Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish author and novelist, was correct when he said “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

The phrase may apply to Walt Rogers’ Sept. 30 Des Moines Register op-ed titled “Claims Iowa isn’t spending enough on education don’t hold water.”

Rogers, a former Republican legislator, is currently employed by the Tax Education Foundation of Iowa, founded by the late David Stanley, a Muscatine Republican who proudly declared his not-for-profit think tanks as “Iowa’s leading anti-tax group.”

The essence of Rogers’ thought piece was Iowa’s GOP-controlled policy-makers have given public school districts sufficient money and they don’t deserve a penny more.

Taxpayers need to know that with Republicans taking dominion of the capitol in 2011, their 1.7% average yearly increase in per pupil cost is the same as inflation (1.7%); no real gain for school districts.

I’m confident Iowa’s 327 public school board officials would testify their increased cost of insurance, buses and utilities – to name a few – are typically about double the 1.7% general inflation rate.  To balance the budget, schools have been forced to reduce staff and instructional programs for eight consecutive years.

Education disbursements as a percentage of all state expenditures are 16.9%. The national average is 19.5%; Iowa’s paltry investment in public education puts us behind Midwest states like North Dakota, Missouri, Minnesota and Kansas.

Iowa’s $11,150 per pupil spending allocation ranks 27th nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s sobering to know Iowa’s per pupil spending is superseded by West Virginia ($11,290) and followed closely by Louisiana ($11,038); awkward bedfellows.

Iowa ranks 22nd nationally in teacher pay. There’s good reason why neighboring states like Illinois (#11) and Minnesota (#12) are recruiting in Iowa to steal our best teachers and teachers-in-training.

Iowa’s fiscal year 2019 ended with a $289.3 million surplus.  To bring our school districts’ financial wherewithal somewhat up to par, Gov. Kim Reynolds should call a special session of the legislature and allocate – as a conservative minimum – $80 million of the surplus to Iowa’s public schools, which would give districts an additional 2% to partially pay for the ever increasing costs of property insurance, health care insurance and utilities.

Don’t be hoodwinked by deceiving anti-tax anti-public education proponents. Iowa has the financial capability to do better, separate ourselves from the likes of Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, West Virginia and Louisiana and restore our No. 1 in the nation status.

Contact your legislators and governor and demand a special legislative session to increase public education funding, not with additional taxation, but with money that’s already in-the-bank.

Steve Corbin is a non-paid freelance opinion editor and guest columnist contributor to 119 newspapers in six states.