Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn told a crowd at the Westside Conservative Club that Iowa needs a GOP candidate for governor who can aggressively take on key issues facing the state, including rebuilding public education.
“We need a person of full stature, and not a weak‑kneed Republican,” he said at the group’s March 25 meeting at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale.
Lahn, who is one of five Republicans seeking the party’s gubernatorial nomination in June, said he’s happy to talk about issues such as abortion and the Second Amendment.
“I think you’ll find that I’m very conservative on these issues, and I have been for a long time,” he said.
And he said he believes Republican leaders in Iowa “have done a pretty darn good job” of addressing key conservative priorities like lowering taxes and cutting regulations.
So he said he plans to focus his campaign on four other issues that he believes are key to the state’s future: keeping young Iowans living in Iowa, supporting Iowa farmers over out-of-state landowners, fighting the cancer “crisis” and boosting both public and private education.
Zach Lahn says teachers should have licenses revoked for ‘indoctrination’
On education, Lahn said the next governor must support both public and private options.
“I believe that educational savings accounts and school choice are a foundational freedom that our people should have,” he said. “Our parents should be able to have more say over where their kids go to school and more say over where their tax dollars are spent.”
Increasing access to nonpublic schools has been a key issue for Iowa Republicans, who approved the passage of taxpayer-funded Education Savings Accounts that allow any Iowa family to access about $8,000 a year to help fund non-public school costs.
But Lahn said he also believes that Iowa’s governor should be “the number one advocate” for public schools. He framed improvement around rooting out political indoctrination in favor of kids learning “the basics” and driving innovation in learning.
“There is a battle being waged in our schools for the hearts and minds of young people,” he said. “We cannot cede this ground.”
Republicans in Iowa and across the country have repeatedly criticized concepts such as diversity, equity and inclusion and worked to prevent their discussion in public schools.
Lahn suggested the state could go farther in giving the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners the power to discipline teachers who engage in “indoctrination.”
“We already know that teachers are not allowed to indoctrinate our kids,” he said. “If they do, the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners needs to be equipped with the tools to suspend or revoke teaching licenses, period.”
A bill that called for Iowa educators to immediately lose their licenses for cheering political violence did not survive a recent legislative deadline at the Statehouse.
Zach Lahn wants more innovation in Iowa public schools
Lahn said more should also be done to create new learning models, including establishing innovation zones “where superintendents that would like to innovate have the ability to do so.”
Lahn and his wife co-founded Wonder, a nontraditional private school in Wichita that, according to local news reports, members of the Koch family funded.
He said he believes alternative forms of education can be helpful to many kids, especially those who have trouble sitting still for a full day.
“We are over‑medicating an entire generation of young boys especially,” said Lahn, who is endorsed by MAHA Action, a group aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement.
He said he believes his focus on these core issues can unite Republicans and Democrats and defeat Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand in the November general election.
“This is about the future of the state of Iowa and casting a new vision for it that says we are going to put Iowa and Iowans first,” Lahn said.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She writes about campaigns, elections and the Iowa Caucuses. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on X at @brianneDMR.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Zach Lahn on education: root out ‘indoctrination,’ drive innovation
Reporting by Brianne Pfannenstiel, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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