(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says Iowa’s state-funded Education Savings Accounts for private school students are part of an education revolution happening across the country.  “(It’s) one of the proudest things I’ve done as governor to really work with the legislature and get that done,” Reynolds says, “and the impact that is going to have on our kids.”

Reynolds made her comments at the annual convention of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, a conservative think thank that proposes bills for state legislatures. ALEC C-E-O Linda B. Nelson was on stage with Reynolds to discuss what Nelson calls universal education freedom. “You hear this word coming out of Silicon Valley — disrupting. ‘We’re going disrupt this, we’re going to disrupt that.’ I keep thinking the education system needs to be disrupted,” Nelson said. Reynolds replied: “Oh, very much so.” Nelson continued: “And universal (education) freedom is that disruption.”

Reynolds is now co-chair of the “Education Freedom Alliance,” an American Legislative Exchange Council effort to get state-funded education savings accounts set up in 25 states by 2025. Reynolds says an important part of the effort is advertising — like the radio and T-V ads that ran in Iowa back in 2023 before the Iowa legislature passed her proposal. “To really again provide cover for our lawmakers that are working hard,” Reynolds said, “…but you just stay strong, have the resolve to follow it through.”

After two years of failing to get enough Republicans in the legislature to back the concept, Governor Reynolds campaigned against Republican lawmakers who opposed her bill in 2022. “I didn’t take it lightly. I thought about it for a long time before I did it and I was not willing to give up on it,” Reynolds said. “I felt that strongly about it.”

Reynolds influence led to the defeat of four Republicans in G-O-P primaries in 2022 and school choice was her top priority as Reynolds won reelection that November with 58 percent of the vote. “Literally what we did really was we put education freedom on the ballot and I am telling you Iowans responded in a really strong way by large majorities,” Reynolds said.

The governor says her nearly 20 percent margin of victory in 2022 prompted her to abandon the more limited school choice proposals she’d made before. “I was sitting there thinking: ‘Where do we start?’ We started here and…I thought: ‘You know what? We’re going to go for it,'” Reynolds said. “‘We’re not going to get another opportunity like this.'”

The governor’s “Students First Act” was the first bill the Iowa legislature passed in 2023. Over 30-thousand private school students in Iowa have qualified for Education Savings Accounts this year. When fully implemented next fall, Iowa will be among eight states where all private school students are eligible for state funding to cover tuition and other expenses.