The finalists were asked about top education issues and trends in a Jan. 8 online discussion. Here’s some of what they had to say.

Roosevelt Nivens

Nivens has led Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in south Texas since 2021. The district, which has roughly 49,000 students, has been fast-growing, with 15 schools opening during Nivens’ tenure. 

As an educator with 30 years of experience, Nivens serves on the Texas Association of School Administrators. He has received top superintendent awards in recent years from the National Association of State Boards of Education and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. Before his current role, Nivens was a teacher and assistant principal in Dallas. He holds degrees from Liberty University and Texas A&M-Commerce.

When asked about artificial intelligence use in schools, Nivens said AI helps teachers “get back to the human side of teaching.” His district is creating policies so educators can utilize AI tools for administrative tasks like lesson planning. 

“We want to help students use it responsibly,” he added. “It’s our job, so they will know exactly what it is and what they should and should not use it for.”

Family engagement is also a popular topic in Nivens’ district. He said Lamar Consolidated not only hosts parent workshops, but the district organizes events at places like apartment complexes to cater to families at their homes

Heather Perry

It’s been a decade since Perry became superintendent of Gorham School District, which serves 2,800 students in southern Maine. Over the past 30 years, she has worked her way up from educational technician, middle school social studies teacher and building principal.

Perry serves on the executive board of the Maine School Superintendents Association. She’s the first district leader in her state to be named a national finalist for Superintendent of the Year. She received degrees from the University of Southern Maine and the University of Maine.

Perry said her district began highlighting post-graduate options besides college roughly eight years ago. She helped create , a K-12 program that exposes students to career pathways. Kindergartners learn about future career goals, while middle schoolers get hands-on experiences in fields like health care, business and technology through community partnerships. High schoolers venture outside the school building to get a head start on their careers with local businesses.

Perry said she would rather see  juniors and seniors traveling to early college classes, internships, apprenticeships and “doing real-life career experiences” than sitting in school.

The program began with 35 students and now is at capacity, with 140. It has grown from five business partners to 90.

“There used to be a stigma attached to students who attended (career technical education) schools,” Perry said. “That stigma is gone now. Students who want to go to MIT or engineering schools see the value of going into a (career technical education) program. We’ve done a nice job in Gorham.”

Demetrus Liggins

Liggins is superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, the state’s second-largest district with more than 42,000 students. He’s been in the education field for 25 years, serving in roles from a dual-language teacher to building principal. He was previously a superintendent of two Texas school districts.

In 2020, Liggins was recognized as a superintendent to watch by the National School Public Relations Association. He holds degrees from the University of Texas, Stephen F. Austin University and California State University.

Liggin’s tenure at Fayette County Public Schools has also been the focus of scrutiny over finances. In September, two Kentucky lawmakers over what they described as budget inconsistencies and . He was also by his budget director, prompting an by the school board. 

While Liggins hasn’t publicly responded to the investigation, he in November that budget inconsistencies were the result of miscommunication.

When it comes to funding, Liggins said, cuts made by the Trump administration have cost the district at least one federal grant, and extra money for Title I, II and III grants is at risk. He’s turning to state legislators to help fill future funding gaps.

With budget shortfalls a top concern, Liggins said he’s increasing his involvement in his own district’s finances. Administrators used to report on the district budget to his deputy superintendent but now come to him directly. He said he’s also attending conferences with his business office to learn more.

“That understanding is very helpful when you go to speak to legislators about the (funding) formula,” he said. “Background knowledge has been very helpful.”

Sonja Santelises

This is Santelises’ 10th year as chief executive officer of Baltimore City Schools, which serves 77,000 students. She was previously the district’s chief academic officer and has held leadership positions in Boston Public Schools, was a lecturer at Harvard University and served as a vice president at The Education Trust.

Santelises is a Carnegie Foundation board member and chair of the Council of the Great City Schools and has been recognized for her leadership at the and levels. Santelises earned degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University.

Baltimore City Schools has been accused of and during Santelises’ tenure. 

The key to attracting talent and preventing teacher burnout is to have high-quality principals, she said. Teachers in Baltimore City tend to stay if they’re placed in schools where their principal understands how to support them. 

“Making sure we’re keeping salaries and benefits competitive (is important) because teaching is hard work,” she said. “Everybody wants to know they are being recognized.”

