What is the Kentucky Education Reform Act? A timeline of the landmark school funding case
The Kentucky Education Reform Act was one of the most important school funding cases in the United States and became a model for other states.
It grew out of a court case that began in 1988, when 66 property-poor districts sued for better public school funding. The Kentucky Supreme Court agreed and went many steps further by declaring the entire system to be unconstitutional.
“I think it’s astonishing in its sweeping impact,” Robert Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, said on June 8, 1989, the day the court’s opinion was released.
“It’s the most important ruling on education in our lifetimes. It gives us a chance to build a system that works.”
The General Assembly was ordered to started over, and in 1990 KERA was adopted, changing everything from school financing to academics, from nepotism rules to teacher training. New funding came from a $1 billion tax increase supported by the state’s business leaders.
But in both standards and finance, KERA’s brave new world was eventually abandoned. On Tuesday, the Kentucky Student Voice Team announced they would reopen the case to force the General Assembly to come back to its constitutional duties on public schools.
Here’s a timeline of how it happened.
- 1985 - In their lawsuit, Rose vs. Martha Layne Collins, 66 property-poor school districts named the governor, the General Assembly and the superintendent of public instruction. The districts charge the state with vast inequities in public school funding.
- June 8, 1989 - The Kentucky Supreme Court holds that the state public school system is unconstitutional and directs the General Assembly to create a system that offers an adequate education to all children.
- January 1990 - The General Assembly brings in national experts to create an effective and adequate school system.
- April 11, 1990 - The Kentucky Education Reform Act is passed into law.
- April 1998 - The General Assembly passes laws to dismantle KIRIS testing and replace it with a new test, part of which is standardized.
- 2003: The Council for Better Education, the group of superintendents who initiatied the Rose decision, commission a new study on KERA funding. The eight-month study by Deborah Verstegen of the University of Virginia says that to uphold KERA’s standards and financing, the cost would be $1.16 billion a year for the foreseeable future.
- 2008: The national housing crisis leads to a recession that leads to K-12 education cuts under then-Gov. Steve Beshear.
- 2023: A report by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy finds that inequality between rich and poor districts has returned to pre-KERA levels.
- 2025: The Kentucky Student Voice Team files suit in Franklin Circuit Court contending that the General Assembly has neglected its duty to provide an adequate, efficient set of public schools.
