What Iowa’s plan to consolidate federal education funds could mean for school districts, teachers and students (Iowa Public Radio)

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Home – News – What Iowa’s plan to consolidate federal education funds could mean for school districts, teachers and students (Iowa Public Radio)

What Iowa’s plan to consolidate federal education funds could mean for school districts, teachers and students (Iowa Public Radio)

September 16, 2025 by EdTrust

Nicholas Munyan-Penney, assistant director of P-12 policy at EdTrust, said Iowa’s type of waiver request is unprecedented and undermines decades of civil rights law around education.

“That was the whole reason ESEA [Elementary and Secondary Education Act], the education act at the federal level, was created, which [was] to make sure that these students, students and backgrounds, are getting access to the funds that they need to be successful,” Munyan-Penney said. “This would undermine that sort of targeting of the funds to those students.”

Munyan-Penney said Iowa’s request goes further than a similar waiver request from Indiana, which wouldn’t roll funding from Title I, Part A, the largest source of federal funding for schools, into its consolidated funds sent to districts.

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