As the dust settles from the 2023 General Assembly, the state’s public school districts are preparing to implement policy changes mandated by new education-related laws passed this session.
Several of those bills contained emergency clauses, which means they are to be implemented immediately. Senate Bill 5 deals with school materials that could be considered harmful to minors, and Senate Bill 150 deals with policies regarding LGBTQ+ students, and instruction around human sexuality and gender identity.
On Monday, the Kentucky Department of Education released its guidance to the state’s 171 school districts for implementing these measures. Education Commissioner Jason Glass cautioned district officials that that guidance won’t answer every question administrators and teachers may have about the new policies.
“Many pieces of this legislation… leave lots of unknowns about how these laws are going to be enacted in schools,” said Glass. “We at KDE do not have the authority to answer, directly or definitively, many of the good questions that you have about these new laws… Some of these questions ultimately may be decided in court or by clarifying future legislation.”
Among the potential challenges for implementing SB 150 is how some provisions could conflict with federal law. For example, a provision that gives parents access to their child’s school record may run afoul of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which says a parent’s right to access student records ends when the child turns 18. Other provisions dealing with LGBTQ+ students could be at odds with current or proposed Title IX regulations, according to the guidance.
“Where there is a direct conflict, essentially almost always the federal law is supreme over state law,” says Eric Kennedy, director of advocacy at the Kentucky School Boards Association. “You will try to implement the state laws that become effective unless and until there’s a conflict with a federal law, or a new interpretation from a court that is binding comes out and always responding to that as quickly as possible.”
A potential stumbling block to SB 5 centers how parents might disagree on what constitutes materials that are offensive or harmful to children. The legislation says that includes materials that expose human genitals in an obscene manner, depict or describe sexual acts, or are “patently offensive to prevailing standards.”
“Anything that the parent or guardian feels could appeal to that prurient interest...and it’s not just curriculum,” says Kennedy. “It could be books, materials in the school, programs like guest speaker programs, events, a field trip possibly to an art museum.”
Parents concerned about such materials must submit a complaint in writing to the school principal, while districts must have a policy for resolving any such complaints.
But Rep. Tina Bojanowski, a Louisville Democrat and elementary school teacher, says neither the legislation nor the KDE’s recommendations are helpful.
“I would say that the guidance is as confusing as the law in that who’s going to decide what is patently offensive,” she says.
House Education Committee Chair James Tipton (R-Taylorsville) says he has not reviewed KDE’s guidance, but he says schools should have a “seamless transition” to the new policies. He also says it’s natural for questions and concerns to follow passage of new laws.
“If there are issues, if there are concerns, I think the General Assembly would be more than happy to take a look at those concerns and try to... address those in the 2024 session,” says Tipton.
While SB 5 and SB 150 are meant to address issues raised by lawmakers about parental input on school activities, Kentucky Association of School Administrators Executive Director Rhonda Caldwell says new policies likely aren’t necessary.
“Most of what we’re talking about is already happening from the perspective of parental input,” says Caldwell. “For many it’s a distraction in terms of what really needs to be taking place… and being focused on the bigger problems such as teacher shortages.”
Getting More Teachers in Kentucky Classrooms
Lawmakers passed legislation this year designed to reverse the state’s dwindling number of educators. House Bill 319 would make it easier for teachers licensed elsewhere to work in Kentucky. It also streamlines the job application process, expands the state’s teacher scholarship program, and creates a statewide marketing effort to attract people to the profession.
“This is not a solution,” says Tipton, who sponsored the legislation, “but these are some positive first steps that we could take.”
Looking to the 2024 General Assembly session, Tipton says he’d like to explore more supports and mentoring for new teachers, stipends for student teachers, and $5 million for the teacher scholarship program.
Gov. Andy Beshear has repeatedly called on lawmakers to increase teacher salaries. Tipton and other Republicans respond that the legislature approved record school funding last year, which school administrators can use for pay raises appropriate to their district’s needs. Beshear contends a statewide increase is necessary because he says the starting pay for teachers in Kentucky ranks 44th in the nation.
Tipton says the issue should be teacher compensation, which includes benefits and retirement, and less about their actual pay.
“When you look at the teacher compensation holistically in Kentucky, we’re a lot better than the governor’s comment of 44th in the nation,” Tipton says.
But education advocates argue that teacher pay remains a critical issue for educators and the performance of their students.
“There is nothing is more important in improving education outcomes than the quality of teacher in the classroom,” says Brigitte Blom, president and CEO of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. “So let’s have that conversation and ensure Kentucky teachers’ compensation is professionally competitive.”
KASA, the school administrators organization, has launched a coalition that includes Tipton as well as other legislative, civic, and education leaders across the state to review the teacher workforce crisis and recommend solutions. In addition to recruiting and retaining the highest quality educators, Caldwell says class sizes should be manageable and respect for the profession must be restored.
The Charter School Debate
The issue of school choice didn’t gain traction in the 2023 session but is expected to get significant attention in 2024. The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled late last year that a state tax credit for donors to charter school scholarship funds was unconstitutional. Now charter advocates are proposing an amendment to the state’s constitution to change the mandate that public funds can only go to traditional public schools.
Charter school advocate Andrew Vandiver, who is president of EdChoice Kentucky, contends parents and students need these alternatives now more than ever. He says in the last three years – since the start of the COVID pandemic – more than 20,000 Kentucky children have left their traditional schools for private schools or home schooling. He argues public schools are failing many students, citing that only about half of children can read at grade level and only about a third are proficient at math.
“Those are significant challenges we’re facing with our kids. We’ve got to do something different,” says Vandiver. “Public schools are a great choice for a lot of families, but it’s not the only choice, and it shouldn’t be the only choice.”
Public school advocates acknowledge the academic performance issues among Kentucky students, but they argue charter schools aren’t the solution. Rep. Bojanowski says instead of being required to take any student, like the public school system has to do, charters can cherry pick which children they enroll.
“It’s not the parents that pick the schools, it’s the schools that pick the children,” says Bojanowski. “There is no guarantee that your child would be able to go to whatever school you want them to go.”
Even though charter schools have operated in some states for decades, Blom argues there’s been no research that confirms these private options provide a better return on investment than traditional public schools. She says that means it doesn’t make financial sense or public policy sense to invest Kentucky tax dollars in a new system of private schools.
“Our outcomes are too far behind for us to play around with strategies that are not proven to work at scale,” says Blom. “We should identify strategies that have a track record of working to improve these outcomes. Private school choice is not that strategy.”
Blom and Caldwell note that Kentucky students do have more options than before with a recent law that allows students to attend a public school outside of a home district. But Vandiver says allowing parents to pick one public school over another doesn’t actually provide any new options. He says quality charter schools do improve student outcomes, pointing to higher graduation rates and college attendance rates among Florida charter school students. He says the presence of a charter school system encourages public schools to improve and be more innovative.
“When you start giving families choices, you start... decreasing the ability of these bureaucracies to stop meaningful reforms that are going to make the public schools better,” says Vandiver.
With 25 new members in the state House of Representatives, Tipton says he’s not sure how the chamber will vote on a proposed constitutional amendment for charter school funding. While that debate plays out, Tipton says public schools must address the issue of declining enrollments and the decreasing per-pupil funding that will result.
“That is a reality that public school districts are going to have to face,” says Tipton. “They’re going to have to adjust business models to adapt to that.”
