AMENDMENT 2 AND A FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
The Race Card Played; The Race Card Rejected; A Public School System That Has Failed To Educate The Public And Why We Must Pass Amendment 2
There is a growing argument being made by those in opposition to Amendment 2 that if it passes it will promote racial discrimination. That argument has been made by the Commonwealth’s Department of Education and The Boone County Board of Education. The source of that argument appears to be a report by KyPolicy.org which tries to explain that there is inherent bias in the racial composition of Kentucky’s private schools compared to our public schools. But that argument is itself biased. How? Because it creates the impression of bias by presenting a misleading analysis of the facts. It is a slight of hand, a game of Three Card Monty.
Here is how the KyPolicy.org argument goes:
“There are also major disparities in the racial makeup of public and private school students. According to Census data, in Jefferson County 48% of students in public school are white alone in their racial designation (and Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) reports that 37% of their students are white non-Hispanic). However, 79% of students in private school in Jefferson County are white alone.20 For Kentucky as a whole, 78% of students in public schools are white alone compared to 86% of students in private schools.21”
This is tough paragraph to unpack but then a crate of fruit salad often is. Let’s try this: In Jefferson County 48% of school students in public schools are white and and 37% are not. BUT in private schools 79% of the students are white which can only mean that 21% of the students are Non-white. Here’s the first problem — we have no idea how many students there are in each category. The second problem is that we have no idea what the qualifications for attending private schools are. Without knowing those qualifications we have no idea how to approach the question of discrimination.
All that the KyPolicy.org report has shown is that there are more white children in private schools than Non-white children. And that ratio between white and non-white children in Jefferson County bares no relevance to the state as a whole or is adequate proof of discrimination.
The KyPolicy.org report also makes this claims:
“If Amendment 2 passes, it will upend Kentucky’s longstanding constitutional commitment to public education and result in legislation that diminishes public schools across the commonwealth. The amendment will widen the growing divides that are already weakening Kentucky communities and hinder education’s role in fostering the healthy democracy necessary for every Kentuckian to thrive.”
There’s a lot of stuff going on in that paragraph. Let us begin by looking at dollars spent and outcome realized in Kentucky and our neighbors.
In a recent opinion piece published in linknky.com I presented this data that reflects K-12 per pupil spending in Kentucky and our neighboring states all of which have a method for providing financial support for private schools.
*https://www.nea.org/resource-library/educator-pay-and-student-spending-how-does-your-state-rank/teacher-2023. Other sources report that Kentucky’s per pupil expenditure exceeds $17,000 annually.
** https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
In brief, our expenditures per student are not too much different from that of our neighboring states that do have programs for providing public moneys for private education but our academic outcome is horribly far behind them.
The depth of that lag is alarming. In January 2024 the The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions published: K-12 in Kentucky: A summary of facts and trends by John Garen PhD. This is from his Overview:
“This policy point summarizes a host of notable facts and trends in Kentucky K-12 over the past decades, up to the most currently available data. Generally speaking, overall funding has risen dramatically and nearly continuously since 1990, but educational test scores have changed very modestly. Moreover, the gap between Black and White student test scores is large and has risen.”
Garen continues:
“Additionally, as of 2022, at least half of Kentucky students are not proficient in grades 4 and 8 reading and math.”
And then there is this:
“Also, teacher salaries have no longer kept up with inflation, but hiring of non-teaching staff in schools has grown dramatically.”
That sentence is a bit awkward because it contiains two different thoughts. So let’s look at its parts individually. First, “…teacher salaries have no longer kept up with inflation….” It is the Biden-Harris era, no one’s salary is keeping up with inflation. Second, Garner writes: “… but hiring of non-teaching staff in schools has grown dramatically.” Those two parts don’t really go together but I think that what Garner is suggesting is that there would be more money for teachers if it weren’t being spent to higher so many non-teaching staff. However, the question that I am left with is this: How many of you are hiring nonessential administrative staff to run your home in order to compensate for inflation? If those are the kinds of decisions being made by the State Department of Education then the Secretary of Education needs to find new employment.
