Kentuckians will vote this fall on Amendment 2, which would allow public funding of private schools.
Based on school voucher policies advancing in other states, the progressive Kentucky Center for Economic Policy says hundreds of millions of dollars would be diverted annually from public schools.
“If Amendment 2 passes, it will upend Kentucky’s long-standing constitutional commitment to public education and result in legislation that harms public schools across the commonwealth,” said Jason Bailey, the center's executive director and lead author of the report.
The state’s rural districts, which depend more on state tax dollars and typically lack private schools, would be the most negatively impacted, according to the report, entitled "The Impact of Diverting Public Money to Private School Vouchers in Kentucky."
The study says that if Kentucky implements a program similar to one in Florida, which has the largest state voucher program in the nation, it would cost $1.19 billion dollars a year. It says even a much smaller voucher program would drain almost $200 million annually from the Kentucky state budget.
The policy report finds that in other states, around 70% of voucher dollars go to students already in private schools.
“We have families in Ballard County who currently opt to attend private schools. They have to drive to those private schools and leave our community to do that," said Ballard County Schools Superintendent Casey Allen, during a conference call with reporters marking the release of the report this week. "But those families already have the means to travel outside our district on a daily basis and pay tuition.”
Funding vouchers for the 58,000 kids now in private schools in Kentucky will likely to come out of our already underfunded public schools,” Bailey said. He added that public schools would lose few students while having to operate with less state funding.
Rhondalyn Randolph heads the Owensboro NAACP and says fewer state dollars for public schools will also impact childcare programs offered by schools and family resource centers.
“We have to be aware of the impact it would have not just educationally, but the essential support services that schools provide," Randolph said.
Supporters of school vouchers in Kentucky say they program will help families have more choices outside traditional public schools and passed a measure this year putting the decision to voters in November.
“I think parents deserve to have choices about where they send their child to school,” said Republican Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer during a forum held last year by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. “I think we need to make it more affordable for low income and middle income families to send their kids to private school if they choose to do so.”
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