The Fellowship of Reconciliation, Louisville Chapter (FOR) asks all of its supporters and allies to vote NO on Amendment 2 and to urge your neighbors and coworkers to Vote NO as well. Public schools are the great equalizers in our diverse society. Properly funded or not, those public schools will do their best to educate and support all our children equitably. For many, they are the path out of generational poverty and into inclusion in, appreciation by, and contribution to a better Kentucky.
We encourage you to have conversations about this amendment. Here are some common questions and perspectives:
The amendment itself authorizes no program or budgets any money. Does that just allow the legislature to start debating?
You may have heard amendment supporters say that a yes vote just gives the legislature the chance to explore options using public money for private schools, including religious schools. They have already “explored” options in detail. In 2017, they enacted a charter school bill. In 2022, they enacted HB9, which expanded charters to include private, unaccountable charters. In 2021, they passed HB563, establishing “Educational Opportunity Accounts” that could be used for private school tuition. Kentucky courts struck down these laws as unconstitutional.
Retiring Republican Senator Damon Thayer is recently on record as saying he believes if the Amendment 2 passes, there will be a bill to use public money for private schools will be proposed early in the 2025 legislative session (per KY Lantern).
Do we want to change the Constitution before seeing a specific program?
Our 1891 Constitution has some of the strongest and clearest language about providing public education of any state constitution. Kentuckians then and now place a high value on requiring our legislature to make free public education available to every Kentucky child in every county, regardless of race, family income, disability, faith or other characteristics. Our public schools teach our children the skills and values for working and living together, for careers and engagement as citizens.
The constitution says that the state can raise public funds for our public schools, but not for private and church schools. The framers of Kentucky’s constitution so staunchly believed in the necessity of a strong system of common schools that they intentionally required it to be the sole item the legislature must fund.
If passed, Amendment 2 will prevent seven sections of the 1891 Constitution, cited by the courts that found the laws unconstitutional, from applying to any law the legislature creates about using public funds for private schools. Click here to see why we oppose sidestepping these fundamental sections of our Kentucky constitution to fund private/religious schools and charters.
In 1989, Kentucky courts revisited and changed our funding process for public education. The court required that the state public school funds be distributed more equitably according to the resources of each county–but the money was still just for public schools. Kentuckians could have, but didn’t, try to amend the constitution then. Instead, they created the Kentucky Education Reform Act and provided more funding for public schools and an equitable process to distribute it, county by county. That rapidly improved results in our public schools.
If the Amendment passes, would funding private education hurt funding for public schools?
This is the key question.
And yes, experience in other states with these programs strongly suggest it would hurt public schools, from the first dollar paid to a private school or charter school parent.
But first, a little more recent history. Years after the improvements in K-12 school outcomes driven by KERA, the Great Recession hit (2008) and the legislature started decreasing the percentage of the General Fund budgeted to education (SEEK funds). They also fell behind in their required contributions to the Teachers Retirement System and school transportation. This was done in Democratic- and Republican-controlled legislatures–an unfortunately nonpartisan failure for our public schools. Since 2008, the funding has not caught up with inflation. The FY2024 SEEK base of $4,200 would need to be $5,400 per pupil to have kept pace with inflation since FY 2008 (data from Office of KY state budget director).
This $1,200 loss in buying power explains why school districts struggle to:
- pay competitive staff salaries to attract, hire, and retain great teachers;
- have smaller class sizes;
- transport our kids to school;
- provide support services for all the underserved groups in our public schools
Kentucky has 634,000 public school students. To make up this annual shortfall for all those public-school students, the legislature needs to allocate an additional $760,800.000 per year.
Kentucky received about $3 billion dollars in pandemic relief funds for education. The last of that money is being expended now.
It would appear unlikely, given this legislative history of declining inflation-adjusted education dollars since the Great Recession, that the legislature would add major new funding to separately support private education and, at the same time, make up those two major shortfalls for public education.
The budget for public schools would inevitably suffer, as would students and teachers. Perhaps that is why the legislators included Section 183 in the amendment’s list of sections they had to be able to ignore:
“The General Assembly shall, by appropriate legislation, provide for an efficient system of common schools throughout the state.”
