School Leader

The fight for school choice in Kentucky will go on

Amendment 2, Kentucky's school choice constitutional ballot initiative, was soundly defeated during yesterday's election. Despite our best efforts, proponents of the amendment could not overcome the millions of dollars spent by teachers unions, or the prevarication machine of public school superintendents, that swayed public opinion.

But while I am disappointed, I remain undaunted. As I wrote for Kentucky Today, the fight for school choice will go on:

Kentucky’s education status quo, whereby affluent parents continue to enjoy education options but low- and middle-income families are stuck with whatever the local public school offers, will remain for the foreseeable future. But school choice advocates will not stop fighting.

One glimmer of hope may be a federal education tax credit that would encourage private donations to scholarship programs helping eligible students access nonpublic schools. Such legislation was recently passed by a House of Representatives committee. Kentucky’s education establishment would be powerless to stop families from participating in a federally sponsored program.

Above all, since the education establishment is going to maintain its monopoly, Kentuckians must insist on better outcomes. More than half of the state’s students at all grade levels are failing to achieve proficiency in reading and math. But that’s not, contrary to what the establishment says, because Kentucky’s schools are underfunded. In fact, Kentucky’s current budget reflects a record level of inflation-adjusted investment in the state’s public schools.

Meanwhile, a report from the Heritage Foundation found that Kentucky is one of the worst states in terms of getting a return on investment of education tax dollars. The analysis, which compares student achievement relative to the amount of money per pupil spent by the state on education, ranks Kentucky in 43^rd place among the 50 states.

Lawmakers and taxpayers should hold the line on giving the public school system more money until it produces better results, especially for students from low-income homes.

Read the whole thing here.

 

 

Resources for Yes on 2, KY's school choice ballot initiative

On November 5, Kentuckians will have the chance to amend the state's constitition allowing the legislature to consider the kinds of school choice programs that are benefitting millions of students - and not harming public schools - in 48 other states.

I've been writing and speaking on this topic and people often ask me if there's a one-stop website where they can get information about Amendment 2 to better understand it and to counter the claims of its opponents. This post, which I'll continue to update as more information becomes available, is intended to be that place.

First up, you've just got to see this image above, because it illustrates so clearly how Kentucky is so far behind the rest of the country on this issue. Every single state that touches us, and nearly every state in the United States, has adopted some form of school choice program.

And of course public education is doing just fine in most states. In fact, the following graphic illustrates examples of school choice states that are outperforming Kentucky educationally.

So where can you get more information to defend Amendment 2?

Social media groups

First, you should like and follow the following Amendment 2 groups that have a strong social media presence:

• Yes on 2 United
• Raising Voices
• Kentucky Parents for Choice

An overview of Amendment 2

Next, check out the Amendment 2 Frequently Asked Questions page, developed by the Bluegrass Institute (where I serve on the Board of Scholars).

School choice SAVES money for state budgets

Have you heard public school employees taking about how Amendment 2 will cost millions of dollars that will come directly from the funds for public schools and cost hundreds or thousands of teacher jobs? These claims are based on junk "research" and perposterous assumptions that don't align with how school choice actually works:

• Teachers are hearing these things from their superintendents, who keep repeating a debunked report by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, a left-wing outfit deeply backed by teachers unions. In this article, I explain how the superintendents get this wrong, and why they should stop making these dishonest assertions.
• Whatever school choice policy Kentucky adopts as a result of Amendment 2, it won't use dollars the state has set aside for public education to fund it. In this article, I explain how school funding won't change as a result of Amendment 2. School choice programs will be funded by line items in the biennial state budget just like university funding, veterans hospitals, and road projects. Kentucky has a state budget of around $15 billion. We can afford good public schools, good roads, and programs that help low- and middle-income families access more educational choices.
• Research from other states clearly illustrates that school choice programs actually have a net positive effect on state budgets. This is because whatever costs states incur to create school choice programs are offset by the savings to the public education system. Kentucky spends an average of $18,000 per pupil per year on students in the public schools. Students attending nonpublic options on state-funded scholarships or in public charter schools cost the state far less money, resulting in a net cost savings. See this report from the national organization EdChoice, and the graphic below, which illustrates how this works.

Amendment 2 opponents don't believe their own rhetoric

The yard signs and and social media messaging of Amendment 2's opponents declare that "public dollars are for public schools." But this thinking is wrong on several counts. First, "public dollars" are taxpayer dollars, and the money taxpayers give for education is not for schools - it's for educating students, who should have options of their education provider, regardless of family income. This is the same principle we apply to a wide variety of public goods that are nevertheless also personal benefits for individuals who we grant the dignity of choosing where that benefit is used. See my article that discussing many examples. 

