AMENDMENT 2: A CLOSING ARGUMENT
A Gift Of Hope
In Kentucky, about 10% of our students attend private schools. There are a lot of reasons why parents want to send and do send their children to private schools. While I have no firm knowledge of what all of those reasons are there are a few that are obvious. At the top of that list is the desire of parents to have their children receive a faith based education. Sharing that space is the desire of parents to have their children receive a quality, top shelf education. And right up there at the top is for their children to be educated in a place free of destructive cultural influences.
In the last edition of Larry’s Letters (AMENDMENT 2 AND A FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM) I presented this table:
The purpose of this table is show that money is not the driver of outcome in public education and it does show that. Kentucky’s per pupil spending is not drastically out of line with that of our neighboring states but our outcome is.
I also included these two bullet points from a report published in January 2024 by the The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions published: K-12 in Kentucky: A summary of facts and trends by John Garen PhD.
According to Kentucky’s testing in 2022 (the KSA), over half of students are not proficient on grades 4 and 8 reading and math tests. The 2022 national NAEP test indicates that over two-thirds are not proficient.
For Black students, the 2022 KSA shows that over three-fourths are not proficient on any of these tests. The 2022 NAEP indicates over 85% are not proficient.
These are dismal outcome by any standard. Parents know when their children are receiving a substandard education. Unfortunately, they often cannot afford to send their children to a private school while paying substantial property taxes to support what appears to be a failing system.
There are other factors that suggest why Kentucky schools are under performing. But interest in providing adequate staff and the motivation of parents to ensure that their children attend daily are not among those reasons. This table was compiled from a 2023 National Education Association report, Rankings of the States 2022 and
Estimates of School Statistics 2023.
This table provides some insight into Kentucky’s efforts to provide an adequate number of teachers and the motivation of parents to have their children in school every day. Again, Kentucky is not out of line with our neighbors with respect to these metrics but as shown above our outcome is.
I believe with absolute certainty that there is not a parent in the state who wakes up and says: “I am so happy that little Ricky is getting a substandard education in our Kentucky public schools and I hope that it never changes.”
I have a daughter who teaches in Tennessee. We have discussed this problem and from her perspective the failure of Kentucky schools to perform at a high level is complicated — maybe. There is no doubt in my mind that we have teachers in Kentucky who are just as well educated and motivated as the teachers in number 9 Virginia or number 13 Indiana or number 18 Tennessee. Does that mean that every teacher in those states is extraordinary? Of course not. Just as it is the case with butchers, bakers, and candle stick makers there are teachers who should not be teaching. But they are the exceptions.
My daughter also noted that there are variations in the standardized tests among the states and a spate of cultural problems which include the lack of authority given to teachers and school officials to properly discipline repetitively, disruptive students. Without a doubt that is a problem. Children cannot learn in an environment where disruptive students are allowed to be disruptive every day with no consequence.
Then there is the entire question of how children from economically challenged families cope with the stresses of being in a learning environment when they are more concerned with whether there will food at night and heat in the winter.
Why else do parents want to send their children to private schools?
Faith is also important in Kentucky. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, Kentucky ranks 13th among the states with 39% of our population who attend church regularly, 63% who pray daily, and 75% who “believe in God with absolute certainty.” Many of those parents would love to send their Child to a faith based school but it is out of their financial grasp.
Then there is this. Of the five states in this analysis (KY, TN, VA, OH, and IN) only Kentucky has an active and substantial Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) component in it’s state Depart of Education (KDE). We now have come to understand that DEI is simply a euphemism for Critical Race Theory and LGBTQ+ philosophy. In a state in which 75% of the population believes in God with “absolute certainty” LGBTQ+ philosophy is not going to be an acceptable part of any public school’s curriculum. But yet its presence in our schools is well established largely because of the efforts of the Kentucky Depart of Education.
Here is an excerpt from the introduction to the KED published Equity Dashboard Guidance Document . Before we look at this “guidance” a bit closer we need to understand that “equity” means “fairness or justice in the way people are treated”.
This is what Jason E. Glass, Ed.D., Kentucky Commissioner of Education in 2021 wrote about “equity” with respect to Kentucky’s schools at the beginning of that document:
“Equity in education is fundamentally an effort to ensure that all of our students have the supports they need to meet our academic standards and to reach their full potential as students, citizens and human beings. An equity focus in education recognizes that public school students come to us with a variety of backgrounds, needs, supports and experiences, and that we must take those into account when we consider the education of each child.”
In that same document, Thomas Woods-Tucker, Ph.D. the current Deputy Commissioner of Education and KDE Chief Equity Officer wrote this in the introduction:
“…each student comes to the district with unique and valid needs for learning; there are students in often marginalized groups that require our attention and intervention in ways that address specific opportunity gaps; and the ways in which we seek equity for one student improves our ability to sustain equity for all students. Equity provides for students to be seen, and to see themselves and their lived experiences in the learning environment, inclusive of gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity and ability.”
Robbie Fletcher, Ed.D. is the current Commissioner of Education and since the Equity Dashboard Guidance Document and the DEI component are still on the KED website it is reasonable to assume that Dr. Fletcher supports the inclusion of LGBTQ+ philosophy in our classrooms and the overall notion that equity of outcome is more important than equality of opportunity and that equity can only be achieved when teachers are focused on each students “…lived experiences in the learning environment, inclusive of gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity and ability.”
One last thing about the KDE. The Department of Education offers a link to a page in the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office where “Student Complaints” or the KDE states that “concerns” about “the for-profit school industry” can be filed.
However, that page offers no qualification demanding that it is to be used solely for complaints or concerns about the “for-profit school industry”. The language associated with the KDE’s Student Complaint link is at best misleading. Because the Attorney General’s form can be used to file a complaint against ANY school or school employee and it can be filed by anyone from a parent to a student and even an employee.
That the Kentucky Department of Education acts as a free agent and is zealous in its effort to protect is fiefdom was made clear when in violation of Kentucky statute they used public funds to oppose Amendment 2. Where KDE should be developing active and positive relationships with the People of Kentucky they are instead creating an adversarial environment.
So here we are. An election is at hand. It is as others have said and I concur in asserting that this is the most important election of our time. It is an election where we can reassert our demand to be free in thought, association, speech, and free to practice our religion. It is also an election in which we can reassert our primacy over those whom we pay to work for us. And more importantly than who teaches our children is the right of parents to set the terms of how our children will be educated and who gets to decide where that education will occur.
Kentucky public schools are failing to educate our children to the standard which we see our neighbors performing. The reasons are many but some are more obvious than others. Certainly better outcomes, faith based education, and an education free of the forced acceptance of LGBTQ+ philosophy and Critical Race Theory neither of which pass the common sense test, and classrooms where the priority is teaching and learning the things that children will need to learn in order to function as learned and high functioning adults in the future are essential.
Amendment 2 is not a guarantee of excellence but it is a guarantee of hope for a better future for our children.
3Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. 4Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Psalms 127:3-4
Union, Kentucky
28 October 2024