goals of:

· Raising academic standards
· Increasing teacher and school administrator effectiveness
· Implementing innovation that increases learning

“We will consider and evaluate each of the governor’s proposals. If an idea improves Iowa’s local schools or lays the ground work for increasing the skills of Iowa’s future workers and entrepreneurs, then we should move forward, regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat proposed it. We are open to every idea that is proven to have worked in other states or countries. The point here is to do the best we can for our kids and for Iowa’s future.

“I do have serious concerns about Governor Branstad’ s commitment to fund general education adequately, and his unspecified sources of revenue and “repurposing” existing dollars in this plan. In addition, most of the new spending in the governor’s plan goes yet more testing. This approach doesn’t square with what experts told Iowans last summer at the Governor’s education summit. They said that what really works to raise student achievement is more effort to improve teaching and increased collaboration among educators.