On November’s ballot, Kentuckians will have the chance to vote on two proposed amendments to the state constitution: Amendment 1 would add language to prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in any election in the commonwealth. Amendment 2 would enable lawmakers to direct state tax dollars to private school educations.
Amendment 2 is part of a long push by state Republicans to provide more school choice options to parents who want to send their children to non-public schools such as religious-based schools or private charter schools. The proposed amendment comes after courts overruled legislation passed by the General Assembly to create a funding mechanism for schools that operate outside of the state’s traditional public school system.
Opponents fear the amendment would hurt public schools (or “common” schools in the parlance of the constitution), which serve the vast majority of Kentucky students by sending tax dollars they might otherwise receive to privately operated schools. To make that possible, the amendment allows lawmakers to bypass (or “notwithstand”)
seven existing sections of the constitution that address funding for the state’s public school system.
“This is a very dramatic change,” says Matt Robbins, former superintendent of Daviess County Public Schools. “I don’t think we should take that lightly.”
Supporters contend the amendment doesn’t require lawmakers to fund private schools or parents who want to send their children to them. They say it simply enables lawmakers to explore legislation that might allow that to happen.
“This is not dramatic at all,” says Jim Waters, president of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions. “This is simply clarifying that our constitution does not prohibit giving parents in Kentucky the same kind of education freedom that parents in most other states, including every state that surrounds us, the same kind of options and choices.”
Supporters Say Choice Benefits Taxpayers, Students, and Schools
The push for charter schools and state funding for them has increased over the past decade in Kentucky. Critics of the public school system say it is failing to properly educate students in fundamental skills like reading and math. They also contend public schools promote policies and ideologies they oppose, ranging from how history is taught to how LQBTQ students are treated.
The legislature legalized alternative schools known as charter schools in 2017, but none exist yet in the state. School choice advocates say parents need these educational alternatives so they can get their children out of public schools and into a classroom that will better serve their needs.
“In our (public) schools we have people who are not relating to the common values of Kentucky,” says Randy Adams, a former principal in the Anderson County School district. “Parents don’t want their kids going to school and being sexualized by pornographic books and all these other things.”
Kentucky is the only state in the nation that allows charter schools but doesn’t fund them. That stems from language in the state constitution that directs public funds to “an efficient system of common schools.” Waters says that has resulted in more and more tax dollars devoted to propping up the public school system rather than actually educating children.
“If we’re spending $24,000 (per student) like we are in Jefferson County, and yet only about a third of the students are proficient in math and reading, I don’t think many Kentuckians would consider that to be efficient,” says Waters.
A better system, according to Waters, is give parents more options about where to send their children to school and have state dollars follow the child, whether that’s to a traditional public school or some private alternative. He contends such private education options would be half the cost of the public school system and provide better outcomes for children. Waters points to charter schools in Florida that he says are outperforming public schools in educating Black students in reading and math.
He also argues the state’s public schools would benefit from the presence of charter and private school options since the competition would force the public schools to improve. If charter schools fail to properly educate their students, Waters says parents will withdraw their children and the schools will cease to exist. He says that creates the greatest kind of accountability for these schools.
Opponents Question Expense, Accountability and Benefits
Amendment 2 opponents acknowledge the challenges facing public schools, ranging from low teacher pay to student discipline issues and persistent achievement gaps among some students. But they argue the answer isn’t to siphon money away from public schools, which they contend are already underfunded despite record per-pupil allocations by lawmakers. They point out that public schools must take all students and abide by all state regulations, whereas private schools can cherry-pick the students they enroll and won’t be held to the same academic and transparency standards.
“We don’t oppose school choice. We oppose taking public dollars and sending them to unaccountable private schools” says Tom Shelton, chair of the Protect Our Schools Campaign and a former public school superintendent. “It is a means of privatization.”
Shelton says public educators worked with lawmakers to draft the 2017 legislation to legalize public charter schools, which would be operated by local public school districts and have greater flexibility in student instruction. But he says subsequent legislation allowed for privately operated charter schools, which he opposes.
According to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, 80 percent of the existing private schools in the commonwealth are located in eight zip codes, and most of the state’s 120 counties have no private school option at all. Shelton fears if state moneys start flowing to private schools, rural public schools would be the hardest hit as tax dollars are redirected from those communities to cities that have private schools. He says those rural districts will be forced to make up the difference by either raising local taxes or cutting programs like music and sports.
Robbins questions whether voucher programs, which give parents money to cover tuitions charged by non-traditional schools, actually help students attend a private school. He says research indicates about three-quarters of vouchers go to parents who already have children in private schools. He also argues that school choice initiatives are enormously expensive, costing billions of dollars in states like Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Indiana, yet provide mixed outcomes at best.
“Some of these other states, particularly where they’re spending over $1 billion… on vouchers and they’re not really finding the increase in academic achievement,” says Robbins. “Where are all these dollars going?”
