KY ‘school choice’ supporters target school libraries. Opponents call their mission ‘a scam’
A conservative group supporting a divisive ballot question that asks voters if they want to allow tax dollars to go to nonpublic schools in Kentucky has singled out some rural school districts in a recent batch of political mailers.
“Why are Washington, D.C. liberals spending millions of dollars to stop school choice?” asks a mailer paid for by Conservatives for the Commonwealth Action. “Because the radical left wants to control your kids.”
The mailer goes on to show “what your tax dollars bought for Pike County Public Schools,” highlighting excerpts from three books the super PAC characterizes as too lewd to be stocked in the school library, including an author’s memoir of surviving rape.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, the mailer is the latest example of political action committees that support Amendment 2, often called the “school choice” amendment by proponents, pitting parents against specific school districts in an effort to demonstrate why more educational options are needed in Kentucky.
In some cases, mailers include downright false information, according to people interviewed for this story.
Constitutional Amendment 2 will ask voters if they want to change the Kentucky Constitution in a way that would allow for public K-12 dollars to go to charter, religious and other private schools.
Republicans previously tried to divert public school funding in this way, but the Kentucky Supreme Court struck the law down in 2022, saying the state constitution explicitly prohibited it. Voter approval is needed to amend the state constitution, which is why Kentuckians will see Amendment 2 on the ballot.
Throughout this campaign cycle, messaging about the amendment from K-12 teachers and administrators across Kentucky is largely at odds with conservative PACs, including Conservatives for Commonwealth Action. That PAC vows on its website to “advance educational policies that prioritize parental rights and pro-family values,” and “protect human families against the scourge of evil that damage traditional families structures and stability.”
A spokesperson for Pike County Public Schools did not return a Herald-Leader phone call or email Monday about the campaign mailer. Conservatives for the Commonwealth Action raised just over $98,000 between March 12 and Sept. 30, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.
“It’s not uncommon to see ad campaigns this close to the major election cycles attempt to leverage fear, misinformation and political divisiveness in an attempt to score votes,” Kentucky School Boards Association Director of Communications Josh Shoulta said Monday.
“But it’s a shame that it’s being done so carelessly in regard to the education of our children,” he added.
School districts across Kentucky have warned against the amendment, because it will allow the General Assembly to pull funding away from already struggling districts, particularly in more rural parts of the state.
Owensboro Public Schools Board Chairman Dr. Jeremy Luckett said on Oct. 17 that changing the constitution in this way gives “too broad an authority” to the General Assembly. “There’s also not an unlimited amount of money. If there’s only one pie and you’re going to give it to more people, there is going to be less to go around.”
That same day, Trimble County Superintendent Todd Neace said, “every year, public schools and educators are asked to stretch resources further. If this amendment passes, vouchers will only deepen the strain.”
And when the campaign to defeat Amendment 2 — Protect Our Schools KY — launched in May, Perry County Superintendent Kent Campbell said approving the measure would “allow for public money to be funneled to unaccountable private schools” and “pave the way for our state to begin writing blank checks to private schools using dollars that should go to public schools and their students.”
But this hasn’t dampened pro-Amendment 2 messaging from a handful of PACs, which echoes sentiments from lawmakers and special interest groups who support the proposal, chiefly that it will restore parents’ rights over their kids’ education and ensure education equity — points opponents say are inaccurate.
A mailer from pro-Amendment 2 group Kentucky Students First says it will help “give students an education that reflects their values, give parents a voice in what their kids learn,” and “give Kentucky students better opportunities to succeed.”
Kentucky Students First, which raised just over $1.5 million by Sept. 4, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, distributed a series of mailers earlier in September and October, including one that tells voters, “President Trump endorses school choice and needs you to vote yes on Amendment 2.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a Herald-Leader inquiry about his stance on the amendment. Earlier this month, Trump championed “universal school choice policy,” calling it the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Kevin Broghamer, the treasurer for Kentucky Students First, is also treasurer for a national PAC called Protect Freedom, formed by political allies of Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in 2007. Protect Freedom launched its television advertising campaign supporting Amendment 2 in September; one ad features Paul and his wife, Kelley Paul, who say Amendment 2 will provide “educational freedom.”