Santelises said her district also prevents turnover by allowing teachers to use a career ladder to change their roles so they spend less time in the classroom and more time coaching other staff.

To make his case, Pondiscio relies on the skill level needed to achieve a proficient score or better on National Assessment of Educational Progress, a level that only 30% of tested students reached on 2024’s Grade 8 reading exam. Only 16% of Black students and 19% of Hispanics were proficient or more.

Yet naysayers argue that the NAEP standard is simply set too high and that NAEP’s sobering messages are inaccurate. There is no crisis, according to these naysayers.

So, who is right?

Well, of eighth graders from Kentucky indicates that it’s Pondiscio, not the naysayers, who has the right message about the NAEP proficiency score. And, Kentucky’s data show this holds true not just for NAEP reading, but for NAEP math, as well.

Kentucky offered a unique study opportunity. Starting in 2006, the Bluegrass State began testing all students in several grades with exams developed by the ACT, Inc. These tests include the ACT college entrance exam, which was administered to all 11^th grade public school students, and the EXPLORE test, which was given to all of Kentucky’s public school eighth graders.

Both the ACT and EXPLORE featured something unusual: “Readiness Benchmark” scores which ACT, Inc. developed by comparing its test scores to actual college freshman grades years later. Students reaching the benchmark scores for reading or math had at least a 75% chance to later earn a “C” or better in related college freshman courses.

So, how did the comparisons between Kentucky’s benchmark score performance and the NAEP work out?

 Analysis found close agreement between the NAEP proficiency rates and the share of the same cohorts of students reaching EXPLORE’s readiness benchmarks. ​

For example, in Grade 8 reading, EXPLORE benchmark performance and NAEP proficiency rates for the same cohorts of students never varied by more than four percentage points for testing in 2008-09, 2010-11, 2012-13 or 2014-15.

The same, close agreement was found in the comparison of NAEP grade 8 math proficiency rates to the EXPLORE math benchmark percentages. 

EXPLORE to NAEP results were also examined separately for white, Black and learning-disabled students. Regardless of the student group, the EXPLORE’s readiness benchmark percentages and NAEP’s proficient or above statistics agreed closely.

Doing an analysis with Kentucky’s ACT college entrance results test was a bit more challenging because NAEP doesn’t provide state test data for high school grades. However, it is possible to compare each student cohort’s Grade 8 NAEP performance to that cohort’s ACT benchmark score results posted four years later when they graduated from high school. Data for graduating classes in 2017, 2019 and 2021 uniformly show close agreement for overall average scores, as well as for separate student group scores.

It’s worth noting that all NAEP scores have statistical sampling errors. After those plus and minus errors are considered, the agreements between the NAEP and the EXPLORE and ACT test results look even better.

The bottom line is: Close agreement between NAEP proficiency rates and ACT benchmark score results for Kentucky suggests that NAEP proficiency levels are highly relevant indicators of critical educational performance. ​Those claiming NAEP’s proficiency standard is set too high are incorrect.

That leaves us with the realization that overall performance of public school students in Kentucky and nationwide is very concerning. Many students do not have the reading and math skills needed to navigate modern life. Instead of simply rejecting the troubling results of the latest round of NAEP, education leaders need to double down on building key skills among all students.

Voters might have thought they settled the question of charter schools in Kentucky last year when a “school choice” amendment failed in all 120 counties.

But the state Supreme Court was told Thursday that no change in the state’s 1891 Constitution is necessary to allow charter schools under a law the Republican-controlled legislature approved in 2022.

Kentucky Solicitor General Matthew Kuhn said the charter school law does not violate the constitutional mandate to “provide for an efficient system of common schools” but would instead improve the system’s efficiency by expanding opportunities.

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The charter school law “fits neatly in our tradition of common schools,” said Kuhn on behalf of Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman. “In our common school system, the status quo can never be good enough.”

Lawyers for an education advocacy group and two local school districts contended the charter school law fails several constitutional tests, including a requirement that tax-funded schools be overseen by elected boards accountable to voters.

Attorney Byron Leet, representing the Council for Better Education and the Jefferson County and Dayton Independent school boards, called the law “the latest attempt by the General Assembly to redirect public school money, public funds to schools operating outside the common school system without the approval of Kentucky’s voters as required by the Constitution.”

