Sen. Tom Rielly’s April 12 Column‏

Iowa Senator Tom Rielly (D)

Iowa’s local schools aim to provide a world-class education that opens doors to a better tomorrow. That requires on-going efforts to improve. To help, the Iowa Senate has approved comprehensive education reform.

Debate highlights can be seen at www.youtube.com/iowasenate.

In recent years, we’ve taken the advice of parents, teachers and students, as well as state and national experts. Together, we have improved Iowa education by establishing a statewide public/private partnership to improve preschools, expanding efforts to help children learn to read, raising standards and establishing consistent graduation requirements.

We’ve made schools safer for all children by outlawing bullying and smoking on school grounds. And we’ve taken steps to keep the best teachers working in Iowa classrooms and to provide more opportunities for teachers to improve their skills.

This year’s education reform, Senate File 2284, builds on those successes by:

** Focusing on learning to read and small class sizes in the younger grades so struggling students can catch up.

** Helping students learn at their own pace to master the basics and then advance more quickly in the subjects they love most.

** Expanding the core curriculum to include arts, music and technology.

** Improving instruction through teacher-to-teacher collaboration and coaching.

** Using online learning to enhance and extend—but not replace—offerings in our local schools.

** Creating pilot projects to extend the school year and school day to measure the impact on student achievement.

** Strengthening connections between schools and families with struggling students.

I hope the House will quickly approve SF 2284 and send it to the Governor for his signature so that we can continue building on Iowa’s tradition of educational excellence.

We also need to continue investing in higher education. I am concerned that state support for our universities has fallen sharply in recent years, which has resulted in higher tuition. That’s why Iowa student debt is among the highest in the nation.

Students from UNI, and ISU and the U of I are our future leaders in education, bio-sciences, engineering, physics, business and other areas. In addition, our state universities help Iowa businesses of all sizes through direct technical assistance and technology transfers.

There are lots of good reasons to invest in our universities. Students from Iowa’s three state universities have started a new grassroots effort to spread that word in hopes of keeping a high-quality college education affordable for all Iowa families. Learn more about this effort and what our state universities do for all of us at www.facebook.com/Universitiesforabetteriowa.