Poor Performance of Iowa's Urban Public Schools
- 85% of students in Iowa’s 5 largest urban school districts are attending public schools rated as below "Acceptable" by the state of Iowa in 2024.
|
Urban School District |
% of Students Attending Schools Rated Below Acceptable |
# of Students Attending Schools Rated Below Acceptable |
|---|---|---|
| Davenport | 94% | 11,946 |
| Waterloo | 92% | 9,236 |
| Des Moines | 90% | 25,517 |
| Sioux City | 83% | 11,551 |
| Cedar Rapids | 66% | 9,759 |
| Overall District Average | 85% | 68,009 |
Source- Iowa.gov- https://www.iaschoolperformance.gov/ECP/Home/Index
- This failure has been consistent and predated COVID:
- 70% of Des Moines Public Schools were rated below “Acceptable” at least half of the school years since 2018.
- Over 50% of public schools in Davenport and Des Moines were rated below “Acceptable” every year since 2021.
Ineffective Workforce Development Pipeline
- The K-12 public school system in Iowa is not preparing students to become trained employees for our companies and industries.
- Less than 50% of students graduating from Iowa’s high schools earn some form of postsecondary credential within 6 years of graduation. A credential could be any of the following: a professional licensure, certificate, Associate’s degree, or Bachelor’s degree.
District Comparison
| Public School District | % of Graduates Earning a Postsecondary Credential |
|---|---|
| Cedar Rapids | 46% |
| Davenport | 33% |
| Des Moines | 30% |
| Dubuque | 46% |
| Sioux City | 39% |
| Waterloo | 29% |
Source- Iowa.gov- https://reports.educateiowa.gov/PostSecondaryReadiness/home/STATEPREPTrendlines
Public Charter Schools Are a Big Part of the Solution
- The 10 states seeing the most improvement in educational achievement since 1992 have an average of 260 public charter schools.
Source- US Department of Education Charter School Research
- Public school districts that have seen 10% or more of their students leave to enroll in public charter schools have seen their own test scores improve (6% in Math and 3% in Reading) and saw their high school graduation rates improve by almost 3%.
Source- National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice.
- According to Stanford’s 2023 longitudinal study*, students attending public charter schools nationwide have demonstrated 16 additional days of learning per year in reading and 6 additional days in math compared to their peers in traditional public schools.
- Over the course of a K-12 education, that amounts to 208 days’ worth of additional reading learning and 78 days of math learning.
* Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO)
