It’s no small thing to essentially undo KY Constitution’s rules on school funding | Opinion
I have one last thing to say about Amendment 2, and I’ll try to make it quick.
Kentucky courts have blocked school choice measures, like charter schools and tax credits for private schools, because they so clearly violate the Kentucky Constitution’s strictures on using public school funding for anything but public schools.
So to get rid of that roadblock, school choice advocates have to get rid of the roadblock language in this state’s founding document.
But it’s no small thing to rewrite SEVEN parts of the state Constitution, especially section 183, which requires the General Assembly to “provide for an efficient system of schools,” and Section 189, “School money is not to be used for church, sectarian or denominational schools.”
Section 183 is what led to the Rose decision, and the monumental Kentucky Education Reform Act that followed. The courts determined that the General Assembly had not provided such a system.
Now I don’t think the current leaders of the General Assembly would consider suddenly not funding public schools. They’d all lose their seats.
I spoke with Senate President Pro Tempore David Givens, R-Greensburg, one of the more thoughtful members of the GOP, who called this idea, “truly the most far-fetched conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard concocted.”
But if the constitutional guardrails are gone, they’re gone. If the so-called extremist Liberty Caucus got into power one day, they could slip language into a budget bill authorizing the construction of a K-12 Bible school, and there would be no legal way to stop it because Section 189 had been effectively nullified.
“That’s not a conspiracy, it’s a real thing,” said Tom Shelton, director of the Council for Better Education.
The Council brought the 1989 Rose case with the help of former Gov. Bert Combs, because of the truly appalling condition of so many of Kentucky’s schools, particularly in rural areas. More recently, they also sued over the General Assembly’s bill on tax credits and charter schools.
The Rose case led the General Assembly to create the Kentucky Education Reform Act, a truly revolutionary overhaul that, among so many other things, equalized school funding between rich and poor districts.
It’s not necessarily that Kentucky’s Constitution is so much stronger than other states, said Jessica Levin, the litigation director of the Education Law Center in Newark, N.J. It could be that other states don’t have groups like the Council for Better Education ready to jump into long and expensive court battles.
“Another important nuance is that voucher programs used to be a lot smaller than they are now, so a previous decision ruling them constitutional might not come out the same way today,” Levin said in an email. “For example, a court might have declared that a small voucher program didn’t undermine the state’s ability to fund public education in a way that would violate the state constitutional guarantee of public education, when a universal voucher program would do so.”
School choice has always been on a Republican wish list, and they may get it come Tuesday. But I do want to echo the wise words of Carlie Hall, a senior at Tates Creek High School in Lexington, who pointed out recently that the furor over Amendment 2 has allowed legislators and the public to further ignore problems at too many schools around Kentucky.
“The intentions behind vouchers depict an unwillingness to confront the systemic inequalities that persist within public education,” she wrote in an OpEd on Amendment 2. “Instead of developing and creating pathways to confront systemic issues of underfunding and inequality between school districts, Amendment 2 seeks to worsen the state of our public education system.”
Now, if Amendment 2 passes, it’s possible the General Assembly could use some of the massive $3.7 billion rainy day fund they’ve amassed for income tax cuts to create a bigger pie. That way they could fund school choice programs and public schools.
But if it fails, we need to recommit ourselves to public education in this state, finish the job that KERA started, and make our schools so good that no one ever need look elsewhere.
This story was originally published November 4, 2024 at 7:39 AM.
