Iowa
Iowa City's Teach Truth Day of Action 2024
greg wickencamp is a lifelong Iowan.
Community members from across the state took part in the national Teach Truth Day of Action on Saturday, June 8. The gathering responded to a national call from the Zinn Education Project and other nonprofit organizations, with more than 160 cities across the United States participating. Educators and social workers organized the event, with help from local nonprofits like the Antelope Lending Library, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Corridor Community Action Network, Great Plains Action Society, and the Human Restoration Project. Organizers and attendees advocated for public access to a robust and critical education—something conservative lawmakers have recently sought to ban in Iowa and across the country.
Once a leader in education, Iowa now faces teacher shortages, shuttering of districts and gutted libraries, and reduced access to crucial support services for children in poverty or with disabilities. Iowa’s GOP has been a nationwide leader in effectively banning books and critical histories, criminalizing LGBTQ+ youth, and funneling public money to private, unaccountable religious schools. This has earned the Reynolds’ administration kudos from anti-democratic moneyed networks and anti-student extremist groups.
The June 8 event took place at the historic College Green Park, blocks away from where John Brown and his band were once chased out of town by those advocating law and order. Brown and his raid on Harper’s Ferry would be a major catalyst for the Civil War and the end of slavery. In addition to training for the raid in West Branch, Iowa, he returned to Iowa many times, carefully navigating the divided political landscape.
In Iowa today, teaching about Brown is illegal if it touches on systemic racism or makes students feel any discomfort attached to their race. These histories are also powerful—they help us see past the law and order of our day to a future of new possibilities. They reveal that it is only through action that better possibilities can be realized. For those who wish to maintain firm social hierarchies, it follows that powerful histories be banned.
In contrast to Iowa’s recent political landscape, Saturday’s gathering offered a vision of public support for young people and Iowa’s collective future. According to national organizers, the “right has declared war on teaching the truth about structural racism and sexism and on LGBTQ+ youth.” While Iowa’s politicians continue to target teachers and students, Iowans at the Teach Truth Day of Action stood in support of educators and students.
(photo by greg wickenkamp)
Speakers and performers shared personal stories on the importance of an inclusive and critical education, and how public support for public education might be reimagined and reinvigorated. Many touched on the importance of democracy, community, justice, and care. Attendees were encouraged to register to vote, write postcards to teachers and policymakers, exchange and read banned books, and learn more about nonprofit initiatives around the state.
(photo by greg wickenkamp)
The first musicians to take the stage were Adrian Gronseth, graduate history student and award-winning songwriter, and Juli Smith, local social worker. Gronseth said they were glad to attend the event and to “stand up for teachers and students, and their right to teach truth. It shouldn’t be a radical idea,” Gronseth continued, “but unfortunately, in this context it can seem radical.”
Smith followed, sharing how important Black Studies was to her own growth and development, and accompanied Gronseth as they sang historically-informed original songs.
Following their performance, an undergraduate who works in Multicultural and International Student Support and Engagement for the University of Iowa spoke about the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The student said she’s seeing professionals at the university who feel pushed to leave the state on account of the GOP’s policies. Despite the detrimental priorities of the state, the student encouraged perseverance and mutual aid.
Continuing on this theme, University of Iowa Archivist Emeritus David McCartney recounted a job interview from years ago which he chose to walk out of rather than be complicit in anti-gay bigotry. He too encouraged Iowans to be more vocal, “While it’s easier said than done, speak up when you can, even if your voice falters. Perhaps especially if your voice falters.” Despite policymakers’ tearing down the voices of marginalized youth and authors, McCartney urged attendees to “create circles of friends that will lift you up,” and to, “Create a life for yourself in which you can be fully human.” McCartney was of many Iowans featured in a book available at the event, From Here to Queer: A Love Letter to LGBTQIA+ Youth.
greg wickenkamp (left) with David McCartney (photo by Tim Glaza)
A rousing performance from longtime local musician Nikki Lunden Trotter kept the energy high and set the stage for more young Iowans. The first was Dani Misyuk, a Jewish Ukrainian American who is active with Jewish Voice for Peace. Misyuk, the descendant of Holocaust survivors, connected the book burning of Nazis during WWII with Israel’s current violence against Palestinians. Misyuk described the destruction of books, people, and culture, in both cases, as “culturcide.”
In Iowa, Maus, the award-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, himself a descendant of Holocaust survivors, was one of more than 3,000 books pulled from school bookshelves in Iowa. Misyuk offered that “Education can be a powerful tool of resistance and liberation,” but only “if we fight for it.”
Another undergraduate studying to become a teacher spoke on the tension between doing what is best for students, and complying with the laws in Iowa. “Children grow up by learning about the importance of identity. How can we convey the power of identities when those conversations are banned from the classroom? How can we teach them to respect their peers’ identities, when those identities are tied to histories that are forbidden from being taught?”
