LEXINGTON, Ky.—Kentucky’s teachers, armed with a coalition assembled by the Kentucky Education Association (KEA) and rhetorical assists from AFT President Randi Weingarten and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, are mounting a powerful campaign to defeat a right-wing state constitutional amendment to legalize taxpayer-paid vouchers for parents of private school kids.
The KEA, the state’s dominant teachers’ union has poured both dollars and people into the drive, funding the fight against pro-voucher Constitutional Amendment 2. According to Ballotpedia, amendment foes have spent $2.79 million to defeat it, with the National Education Association, KEA’s parent union, contributing $2.42 million of that.
A recent story from Kentucky Public Radio indicates the spending figures on both sides may be higher, even though amendment foes had outspent its friends by a million dollars.
But more importantly, voucher friends are tied into the dominant Republican Party and especially its presidential nominee, convicted felon Donald Trump. He’s handily won Kentucky twice and will again.
The state GOP enjoys a supermajority in the legislature and holds all statewide offices, except the governorship. And besides Trump, vouchers get the endorsement of right-wing Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and financial backing from shadowy right-wing campaign finance committees which don’t have to disclose their backers, the public radio report said.
Weingarten did her part with a stirring anti-voucher speech in Lexington in mid-October on the harm vouchers would do by defunding Kentucky public schools, which educate 90% of students in the Bluegrass State and all students—because there are no private schools—in rural counties.
Her speech was part of Weingarten’s coast-to-coast election bus tour from now through Election Day, pushing for an end to attacks on public education.
The union tour began after Labor Day, on the West Coast, with stops mostly, but not always, in swing states. Kentucky is one of the exceptions. It’s deep-red.
“Vouchers defund public schools. They defund sports in public schools. They defund clubs in public schools. They increase school size and they increase class size,” said Weingarten, a New York City high school civics teacher on leave.
“They defund career education and they defund technical education,” both important in a state 41st nationally in teacher pay and even lower than that in starting teacher pay. And in a subject dear to Weingarten, she said vouchers to private school parents “defund social studies” in public schools.
Parents of rich kids use them
“And who uses the vouchers?” should voters approve them in November? Parents of rich kids who can already afford private school tuition, Weingarten said. Most are in the suburbs of Louisville and Lexington, added Beshear, who followed the AFT chief to the podium in a Lexington Baptist church’s social hall. And tests show private school kids do no better than public school kids, both said.
Those private school kids “do worse, because there’s no accountability” for the quality of their teachers or the size of their classes, or the aid some students with special needs—such as the poor and the differently abled—require, she said.
Beshear, a descendant of three generations of public school teachers, plus his kids in public schools, stated vouchers would divert public tax dollars from rural, mostly poor Eastern Kentucky schools.
Even so, about a third of voucher-paid private school kids in other states, having done no better than if they were in public schools, drop out, or are pushed out within three years, another speaker, an academic writer on voucher programs’ effectiveness, said.
Putting on her civics teacher’s hat, Weingarten said “Kentucky understands from its founders the importance of public education. That’s why they wrote such strong public-school language into the state constitution.”
The pro-voucher constitutional amendment would weaken that, according to both Weingarten and an analysis in the state’s largest and sole statewide newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal. The key word in Amendment 2 is “notwithstanding” the constitutional language, funds may be diverted from public schools to other programs and projects, not just vouchers.
KEA says that broad language means lawmakers in the state capital of Frankfort—the GOP state legislative majority—could redirect taxpayers’ public school money just about anywhere else.
That’s significant: NEA data, compiled yearly, show Kentucky pays for 47% of all public school expenses. Local property taxes account for another third and federal aid provides the rest.
A harbinger of the right-wingers’ aim came in the legislature. The GOP put Amendment 2, including the “notwithstanding” language, on the ballot, 65-12 in the House and 26-8 in the Senate. All the votes were on strict party lines: All Republicans for, all Democrats against.
“They’re trying to change the constitution. Why?” asked Beshear rhetorically. “So they can pass vouchers,” and tax credits for tuition private school parents pay and to fund private for-profit charter schools, too. State judges bounced both schemes in prior years, citing the Constitution.
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