State Auditor Rob Sand says it appears the State of Iowa spent nearly $260 Million this past school year to cover tuition costs for K-12 students who would have attended a private school without the state subsidy. Sand, a Democrat running for governor, and current Republican Governor Kim Reynolds have sparred over access to information about Iowa’s Education Savings Account program. Sand says the report he released Wednesday is based on publicly available data on spending and enrollment before and after the program launched three years ago. Sand says the data suggests only 21% of the students attended a private school rather than their local public school because of the tuition assistance.
Sand says there’s been a 25% increase in the number of private schools in the past three years, while at the same time the number of private school closures has increased 45%.
And Sand says it appears just one of the new private schools that have opened went through the state accreditation process.
The Iowa Department of Education has released a statement, saying it is baffling that the report does not pertain to an audit but appears, instead, to be a policy critique of the ESA program.
