The red-state Democrat upending the politics of school vouchers

Over the last several years, Republicans have offered a fairly unified message on education. They want to expand school choice, eliminate certain liberal ideas from school curriculum, and close the U.S. Education Department.

Democrats, on the other hand, have been casting about for an educational vision. A vocal contingent within the party has said they need to embrace school choice, perhaps even vouchers for private schools. This perspective has received much ink in major publications.

In Iowa, however, State Auditor Rob Sand is taking a different tack in his run for governor. A Democrat in an increasingly red state, Sand is aggressively campaigning against the state's education savings account, or ESA, program, which passed in 2023. The state now provides publicly funded vouchers for families to pay for private-school tuition and expenses. 

“We’re talking about this everywhere we go,” Sand said at an event in April hosted by the Iowa state teachers union. “This is just basically a siphon of hundreds of millions of dollars away from public schools.”

Co-opting the language of conservatives, Sand is fashioning himself as a fiscal hawk — “the taxpayers’ watchdog” — who will rein in wasteful spending, including in the state’s ESA program. Republican candidates for governor are arguing with each other about the program, which suggests Sand has landed on an effective wedge issue. 

Sand’s campaign is hardly quixotic: He’s leading in some early polling. Nationally, his strategy is significant because it shows the different ways that various Democrats are approaching K-12 education — and the divide within the party on how to do so. 

I spoke with Sand via Zoom. I wanted to hear why he’s putting the ESA program at the center of his campaign. Beyond that, I was interested in what ideas he had for improving public schools in the state. 

Heather Doe, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Education, declined to make anyone available for an interview but said Sand’s critique of ESAs is partisan and without merit. “It is regrettable that the Auditor has used his official capacity to waste time and taxpayer money in an effort to run for governor by targeting a program that is helping Iowa families exercise their statutory right to school choice,” Doe said in a statement.

My conversation with Sand has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is the ESA program an important part of your campaign?

I believe that the vast majority of Iowans think that oversight is important, and we should want public oversight of public money.

We should have income limits on the program. It shouldn't be going to the wealthiest Iowans. We shouldn't be allowing private schools to take 7,500 bucks from the state and then just jack up tuition by $7,500, leaving it equally unaffordable. We ought to be able to audit the program.

[Earlier this year, Sand’s office released an audit of the ESA program that did not identify any significant problems. He said then that the governor’s office failed to provide sufficient time for a thorough audit. Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican and ESA champion, countered that Sand’s comments were “just another manufactured opportunity for the auditor to use his official office to advance his political agenda in his run for governor.” Doe said in her statement that the department provided Sand’s office with extensive information. “The politicization of what’s meant to be the Department’s independent, unbiased annual audit is deeply concerning,” she said.]

What would you say to Iowa parents who are using this program and appreciate it? 

Everything that I have proposed is reasonable, and I hear from parents literally every week who say, ‘Yeah, I'm glad we have the program, but geez, I want to make sure this money is spent responsibly.’

Do you ultimately want to repeal the ESA program?

[shrugs] There's no chance of that happening. I mean, we're talking about a legislature where it's near supermajorities of Republicans.

Well, I'm asking what you would want in your ideal world.

I hear you asking me, and I'm answering you. I don't deal with hypotheticals. If we can work really hard and get it to a better place, we'll see where we are.

Some will hear the various rules you're proposing and say that's a stealth way of making it so private schools won’t participate.

If you're telling me you don't want tax dollars unless you can have them without oversight, that's your problem, not mine.

What is your positive vision for Iowa's public schools?

When I was growing up in Decorah, way up in Northeast Iowa, we were always in the top for public education. I want our schools to be at the top again, and I'm open-minded about how we get there. I'm not ideological about that. 

We've got to have competitive teacher pay, not just for beginning teachers but also for teachers who have three, four, or five years’ experience, when studies show they are beginning to get very good at their craft. I think that we could be using AI one-on-one tutors right now to help kids learn to read more effectively. I'm a believer in phonics. Iowa did a requirement for phonics, so I think that that's a good change. I was never bought into the whole language idea.

But the vast majority of our conversations around education are about how that ESA program works. What's so interesting to me is the people who are advocates for it, say, ‘Oh, we want school choice.’ Well, I want public oversight of public money, and when you allow private schools to take public money but reject students, then you actually haven't promoted school choice because the school is the one that gets to make the choice.

There are a number of national Democrats who are pushing your party to embrace school choice, even vouchers, and to distance itself from teachers unions. What do you think of that advice?

I know there are people out there like that. I haven't been paying much attention to it. Specifics matter. Each program is different. I will continue to talk about the ways in which I think Iowa's program is an invitation to fraud and doesn't actually promote school choice. [Doe, the Iowa education spokesperson, said Sand’s office’s audit “identified zero financial discrepancies, once again affirming the Department’s responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds.”]

I'm proud to have the [Iowa teachers union’s] endorsement. But I'd say what I say to every other group: I'm independent-minded. You're not going to get 100% of what you want from me, because there's nobody that I agree with 100% of the time.

What do you disagree with teachers unions on?

That's a better question for a different time. I'd have to go through what their wish list would be here in the state. I'm just making a point in general.

If you were governor, would you participate in the federal tax-credit school scholarship program?

I don't think I have been following that one. 

Do you consider yourself a fiscal conservative?

Yeah, I mean to me the phrase that's more important is fiscal responsibility. But I'm open-minded to the importance of making investments that are going to pay off. Oh — you asked about what else we want to do for public education. I want universal early childhood education. If you just did income restrictions in the school vouchers program, you could fund early childhood education [for more students]. To me, that's money that is well invested.

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