Beshear: Passing Amendment 2 ‘would be absolutely devastating’
Gov. Andy Beshear said Tuesday a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow lawmakers to divert public funding to private schools “would be absolutely devastating to a public school system that already doesn’t have enough.”
Beshear said 90% of Kentucky’s children attend public schools, and defunding them would be a move in the wrong direction.
“We starve our public schools based on the money they actually need,” he said.
Beshear joined representatives of the American Federation of Teachers, legislators, educators and other stakeholders at Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington to urge voters to reject the controversial amendment, called Amendment 2, which will appear on ballots next month on Election Day.
The ballot question asks voters to amend the state constitution to allow the legislature to “provide financial support for the education of students outside the system of common schools.”
Proponents of the amendment say it would give families more choice in their children’s education and would open up more educational opportunities. But critics say it would rob public schools of sorely-needed funds, causing them to suffer consequences that could include staffing problems and program cuts, while primarily helping wealthier families who already send their children to private schools.
Beshear, a Democrat, is a public school graduate whose children attend public schools. He pledged in April, when the Republican-led legislature was approving the bill to put the amendment on the ballot, that he would do everything he could to defeat it.
If voters approve Amendment 2, Beshear said, he expects public school class sizes to increase, staff to receive fewer raises and school systems to face challenges filling critical positions.
Innovative programs could be cut for lack of funding, he said.
He said he thinks rural school systems would be especially hard hit if the amendment passes.
Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and author of a book on the politics of school vouchers, said at Tuesday’s event that the amendment is “the educational equivalent of predatory lending.”
“They absolutely devastate student learning,” he said.
Several states across the U.S. have passed similar laws in recent years, and Cowen said they’ve led to “learning loss” and discrimination against vulnerable students.
He said testing and accountability are not the trend, and “pop-up schools and subprime providers push in.”
Cowen said that in other states where the system has been implemented, 70% of voucher users are already in private schools. Vouchers provide payments from the government to help families pay for tuition at private schools.
“What this amendment would actually do is offer a discount to the wealthiest Kentuckians, many of whom already send their children to private schools,” said Sawyer Noe, a University of Kentucky freshman.
He said public schools are “the one true equalizer in our society.”
All Kentucky children, he said, “deserve the opportunity to escape their background and build a better future for themselves and their families.”
For people who have not made up their minds on how to vote, Beshear had this piece of advice: “Go talk to a public school educator. They’ll tell you the truth. They know what’s going to happen.”
He said he’s “very concerned” about misinformation he says is being spread by those who support the amendment.
Randi Weingarten, a high school government teacher and president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest teachers union in the country, said “Kentucky understands from its founders, if you look at Kentucky’s constitution, the importance of public education.
“The people who want this constitutional amendment want to kill that, want to undermine that, and they are selling people a pig in a poke,” she said.
In states that have made similar changes, she said, “the things that kids love the most are the things that get cut,” like arts classes and sports.
Pastor Richard Gaines, of Consolidated Baptist Church, said that for him, “this is a moral crisis on so many levels.”
“It’s a money grab at best,” he said. “We’re not having it. We’re not going to allow this to happen.”
