‘All of our students deserve better’ on charters and school leadership

I write this op-ed with a heavy heart. I would like to believe that the state of Kentucky would understand that “throwing money at an issue” is not the same thing as providing a solution. The Republican-led Kentucky General Assembly provided a solution to low-performing, minimally accountable public schools when they passed the charter school legislation this month. Sadly, it has been vetoed by our state’s Democratic governor. The Beshear administration’s solution to the widening performance gap between white students and students of color is to give the existing public schools more money. I disagree.

Aside from the fact any charter school would be a public school, don’t parents of children of color deserve the opportunity to choose the best public school alternative for their children? Thirty years ago, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed Kentucky’s fourth grade Black students ranked third (of 32 states reporting) in math proficiency.

By 2019, Kentucky’s Black students had fallen to 20th with only one in five fourth-grade Black students demonstrating math proficiency. By the eighth grade, the number fell to one in ten Kentucky Black children scoring Proficient or above.

I would encourage the governor, and those who support his position, to examine the continued “increase in funding” the Kentucky public school system has received over the last 30 years. His statement that we should continue to do more of the same thing has not borne fruit for Kentucky students of color.

In 2021, the Kentucky Summative Assessments show a 34% proficiency gap between white and Black elementary school students in Fayette County. In reading, the assessments show a 32% proficiency gap. Totally unacceptable.

The governor also vetoed legislation which would have given superintendents more authority to hire and fire principals in their school systems as well as having a larger voice in the curriculum taught at each school. I would argue that many persons asking to maintain the status quo in public education have no idea of the severe limitations that are placed on superintendents to actually run their county systems. Currently, based on where you live, your child’s education destiny is in the hands of an individual principal and the school-based board that selected them. All of our students deserve better. We must demand change.

Rev. Willis G. Polk is the senior pastor of Imani Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. Contact him at revwillispolk@gmail.com.