This file contains STRIKE, UNDERSCORE, and BOLD. If you cannot see either STRIKE or UNDERSCORE attributes or would like to change how these attributes are displayed, please use the following form to make the desired changes.

House Journal: Page 1022: Tuesday, March 28, 1995

In the long run, it's our hard-working people, our good schools,
our roads and parks and lakes and trails, our lovely countryside
and lively cities that will entice new industry here and keep
old industry from leaving.  Let's take those old-fashioned
assets and combine them with new-fashioned ideas to make Iowa
simply irresistible.
What if we said we believe so strongly in educating our young
that we are increasing our school year by a whole month?  That's
in effect adding a year-and-a-half of learning for every Iowa
boy and girl who graduates from high school -- making them a
year-and-a-half smarter than youngsters from other places,
giving them a year-and-a-half leg up as they enter college. 
Would that not be a great thing for those youngsters?  Would
that not lure business people who want their children to get
great schooling, who want to be able to hire smart people, who
want to live where education is prized and praised?
A longer year in schools -- schools that are linked by the
imaginative and innovative and unique fiber-optics system, a
truly visionary plan -- forget the backroom politics that led to
it -- a visionary plan that will set this state apart.  It must
be completed, and it must be completed now.  You'd think twice
about leaving a state that cared about educating your children,
that cared about taking them into the next era of technology. 
But you wouldn't think twice about coming to such a state.
Let's have that department called Iowa Values subsidize the
schools so we can do all this.  We've got the greatest kids in
the world; let's make them the smartest, too.
Let's have Iowa Values work with our young another way:  Let's
have it set up a Peace Corps, an Americorps, no, an Iowa Corps
of youths.  Let's make community service mandatory as a
requirement for graduation.  Let's send the young out to help
Iowa's old -- we have a higher percentage of old people than any
other state.  Let's send the high schoolers out to read to them,
to walk with them, to talk with them -- and to learn from them. 
Let's have these smart kids tutor the young in the use of
computers.  Let's have them do physical work, too -- cleaning up
eyesores and fixing and painting and sawing and hammering.  Will
that not teach them about good deeds, teach them about Iowa,
teach them about values?  Will that not help them develop a
pride in Iowa, a loyalty to her?
And those old people.  Let's enlist them, too.  Why shouldn't
every retirement home adopt a school? Why couldn't the old
people there read to the little kids, help them with their
homework, listen to them -- hug them?  Would that not be
wonderful for both young and old?  You can't have too many
grandparents.  You can't get too many hugs -- whether you're 8
or 80.
Let's make that a project of Iowa Values.
Let's quit wasting our time arguing about dumb things - the
death penalty and abortion and prayer in school. Let's, instead,
pour our energies into finding ways to save our small towns, to
reinvigorate them, somehow, as growing branches of regional
centers - the Carrolls and Mount Pleasants and Algonas and
Waverlys and Fairfields of this state. Every town can't have a
hospital and a school, but it can have good roads leading to
hospitals and schools, it can have safe and secure homes, it can
have access to the new technology. That new agency, Iowa Values,
must ensure that every town is safe and livable, that every town
has links to a regional center, has links to technology. If we
are to prosper, we must worry about the automobile highway as
well as the information highway. Both must be modern and
bump-free.

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1995 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

Last update: Sun Jan 14 21:05:02 CST 1996
URL: /DOCS/GA/76GA/Session.1/HJournal/01000/01022.html
jhf