NOTICE: Two of the most important parts of the November 2024 election ballot will likely be on the back side of the ballot. This web page is intended to give you a sneak peek at those two important items.
IMPORTANT: Once again, Amendments 1 and 2 will likely be on the back side of the election ballot.
Click Here to see the wording of School Choice Amendment 2
Click Here to watch this important news story about Charter Schools
Click Here to see the wording of Citizen Voting Amendment 1.
Click Here to read the resolution of the Jessamine County Republican Party supporting Amendment 2
NOTE: It takes a 60% SUPER MAJORITY in BOTH the House and the Senate to pass an amendment to the Kentucky Constitution and that is required just to get the Constitutional Amendment on the ballot.
Once placed on the ballot by a super majority, a Constitutional Amendment must be passed by a MAJORITY of Kentucky voters in the general election. YOU have the final say but please give this very careful thought. The fact that these two amendments were added to the November 2024 ballot should tell you just how important Kentucky lawmakers believe that they are.
By Voting YES on both amendments, you are voting with the super majorities in the Kentucky House and Senate.
Kentucky's Constitution currently has a prohibition against ANY public money (taxpayer's money) being used for schools other than public schools. Kentucky is the ONLY state in the nation which has such a provision. As a result of this prohibition, the public school system has a TOTAL MONOPOLY on public education funds in Kentucky. Monopolies are never good and should be avoided. They result in high costs, poor service and exist to serve themselves and not their customers.
To learn what Kentucky voters know about this issue, I am currently conducting a random telephone survey of voters in Jessamine County. I am calling and speaking to ALL voters (any party) where the voter is shown to have voted in at least one general election in the past 4 general elections.
The survey has a total of 4 questions. The fourth question in the survey is:
4. Are you aware that Kentucky's Constitution PROHIBITS any tax money being given to charter or private schools?
(Y/N)
As of September 5, 2024, 604 voters have answered that question and 61% said they did not know about Kentucky's Constitutional prohibition on school funding.
Public school monopolies are rare and archaic. Kentucky and North Dakota are the ONLY two states that do not provide some public funds for charter and/or private schools. Most states around us realize that competition is the necessary ingredient that forces public school systems to pay attention to the need to improve the job that they are doing. This map says it all.
If you were a parent with young children, and you wanted options other than public school for your children, why would you want to take a job and live in Kentucky when you could get a similar job in another state? If you lived inside Kentucky, would it make you want to leave Kentucky? My youngest daughter and her husband moved to North Carolina where they have put their children in a charter school. That charter school is FULLY FUNDED by the state! The kids are now doing much better than they were in Kentucky's public schools. Can you imagine why they would evern want to move back to Kentucky?
That is an important question for those who like Kentucky's constitutionally enforced pubic school monopoly: Do you not see how this makes Kentucky EXTREMELY uncompetitive when it comes to attracting young workers (ie. taxpayers) to our state? My mother used to use the old phrase, "Cutting your nose off to spite your face." I think that applies to those who want to keep us in this situation.
You need to focus on the facts. Here is the list of states that have charter schools.
Click Here for the Source of Charter School data.
Click Here to view a very eye opening report from John Stossel about Charter Schools. Learn how one charter school in New York has been so successful that the teachers unions want to shut it down.
In 2017 Kentucky passed legislation that permitted the establishment of Charter Schools. Even so, of the 45 states that allow Charter Schools, Kentucky is the only state with ZERO Charter Schools established. Why? The reason is simple, Kentucky does not and cannot provide any funding for charter schools The reason is our archaic Constitutional prohibition on funding for charter and private schools.
Amendment 2, if passed by voters in November, removes this roadblock.
There are 5 states (MT, NE, ND, SD and VT) who have no provision for charter schools, but 4 of those states have some provisions for the funding of private schools. North Dakota, like Kentucky, has no financial provisions for either charter or private schools.
Click Here for the Source of Private School data.
To end this monopoly and remove the roadblock against education alternatives, the legislature has made the change to the Constitution as SIMPLE as possible. Here is what you will see on your ballot:
As simple as this proposed change is, there is already a LOT of disinformation and misunderstanding about what the amendment says and doesn't say. Hopefully this discussion helps make sense of it for you. Hopefully you will join those of us who will VOTE "YES" on this amendment.
