In the current year, Iowa’s public schools saw “status quo” support from the state, meaning no increase over last year. Senator Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, says that’s unprecedented.

“It has never been the case prior that we have done so little to help advance education,” Quirmbach says.

The level of state aid for schools is set to increase by two percent, starting this fall. But this morning Senate Democrats approved a bill that would set aside four percent more in general state aid for schools, starting in the fall of 2013. Quirmbach says that’s $142 million more for K-12 schools.

“That is well within our ability to pay given the likely level of revenue growth over the next two years,” Quirmbach says. “Our economy is recovering.”

Republican senators rejected the idea. Senator Shawn Hamerlinck, a Republican from Dixon, ridiculed the Democrats.

“We hear all the time that, ‘We’re doing this for the kids.’ ‘Our schools are barebones.’ ‘We care about the youth,’” Hammerlinck said.

But Hammerlinck accused Democrats of promising money they may not be able to deliver.

“Right now, it’s nothing more than a sound bite or a soapbox that you stand on, to score political points,” Hammerlinck said.

Republicans in the House do not intend to bring up the Senate Democrats’ proposal for state funding of schools in the 2013/2014 school year. Republican Governor Terry Branstad has asked legislators to repeal the state law that requires lawmakers to set the level of state aid for schools two years in advance, to give administrators time to plan. The current legal deadline for taking that action for the 2013 academic year is this Thursday.

“Our hope is we’ll look at what is needed,” Cannon says.

According to Cannon’s calculations, the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa are getting 3.5 percent less state support this year compared to last year. Cannon also suggests state support of the 15 area community colleges is still less than it was in 2008 or in 2009.

“Over that same period, community college enrollment has grown from 88,000 students to over 106,000 students,” Cannon says. “So the questions we need to be asking: Are we meeting the needs or are students going to be faced with larger debt burdens as they move on to their careers?”

Governor Branstad’s spokesman says Iowa’s higher education institutions “are a priority for the governor, which is why they were one of the few institutions to receive increased funding in the governor’s recommended budget.” The governor’s aide noted the “overwhelming majority” of state agencies are seeing no increase or a reduction in funding during this time of “scarce” state resources.

I.S.U. engineering career fair.

Engineers are in high demand in Iowa right now and today in Ames, more than 200 companies will be meeting with thousands of young people hoping to enter that line of work.

Brian Larson is director of Engineering Career Services at Iowa State University.

“I think the economy is just really picking up and we’re living in a much more technological world, so there’s a big demand for engineers right at the moment,” Larson said.

 He’s helped organize the I.S.U. College of Engineering Spring Career Fair. The event runs from 12 to 6 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum and the Scheman Building.

Many of the fair attendees could end up with a job by the end of the week. “In the days following the career fair, we’ll have upwards of 1,200 interviews happening and many students will be walking away with full-time positions or intern/coop positions,” Larson said. Good job prospects and high salaries are among the reasons Iowa State and other universities are experiencing record engineering enrollments.

Larson notes the average starting salary for an engineer is just over $58,000 a year. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal stated seven of the top 10 highest-paying college majors are engineering degrees.

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Alliance vice president, Todd Ziebarth, says Iowa prohibits charter schools from opening unless they’re converted from existing public schools.

“Because the law doesn’t have most of those ingredients it’s just very challenging for individuals and organizations to start up a charter school and to succeed and to sustain that level of success,” Ziebarth says. He says Iowa charter schools can’t get better under the current rules.

He says the law in Iowa “really needs an overhaul to create the kind of environment where charter schools can open and thrive.” Ziebarth says opening charter schools is more effective than improving traditional public schools because charters offer unique and alternative curriculum for students.

“The challenge is it’s really hard to turn around existing schools and so at the same states are engaging in that challenging work, they need to have the door open for new schools to come in , again to bring these innovations into the system that the states can then apply to a larger set of schools,” Ziebarth says.

A main criticism of charter schools is that they often compete with public schools for funding. Although there are few studies that compare charter schools with traditional public schools, Ziebarth says students at charter schools outperform public school students in testing and college attendance rates.

Governor Branstad’s education reform plan includes a law that lifts charter school restrictions in Iowa, and Ziebarth hopes Iowa’s poor ranking pressures lawmakers to support the governor’s proposal.

Sara Mouw, a U-of-I graduate student in marketing, says many of the ads were on-line before they were on TV during the big game. “Social media is starting to play a big role in it,” Mouw says. “The brands kind of want to promote their brands prior to it.” Advertisers are releasing commercials before game day on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The technique may be risky as it could keep more than half of the Super Bowl’s viewers from tuning in to just watch the ads, since they’ve already seen them. “The ads will be a little less shocking, because people have seen part of them,” said Mouw. “They won’t be so surprised or maybe the humor is gone a little bit, too.”

Some students say putting an ad out early isn’t a total game-changer. Ben Van Someren, who’s also in the U-of-I’s graduate program, says the spot will still hit its mark with the audience, as long as the commercial gets to the point and leaves a lasting impression.

“There’s three key things that an advertiser should do,” Van Someren says. “That’s brand recognition, memorability, and then, did you get the message?” Each year, the students rank the commercials based on several criteria putting the ads in categories, including: funny, boring, memorable, and “What was that brand again?”

One ad demonstrated how a car’s headlights were so bright, they could vaporize vampires as if it were daylight. U-of-I graduate assistant Pat Downes says that commercial had humor, it was fast-paced and still focused on the Audi’s L-E-D headlights.

“That’s brand recognition for them,” Downes said, “so they really hit right on that. I thought it was really interesting and entertaining. Lots of people in here were laughing during that.”

The group ranked their overall favorites as: The M&M’s “Naked” ad, the Honda CRV ad with Matthew Broderick and the Chevy “Graduation Gift” ad.