Addressing laws like Iowa’s version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay,” the pre-service teacher said these types of laws, “do not protect students, they victimize them.” Iowa has faced a teacher shortage since the pandemic, with educators leaving the classroom because of anti-teacher attacks by conservative politicians, lack of funding and support, anti-union legislation, and prohibiting best teaching practices.
Commenting on the brain drain for which Iowa is sadly known, recent high school graduate Eloisa Roach spoke about her peers who are leaving the state because of concerns over safety, the low minimum wage, the cost of healthcare, and the dismantling of public education. Roach, a member of the Shawnee tribe who actively works with the Great Plains Action Society, laid bare the foundations of the state and its interest in censoring history. “The way we teach history in this state, but also in this country, is that it’s inevitable – that the way the world is now is how it had to happen. That’s completely false and very harmful.”
Rather, Roach noted in a stirring speech (one that might be illegal in a public school), “Every single state in this country was formed only through the systemic slaughter and genocide of Indigenous people through military and legal battles that cheated and scammed their way to the United States as we know it now. If we erase that history, if you don’t let us learn from it, we think that our conditions are inevitable. The reality is the world is changing and the world has always changed, and it was changed by people.” Scholars echo Roach’s remarks even as Iowa teachers are driven out of the classroom for respecting insights like hers.
Roach offered a clear understanding of history’s importance, “We can’t wait for time to change things for the better, we have to work for it to happen. That has always been how history is made.” Roach listed historical actors who rarely get mentioned in classrooms, Nat Turner, Toussaint Louverture, Audre Lorde, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the poet and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, before continuing.
“You need to know the names of people who shaped the world that we live in now because then you can add yourself to that list. There are models and practitioners of new ways of existing, of new worlds to live in, all around us. There are ways to act out, to rehearse that practice of bringing in a new world.” Quoting Robyn Maynard, Roach encouraged attendees that “All world endings are not tragic. A new world, a better world, can replace it.”
Because particular histories offer potential bridges to new worlds, they are dangerous to those who are privileged by today’s society. This does not mean that histories of resistance, activism, and struggles for justice only fuel guilt or anger. The event at College Green Park, while clear about the challenges facing Iowans, was full of joy. Madeline Abu-Nameh offered that care for one another can itself be an act of resistance. Abu-Nameh, a Palestinian-Irish American-born Iowan who oversees community connections for Joy the Zine, said that in a state like Iowa, joy too is an act of resistance.
(photo by Madeline Abu-Nameh)
There was joy in abundance at Iowa City’s Teach Truth Day of Action, with giant bubbles, arts, crafts, and community. One musician rewrote lyrics to John Prine’s satirical song “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore,” singing, “I went down to the capital / Kim Reynolds said to me / if you join our book burning club, we’ll give you ten flags for free. / I didn’t mess around one bit, I took her up on what she said. I slapped those stickers all over my car, and one on my wife’s forehead.”
Another, Dave Whiting, sang a chorus, “Don’t give your money to the man.” Continuing on the importance of joy and community, Mandi Remington shared that while “Advocacy is part of the work, and policy is part of the work, community building is also part of the work.” Remington is executive director of Corridor Community Action Network, one of many nonprofits that offer opportunities for those wanting to work in community toward a better world. She also was recently among the three successful candidates in the Democratic primary for Johnson County supervisor.
Other organizations represented at the event have a more specific focus, like the graduate worker union, COGS—UE Local 896. Nicole Yeager, the chapter’s current political action chair, outlined the partisan nature of Iowa’s Board of Regents, the governing body for the three state universities.
Although the Board of Regents is legally required to be nonpartisan, it nevertheless often embraces GOP policies by banning DEI initiatives or allocating less per-pupil spending than most states. Yeager, a rural psychology fellow and Ph.D. student, cited the gutting of public services like mental and rural healthcare access as a reason she is pursuing her doctorate and working with COGS.
Nick Covington, the Creative Director for the Human Restoration Project, represented another statewide education organization. Despite being beloved by students, he was driven out of the classroom two years ago by conservative politicians and administrators unwilling to stand up to their scapegoating. An administrator told Covington that “current events do not belong in a history classroom”—even though he had been making history relevant for high school students for years by connecting it to current events.
Covington was clear-eyed in his analysis, quoting cultural critic and scholar Henry Giroux, who could be describing Iowa when he wrote, “Critical thought and the imaginings of a better world present a direct threat not only to white supremacists but also to ideologues who embrace a narrow, corporate vision of the world in which the future must always replicate the present in an endless circle, in which capital and the identities that it legitimates merge into what might be called a dead zone of the imagination and pedagogies of repression.”
That context, like the ruthlessness of driving a teacher from their classroom, is not cause for total despair. Instead, Covington asked, “What kind of future do we want to build for our children?” Offering a solution based on history, Covington argued, “Solidarity and collective action are the only ways to make sustainable democratic change in the face of anti-democratic institutions and galloping authoritarianism by our political leaders.”
