February 13, 2026
Every day, I find myself returning to a single, grounding philosophy: Know where you have come from, know where you are, and know where you are going. It is a simple compass, but it is the only way to ensure we aren’t just drifting with the political winds of the day. When we apply this to public policy, we must start with the most fundamental building block of a free society: education.
There is a vibrant debate in our country about who “owns” education. Is it the federal government? The state? The district? To answer that, we should begin by looking at our “Supreme Document”—the Constitution of the United States. If you search the Constitution for the word “education,” you will find nothing—specifically not in Article 1, Section 8, where the powers of Congress are clearly enumerated. The Founders did not forget to include it; they intentionally left it out. They knew that a centralized, one-size-fits-all education system managed from a distant capital was the quickest path to a stagnant society.
However, that doesn’t mean the Founders didn’t care about learning; quite the opposite. In the summer of 1787, while the Constitution was being drafted in Philadelphia, another foundational document was being finalized: The Northwest Ordinance. This was the blueprint for how the American frontier—places like Iowa—would be settled. The Ordinance laid out a brilliant plan. It dictated that land be sold into private hands as quickly as possible to encourage ownership and responsibility, but it carved out one specific exception. In every township, one section was reserved for a single public purpose: education. This was the birth of the one-room schoolhouse. The federal government didn’t form a Department of Education or send bureaucrats to educate us; they gave the land as an endowment to the people of the township. Why? The Ordinance tells us exactly why: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
The purpose wasn’t just “workforce development.” It was the cultivation of the soul and the mind for the sake of good government. And the Founders knew that this cultivation happens best at the level closest to the people. For decades, we drifted away from that design. We allowed education to become a top-down, bureaucratic machine. But here in Iowa, we have been “leading forth”—the literal Latin definition of the word educate. We started this journey back in 1992 when we legalized homeschooling, recognizing that the parent is the primary educator. We continued in 1993 with open enrollment, acknowledging that a zip code shouldn’t be a destiny.
Today, in 2026, Iowa is a national leader in finishing what the Northwest Ordinance started. With the full implementation of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), we have finally decoupled funding from the “system” and re-coupled it to the “student.” When we say the money follows the student, we are returning to the Northwest Ordinance philosophy. We are saying that the “public purpose” of education is served when a child learns—whether that happens in a traditional classroom, a private school, or at a kitchen table.
We are currently in a moment where the “government closest to the people”—the family—is finally back in the driver’s seat. We are seeing a renaissance of diverse learning environments that reflect the “religion, morality, and knowledge” our Founders envisioned. Due to our school choice legislation, we have already seen 40 new schools in Iowa, featuring a diversity of belief and thought. We now have Jewish, Muslim, Evangelical, Baptist, and Methodist schools alongside secular options. These weren’t established by decree; they were established because the taxpayers of Iowa demanded these options organically.
Public schools aren’t facing an “SSA problem,” but an enrollment problem. Most of this is currently due to declining birth rates or demographic shifts from rural to urban areas. However, as private and charter school capacities expand, those seats will continue to be filled because the demand is there. Some fear these shifts will shut public schools down, but we must face the reality that the number of public schools has been gradually declining since the original one-room schoolhouses began to close. The question is simply at what pace.
We know where we came from: a system built on local land, local morality, and local liberty. We know where we are: leading the nation in school choice and parental empowerment. And we know where we are going: toward a future where every Iowa child has a tailored pathway to “happiness and good government.” The Founders didn’t make a mistake in 1787. They gave us a gift: the freedom to build our own communities through our own schools. Let’s continue to honor that legacy.