By Jillian Petrus, KCRG, Cedar Rapids

“There’s an age-old fallacy within education institutions that you either give us more money or students are going to suffer,” Taylor said. “Now I think there is a third-rail and a third option and that option is to look at administrative expense, and the cuts should come from the top.”

A three-member subcommittee rejected Taylor’s bill after more than 20 minutes of discussion on Thursday. Representative Mary Mascher is a Democrat from Iowa City, which is home to the University of Iowa. She told Taylor tuition hikes are really the fault of legislators who’ve failed to provide the state universities enough money.

“You seem to think there isn’t a correlation between what we allocate in the legislature and tuition increases and what I’m telling you there’s a direct relationship,” Mascher said.

Representative Josh Bynes, a Republican Osage, suggested the bill’s death doesn’t mean the “critique” of university administrators is over.

“I realize that this bill has got some heartburn all the way around,” Byrnes said. “I think that sometimes legislation can also be used as raising awareness and I think the awareness piece here on this piece of legislation is that there’s a serious concern about rising tuition costs.”

In December, the board that governs the state universities voted for a 3.75 percent increase in tuition rates for undergraduates who are residents of Iowa. That higher rate goes into effect for the fall semester. This past August the Board of Regents voted to hike the base salaries for the presidents of Iowa, Iowa State and UNI by four percent. UNI president Ben Allen and his wife have donated his salary hike to a university scholarship fund. Iowa State’s president retired in January and his replacement has taken over in Ames.

“Investigators yesterday took a report from a 17-year-old female in reference to her Spanish teacher, 30-year-old Daniel Pantoja.” After reviewing the case, Sheriff Danker says Pantoja will face charges.

“Apparently there was different communication there over the cellphone, texting, and pictures that the investigators discovered,” he says. “The decision was made to charge Mr. Pantoja with sexual exploitation by a school employee, which is a Class D felony, and lascivious conduct with a minor.”

Danker says they’ve spoken with the suspect. Pantoja has an attorney and he plans to turn himself in later today. The sheriff says his bond will be set at $5,000.

By Karla James

The results of a special investigation by the State Auditor’s office were released today and Tami Kusian, with the auditor’s office, says they identified over $10,000 in missing money.

“Most of the money that is missing is undeposited collections that were from fundraisers and payments from the parents,” Kusian said. The investigation also found Baumfalk used a district credit card for personal expenses during the trip to Orlando. The auditor’s report has been turned over to the Iowa Attorney General’s office.

Glass says it would make performance the first consideration in layoffs instead of seniority. Representative Sharon Steckman, a Democrat from Mason City and a retired teacher, told Glass schools are already considering how good a teacher is when they make layoff plans.

“Why are we putting it in statute and deciding if for them,” Steckman asked. “Because performance matters,” Glass replied. “But then you’re taking away the right of the district and the bargaining unit to bargain that,” Steckman answered. “That’s correct, the state would be saying that we’re making a policy decision,” Glass said.

Some lawmakers say if a teacher’s evaluation is going to play major role, they want to feel more comfortable with how those evaluations happen. Improving evaluations is part of the governor’s reform plan, but details aren’t yet worked out.

Representative Jeremy Taylor, a Republican from Sioux City, said that makes him nervous. “So we’re voting on something we haven’t seen which will be a primary determiner?,” Taylor asked. There were also questions about the governor’s plan to keep new teachers on probation for five years instead of three.

Representative Mary Mascher, a Democrat from Iowa City who is also a classroom teacher, thinks that’s being too harsh on the newbies.

“You’re saying if you can’t perform you’re out. I’m saying give teachers the time to develop those skills,” Mascher explained. Glass defended another part of the bill that makes it easier to dismiss poor teachers after years on the job.

“We do have ineffective educators in our schools, this is no secret,” Glass said. “And keeping an ineffective educator working in our schools is something no one can reasonably defend.” Glass explained that under the governor’s bill, the process of firing a teacher would be speeded up, and teachers could no longer to go to court to appeal.

Representative Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport said that the governor and Glass use other states as examples for Iowa to follow, but Iowa is ahead of them. Representative Greg Forristal, a Republican from Macedonia, lost his patience with critics of the bill. “It sounds to me that there are a lot of people who don’t want to make any changes at all, who resist all change,” Forristal said.

The discussion continued later on the plan to hold back third graders who can’t read. Director Glass says schools would get new money to intervene early with kids struggling to read. Representative Taylor asked if a student still can’t read after repeating third grade, would they have to repeat it again, or be passed on.

“This statue only allows for retention using this policy for one year,” Glass replied. He says the governor’s plan puts more responsibility on parents to intervene when a student is struggling with reading. That statement earned applause from one lawmaker who says he’s tired of all the blame going on teachers.

The subcommittee finished going through the entire 156-page bill and it will now go to the full education committee for more discussion.

“Our plan was to serve students in South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, in that area,” Collier says. “As we were sitting and thinking about the program and thinking about what’s the symbol for this, what do we call it, we settled on The Bridge because the bridge across the Missouri there is really symbolic of the connection between those three states.”

The Bridge is a three-year pilot program and will set undergraduate tuition at the College Center at the in-state rate plus one dollar for students outside Nebraska. “It helps bridge the gap between out-of-state and in-state tuition for our students,” Collier says. “It’s all part of our mission to serve the area and it’s been our intent all along. We’re hoping this will drive enrollment. Sioux City and South Sioux City are one of the fastest growing areas in the country right now, economically, and we want to be part of that.”

He calls it a “very affordable option” for students. The College Center opened in March of 2011 as an educational model unique to Nebraska and the region.

Learn more at: “www.collegecenter.org“