Here are the more specific findings of the Garen report:
Total K-12 per pupil funding, after adjustment for inflation rose, from $7,793 in 1990 to $17,337 in 2022 – a 122% increase. The increase from 2013 to 2022 was 24%.
Changes from the 1990s to 2022 in statewide average scores for grades 4 and 8 math and reading national (NAEP) tests ranged from a decline of 1.6% to an increase of 8.8%. All four of these test scores declined from 2013 to 2022. (Note: NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, within the Institute of Education Sciences of the United States Department of Education.)
The gap between the average White student and average Black student scores was wider in 2022 than in 1990 for each of these four NAEP tests.
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.
From 1990 to 2020, the number of non-teacher staff grew by 55%, while the number of students in Kentucky grew by 5% and the number of teachers rose by 21%.
What you have just read can be summarized in one word - FAILURE.
As parents, grandparents, and citizens of Kentucky we should be enraged for allowing our children to be so far under educated as to be non-competitive and almost unemployable in the professional arena. The Commonwealth’s Department of Education generated the illegal resolution calling for the people to vote against Amendment 2. They based their opposition in part on their assertion that passing Amendment 2 will widen an existing private school racial and religious divide. I have shown that the racial divide is one of their own making.
It is hard to imagine the chasm between white and non-white student performance on state and national standardized tests can be made any worse than that created by the state’s Department of Education or that it can be widened by removing as many children as possible from the train wreck we call public education in Kentucky. It is that systemic disparity and satisfaction with failure by Kentucky’s teachers unions and our state Department of Education and our county boards of education that is driving parents away from Kentucky’s public school system and into private schools, parochial schools, and home schooling.
To be sure there are pockets of good and excellent performance in our public schools but they must necessarily be few and far between in order to produce the dismal results detailed in the Garen Report.
I have no idea what our General Assembly will do with this data. And it it clear that passing Amendment 2 will not solve this mess. But it is equally clear that the General Assembly must do something to effect a turn around in Kentucky’s system of common schools. It is also clear that one way to improve academic outcome for all students and close the racial divide in outcome is to provide hope for acquiring a better education through Amendment 2 for ALL students. As for the argument that Amendment 2 will lead to increased racial disparity, even the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy as I showed above cannot adequately explain how that has happened or if it even truly exists.
Parents deserve choice. Our children deserve far better than what Kentucky’s system of public schools is offering particularly to our urban Black students. Our public school administrators at all levels deserve to be fired starting with those running the Commonwealth’s Department of Education.
Perhaps if the Board of Education’s DEI program were eliminated they would have more resources to devote to the equal education of ALL Kentucky’s children. Perhaps if all the extra “non-teaching” staff hired between 2008 and 2010 were reduced to 2012 levels then there would be more room for innovation.
Fig. 4(a) from the Garen Report
IF the Jefferson County Teacher’s Association was not allowed to run roughshod over every aspect of Kentucky politics they might have time to discover why our schools are failing and those in Indiana, Tennessee, Virginia, and Ohio are excelling. Perhaps if Governor Beshear was less concerned with winning elections and more concerned about the future of our children he would stop lobbying against Amendment 2 and start demanding that his Secretary of Education get busy fixing this problem. Forthwith.
The People of Kentucky - Democrat, Republican, and Independent deserve to have our hard earned tax dollars spent wisely and effectively. When it comes to public education we are getting neither and our children are suffering because those in charge of their education seem to be more concerned with other things whatever those may be.
We have tried to educate our children to be proficient and prepared as the Anti-Amendment 2 forces have demanded it has been a dismal failure. It is time to try something different. It is time to pass Amendment 2 and to give the General Assembly, the People of Kentucky, and those with experience from around the nation another tool in the search for solutions to a failing public school system and finally offer hope for a brighter future to ALL of Kentucky’s children.
Yes on 2
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” John 10:10-13
Union, Kentucky
18 October 2024