The attorney general’s office is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd who struck down the charter school law and enjoined its implementation in December 2023.

Shepherd wrote then that the “policy goals of the legislation are not at issue in this case” but that there “is no way to stretch the definition of ‘common schools’ so broadly that it would include such privately owned and operated schools that are exempt from the statutes and administrative regulations governing public school education.”

Defending the law, Kuhn said Shepherd in his ruling had misapplied the 1989 Supreme Court opinion in Rose v. Council for Better Education, the landmark ruling that paved the way for the Kentucky Education Reform Act.

He said Shepherd’s ruling “treated Rose effectively as a straight jacket that prevents the legislature from meaningfully changing the common school system. Rose, however, requires the General Assembly to continually strive to improve on the status quo.”

Also arguing in support of the charter school law was attorney Paul Salamanca, representing Gus LaFontaine who is seeking to open a charter school in Madison County under the 2022 law.

‘Outside looking in’

In response to questions from the justices about charter schools being allowed to turn away students when their enrollment limit is reached, Salamanca said “that’s a good problem” because it’s a sign the school is filling a need. “And HB 9 (the charter school law) has a solution. You can start another school and another school. They can keep starting …  if that’s what people want.”

Both Kuhn and Salamanca told the court that 45 states have charter schools, including all the states bordering Kentucky, and praised their performance. They also likened charter schools to magnet schools in Louisville and Lexington that specialize in arts or academic rigor, saying charter schools would focus on serving at-risk youngsters who are not being well served in their current schools.

“Kentucky kids are really on the outside looking in on what has been a resounding success, especially in urban areas,” Kuhn said. “And so I really ask the court not to leave Kentucky kids on the outside looking in for this important educational development.”

Leet disputed the success of charter schools. “Let me just say there is nothing remotely resembling a consensus that charter schools are a wonderful thing. But frankly, I don’t think that’s the issue.” He said the questions before the court hinge on more than a century of legal precedent.

A provision in the law allows school boards in districts with fewer than 7,500 students to veto charter schools. Justice Angela McCormick Bisig questioned whether the provision would create discrepancies in offerings available to students across the state.

Kuhn and Salamanca said charter schools could not be religious and would have to follow numerous regulations including hiring only certified teachers, providing free or reduced-priced meals and following compulsory attendance laws.

Justice Michelle M. Keller in her questions focused on the potential harms from diverting money from existing schools into charter schools that “parents or the public at large who are actually paying the taxes have no control over. … We’re going to be paying the taxes through our property assessment tax we pay now, but we will have zero control over who administers the charter schools,” Keller said, in contrast to elected local boards who now oversee school districts.

‘Million dollar question’

Justice Pamela Goodwine asked what she called the “million dollar question,” noting that since the charter school law was enacted and enjoined, the General Assembly had put on the ballot an amendment giving voters the opportunity to “empower the legislature to use public funds for charter schools.”

“Should that impact our decision, or should we just ignore the nearly two thirds of the voters who do not wish to have taxpayer funds used in this manner?” Goodwine asked.

Salamanca acknowledged that if voters had approved the amendment “we wouldn’t be here today.”

But he contended that charter schools as they would be governed and operated under the Kentucky law meet constitutional muster.

“The referendum asked whether the people of Kentucky supported the idea of the General Assembly appropriating money for schools outside the system of common schools. We are not outside the system of common schools.”

Goodwine drew a flutter of laughter when she said, “So did the legislature not know how to word the amendment on the ballot or were they trying to mislead the voters?”

The Supreme Court held oral arguments at Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts two days this week.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

When children are unnecessarily removed from their homes, experts say the separation puts them at risk of chronic mental and physical ailments. 

With that in mind, four Kentucky libraries are launching programs to keep families together, well resourced and educated, aided with $200,000 in grant money from the national nonprofit . 

Libraries in Jackson, Johnson, Marshall and Spencer counties received around $45,000 each for a variety of programs to help parents meet their children’s needs. 

, the executive director of the Youth Village initiative , said libraries are a “low stigma, high access point of contact for all communities” and make sense for grassroots outreach. 

