Welcome back to Frequent Flyer Fridays — your weekly newsletter from the Iowa Democratic Party, bringing you the latest updates on everything Kansas’ favorite frequent flyer Zach Lahn is up to.
This week, Zach Lahn was exposed for running an unaccredited school in Kansas that’s millions of dollars in debt, underpays teachers, and rejects kids with disabilities. Lahn was caught in a lie about distancing himself from the schools’ operations and bad-mouthing Iowa schools in the process — all while refusing to speak out against cost-raising tariffs.
Let’s get into it.
📍 Where was Kansas carpetbagger Zach Lahn this week? Getting called out by a teacher for attacking public schools and supporting unaccountable private school vouchers.
🧾 We’ve got the receipts: Lahn’s Kansas school is $4.5 million in debt — now he wants to bring it to Iowa
During the first week back to school in Iowa, new investigative reporting from the Kansas Reflector and Iowa Starting Line revealed that Zach Lahn’s unaccredited Kansas school is millions of dollars in debt, underpays teachers, and rejects kids with disabilities.
Lahn has touted the Wonder School as “the model for reinventing education” in Iowa and introduced himself to voters “as an educational innovator,” making it “a prominent feature of his campaign.” In reality, the school:
- Owes $4.5 million in debt to Lahn and his wife after “years of operating deficits” and failed to follow IRS recommendations surrounding conflicts of interest
- Turns away students with special needs
- Underpays teachers, with teacher salaries below the state average and in the bottom 10 percent nationwide
- Is unaffordable for working families, with Lahn bragging that some parents “need to take a second job … [to] find a way to pay the tuition”
Lahn even invoked the Wonder School on the campaign trail to defend Iowa’s unaccountable private school voucher scheme.
✉️ Postcard from Kansas: Lahn said he was “not involved” with his Kansas school anymore. He’s still the president
After the Kansas Reflector and Iowa Starting Line reported on Zach Lahn’s troubled Kansas school, it was revealed that Lahn still works as the school’s president and emails prospective parents — despite claiming he had stepped away from the school during his campaign for governor.
- Lahn in May: “If I’m elected governor … we’d be in Iowa as much as humanly possible.”
- Lahn in May: “I am not involved in the operation of the schools anymore.”
- Lahn in July: “Lahn put his name to 15 promotional emails sent over a 15-day period to parents of prospective pre-K-12 students. He said visitors to Wonder could see it operated on a different level than conventional schools, including his alma mater, Sioux City East High School. Lahn’s messages included memories of how the birth of his first son inspired him to reimagine education. He shared reflections on what a joy it was to see six of his children at Wonder.”
Lahn bad-mouthing Iowa public schools to promote his Kansas school undermines his claim to be “the number one advocate for Iowa’s public school kids.” He even used Sioux City East High School to introduce himself to Iowa voters in a new campaign ad, while simultaneously criticizing that same school to sell his failing Kansas school.
💸 Tariff lover Lahn: Radio silence from Lahn on tariffs raising costs on Iowa families and farmers
It’s been a week since Washington announced a new 50 percent tariff on Canada, Iowa’s largest trading partner, and Zach Lahn has yet to speak out.
Canada buys $5 billion of Iowa’s exports, including 16 percent of farm goods, and total trade between Iowa and Canada amounts to $9 billion a year. Now, chaotic tariffs are set to hike prices on everything from “building materials, liquors and certain kinds of clothing,” but Lahn has repeatedly defended tariffs and even claimed they don’t raise costs on Iowans.
Lahn has a record of supporting chaotic, cost-hiking tariffs:
- Lahn defended tariffs and said they “worked as intended,” even though tariffs have pushed Iowa’s agriculture industry to the brink of another farm crisis, as farmers are already struggling under the weight of a four-year downturn and filing for bankruptcy at the highest rate in the nation.
- Lahn claimed tariffs don’t raise costs, even though tariffs cost the average household more than $1,700, inflation has hit a three-year high, and Iowans are paying higher prices on everything from groceries to medicine.
- Lahn lectured Iowa farmers cut off from export markets, telling farmers to “diversify crops and livestock” instead of selling their goods overseas.
- Lahn dismissed farmers struggling with high input costs, saying “the tariffs are not the issue.”
📲 Tweet of the week:
That’s a wrap for this edition of Frequent Flyer Fridays. Thanks for reading, we’ll see you next week.