According to a Federal Election Commission filing, the group raised just over $5 million during the pay period between July 1 and Sept. 30, nearly all of which was fronted by Pennsylvania billionaire and Republican mega donor Jeff Yass, the Kentucky Lantern previously reported.
A second mailer from Kentucky Students First says Amendment 2 “provides additional funds for teacher pay, invests more money into our public education system,” and “increases public school funding per student.”
And a third mailer links Kentucky’s lower-than-average statewide proficiency with future adult delinquency.
“Kentucky’s below-national-average educational outcomes are all the evidence we need to see that we are preventing our most vulnerable students from participating in the American Dream,” it says.
When states “enact educational opportunities that lift kids our of poverty, crime rates greatly decrease. The cost to the taxpayers could be catastrophic if we don’t act now,” it urges. “It is far cheaper to educate a child than to incarcerate an adult.”
A mailer from by Americans for Prosperity, which has spent nearly $265,000 on pro-Amendment 2 messaging, said a “yes” vote means “teacher pay raises and more resources,” and will give support to “low-income students in difficult situations.”
Kentucky School Board Association’s Shoulta called these claims “wildly inaccurate.”
“Some of these mailers make claims that Amendment 2 raises per-pupil funding, increases teacher pay and even invests more in public schools, all of which are wildly inaccurate,” he said. “In reality, the amendment gives Kentucky’s legislature new authority to direct public tax dollars to private schools, period.”
Singling out rural districts
On the mailer that tells voters the “radical left” wants to “control your kids” is a website — kentuckypublicschools.com — with a snapshot of Kentucky’s K-12 test scores.
The website, managed by Conservatives for the Commonwealth Action PAC, says “two concepts can both be true at the same time: books should not be banned (and) not all books belong in a school.”
“Unfortunately, the radical teachers’ union is more focused on advancing its social agenda by exposing children to obscene books than it is on policies that ensure Kentucky’s children will have a brighter future.”
The website features an interactive map of the state that highlights 22 mostly rural counties by listing books some may consider inappropriate or salacious.
On that list is Ballard County in West Kentucky. Like the Pike County mailer, the school library allegedly contains a copy of “Lucky,” Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir of her rape by a stranger as a college freshman, according to this PAC.
Last week, Ballard County Public Schools posted on Facebook that it had “removed” multiple books from its high school library after “many residents” received a mailer “containing explicit language from books the senders said were in the libraries of Ballard County Schools.”
The district did not identify the mailer or the books singled out, but said none of the books had been checked out recently. Still, the district chose to remove them, according to Superintendent Casey Allen, who said there was “a fine line between books students should read and the books that they will read.”
The district has a procedure in place to remove potentially problematic books, and it involves “contacting the school librarian and asking for a review of the material,” Allen said. Prior to this mailer and the response it prompted, “our high school librarian said today that in her four years here, she only has received one removal request.”
Fusing advocacy for Amendment 2 into a conversation about age-appropriate books in school libraries gets at the core belief some supporters of the proposal maintain: public schools have become a place of indoctrination, not education.
At its annual forum on Oct. 12, Family Foundation Executive Director David Walls said part of his organization’s mission is to pass policy in the state that combats “the indoctrination of children in our schools.”
The conservative Christian lobbying organization supports Amendment 2 and so does Walls, who recently posted on social media, “praying the Body of Christ in KY will get out and vote YES on 2 in support of more educational freedom for Kentucky families.”
Meanwhile, Protect Our Schools KY continues to message against the amendment.
In a mailer last week, the group said, “many of our public schools are already underfunded, but Amendment 2 vouchers will make things worse by: defunding our public schools, where 90% of our kids attend (and) failing to address the teacher shortage.”
Having raised roughly $9.3 million, the group released another television ad Monday. The 30-second spot says the amendment would provide a “blank check for Frankfort politicians to spend our tax dollars on private schools with zero accountability.”
When asked about the mailers from groups supporting Amendment 2, the Protect Our Schools campaign said, “leaning into dishonest political attacks doesn’t change the fact that our broad coalition made up of parents, teachers, students and community members — from Paducah to Pikeville — see this voucher amendment for what it is: a scam.”
Herald-Leader reporters Austin Horn and Valarie Honeycutt Spears contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 23, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