“They pretty consistently exist in most counties where they can be reached by lots of families, especially those in rural areas, and they’re (places) people trust to get information, to get access to resources,” she said. “They don’t carry the stigma, for example, of going to a child welfare department and asking for resources in a way that might feel very vulnerable.”&�Բ�����; 

Among other things, the libraries are using the grant month to host trainings on growing food in an apartment setting, teaching parents how to deal with challenging behaviors and how to cook basic recipes, and connecting families to other community resources where they can get car seats and other necessities. 

Libraries are also a more “natural” place to host visitations for parents who are working toward reunification, Binkowski said. 

It’s “often not the case” that a child is removed from a home because the parents are outright bad, she said. Most of the time, parents lack the resources to properly feed, clothe or otherwise care for their children, she said. In fact, about 70% of all Child Protective Services allegations are related to neglect and poverty, the Lantern . 

“We see and parents who are struggling with that as a significant driver of entries into foster care — not only in Kentucky, but across the country,” Binkowski said. 

Other preventable issues contribute to removal, she said, like a parent not being able to buy a car seat or access safe child care. 

“Things like that can cause safety issues that have to be resolved for a child to remain safe and stable,” Binkowski said. 

‘Before there’s a problem, let’s fix it.’ 

Tammy Blackwell, an author and the director of the Marshall County Public Library, said libraries working in this space is just “logical.”

“Libraries are already reaching families and just doing a lot of good work giving families a place to be and form bonds,” she said. 

Marshall County’s grant supported a renovation of the to create a more child-friendly space and funded an eight-week program for mothers of young children called Mom’s Night Out. 

During the Mom’s Night Out program, which will start the first week in September, mothers who are referred by Court Appointed Special Advocates will gather weekly and have a meal together. During the meal, representatives from the Marshall County Extension Office and the health department will lead discussions about stress management, home upkeep and how to cook recipes with staples handed out at food distribution centers like rice and beans. 

Because this is grant-funded, it’s not affected by recent program, Blackwell said. Congress recently passed the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which program, among other things. 

The Mom’s Night Out discussions will be in a “very non-judgmental way, and not in a lecturing kind of way, but as a conversation and getting those families very comfortable in that space, very comfortable with library staff, comfortable with community partners who they may need to call on at some point,” Blackwell explained. 

“We’re hoping that they build a bond with each other; other people with similar lived experiences, and to really give them a sense of community and resources in order to help the mothers thrive, so that the children may thrive,” she added. “I love that it’s ‘before, let’s fix it.’” 

The first round of the program will only include mothers — Blackwell hopes between 12 to 15 — who have children of preschool to early elementary school age. Should it be successful and receive funding for a repeat, she’d like to expand it to fathers as well. 

“There’s been some coverage of how many kids in Kentucky are in either foster or kinship care situations,” Blackwell said. “It’s a lot of kids, and that really impacts their ability to be successful in life. And anything that we can do to strengthen those families and give those kids, then we need to at least try. And I think libraries are in a perfect position to really make a difference.”&�Բ�����;

The 2024 Kids Count report, from Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, showed there were in the state from 2021-2023. In that same time period, the number of children leaving foster care and reunited with their families dropped to 32%. Pre-pandemic, from 2016-2018, it was 36%. 

Additionally, in 2024 there were around 55,000 Kentucky children being raised with a relative in a arrangement. 

The Department for Community Based Services came up with the idea to partner with libraries, Binkowski said. Lesa Dennis, the DCBS commissioner, wasn’t available for an interview but said in a statement that “by meeting families where they are, we’re building pathways to stability, resilience and well-being so no family has to face challenges alone.”&�Բ�����;

Removal is ‘traumatizing’ 

Binkowski, who previously worked as Assistant General Counsel for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, said that “a foster care intervention, even if necessary, is traumatizing to everyone involved.” It can damage bonds between parents and their children and upend daily routine and connections, she said. 

“We have a substantial body of evidence that tells us that children do best when they are with their families of origin — when it can be safe,” she said. “We know that connections to biological family, knowing where you came from, feeling like you belong — those are really critical emotional stabilization and safety factors that support children’s growth and development.”&�Բ�����;

Experiencing brokenness in the home, abuse or neglect are Adverse Childhood Experiences, which refers to traumas or stressors in a person’s life before their 18th birthday. They include, but are not limited to, parental divorce, abuse, parental incarceration, substance use issues in the home and more. The more such experiences a person has, the more likely they are to have poor health, lower education and economic hardships. Childhood trauma also . 

