Kentucky School Advocate
October 2024
A key responsibility of KSBA’s board of directors is to carefully consider policy positions that are in the best interest of all public school students and representative of the 857 locally elected school board members charged with the governance of our Commonwealth’s public school districts. We are uniquely positioned to listen to and to speak on behalf of the largest and most diverse group of elected officials in Kentucky.
As most recently demonstrated by our member survey, there is overwhelming consensus among KSBA members on the principle that public education funds are for public schools; schools that must serve the needs of every student who enters their doors. This position isn’t new. KSBA’s opposition to the use of public funds for nonpublic schools has long been a legislative priority, going back decades.
The framers of Kentucky’s constitution so staunchly believed in the necessity for a strong system of common schools that they intentionally required it to be the sole item the legislature must fund, while outright prohibiting lawmakers from funding nonpublic schools.
Amendment 2 creates vague legal exceptions, allowing the legislature to ignore seven different sections of our constitution pertaining to education funding. If passed, lawmakers will have broad new authority and a blank check to direct state and local tax dollars to private education providers not accountable to the same oversight, rules, standards, governance or transparency as our public schools, nor bound by law to serve all students.
Passage of Amendment 2 could negatively impact every public school district in Kentucky – big and small, rural and urban, county and independent. Those districts collectively enroll 90% of students in Kentucky.
For these reasons, KSBA firmly opposes Amendment 2. Rest assured, we are not alone. KSBA and its members stand united with a growing list of education stakeholders opposed to the amendment, a list that includes organizations representing superintendents, school administrators, school-based decision making councils, current and retired teachers, education support professionals, school social workers, parent-teacher organizations and students – among many others.
Amendment 2 is not singularly an issue of funding, or local control, or accountability, or equity, or efficiency or student outcomes. It’s an issue binding them all together with enormous ramifications for all Kentuckians. Amendment 2 is a bad idea for Kentucky’s public schools and the 650,000 students they currently serve. We urge all Kentuckians to VOTE NO!