Worries about government overreach

Some advocates for private education and homeschooling have expressed worries that if Amendment 2 passes, the state government will somehow have control over the curriculum or teaching methods used in nonpublic school environments. This has just not been the case in other states. School choice programs generally respect the autonomy of private schools and homeschool families who participate, and schools and families always have the option not to participate. Read my article where I discuss the implications of Amendment 2 for homeschoolers specifically.

When Kentucky adopted its Education Opportunities Account program in 2021 - which was subsequently struck down by the state supreme court, triggering the need for Amendment 2 - the state legislature made it clear how they intended the law would not interfere with the autonomy of participating schools. See the specific language from the law below, which should reassure Kentuckians voting for Amendment 2.

The bottom line

The bottom line is that school choice works and we know it from the experience of other states. Florida has some of the oldest and biggest school choice programs in the U.S. If school choice harmed public education, we should see the evidence in Florida. But in fact, Florida's public school students routinely outperform Kentucky's public schools students while spending less money per pupil than we do. Public education is thriving in school-choice rich states like Florida. Read this policy brief comparing Florida and Kentucky from the Bluegrass Institute.

Amendment 2 does not create a school choice program. It simply says Kentucky's legislature can consider and pass the same kinds of programs that benefit kids in nearly every state in the U.S. Kentucky's students deserve the same opportunities as kids in other states. Vote yes on 2!

More articles and resources:

• Education choice is a matter of justice, by Jason Hall.
• School choice shines bright in Arizona; Kentucky should be next, by Jenny Clark.
• Flawed report ignores school choice savings, student achievement, by John Garen.
• The legally dubious campaign against school choice in Kentucky, by Corey DeAngelis and Dean McGee.
• Amendment 2 is good for Kentucky families and students, by Jesse Green and David Walls.
• The 1-2-3's of School Choice, research report on the effects of school choice, by EdChoice.
• Despite loud critics, school choice will promote educational freedom across Kentucky, by Beanie Geoghegan.

Related blog posts:

• Superintendents make debunked claims against school choice amendment
• School choice opponents are confused or trying to confuse voters
• Enemies of school choice need better slogans
• What research really says about school choice
• Here comes Kentucky's school choice constitutional amendment

 

 

 

School choice amendment does not change how Kentucky schools are funded

Amendment 2, coming up on the November ballot, asks voters to change the state constitution clarifying that lawmakers may, at some point in the future, pass legislation providing support for eligible families to access new educational opportunities. This is a response to a Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that prohibits any support, no matter how small, for students outside of traditional public schools.

Opponents of Kentucky’s Amendment 2 falsely claim that if passed, millions of dollars will be drained from the state’s public schools. But the actual wording of the amendment, Kentucky law, and previous court cases all make it clear that no such thing will happen. 

Kentucky voters have sent pro-educational choice legislators to Frankfort over the last few election cycles.  This resulted in multiple educational choice programs passing the Kentucky General Assembly.  Unfortunately, Kentucky’s Supreme Court issued an unprecedented decision barring all support for students outside of the public school system.  

The only recourse for voters is to pass Amendment 2.  It makes clear the General Assembly can support all students when it comes to education.  Further, the word “notwithstanding” is used to ensure that activist judges do not strike down innovative education programs via creative legal reasoning.  

Amendment 2 does not create any program by itself, nor does it change the way Kentucky’s public schools are funded. 

Amendment 2 leaves in place various constitutional provisions protecting public school funding, including Section 186 which prohibits the public school budget from being diverted to other purposes.  Nothing within Amendment 2 will allow SEEK dollars, which are the per-pupil funds allocated by the state to public schools for educating students, to be used to fund school choice.

School choice funding will have to come from the state’s general fund and be a line-item allocation in the biennial budget, just like a road project, veterans’ hospital, funding for public universities, and other initiatives that require public investment.

Of course, opponents of Amendment 2 don’t claim road projects or universities siphon money from public schools. Neither should they claim that school choice will use public school funding.

If Amendment 2 is passed, lawmakers may consider a wide range of school choice policy options, including charter schools or privately funded education opportunity accounts, both of which have already been previously approved by the state legislature only to be struck down by activist judges claiming to the state constitution forbids such programs.

Whatever policy mechanism lawmakers eventually choose, the funding for these programs will come from somewhere other than the state education budget, while growing the access of Kentucky families to a wider range of education options.

Kentucky is one of the only states where school choice programs are prohibited by the courts. Amendment 2 simply changes that, giving lawmakers the chance to consider programs that give every family the same kind of privilege affluent families practice and enjoy every day: the right to pick the learning environment that best meets their child’s needs.