“Enough stressors on a child at early ages without protective capacities to keep them from having negative outcomes can literally take years off of their lives,” Binkowski said. “So, while we don’t want children to experience abuse and neglect … we also don’t want them unnecessarily being removed from their home if the issues are not creating those kinds of negative impacts and we can stabilize a family without requiring removal.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

Now, a new analysis, exclusive to The 74, sheds light on why he’s had so much trouble. While it’s common knowledge that in the state House have been standing in his way, homeschool parents opposed to education savings accounts have also been part of the resistance. 

Leslie Finger, a political science professor at the University of North Texas, analyzed roll call votes on 13 private school choice bills that reached the floor of either the state House or the Senate between 2013 and 2023. She found that lawmakers were more likely to vote against private school choice not only if they represented a rural area, but also if they had more homeschoolers in their districts.

“We specifically opted out of this system,” Faith Howe, president of Texans for Homeschool Freedom, said about public schools. While proponents of the voucher plan say it will be optional for families, that doesn’t satisfy Howe. “I don’t think they’re going to have a problem coming back and saying ‘Well we need more regulations on these homeschoolers.’”

Texas voters ousted the Republican holdouts in last year’s primary election after Abbott campaigned against them. He is counting on their replacements to deliver a victory this session. But even if that happens, Finger’s results point to a segment of parents who have been getting louder in recent years as ESAs, which parents can spend on tuition or homeschooling costs, have spread across red states. Many traditional homeschoolers fought for the right to educate their children at home and fear that ESA laws could erode some of those protections — even if they don’t take the funds. 

While voucher advocates dismiss many of the homeschoolers’ concerns, Finger said her findings should serve as a warning.

“The presence of big homeschooling communities could make selling private school choice challenging,” Finger said.

‘Government control’

That was certainly the case in Colorado, one of three states last November where voters defeated school choice ballot measures. 

“Government money comes with government control,” said Carolyn Martin, who monitors state legislation for Christian Home Educators of Colorado. Her group viewed the measure as a potential infringement on parents’ rights to educate their children as they see fit.  

Two issues raised red flags for them. The measure said all children should be able to “access a quality education,” which they interpreted as an opportunity for the government to define quality for homeschoolers. It also gave students, as well as parents, the right to school choice. That could spell trouble if kids and parents aren’t on the same page when it comes to education, Martin said.

“At some point the state would probably have to step in and arbitrate between the parent and the child,” she said. “That is not our worldview.”

Other homeschoolers say ESAs contradict conservative values, such as smaller government and less regulation. Gary Humble, executive director of Tennessee Stands, a Christian organization, called the state’s recently passed voucher bill “wealth redistribution.”

“This is another Tennessee entitlement program,” he said. “It’s expensive. It’s irresponsible.”&�Բ�����;

The state is expected to spend $1 billion on the program over the next five years. While opponents weren’t able to stop the Republicans from passing the law, Humble tells homeschoolers that if they participate, they could be giving up the freedom to educate their children the way they choose.

“All they hear from special interest groups is that they get seven grand and there are no strings attached,” he said. “They’re not policy wonks, so they don’t understand the trap doors that are laid out ahead of them.”&�Բ�����; 

ESA programs often require homeschooling families to reapply for funding every year, to take annual standardized tests and to only buy approved items from specific vendors. Homeschooling families who don’t participate want to ensure such restrictions don’t eventually extend to them. 

But those worries fall under what Jeremy Newman, vice president of policy and engagement for the Texas Homeschool Coalition, calls “free-floating anxiety.”&�Բ�����;

“They’re concerned somebody is going to do something, sometime, but they’re not sure who or when or what,” he said. 

His organization is strongly in favor of passing a voucher bill in Texas, saying that tax-paying homeschoolers should have just as much access to state education funds as parents who send their kids to public school.

He points to on “regulatory creep” from Angela Watson, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an expert on . She found that publicly funded school choice programs, like ESAs, don’t contribute to more government overreach. 

Not ‘a monolith’

But the fact that some homeschoolers are so opposed to them proves a point, Watson said. 

“The mistake that everyone makes when they talk about homeschooling is that they continue to think of it as a monolith,” she said. “Homeschooling is just so varied.”

Nationally, of the nation’s students are homeschooled, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Traditional homeschoolers often chose that path for ideological or religious reasons. 

