Kentuckian Louis Brandeis famously reminded citizens that the most important political office is that of the voter. Today, Kentucky citizens decided the fate of Kentucky’s system of education. Passionate citizens on both sides of this issue made their case, and voters had the final say.
The failure of Amendment 2 at the polls is an expression of Kentuckians' commitment to the promise of public education as the great equalizer and a public good—one every Kentucky child should have access to and benefit from.
Kentucky legislators rightly took this issue, which has significant future implications for the commonwealth, directly to the voters. Now that the citizens have spoken, it is the responsibility of state and community leaders to ensure the direction forward is one that supports our common goal to continuously improve outcomes in education and quality of life that rival any state in our nation. The Prichard Committee remains committed to supporting them in achieving that shared goal.
Brigitte Blom
President/CEO
The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
Subscribe to our newsletter
Stay up to date with our work.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
On Election Day, Kentucky voters will be asked if they approve amendments to the commonwealth’s Constitution in no less than seven areas. If voters approve Amendment 2, which would allow public tax dollars to be directed to private and parochial schools, the Constitution would no longer provide protections for the separation of church and state, would no longer provide protections for tax payer dollars to be used only for public purposes, and would remove the protection that the General Assembly be prohibited from targeting specific areas of the state with legislation. Passing Amendment 2 will result in significant changes to Kentucky’s long-standing, foundational documents, and have far-reaching, likely negative, implications.
Regarding education specifically, voucher programs, which could be funded under Amendment 2 and are referred to nationally as “school choice,” have consistently failed to demonstrate significant improvements in student test scores. Worse, as states have moved from targeted “school choice” programs to more universal state approaches, outcomes for students have declined. Kentucky cannot afford investment strategies that show not only no positive return – but, in fact, show a negative return.
Further, Kentucky’s public schools operate under uniform accountability standards, ensuring that all students receive measurable, data-backed educational improvements. While public education has a way to go to ensure strong outcomes for all students, private schools offer no accountability for the public dollar – leaving taxpayers in the dark about educational quality and outcomes – and the return for our shared investment.
Should Amendment 2 pass, it poses a significant financial threat to the state and to public education. As seen in other states like Arizona and Florida, voucher programs lead to ballooning state costs and divert crucial funds away from public schools. In Arizona, voucher spending soared by 270% over 11 years, resulting in cuts to critical public services such as water infrastructure and community colleges. It’s important to also note that the overwhelming majority of vouchers – 65-90% – go to families currently sending their children to a private school or planning to do so. What this suggests is that “school choice” is little more than a transfer payment – out of the General Fund - to the wealthiest in our state.
With the current landscape of private schools, Amendment 2 threatens to deepen the rural-urban divide. Over half of the state’s private schools are concentrated in just three counties—Jefferson, Fayette, and Kenton—while many rural areas have no private school options at all. As a result, legislation passed, following a constitutional amendment, could create an unregulated market for privatized education, with little more than a profit motive. Research shows that such schools heavily market to families and then 25% close within five years, with a full 50% closing within 15 years. And since most voucher programs are set up to only cover a portion of tuition, families struggle to pay the balance out-of-pocket and are often left returning to their public school. Again, vouchers often act more like a wealth transfer to high-income families than a way to give more families more choices.
To illustrate the point above, I offer a quick back of the envelope calculation: There are 604,000 Kentucky students in public K-12 and 76,000 in private K-12. The total state spending per pupil for public education is roughly $6,000 a year. If families of 50,000 current private school students (two-thirds) access a voucher in the amount of $6,000, that’s $300 million dollars out of the General Fund - with no change in the delivery of education, no expected improved outcomes as a state, and increased spending by the state that has to come from somewhere – likely a combination of decreased funding for public education and increased taxes down the road.
Amendment 2 presents a false promise of improved education outcomes and instead would prove to erode Kentucky’s commitment to education as a public good – instead, converting education to a private good with winners and losers. Instead of improving outcomes for all students, it risks destabilizing the state’s progress in education, deepening the divide between “haves and have nots”, and placing an unsustainable financial burden on taxpayers.
Amendment 2 is a race to the bottom, brokered by national interests and not the interests of Kentuckians. It’s a race Kentucky should refuse to submit to.
