Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
A constitutional amendment to allow the Kentucky General Assembly to fund nonpublic schools failed at the ballot box Tuesday.
Amendment 2— which 65% of voters rejected, according to unofficial results—would have opened a path for the Republican-controlled legislature to allow state dollars to flow to nonpublic schools, such as private or charter schools. Leading up to the election, Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, attempted to bolster support for the measure while Democrats led by Gov. Andy Beshear attacked the amendment as a threat to public education.
Opposition to Amendment 2 spanned rural and urban Kentucky, said Will Powers, the policy and public engagement coordinator for the Kentucky Student Voice Team, which toured the state by bus rallying opposition.
“I think it’s a ubiquitous message. Everyone resonates with it,” Powers said Tuesday night during a Protect Ours Schools PAC watch party in Louisville. “Every community has a public school, not every community has a private school. And I think we’re seeing the ramifications of that one true fact.”
Jason Bailey, the executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said he was not surprised Amendment 2 failed.
“The opposition Amendment 2 was bipartisan,” Bailey said. “It was really defeated by a huge margin in many rural counties that also voted for Donald Trump. So Kentuckians are smart. They were discerning, and they they saw this for what it was. It was a scam funded by outside billionaires to shift dollars away from public schools and to fund private school vouchers. And Kentuckians, by it looks like a very wide margin, said no.”
KyPolicy, a progressive think tank, opposed the measure and released a study earlier this year that showed how similar systems to fund private schools in other states could harm the state’s public schools if they were replicated in Kentucky. Bailey said the defeat of the amendment would be “an end to this debate” and politicians should focus on further investments in existing public schools.
In a statement reacting to the defeat of Amendment 2, Kentucky Students First, one of the leading PACs supporting the amendment, said its members and volunteers “fought hard to change the status quo protected by Kentucky’s education special interests.”
“Though the results may not have been in our favor, this campaign has been a powerful force for standing up to the Kentucky education bureaucracy,” Kentucky Students First said. “Perpetuating the low performance of Kentucky’s education system is a disservice to our children and our Commonwealth. Kentucky students deserve better, and our resolve to serve students over systems remains unchanged.”
Outgoing Senate Republican Floor Leader Damon Thayer, of Georgetown, called the Amendment 2 defeat “disappointing, but not surprising.” He said in a phone interview that opponents of the amendment “confused” voters and added that “it’s hard to get people to understand a constitutional question when the opposition completely misleads the issue.”
“Also, I wish the Republican Party of Kentucky had been more engaged in defending the issue,” Thayer said.
He continued, saying that the Kentucky Democratic Party was engaged in getting voters to oppose the amendment. KDP held numerous press conferences around the state led by Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and Democratic candidates often vocalized their opposition to the amendment while campaigning themselves.
“The RPK did not ever really engage despite the fact that it was a priority bill of our legislative supermajority,” Thayer said. “But it’s hard to change the constitution. That’s the way it is. And it’s the one disappointment on what appears to be a really good night.”
Beshear, one of the leading politicans against the amendment, said in a statement that lawmakers should “recognize the will of the people and get serious about ensuring that every Kentucky child gets a world-class public education.” Beshear said that includes better funding public schools, raising teacher pay and establishing a universal Pre-K program in Kentucky.
“Kentucky voters have once again definitively stated that public dollars belong only in public schools,” Beshear said.
A lot of money has been spent trying to sway voters on Amendment 2, with both sides reporting raising about $8 million each, according to the final pre-election finance reports. Beshear and Paul both took to airwaves in ads sponsored by political action committees. Most of the $16 million came from outside Kentucky, with much of it from “dark money” groups which structure themselves in a way that lets them keep their donors’ names private.
Days before the election, Paul heralded Amendment 2, saying it would allow “the legislature to do what they’re supposed to do — debate how best we should get education for our kids.” Beshear decried the amendment as “a blank check to Frankfort politicians.”
Amendment 2 would have suspended seven sections of the state Constitution to allow public money to flow to nonpublic schools. The legislation for the amendment was a priority for Republican lawmakers earlier this year and an attempt to overcome constitutional hurdles cited by Kentucky courts striking down earlier charter school and private school tax credit laws.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.