Governor Terry Branstad on October 3 unveiled a 10-year plan to transform Iowa's education system that would end promoting third-graders who read poorly, change the pay system for teachers, and require students to pass end-of-course exams to graduate.

"Instead of spending all of our time fighting over the issues of the past, we really want to focus on the things that will ... systemically reform and improve Iowa's education system," said Branstad, who added that earlier debates over ending state-funded preschool and zero-percent allowable growth in school funding will not be revisited.

"This is a plan for the next decade," said Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass, who noted that the plan is intended to be a comprehensive package and should not be viewed as a list of options to be cherry-picked. "This plan ... should be the blueprint for where our resources now and in the future go into education."

But Democrats were skeptical, especially because Branstad and Glass declined to set a price tag for the proposal and don't plan to do so until shortly before the legislature reconvenes in January.

The Iowa Board of Regents voted unanimously Tuesday for a budget that seeks a 4-percent increase for Iowa's three state universities in Fiscal Year 2013, but at least one key lawmaker called the request "optimistic."

"A 4-percent increase would require us to short other areas," said Iowa House Education Chair Greg Forristall (R-Macedonia), who's also a member of the legislature's Education Appropriations Subcommittee. "That would be a pretty optimistic request."

But state Senator Brian Schoenjahn (D-Arlington), co-chair of the Education Appropriations Subcommittee, was more receptive to the proposal, especially in light of increasing student debt.

People who were not trained to be teachers but have at least five years of work experience could get approval to teach high school in shortage areas such as math and science under a proposed new state rule.

"This is a last-minute, emergency-type situation. This is not what we would consider normal procedure," George Maurer, executive director of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners (which handles teacher licensure), told a panel of lawmakers.

But the idea was blasted Tuesday by the state teachers' union, which said the move would substantially lower standards for teachers who must understand how youth learn, how to manage a classroom, and how to put together a lesson.

"It is a significant departure from the expectations that we have had for licensed teachers that we have put in front of our public-school children here in the state of Iowa," said Christy Hickman, staff counsel of the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA), which represents more than 34,000 educators. "This is going to be the first time that we are allowing non-educators to teach very high-level courses to our kids. ... They shouldn't have to be guinea pigs for three years."

The rule proposed by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners received an initial review Tuesday by the legislature's Administrative Rules Review Committee. Under the rule, school districts that have unsuccessfully tried to hire a fully licensed teacher instead can hire someone with experience working in math, chemistry, physics, biology, foreign language, or music.

While Iowa Democrats point to the irony of the state's job-finding agency issuing pink slips to its own workers, Iowa Workforce Development Director Teresa Wahlert says the move isn't surprising.

"Ironically, when these one-time [federal] funds to stimulate the economy were injected into Iowa's economy, Workforce Development hired about 100 people, knowing that those funds were [only for] 12 to 18 months," Wahlert said September 6 in an interview with IowaPolitics.com.

Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) in late August closed 31 part-time field offices intended to help unemployed Iowans find jobs, and on September 1 laid off 47 people who worked in those offices. Another five offices - including in Clinton and Muscatine - will close October 31, leaving another 30 people without jobs.