VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 2.
Pretty much everyone I know in Kentucky has worked at or been educated at a public school. Kentucky had a constitutional protection of our public schools that will be an amendment on this year's ballot.
I suspect that you're going to see a lot of propaganda about "educational freedom" telling you that you should vote in favor of amendment 2.
But Amendment 2 is just simply the permission for legislators to make whatever law they want regarding how public funds can be spent on education. This means that if passed, the next legislative session will be full of bills meant to divert public funds to private schools, and if my discussions with prominent Republicans in the state are any guide, these schools will not be held to the same standards as our public schools.
Instead, they believe the "market" will decide.
This means private schools receiving money will not be required to do any of the following:
- Provide open records and hold open meetings. Consider that what we know about our public schools and the critical stories you see in the news are made possible because of these transparency laws. As we've seen with the Archdiocese of Louisville, the Southern Baptist Convention, and other institutions, transparency into corruption and abuse isn't a strong suit for private institutions.
- Do the same testing and provide the same demographic information that public schools must do. These same politicians love to use this data to attack public schools, but don't want it for private institutions. We will have no way of evaluating if this grand experiment does anything Republicans swear it will do. And their feigned concern about things like racial achievement gaps in our public schools will evaporate once vouchers are in place.
- Provide a slot for every child who needs one regardless of the faith or sexual identity of the child or family.
- Provide a slot for every child regardless of their ability to pay
- Provide for the needs of special needs students.(Yes, this is still an issue in public schools, but it won't be fixed by shifting funds elsewhere.)
- Provide transportation to the schools of choice. JCPS' much maligned transportation system was necessary to provide choice for everyone. If the resources aren't there now, they're not going to get better as more choices pop up.
And some other considerations:
- Money provided will not create equity for poor families, because private schools still will set their own tuition. In many states the money simply lessens the burden on wealthier families who already sends their kids to private schools while not providing enough for poorer kids to make up the difference. $9000 in voucher money toward a $15,000 education is great if you're already paying for private school. Not so great if you're poor and have to make up that $6000 difference.
- Public schools are the largest employer in most Kentucky Counties. And while teacher pay can always be better, it's often a better paying job than many others in a county, and it's usually better than pay at private schools. Shifting money away from public schools is going to hurt their bottom line.
- Republicans tend to paint a school failing as a sign of success for vouchers and the "free market". But schools are not like a local pizza place where you can easily move your business elsewhere. When a school closes, it often leaves a lot of students and their parents in a lurch, and sets up a situation where education continuity from one year to the next is put in jeopardy.
- There has been a great interest in allowing people to cross district borders. This can create some serious headaches for districts and constituents, including overcrowding potential and people paying taxes for students from other counties to attend their system.
We should be working to improve and assist our public schools, not making donations to private entities that are free from oversight or obligations that we have with our public schools.
I urge you to VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 2 this fall.
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