Related posts:

• Superintendents make debunked claims against school choice amendment
• School choice opponents are confused or trying to confuse voters
• Enemies of school choice need better slogans
• What research really says about school choice
• Here comes Kentucky's school choice constitutional amendment

Superintendents make debunked arguments against school choice amendment

In my latest column for the Bowling Green Daily News, I take on recent arguments made by area superintendents against Kentucky's upcoming school choice ballot initiative:

Public school superintendents – who are smart enough to know better – continue to make debunked claims against Kentucky’s upcoming school choice constitutional amendment.

At a recent event, four superintendents from the region condemned Amendment 2, which will appear on Kentucky’s November 5 election ballot. Amendment 2 asks voters to change the state constitution clarifying that lawmakers may, at some point in the future, pass legislation providing support for eligible families to access education options outside the traditional public schools.

The superintendents claimed that the passage of Amendment 2 would have devastating consequences. They said, among other things, that the Bowling Green Independent School district will lose $9.5 million and the Warren County Schools will lose $27 million.

But these figures come from a report by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, an outfit deeply backed by teachers’ unions, that includes preposterous assumptions inconsistent with the way school choice programs work in other states.

Kentucky economist John Garen, my colleague on the Bluegrass Institute Board of Scholars, has already issued a paper exposing the KCEP report for its bogus claims.

In “The Fiscal Effects of School Choice: Doomsday Speculation Versus Reality,” Garen debunks all the central arguments made by KCEP and parroted by superintendents, starting with the assumption that Amendment 2 would lead to a voucher program.

Amendment 2 does not set up any program. Future lawmakers could consider a range of school choice policy options, including charter schools and scholarship tax credits, both of which were already passed in Kentucky until courts ruled the state’s constitution forbids all such legislation.

But if Kentucky did adopt a voucher, there is no evidence it would have the economic effects on public schools claimed by superintendents. KCEP’s report makes the absurd assumption that all of Kentucky’s 98,000 students currently homeschooled or enrolled in nonpublic schools would receive a voucher. Only 10 states offer programs to support homeschooling families and those are typically separate from voucher plans.

Furthermore, there is no state in which every nonpublic school student receives a voucher. Instead, voucher programs usually have an income eligibility requirement or some other stipulation of need, such as for students who have disabilities. The doomsday numbers cited by superintendents are based on these false premises that do not exist in reality.

Even Arizona, which has a universal education savings account, a policy mechanism different from a voucher that would not be constitutional in Kentucky even if Amendment 2 passes, disproves the claims of Amendment 2’s opponents. The KCEP report falsely says that Arizona’s ESA has blown a hole in the state’s budget.

As John Garen’s report shows, Arizona’s school choice program, like those of other states, has a positive effect on the state’s finances. Students who participate in school choice programs are educated for far less money per pupil than those in the traditional public schools, saving the state’s education budget millions of dollars that offset the cost of school choice.

If superintendents don’t know the KCEP report is a fraud, their constituents should let them know. If they do, they are deliberately trying to mislead voters about Amendment 2.

Read the original article here.

A reckoning is coming for higher education

In a recent column for the Bowling Green Daily News, I discussed a Gallup survey that shows public confidence in higher education is cratering. Only a third of respondents they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in colleges and universities, down from 57% in 2015. 

I discussed reasons for this fall in confidence revealed by the poll, concluding that...

A reckoning is coming for colleges and universities, which need to recommit to the traditional mission of forming men and women for lives of service and virtue, not just as economic producers. And for their own financial future, higher education leaders also need to be mindful that the taxpayers and tuition payers expect a high-quality education free from ideological extremism and coercion.

Read the whole thing here (may be behind paywall).

 

School choice opponents are confused or trying to confuse voters

In a recent op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader, I took on the habit of Kentucky's school choice opponents to pretend the upcoming Amendment 2 ballot initiative is a "voucher" plan.

In fact, Amendment 2 does not create a program at all, but simply asks voters to change the state constitution making it clear that the state legislature may, at some time in the future, adopt programs that help more Kentucky families access new education options. A constitutional amendment is needed because state courts have previously ruled all such programs unconstitional, making Kentucky one of only states in the country wihout school choice. (See Amendment 2 frequently asked questions on the Bluegrass Institute website, where I serve on the Board of Scholars).

Lawmakers could adopt a voucher plan, but they could just as easily institute charter schools or a scholarship tax credit program, both of which have previously been approved by the General Assembly, only to be struck down by courts in decidely ideological rulings.

Read more here about the various options available to state legislature when Amendment 2 passes.

Postliberalism in Western Kentucky

I was honored to recently be featured as a guest on the American Postliberal podcast. 

The American Postliberal was launched in 2023 by a group of young Catholic intellectuals who are seeking to help articulate a vision of Catholic realism to guide Americans in this unique political and cultural moment. I've been pleased to serve as a contributor for the American Postliberal over the last year. My essays published there so far include the following:

• Beyond the laptop class (September 8, 2023).
• Catholics and "Red Caesar" (November 22, 2023).
• Liberalism leads to Marxism (January 24, 2024).