For another point of view in support of this effort,
Click Here to read the Family Foundation's "Learning the Facts on Amendment 2" brochure
Before discussing the disinformation let's be candid. If you wish to protect the public school's current monopoly on taxpayer money, and you do NOT want even 10 cents of your tax dollars provided to charter or private schools, you will vote "no" on this measure. That is certainly what the public school teachers unions will be telling you to do and they will be spending a LOT of money in this November election to convince you to vote "no". They love their monopoly, they love their money and they don't want ANY competition. The question is, do they care about what's best for Kentucky's children? Did the teachers unions care about the children during COVID?
Click Here to read an article by the Family Foundation's Jesse Green and David Walls.
It is important that voters know that Kentucky's public schools are under performing, and that our state's children are being left further and further behind when compared to most other states. US News ratings of public schools ranks Kentucky in the bottom half of states.
When confronted by the failures of our public schools, the teachers unions will often blame parents for the problems. When asked for solutions the teachers union always emphasize that they need more money. How does their "solution" fix what they say is the "problem"?
And we keep giving the schools more money. Please consider the following June 25, 2024 article:
Andrew Cooperrider has weighed in on this in his June 26, 2024 podcast. Click Here to listen
Click Here or on the following image to view a very educational report from John Stossel which reveals how teachers unions in New York want to shut down a VERY successful charter school.
Why would anyone want to shut down charter schools that are doing a better job at half the cost? And did you notice that Stossel emphasized this particular charter school is serving children from poorer communities? Does the public school teachers' union care about those poor school children?
Retirement villages are a popular trend in parts of Florida. There are many retired Kentucky school teachers moving there. These are communities that do not allow residents who are younger. Do they build schools and hire teachers? No, of course not. Why would you build schools if there are no children? And why pay school taxes if you can avoid them? Have you looked at your property tax bill to see how much of it goes for school taxes?
In the story of what came first, the horse or the cart, it is clear that children (students) are the horse. The entire point of schools is to educate children. Teachers are hired to serve that purpose. Teachers unions have turned that on its head. Their focus is on teachers and money. As you listen to the fall campaign about school choice, ask yourself which side is speaking up about the education of our children and which side is speaking up about teachers?
Not all Kentucky taxpayers have children in school, but ALL Kentucky taxpayers pay taxes for schools, and we pay a LOT of taxes for schools. Once again, if you own property in a school district you will find that school taxes make up a very large portion of your property tax bill. Why do you pay school taxes if you have no children in public schools?
As a society we believe that the education of future generations is important. We also know that if ONLY the people who use schools have to pay for those schools, then education will be beyond the reach of most because of the high cost per student.
So we all pay taxes for the purpose of educating all children. Are we paying taxes to educate some children or all children? We pay taxes to ensure that ALL children in Kentucky receive an education and are able to do so without cost to the child's parent. Is it fair that only some children receive the benefits of our investment? Unfortunately that is what happens now if a parent chooses to send their child to a school that is not a public school. The minute that child is put in a private school or are home schooled, they lose access to ANY tax money that was taken from you for their childrens' education. Is that fair? And not only do they lose that money, they are still required to pay school taxes. Is that fair?
And why do we care how the education is delivered? If the child receives an education, isn't that what is important? Why have we created a monopoly where ONLY one of many education alternatives gets funded for a child's education when everyone is paying taxes to educate ALL children?
The answer is really quite simple, parents want a better education for their children than what is being delivered by the public school system. And you have to ignore a lot of information and material that says children who receive an education outside the public system do much better than those who get their education from public schools. Click here to read the article from which this information was taken:
But private education is out of reach for most parents and their children. Why? High cost. Even though many private schools charge less than the average cost per student for public schools, the tuition is only affordable for a minority of parents. And children from poor families are stuck with one alternative and that's public schools.
Unfortunately there is NOTHING that our government in Frankfort can do about any of this. Even if they were to raise more tax dollars for private alternatives, the Constitution forbids that any money be given to anything but public schools. Lawmakers are stuck and they are paralyzed. As long as the prohibition exists in the Constitution, the ONLY thing lawmakers are allowed to fund are public schools. And the only way we can fix this problem is to remove the prohibition which is what this amendment will do.
