A critical look at the charter schools amendment on the ballot this November in Kentucky

I’ve writ­ten about this sub­ject before (Wincity Voices, February 14, 2024) but the sub­ject is so impor­tant that it deserves addi­tion­al com­men­tary. I shall like­ly write about it again before the November elec­tions because of its poten­tial impact on pub­lic school funding.

The read­er may also wish to read the March 15 Kentucky Lantern piece on char­ter school leg­is­la­tion by McKenna Horsley.

The Kentucky leg­is­la­ture has approved plac­ing a pro­pos­al to change the Kentucky Constitution on the November bal­lot.  This pro­posed amend­ment would allow the General Assembly to pro­vide funds for char­ter schools; the com­plete amend­ment reads as fol­lows: [all bold­ing and under­lin­ing in original]

AN ACT propos­ing to cre­ate a new sec­tion of the Constitution of Kentucky relat­ing to edu­ca­tion fund­ing. (Notice that the title doesn’t say “relat­ing to mov­ing edu­ca­tion fund­ing from the pub­lic schools to pri­vate corporations”).

Be it enact­ed by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

• Section 1.  To give par­ents choic­es in edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for their chil­dren, are you in favor of enabling the General Assembly to pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for the edu­ca­tion costs of stu­dents in kinder­garten through 12^th grade who are out­side the sys­tem of com­mon (pub­lic) schools by amend­ing the Constitution of Kentucky as stat­ed below?
• Section 2.  IT IS PROPOSED THAT A NEW SECTION BE ADDED TO THE CONSTITUTION OF KENTUCKY TO READ AS FOLLOWS:

The General Assembly may pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for the edu­ca­tion of stu­dents out­side the sys­tem of com­mon schools.  The General Assembly may exer­cise this author­i­ty by law, Sections 59, 60, 171, 183, 184, 186 and 189 of the Constitution notwithstanding.

“Notwithstanding” means that the enu­mer­at­ed sec­tions would be elim­i­nat­ed and no longer have any force of law in Kentucky relat­ed to edu­ca­tion fund­ing.  Notice the open­ing clause in Section 1.  It pur­ports to be an act open­ing edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties with­out telling the vot­er that the result will be harm­ful to the edu­ca­tion to 90% of Kentucky students.

Okay, so not only do our leg­is­la­tors want the Kentucky pub­lic to allow its tax dol­lars to be fun­neled to pri­vate enti­ties to run pri­vate schools, but they are also ask­ing the vot­ers to abro­gate sev­er­al sec­tions of the present Kentucky Constitution, most of which have been in place since 1891 and have served to assure that schools in this state are pro­vid­ed funds to fur­ther stu­dents’ edu­ca­tion (although nev­er adequately).

So, let’s look at some of the sec­tions they want to eliminate.

Section 59 – Prevents the General Assembly from autho­riz­ing, reg­u­lat­ing the levy­ing, assess­ment, or col­lec­tion of tax­es.  Imagine how much hav­oc the elim­i­na­tion of this sec­tion would produce!

Section 60 – Prevents the General Assembly from pass­ing laws relat­ing to com­mon schools “unless oth­er­wise express­ly pro­vid­ed in the Constitution.”  See what’s hap­pen­ing here?  Approval of this amend­ment removes Constitutional pro­tec­tion for fund­ing for com­mon schools.

Section 171 – “Taxes shall be levied and col­lect­ed for pub­lic pur­pos­es only.”  Getting rid of this sec­tion allows those tax­es to be spent for pri­vate pur­pos­es.  And with­out this sec­tion tax­es could con­ceiv­ably be trans­ferred to numer­ous oth­er pri­vate func­tions even beyond char­ter schools.

Section 183 – “The General Assembly shall, by appro­pri­ate leg­is­la­tion, pro­vide for an effi­cient sys­tem of com­mon schools through­out the State.” ‘Nuff said.

Section 184 – “No sum shall be raised or col­lect­ed for edu­ca­tion oth­er than in com­mon schools until the ques­tion of tax­a­tion is sub­mit­ted to the legal vot­ers, and the major­i­ty of votes cast at said elec­tion shall be in favor of such tax­a­tion.”  Easy enough to see what elim­i­na­tion of this sec­tion would do to the allo­ca­tion of funds and remove over­sight by the voters.

Section 186 – “All funds accru­ing to the school fund shall be used for the main­te­nance of the pub­lic schools of the Commonwealth, and for no oth­er pur­pose…” [empha­sis added]

Section 189 — “No por­tion of any fund or tax now exist­ing, or may here­after be raised or levied for edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es, shall be appro­pri­at­ed to, or used by, or in aid of, any church, sec­tar­i­an of denom­i­na­tion­al school.”  Again, ‘nuff said.

Despite all the protes­ta­tions of those who com­piled and pro­posed this bill regard­ing how innocu­ous it is, the real truth is that the Kentucky vot­er and tax­pay­er is being asked, in one fell swoop (or one swell foop) of the pen on the bal­lot, to do away with sev­en gov­ern­ing prin­ci­ples of the Kentucky Constitution and allow the cur­rent and all future General Assemblies decide how much of our tax­es will be chan­neled off to non-gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties, there­by depriv­ing the vast major­i­ty of Kentucky stu­dents of their rights to education. 

Make no mis­take, the miser­ly actions of our leg­is­la­ture in recent mem­o­ry will con­tin­ue and there will nev­er be addi­tion­al funds to sup­port both the pub­lic schools and the pri­vate schools simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. And the temp­ta­tion will be too great to resist the pleas of the pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions run­ning the pri­vate schools, because those cor­po­ra­tions will be able to return por­tions of those funds to the leg­is­la­tors who are kind enough to sup­port this ill-found­ed proposal.

Kentucky vot­ers need to send a loud and clear mes­sage to Frankfort in November.

We will nev­er vote to amend our con­sti­tu­tion to the detri­ment of our pub­lic schools!