The American Postliberal offers a youthful, pragmatic take on the larger postliberal movement. Postliberalism is a political philosophy, closely associated with the work of professors Patrick Deneen, Yoram Hazony, and others, that helps explain the current political and cultural crisis facing Western Civilization through a critique of liberalism, how liberal assumptions have shaped and distorted the perceptions of thinkers on both the political left and right, and how liberalism inevitably leads to its own demise in the forms of various kinds of totalitarianism. Rather than just diagnosing doom, however, postliberalism, especially of the variety offered at the American Postliberal, also seeks to articulate a vision forward, and how a common good conservatism can restore a healthy social and political order. 

We discuss some of these concepts, and especially how they apply to my work in education, on the podcast. You can also listen via YouTube, below.

 

 

Biden wants to impose radical gender views on Kentucky schools

In my last column for the Bowling Green Daily News, I discussed the Biden administration's attempt to rewrite the federal Title IX law in a way none of the original authors of that legislation ever imagined: that "sex" is whatever gender identity a person claims to be. 

This means schools in every Kentucky community will be forced to let students use the facilities of the opposite gender, and for school employees to treat students as if they were a gender different than their biological sex. Biden is working on a separate set of regulations that will force female athletes to compete against biological males in school sports.

Schools that don’t comply could lose their federal funding, including special education services and access to the free and reduced lunch program.

All of this contradicts Kentucky law, which, despite vetoes from Gov. Andy Beshear, has been amended in recent years to protect the privacy of children in Kentucky schools and the rights and dignity of female athletes.

Read more about the legal fight over Biden's Title IX rules and the implications for Kentucky schools in the full op-ed.

10 Commandements laws are about education, not evangelization

In an op-ed for Kentucky Today, I defended Louisiana's new law mandating the display of the 10 Commandments in classrooms in K12 schools and public universities:

Making sure every student is aware of the Ten Commandments is not an attempt to indoctrinate them into a specific religious belief. As evangelism, such an effort would be clumsy and ineffective. The Ten Commandments law is, rather, about forming students with an accurate historical understanding of the American system of government and its patrimony...

Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law, like Kentucky’s before it, does not infringe on any student’s right to believe whatever they choose about any religion. But it does recognize that students need to know the history of their government, and the civilization from which it emerged, and the religious ideas that informed it.

Read the whole thing here.

Enemies of school choice need better slogans

In my latest op-ed for the Bowling Green Daily News, I took on the slogan being used by opponents of this year's school choice constitutional amenment that "public dollars are for public schools." This argument fails to convince on multip fronts:

 

Kentuckians’ ballots this November will have more than just a contentious presidential race. Parents seeking a broader range of options for their kids’ education will be paying close attention to a state constitutional amendment to enable new learning options for families. For those families to win the day, the flawed but pervasive arguments in favor of the status quo need serious scrutiny.
Already those opposed to robust choice in education are repeating their familiar slogans, most notably that “public dollars are for public schools.” Slogans are often simplistic, but this one truly falls apart when confronted with some overwhelmingly inconvenient facts.

First, public dollars are already used in private colleges and universities. Pell grants, the GI Bill, and government-subsidized student loans all follow beneficiaries to the college of their choice, including private, faith-based institutions. Even the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) program, which gives high school students money for college tuition based on their grades, can be used in private colleges. Many opponents of school choice have championed preschool programs that would empower Kentucky families with resources to choose from both public and private early childhood options.

Outside of education, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the WIC program, Section 8, and Social Security are all programs that allow beneficiaries to choose from a wide variety of providers, almost all of which are private entities. It’s only in K-12 education that we systematically deny low- and middle-income a choice in who educates their children.

The second reason the “public dollars for public schools” argument doesn’t work is it assumes education tax dollars automatically belong to public school districts and the state. Instead, school choice is based on the idea that, like the other programs just described, education is a highly personal public good. Education dollars are for helping children thrive intellectually. Families should be able to direct those resources to the provider that best fits their needs in the same way Medicare beneficiaries choose their own doctor and hospital.

The bottom line is that defenders of the education status quo want no possible threat to their monopoly when it comes to the education of children from low- and middle-income families. They simply do not want to compete for the dollars those students represent.

Sloganeering aside, the fight voters will witness over the coming months really comes down to one important question: Who should decide how state education dollars are directed? Should they be directed by parents to serve the unique needs of their children … or public officials managing a largely top-down system?
Kentucky lags its neighbors when it comes to empowering parents in this arena. Every single state that touches our Commonwealth has at least one robust parent-centered choice program in place.

It’s time for Kentucky to join the rest of the country and treat families with the respect they deserve. Voters should pass the school choice constitutional amendment so we can start funding students, not systems.

Read the original article here.