(photo by greg wickenkamp)
Iowa
Iowa State vs. Utah score prediction by expert football model
A notable late-season Big 12 matchup kicks off this weekend as No. 22 Iowa State goes on the road against Utah. Let’s check in with the latest prediction for the game from an expert analytical football model that projects scores and picks winners.
Iowa State sits in a two-way tie for third-place in the Big 12 standings after a two-game losing skid that came to an end last weekend, but the Cyclones need help getting to the league title game.
Utah was the preseason favorite to win the Big 12 Championship Game, but slid to just 1-6 in conference play and is on a six-game losing streak, not having won since late September, against Oklahoma State, the other worst team in the league this season.
What do the analytical models suggest for when the Cyclones and Utes square off in this Big 12 matchup?
For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Iowa State and Utah compare in this Week 13 college football game.
As expected, the models are siding with the Cyclones against the Utes, but by a close margin.
SP+ predicts that Iowa State will defeat Utah by a projected score of 24 to 20 and to win the game by an expected margin of 4.1 points in the process.
The model gives the Cyclones a solid 60 percent chance of outright victory against the Utes.
SP+ is a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”
How good is it this season? So far, the SP+ model is 315-293-8 against the spread with a 51.8 win percentage after going 23-30 (43.4%) last weekend.
Iowa State is a 7.5 point favorite against Utah, according to the updated lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook for the game.
FanDuel lists the total at 41.5 points for the game (Over -110, Under -110).
And it set the moneyline odds for Iowa State at -280 and for Utah at +225 to win outright.
If you’re using this prediction to bet on the game, you should take …
If you do, you’ll be in the company of a minority of bettors, most of whom expect the Cyclones to dominate the Utes, according to the latest spread consensus picks for the game.
Iowa State is getting 62 percent of bets to win the game and cover the spread in the process.
The other 38 percent of wagers project Utah will either win outright in an upset or keep the game under 8 points in a loss.
Most other analytical football models also favor the Cyclones against the Utes this weekend.
That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times to pick winners.
Iowa State is the favorite in the game, coming out ahead in the majority 63.2 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations of the matchup.
That leaves Utah as the presumptive winner in the other 36.8 percent of sims for the game.
How does that translate to an expected margin of victory in the matchup?
Iowa State is projected to be 4.8 points better than Utah on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.
Iowa State is fourth among Big 12 teams with a 9.5 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff, according to the FPI’s metrics.
That model forecasts the Cyclones will win 9.3 games this season.
Colorado (34.3%) leads the Big 12 in the playoff race, according to the index projections, followed by BYU (31.1%) and Arizona State (13.5%).
Utah has two games left to become bowl eligible, but the index doesn’t foresee that happening.
FPI projects the Utes will win 4.7 games and have an 11.9 percent chance to make a bowl game.
When: Sat., Nov. 23
Where: Salt Lake City, Utah
Time: 6:30 p.m. CT | 5:30 p.m. MT
TV: Fox network
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, please call 1-800-GAMBLER.
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Iowa
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Iowa
ESPN FPI for Week 13 Big 12 games including Iowa State at Utah
We have reached Week 13 in the college football season, which means the pressure intensifies and the need for wins is amplified.
This week there are several featured attractions around the Big 12 Conference. Those includes BYU looking to rebound at red-hot Arizona State while Kansas tries to knock off a third straight ranked opponent when they welcome Colorado to Kansas City.
Arizona and TCU kick things off early Saturday afternoon with BYU-Arizona State, Colorado-Kansas, Texas Tech-Oklahoma State and UCF-West Virginia starting 30 minutes later.
The night window includes Baylor at Houston, Iowa State at Utah and Cincinnati at Kansas State.
The mid-afternoon window of games will give those interested in how the conference turns out some key answers. BYU (9-1, 6-1) and Colorado (8-2, 6-1) have it pretty simple: win the next two games and you are in for the title game in December with a berth in the College Football Playoff on the line.
The Cougars, though, are coming off a disappointing loss at home to Kansas. Now, they have to play quite possibly the hottest team in the conference in Arizona State (8-2, 5-2), who has climbed all the way back to contention.
Led by Cam Skattebo and Sam Leavitt, the Sun Devils have won three in a row and five of is around a road loss to Cincinnati. They close with in-state rival Arizona next week.
Colorado will try to do what Iowa State and BYU couldn’t the last two weeks in solving Jayden Daniels and Kansas (4-5, 3-4), who are fighting for bowl eligibility themselves. Heisman Trophy frontrunner Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders have won four straight for head coach Deion Sanders.
* Matt Campbell talks up the Utah defense
* Cyclones right back into contention in wild, wild Big 12
*Three stars in Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati including Stevo Klotz
*Complete game recap of Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati
* Scouting the opponent: Get to know QB Brendan Sorsby
* Latest college football playoff rankings
* What Cincinnati coach Scott Satterfield had to say about Cyclones
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