The same day the Iowa Legislature kept alive proposals to end faculty tenure across its public universities, nearly 30 national academic associations or societies either penned statements or signed letters urging the governor and lawmakers to reject “this latest act of political posturing.”
“Recent developments in the Iowa State Legislature suggest that the state’s great history of supporting scholars and scientists is in decline,” Joy Connolly, president of The American Council of Learned Societies, wrote Thursday in a letter to Gov. Kim Reynolds and state legislative leaders.
“Legislators are considering a devastating step backward that will undermine the high-quality education the state has worked so hard to build,” Connolly wrote in the letter signed by dozens of her council’s member groups, including the American Comparative Literature Association, the American Political Science Association, the American Historical Association, and the Rhetoric Society of Ameri
By Chris Turner, Wendy Wilde, Madeleine McCormick
Jan 29, 2021
DES MOINES, Iowa A bill requiring schools in the state to provide a 100% in-person learning option has passed both chambers of the Iowa Legislature.
The bill was passed along party lines on Thursday night.
Democrats, especially in the state s largest school districts, are protesting. Large school districts have unique challenges in keeping students and their staff safe from this deadly infection. This one size fits all bill is the governor s, and now Senate Republicans, smack down on school districts and elected board members that defied her and you, all to settle a political score, said Democratic State Senator Joe Bolkom of Iowa City.