Several people have approached me regarding this proposed amendment to the Kentucky Constitution. Since I am the principal of a private Christian School, I assume they felt I was a reliable resource. I recently attended the Tennessee Association of Christian Schools Teachers Conference. At that conference I attended a session on School Choice. Prior to this session, I was unsure as to how I would vote. With the information I gathered at that session, I have since decided to vote yes on Amendment 2.
Let me explain why it took me so long to come to a
decision. Simply, my concern this: where government money goes, government oversite
follows. One of the key things about the
Christian school movement is that the government (whether local, state, or federal)
cannot involve themselves with our curriculum choices. I was concerned if tax dollars were funneled
to a Christian school, that the long arm of government oversite would follow,
and they would begin to add stipulations and requirements to those monies.
Let us take moment and try to understand exactly what this
amendment does. Here is the language of
the amendment, taken straight from the Secretary
of State’s website:
“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 12th grade who are outside the system of common
(public) schools by amending the Constitution of Kentucky as stated below?
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 this Constitution notwithstanding.”
Currently, the state constitution stipulates that public monies
may only be used for public schools.
This amendment would simply change the wording of the constitution to
say that the legislature (the General Assembly) may use public monies to
support the education of students not in the public school system.
This amendment does not take any money away from public
schools. This amendment does not set up school
choice in the commonwealth of Kentucky.
This amendment does not change anything that is currently being done.
This bill simply gives the legislature the authority to
begin investigating, to begin discussing, and at a future point in time craft legislation
that brings school choice to the Commonwealth. At this point, the legislature
cannot even discuss school choice officially.
Twenty-nine states of our Union currently have a form of
school choice, whether it is a voucher program, an Educational Savings Accounts
(ESA for short, think a Health Savings Account, but for educational expenses) or
a tax credit system, these states are making school choice work for them.
I am planning on voting yes on amendment two. I hope it passes, simply because our children
and grandchildren deserve the best opportunities that we can provide them. We need to allow our legislature the
authority to investigate school choice for the commonwealth.
With my yes vote, I am obligating myself to hold the
legislature’s feet to the fire so that they craft the absolute best school choice
legislation that does the following: 1)
Allows parents to chose the method of education that works best for their
children, 2) Maintains the integrity of whichever method of school choice is
implemented (making sure the money is used for education), 3) Protects the religious liberty of private,
religious schools, and 4) Maintains a proper level of funding for our public
school systems.
I want our Kentucky schools, whether private or public, whether
charter or magnet, whether religious or secular to be the best they can be for
our children’s sake. Don’t our children
deserve the best opportunities that we can afford them?
