‘Worth fighting for.’ Students are showing adults the way on how to improve our schools. | Opinion
Kentucky’s public schools have many shortcomings, but the high quality of their students was on full display at the Franklin County Courthouse on Tuesday as a group of them reopened our state’s landmark school funding case.
“We know it will take years to see repercussions from this,” said Ivy Litton, a senior from Bath County who is part of the Kentucky Student Voice Team, the lead plaintiff in the case. “But for those of us with younger siblings, it’s important to make sure it happens.”
The lawsuit to reopen the Rose v. Council for Better Education — which revolutionized Kentucky and sparked a series of school funding cases across the country — was filed in Franklin Circuit Court, and will no doubt make its circuitous way across the river to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
Judges will have to decide if the General Assembly has through death by a million cuts budgeting indeed let slide its constitutional duty for efficient, adequate schools.
What’s so interesting about the 72-page complaint is that these students — with the help of some high-powered attorneys — have figured out is something many of us guessed but had never gotten around to proving: KERA worked.
When teachers were paid well, when politics were removed, when funding was equalized, and when expectations were high, Kentucky students started to excel. It was the abandonment of KERA’s principles and funding — a roughly 25% decline since the 1990s — that led to our current situation.
One example cited in the complaint:
“The percentage of Kentucky fourth graders and eighth graders who were reading at or above NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) proficiency levels in 2013 was 36% and 38% respectively, but these numbers fell to 31% and 29% in 2022. These 2022 scores brought Kentucky’s reading achievement levels essentially back to where they were in 1998.”
KERA required arts education; today, the complaint says, most schools only offer cursory survey classes. Civics classes are no longer required. Many schools lack librarians, and there are far too few counselors at a time when mental illness is widespread.
The complaint brings back many of KERA’s greatest hits, now abandoned. One of the most important pieces, in my opinion, was the attempt to help students overcome their personal circumstances. Family resource centers were set and funded to help students with everything from extra meals to warm coats in winter. As we go through our own maelstrom over missed days in snowy Fayette County, consider this:
More than 90% of Kentucky schools are eligible for school resource center funding, but only about 56% of the schools are being funded, according to the complaint.
“In the first year of KERA funding (1991-1992), the General Assembly allocated $200 per eligible student,” the complaint notes. “Adjusted for inflation, the 1991-1992 funding was $454 per student in 2024 dollars. But the General Assembly allocated $212 per eligible student in 2024 — less than half of the per-student funding thirty years ago.”
Teacher pay went up 19% after KERA passed, with huge increases in time and money for professional development. Now teacher pay here ranks 41 in the nation, down 20% since 2008.
Michael Rebell is the executive director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College. As a young lawyer, he was so inspired by Rose that he filed a similar lawsuit in New York, which itself has been re-litigated.
“What was really unique about Rose is they told us exactly what an adequate and equitable education is,” he said.
He thinks the strength of the new lawsuit is that it proves how far we have fallen from those standards. It’s also unique in that it doesn’t demand a dollar amount; once again it will allow the court to define the scope, and if they so choose, that will determine how much more money is needed.
“We are showing in 72 pages why kids are not getting an adequate education,” Rebell said. “How much it costs to provide this, I don’t know.”
But we can be sure it’s a lot. A report commissioned by the Council for Better Education in 2003 found it would take at least $1 billion to catch up with KERA’s needs.
The courts will have to decide how much they will hold the legislature responsible for its constitutional duties, if at all.
And if they do, the lawsuit will meet a very different political landscape than in 1989.
Back then, the General Assembly had a Democratic majority that had allowed incredible corruption, mismanagement and poor education, but came around to embracing the Supreme Court’s mandate to produce KERA. This time around, there’s a Republican supermajority that has proven itself hostile to public education, not least because teachers and teacher unions overwhelmingly support unions.
The lawsuit also comes at a time when any extra general fund money is being hoarded to lower income taxes. By the time the suit makes it through the legal system, it’s possible lawmakers will have gotten it all the way down to zero.
More recently, state lawmakers’ solution to Kentucky’s declining student achievement was to siphon off money to private schools instead. Luckily, Kentucky voters had a very clear answer to this: they defeated the school choice amendment by 30 points.
The only silver lining is that Kentucky voters have made it extremely clear they support public schools over school choice, beating Amendment 2 by 30 points. They want them to get better.
Now lawmakers could get a jump on any court decisions by fully funding transportation or substantially raising teacher pay. I won’t hold my breath.
Party politics don’t really matter, said Michael Abate, a Louisville attorney who is helping with the suit. “One party may be more or less favorable to education, but it doesn’t matter because the Constitution is the Constitution.”
The students, having put together a compelling set of facts about what they’ve been cheated out of, will now begin a series of public forums to educate the public about the lawsuit.
Then comes patience. As Ivy Litton said, they’re well aware most of them will be well beyond high school and even past college by the time this case is decided.
But, she said, “We are here today because we believe Kentucky’s public schools are worth fighting for.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2025 at 8:06 AM.