Community Accountability Necessary to Quicken the Pace
A statement from Brigitte Blom, President and CEO
LEXINGTON, Ky -- In the new public school learning results data released today by the Kentucky Department of Education, Kentucky has seen improvement in four of the measures that the Prichard Committee most closely tracks. Compared to 2023, the new data release shows:
A 2% increase in the kindergarten readiness of students entering school last fall
A 1% increase in grade 3 students scoring proficient or above in reading
A 1% increase in grade 8 mathematics proficiency
A 1% increase in the four-year high school graduation rate
There was no progress on two other priority measures:
No increase in grade 3 mathematics proficiency
A 3% decline in grade 8 reading proficiency
Even the measures that have improved remain far from Kentucky’s long-term goals. For example, only 47% of 2024 third-grade students were proficient or above in reading. If we continue improving at a pace of 1% each year, it could take 53 years to get all Kentucky students to the proficient level in that foundational subject.The results released today also confirm the urgency of Kentucky’s work to ensure that students of all backgrounds thrive in our schools:
Even as grade 3 reading proficiency rose overall, it declined for English learners and for students with disabilities and showed no improvement for economically disadvantaged students and Hispanic or Latino students.
Grade 8 math results also rose overall, but showed no improvement for African American, Hispanic or Latino students and English learners. In slightly better news, economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities did see grade 8 mathematics improvement that was a bit stronger than that of their classmates.
The other indicators provide similar evidence that we have not yet moved beyond our historic failures in closing achievement gaps.
The Prichard Committee will be doing further analysis on postsecondary readiness. It is difficult to compare this year’s 81% readiness rate directly to last year’s 79% rate, because this is the first year that readiness includes students who have been successful in work-based learning. While including that data going forward is beneficial, our analysis will need to consider how it affects year-to-year comparisons. We are also concerned to see that the percent of students reaching ACT benchmarks has declined and look forward to studying those patterns in more depth. If graduation rates remain steady or increase while postsecondary readiness measures decrease, that raises questions about how meaningful Kentucky’s high school diplomas are for preparing students for post-graduation life.
In response to today’s new data, the Prichard Committee urges Kentuckians in every community to review the results and develop new local efforts to ensure that our public schools offer all learners the full opportunities and supports they need to flourish. As a starting point, communities can work together on active family and community engagement, expanded and enriched learning times, integrated supports, and collaborative leadership and practices to support high-quality teaching.
The Prichard Committee also urges stronger state-level policy efforts and financial investments in our public schools. The new LETRS (Read to Succeed) program is off to a promising start, and added funding for kindergarten and school transportation are important starting points, but we need to do more as a commonwealth. Kentucky must deepen our efforts on teaching quality, working conditions, and shortages, and we must strengthen state SEEK funding, including meeting full transportation costs. Now is the time to invest appropriately in public education and ensure public dollars are not being diverted from the public schools that educate the vast majority of Kentucky students.
Overall, Kentucky’s future demands renewed and strengthened commitment to public schools that can equip each and every graduate has the durable skills and the depth of knowledge to succeed as adult learners, as workforce participants, and as contributors to our communities. It is every community members’ responsibility to help build a Big, Bold Future for the commonwealth with education at its core. Let’s get to work.
This morning, the Kentucky Department of Education released important Kentucky State Assessment (KSA) results and other indicators that matter for our public schools. As an added way to see some of the major patterns in that data, the Prichard Committee has created a 2023-24 Snapshot approach to statewide elementary school, middle school, and high school data and showing:
The statewide percent of students who scored proficient or distinguished in reading, mathematics, science, social studies, and writing on the 2023 KSA
Results for all students, for students who are and are not identified as English learners, for students with and without identified disabilities, for students with and without economic disadvantage, for students in seven groups by race and ethnicity, and for female and male students
A single page display for elementary school results and for middle school results
A two page display for high school results, with one page for KSA and another for ACT results, graduation rate, and postsecondary readiness rate
Unsurprisingly, the results shows that we have important work ahead to reach 100% proficiency and readiness, and they continue to show differences in how well we are serving students with different backgrounds and needs. For example, here’s a quick look at elementary school reading results, combining grades 3,4, and 5.
If we engage this data with candor and concern, it can strengthen our work to ensure that all Kentucky learners are welcome, respected, and empowered in our public schools.
As communities and as a commonwealth, we need public schools to equip every student in our rising generation to play a full role in Kentucky’s Big Bold Future.
Please do take a look at the new Snapshot data for each level.
