Governor Branstad expects over 1600 people to attend the “Iowa Education Summit” he plans to host this summer.
Branstad returned to Iowa Monday night after a trip to North Carolina for a conference on education reform. “There were about 11 or 12 governors there,” Branstad says. “You had the Bill & Linda Gates Foundations, many other foundations…so there’s a lot of resources out there to support education reform.”
Former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt, a Democrat, hosted the event and Branstad has asked Hunt to speak at the Iowa summit about “systemic school reform”. Branstad says he picked up some ideas at the recent North Carolina gathering, too.
“Illinois is doing some great things. Indiana’s doing some great things,” Branstad says. “There’s a lot of other states that are doing some major education reform that I think we can learn from.”
Branstad’s staff developed a website for the Iowa Education Summit where people can register to attend and find out what events are scheduled. The summit is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, July 25th and 26th in Des Moines.