State funding would support full-day preschool for children from low-income households under legislation eligible for debate in the Iowa Senate,
The state’s voluntary preschool program for four year olds provides state funding for 10 hours of preschool per week. In the 2025/2026 school year, the bill would provide state funding to support 20 hours of preschool each week for children whose parents have a yearly income at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. Senator Lynn Evans, a Republican from Aurelia, said many school districts offer full day preschool, but have to find other ways to finance it. Some are charging tuition, but Evans said that means children from low income families are left out.
“This offers them additional funding for those who are already trying to do the right thing for their kids,” Evans said.
Evans said the proposal has the potential to close the achievement gap for some students. “Data from the Des Moines Public Schools has shown that fifth graders who don’t participate in preschool don’t catch up to their peers,” Evans said. “Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch are five percentage points behind their peers on the FastBridge reading test.”
Representative Henry Stone, a Republican from Forest City, introduced a similar bill in the Iowa House that offered schools state funding to support all-day preschool for four year olds from low income households. “The more we get kids around that structure, the sooner we get them into the education system, the better their outcomes are,” Stone said.
Senator Herman Quirmbach, a Democrat from Ames, supports the bill, but he’d like to go farther and have full-day, state-funded preschool for all Iowa four year olds. “The research is overwhelmingly positive as far as it benefitting students in terms of their academic achievement, in terms of a whole lot of longer term measures,” Quirmbach said, “things like progression on to college, things like avoiding incarceration.”
Senator Sarah Trone-Garriott, a Democrat from Waukee, would also like to see full day state-funded preschool for all four-year-olds, but she voted for the bill to support preschool for children from low income households. “This investment pays off in a big way for educational outcomes, for our communities, for social behavioral, emotional, mental health — everything,” Trone-Garriott said. “It is such a good way to spend our money as a state.”
The bill cleared the Senate Education Committee this week, but did not come up for a vote in the House Education Committee.