Edited release
01/08/26
The U.S. Department of Education has approved Iowa’s Returning Education to the States Waiver, empowering state education officials to have more discretion over their federal education dollars. Iowa is the first state to apply for and receive such a waiver, which will allow state leaders to focus federal dollars on work that best improves the achievement of Iowa students.
According to a release from the Department of Education, Iowa’s waiver permits the state education agency to combine four federal funding streams into one. Iowa leaders seek to focus more federal resources on improving student achievement rather than federal compliance. This waiver’s flexibility will reduce compliance costs, allowing nearly $8 million to be redirected from bureaucratic red tape to the classroom over four years. State education leaders will use the redirected funds and the greater flexibility they afford to expand support for evidence-based literacy training, strengthening their teacher pipeline, and narrowing achievement gaps.
ED has also approved Iowa’s application for Ed-Flex authority which allows them to grant districts waivers from certain federal requirements without first having to submit individual waiver requests to the Department.
The Education Department will also work with Iowa on how best to streamline burdensome, duplicative programmatic and fiscal reporting. This work with Iowa will benefit education leaders across the nation by improving administrative efficiency, while ensuring needed transparency.