Don’t we want adequate funding guaranteed for public schools first, if state education budgets are limited?
In addition, the majority of any new funding for private schools would not even go to “help” students leaving the public schools. The experience in many states with voucher programs is that the majority (65-90%) of the first families to apply for vouchers are those with children already in private/religious schools. Today, Kentucky public schools educate about 90% of all Kentucky children. In 2023, there were an estimated 58,388 students in private school in Kentucky, in addition to approximately 39,534 who were homeschooled. If we take the 2024 SEEK support level of $4,200 per pupil and give that amount—comparatively small compared to current voucher payments in other states– to those Kentucky families already outside of the public school system, Kentucky would potentially pay out $411,272,000 per year, even before the first additional child leaves a public school with a voucher. This is especially inequitable because surveys of Kentucky household income indicate the average income of households with children already in private schools is 54% higher than that of public-school children’s households.
Who might be hurt most?
Financially. Public school teachers and administrators already know what and how to improve Kentucky public schools and meet the needs of their students. They just don’t have the inflation-adjusted level of funding that was driven by KERA. See some examples of better uses of additional education resources at:
Rural districts tend to have a much smaller property tax base than larger districts in metropolitan areas have. If public school SEEK funding competes with voucher programs for limited state money, rural districts are less able to make up the difference in their budgets with higher property taxes. As a result, staff will be laid off, family support services cut, some noncore classes and extracurricular activities dropped. Class sizes would increase as classrooms and, potentially, schools close…all step we know are important for better education for our students. That is why 12 rural Republicans in the House and two in the Senate voted against the bill that authorized Amendment 2. They know schools are central to life in communities across our state. About half of Kentucky counties don’t even have a private/religious school and couldn’t switch to a private school if they wanted to.
Academically. School test scores can often be predicted by the zip code in which the student lives. Children from low-income households who sought an alternative to their public school would also have difficulty being accepted, paying tuition, and staying in the better private schools. Some of these schools in the larger metropolitan areas can fill their schools with students from higher-income households who can pay tuitions up to the 20+ thousand-dollar range.
Even the most generous Kentucky voucher program, like the one in Florida, might be only twice the current SEEK level in Kentucky. Low-income students would have to apply to a private school’s scholarship committee to make up at least some of the difference. Then schools, not parents, have choice. They can cherry pick the best students, athletes, those with transportation, and those without behavior issues or special support needs. They can also discharge a student for virtually any reason, and send the child back to the public school, which can and will take them.
Children from lower-income households applying to smaller, less resourced private (and disproportionately, religious) schools may get in with a voucher, but not get any better education. There is no requirement for comparing academic growth of their students with public school students on state tests, no state certification required for teachers, no public proof of the capabilities of staff. How do taxpayers know what they are getting from taxes spent on vouchers?
Children with disabilities. In 2023, 17% of all Kentucky students had special needs under Federal law. Our public schools must take all children with defined special needs and help them become functional adults. Some private schools may take students with disabilities, many do not or cannot. If they do take those students, they don’t have to meet Federal requirements for following the child’s education plan, they can charge extra for therapies or interventions, and they need not meet federal dispute resolution requirements. These children and families effectively have to waive these federal rights in private schools. In public schools, high-disability students may cost nearly $100,000/year. Our public school system statewide provides the services.
Immigrants. Newcomers to our country setting in Kentucky have made great contributions to our state. As English language learners, though, the children need special help. Once again, public schools must take the children and provide the resources to help them learn the English language so they can learn and integrate into our culture. Again, private schools may turn down these students. Public schools will not.
Discrimination based on values and identity Lastly, some private schools may legally discriminate. Faith-based schools—and in many voucher states, they are the majority of the private schools—would probably be protected by the US constitution if they turn down students because of their different faith, values, and other reasons. For example, LGBTQ children may not be accepted. Spending public dollars on these private schools is using your tax dollars to pay for discrimination. Taxpayers may also not want to pay for schools where a particular faith’s doctrine and world view are built into the curriculum.
Fellowship of Reconciliation | Louisville Chapter 