Opposition Takes Many Forms
As noted earlier, those who like the public school monopoly will be voting no. This includes public school employees, their families and friends. It is easy to understand their opposition, they are on the receiving end of the tax dollars that are paid to the public school monopoly. They don't want anything that remotely risks their receipt of those tax dollars. Of course that opposition has nothing to do with parents and getting the best education for their children.
But opposition also comes from those who actually use private education. Many are concerned that if they take public money for the education of their children that it will come with big strings attached. They believe that if they don't take public money, that they can keep the government and the public school system from ruining their private education system which is outperforming the public system. Their fear is real but it is sadly misplaced.
There is nothing that prevents the state government from passing laws and regulating private schools, whether the private system receives public money or it doesn't. In fact in the 2024 state legislative session one bill was proposed to regulate home schooling (HB497). While it did not pass it underlines that nothing stops the government from stepping in and telling private education what it can and cannot do. Those not benefiting from the tax dollars that were raised for the education of their children are kidding themselves if they believe they can keep the government out of what they are doing for their children by not taking and using those education tax dollars.
Some who support private education are planning to vote "no" because they do not believe the Constitutional amendment goes far enough. They argue that there is no guarantee that ANY money will be provided to private education. That is completely true. All this amendment does is remove the roadblock that keeps money going to private alternatives which is currently prohibited. If passed it leaves it to the legislature to determine if ANY funding is provided to private education and how much. The amendment itself provides no funding and it is not intended to.
Monopolies, especially those created and run by government, are NEVER good. They under perform private alternatives and they are money hogs. Competition is good. Competition always leads to better products and services and lower costs. Every taxpayer should support any effort to get most miles out of every tax dollar. We need the best that we can purchase at the lowest reasonable cost. Being forced to purchase services from a monopoly is wrong.
On August 15, 2024, at a regular meeting of the County Committee of the Jessamine County Republican Party, the following resolution was passed unanimously.
Further, the County Committee authorized $2,500 to be made available to advocate support of Amendment 2. The money is being held back until the following lawsuit, joined by the party, has been decided.
Click Here to read about the lawsuit brought against the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (KREF) which issued an advisory opinion that "a county executive committee may not use the funds that it raises ... to support a constitutional amendment."
There is a disturbing trend in some of our nation's largest cities. The trend is to allow non-citizens to vote in city elections and some cities have passed ordinances to allow it. And this is a real problem. Please consider the following March 20, 2024 article:
The biggest logistical problem is that city elections are always held together with state and federal elections. Candidates for city representatives appear on the same ballot as candidates for state and federal representatives. How is the system going to determine whether or not a non-citizen gets a ballot that allows voting for every other candidate in the election? And once a ballot has been wrongly provided, and then submitted, there is no way to track who filled in that ballot or undo the damage.
To address this problem the Kentucky legislature has passed Amendment 1 which will stop non-citizen voting in our elections.
It is hard to understand why ANYONE would vote no on this bill. Having said that, it is hard to imagine why anyone would support the mass migration of un-vetted non-citizens into our country across uncontrolled borders, but clearly there are many people (in particular Democrats) who seem to think that is a good idea. You will notice that some border states, who have tried to stop it, have been told they must stand down because protection and defense of a national border is NOT the duty and responsibility of a state. March 8, 2024 article:
So why do we have to pass this citizen voting amendment at the state level? The reason is because the operation of our elections is left up to each state individually, and the operation of elections is something the Federal government is NOT supposed to be involved in. It's bad enough that the Federal government has seized control of many things not given to it by the U.S. Constitution, and that's why it is important that we keep the Federal government out of the operation of our elections.
Click Here for a map of the 10 election day voting locations in Jessamine County.
Click Here to visit the Jessamine County Clerk website for election instructions.
Click Here for the State Board of Elections website for election instructions.
NOTE: You can send your communications about this page to the site's author and publisher, Robert L (Bob) Barney, barneyrl@compulife.com or call him at (859) 858-9030 (mailing address: 517 Talbott Drive, Wilmore, KY 40390)