“There is a great demand, I would say this, for support for private education, not just faith-based education, but for private education in general,” said Ed Choice Kentucky President Maurice “Mo” Lundrigen. “And there is a crying need for parents and grandparents who want access to something other than what the state assigns by zip code.”
Lundrigen spoke at an event at the Burlington branch of Boone County Public Library Thursday night where he and other supporters of Kentucky Constitutional Amendment 2 discussed the amendment and private education generally.
Put on by a local home-schooling group, the event was recorded and live streamed, although only two people attended the event in person. The event served as a venue for Amendment 2 supporters to make their case for changing the Kentucky Constitution.
Ed Choice Kentucky is a nonprofit that advocates for various educational reforms, including Amendment 2. Lundrigen is former private school administrator. Although the organization’s name resembles Ed Choice, a national group founded by Milton and Rose Friedman in 1996 that pushes for similar reforms, the two organizations are not officially affiliated.
Laurie Muse, founder of World of Wonder, a micro-school in Union, spoke about the amendment’s potential benefit for homeschooling parents, as well as reasons to support home schooling generally.
“Why homeschool your children?” Muse asked rhetorically. “I personally wanted to make sure that my children had a solid foundation in math and reading and to catch any areas that they might need. I wanted to provide a spiritual foundation for them, letting them develop faith and morality outside the societal pressures to conform.”
The ballot question asks voters if “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.”
The sections mentioned in the latter parts of the ballot question currently place limitations and mandates on the General Assembly’s ability to move money away from public schools. For instance, section 186 states that all accrued school funds shall only go to the maintenance of public schools, while section 189 effectively prevents public funds or taxes from being appropriated to, used by, or in aid of any church, sectarian or denominational school.
The ‘notwithstanding’ clause serves as a way of preempting a legal challenge down the road, effectively circumventing the sections of the Constitution that prevent the funding of private and parochial institutions. If passed, the amendment eliminates these funding boundaries, giving the Republican supermajority in Kentucky’s General Assembly the power to change the law in future legislative sessions. It does not automatically create or enable a voucher program or fund charter schools. While changing the constitutional language won’t directly lead to any tangible change this year, it would set up the legal environment to do so in the future.
Amendment 2 has proven to be one of the most contentious issues in this election cycle. The governor and lieutenant governor have both come out against the amendment, and several public school superintendents in Northern Kentucky have publicly decried the amendment and the potential legislative changes that may arise from it.
The Diocese of Covington, on the other hand, has come out in favor of the amendment and has even sent home materials furnished by Ed Choice Kentucky to its congregants. Elizabeth Ruehlman, the director of development for Catholic Schools of the Diocese of Covington, sits on Ed Choice Kentucky’s Board of Directors.
Both Muse and Lundrigen have children with learning disabilities, and they expressed frustration with the difficulties of finding adequate interventions for their kids in public school settings. As such, they made the case that reforming the state’s funding mechanisms would free up resources for parents to secure specialized instruction outside of the public school system.
Lundridgen also pointed to lower than average ACT scores across Kentucky as a reason for why there should be reform.
“This is not degrading in any way a teacher, in no way,” Lundrigen said. “Teachers have hard jobs; I get it. But when teachers have hard jobs that they’re absolutely handicapped in order to be able to do what they need best, and the parents want out, parents need a choice.”
Jim Waters, the President of the Bluegrass Institute, a Kentucky-focused member of the State Policy Network, which was founded by Thomas Roe of the Heritage Foundation at the urging of President Ronald Reagan, also spoke at the event.
In addition to advocating for more funding toward private schools, micro-schools, home schooling and charter schools, the speakers generally advocated for more direct parental control over students' education.
"Who chooses whether a student goes to a charter school?" Waters asked. "It's not where they live, it's not their zip code, it's the parent. That is the major difference, whereas in most of the public schools, they're assigned that, or the parents can tell the system what they want, but the system doesn't have to respond to that."
There has been much debate about the educational and financial ramifications of the Amendment 2, and the open-ended language of the ballot question itself makes it difficult to predict what legislative changes may follow if it passes. Still, other states have already instituted various reforms, including vouchers, often in conjunction with legislative changes around school funding.
Educational reformers have already tried and failed to establish alternative funding mechanisms for private education in Kentucky. In 2021, following the passage of House Bill 563, Kentucky experimented with tax-credited donations to organizations providing scholarships to private school students, but the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down the law in 2022 as unconstitutional.
"If this passes, what would be the procedure next?" Muse asked.
"If this amendment passes, then we're back in action, in Frankfort meeting with the legislators, talking about what we believe is the right program for the students of Kentucky," Lundrigen said. "So it doesn't stop with the amendment or with the passing of the amendment."
Check out some of LINK nky's previous reporting on Amendment 2, including a recording of LINK nky's community conversation on the issue, below. You can also read literature and studies from both proponents and detractors of the amendment below.
LINK nky's reporting:
- What would Amendment 2 actually do?
- Lt. Gov. Coleman speaks out against Amendment 2 in Hebron
- NKY superintendents speak out against Amendment 2
- Unpacking the discourse around Amendment 2
- LINK nky/EducateNKY Community Conversation on Amendment 2 recording
Think tank literature:
- “The Impact of Diverting Public Money to Private School Vouchers in Kentucky" from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy
- “Fiscal Effects of School Choice: Doomsday Speculation Versus Reality" from the Bluegrass Institute
- "K-12 in Kentucky: A summary of facts and trends" from the Bluegrass Institute
- "Amendment 2 Proponents Misrepresent Education Spending to Tell False Tale About Kentucky Public Schools" from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy