Opinion: Help public schools, do not take from them

Written by Kyle Jones

Without question, public education in Kentucky can be better. Without question, economic inequality enables private schools in Louisville to boast about the millions of dollars in scholarships received by their graduates. Pointing out differences between inherently unequal institutions to justify more inequality is absurd and divisive.

Not one person laboring within Kentucky’s public school system would deny that things can be better. It is self-evident. Belaboring the point to sneak through pernicious legislation designed to undermine those grinding to prepare future citizens of our commonwealth is self-serving, misleading, and destructive. It centers the individual, especially the most privileged ones, over the collective.

Bolstered by millionaires and billionaires that do not live in Kentucky, these private school apologists feel emboldened by and righteous in their simplistic, myopic and immature maxim: “Because personal choice is an American right, parents should choose what school is best for their children.”

Surveys funded by school choice proponents prove as much. In all their polls—polls that ask: Is choice not fundamentally American, especially when one is choosing what is best for their children?—a majority agrees.

But when the polls ask the nuanced, realistic question—”Would you support legislation that takes money away from public schools and gives it to private schools?”—a majority deems school choice abhorrent.

To support this stance, conservatives eagerly flaunt statistics that seemingly confirm their feelings about public school: “They are failing, they are dangerous, and they are liberal.” It is disheartening that Christian nationalists in the Trump era believe all public institutions are blighted. While such a perspective is harmful and unrealistic, what is most egregious and most un-American, most un-Kentuckian about the campaign to pass amendment two, is the undeniable outcome were it to pass. The Kentucky legislature, with lightning speed, will pass legislation to allot public, tax-payer funds for individuals to pursue private, Christian education.

To utilize public monies to fund non-public institutions is dangerous, unfair, and anti-American. That these future recipients of public monies will not be beholden to public accountability, by law, should discount the endeavor before it begins. Essential to American public institutions is a belief, a deep seeded faith in checks and balances. Altering the constitution to silo funding behind the walls of private institutions is–as our Supreme court unanimously ruled, TWICE–illegal. It is literally unconstitutional.

At the mostly Christian private schools sure to receive public funds if this amendment passes, public records are not available, how money is spent is not available, why teachers are hired or fired is not public knowledge. If they choose not to teach that native Americans were forced into reeducation camps, if they choose not to teach “I Have a Dream,” if they choose not to teach stories that reveal the complex-beautiful-contradictory story of America, there is nothing the public can say or do. You, the taxpayer, will fund the mis-education, without say, without representation.

Even more harrowing, if a queer student or black teacher is forced out of or denied access to a school community because of their sexuality, gender, or race, those of us paying taxes in a country committed to protecting civil rights, will be unaware of the overt discrimination. Public money will fund private discrimination.

If Kentucky alters the constitution to enable school vouchers, we will join other regressive state legislatures and populaces in systematically undermining further, the already strapped public institutions designed to uplift ALL children, regardless of race, class, sexuality or creed.

To vote yes is to give in to the harmful, divisive rhetoric. Voting yes on 2 is a vote against the teachers and students in Louisville, the students in the counties and the students in the mountains that love their school, that view their public school as essential to their community. Voting yes on two is giving up on Kentucky communities.

Kentucky is our home. We uphold it together. Where we fall short, we come together and make it better. We do not run. To vote no on Amendment 2 is to stand for the least of these, to stand for the public good, to stand with the underpaid educators giving their life to the mission of public education. Voting no is to stand for all of us, for Kentucky, and for America.