But many new converts, who left public schools during the pandemic, show support for what former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos calls “” — allowing parents to spend education dollars on any type of schooling they choose. It’s a policy that polled high in a from the National Parents Union, with 71% of parents favoring such a system. 

The split among homeschoolers over ESAs, Watson said, has created some “interesting bedfellows” — conservative parents aligning with liberal teachers unions to oppose school choice ballot measures. That’s what happened, not only in Colorado, but also in , where two-thirds of voters rejected such a proposition last year.  

Howe in Texas has heard the criticism. “We’re being accused of being leftist, Marxist and supporting the teachers unions,” she said. 

Newman, with the Texas coalition, said his group is watching out for homeschoolers’ interests. Leaders maintain a “strong presence” at the state capitol in Austin to ensure legislation doesn’t interfere with homeschoolers’ freedom to choose their own curriculum and teaching methods, he said. 

Homeschooled himself as a child, Newman sympathizes with those who recall when it was to educate children at home and not unusual for child protective services to a family when a neighbor reported children not being in school.

But Howe notes that it was a state regulation in Texas — not legislation — that treated homeschooled students as truant. After a lengthy legal fight, the state that parents who homeschool are essentially small private schools.

In Idaho, it’s the state tax commission that will be writing some of the rules for a new that Gov. Brad Little signed into law last month, despite from the public. The state also has an existing grant program targeted toward lower-income families.

Audra Talley, a board member of Homeschool Idaho, said Republican lawmakers have assured her that as long as they control the legislature and the governor’s office, homeschoolers don’t have to worry about rules encroaching on their parental rights. But that’s what she finds disturbing.

“It’s an admission that the potential exists,” she said. “Now we are relying on a certain party or a certain group of individuals to keep those regulations from coming at some future date.”

‘Don’t want to go back’

She’s not exaggerating that some Democrats would prefer to increase monitoring of families who homeschool.

A , for example, would require families to notify their local school district if they intend to homeschool. Families would have to submit teaching materials and their children’s work if authorities are concerned about their education. Hundreds of at the state capitol against the bill earlier this month.

Under another , Michigan homeschoolers would have to register with the state. Superintendent Michael Rice argues that officials should have a count of students in all types of schooling — public, private, parochial and home. and neglect involving homeschool families led to his proposal for more oversight. 

Homeschoolers opposed to ESAs often point to West Virginia — a Republican-led state — as an example of how lawmakers sometimes forget that not everyone wants the government’s money.

The state passed its Hope Scholarship ESA program in 2021, which requires homeschooled students receiving the scholarship to take annual or have their work reviewed each year by a certified teacher.  The law specifically exempted homeschoolers not in the program from the requirements, but a 2023 bill would have erased what advocates call a “carve out” if they hadn’t stepped in. 

ESA proponents use the same example to say the homeschoolers’ fears were overblown and no harm was done. Colleen Hroncich, a policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, thinks the division among homeschoolers over school choice will fade over time.

“As we get further past the generation of homeschoolers that fought for the right to homeschool, it seems like most homeschoolers support funding programs,” she said. “Hopefully the bigger numbers also help push back on additional regulations down the road.”

The Kentucky Department of Education is predicting a “funding shortfall” of about $40 million in state support for local school districts.

In a weekly letter to colleagues released Tuesday afternoon, Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher wrote that KDE is predicting the shortfall for funding in the 2024-25 academic year, after “a detailed review of preliminary data.”

“KDE is currently tracking an estimated SEEK shortfall of $12 million for funding to public school districts provided in Kentucky statutes,” Fletcher wrote. “KDE estimates an additional shortfall of $28 million for funding to public school districts that is specifically conditioned on the availability of funds.”

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The SEEK formula, or Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, determines the amount of state funding to local school districts. The formula has a base per-pupil funding allocation, along with additional funding for factors like transportation costs or the number of students in a district who qualify for additional resources like special education, free or reduced-price lunch and English language assistance.

Fletcher wrote that a SEEK shortfall previously occurred four times between fiscal years 2010 and 2024.

“Since the 2017 fiscal year, the Commonwealth’s SEEK budget included more funding than was ultimately payable to districts as required by the SEEK formula,” Fletcher said. “During the 2021 fiscal year, there was a $231,000 surplus in SEEK appropriations. During the last fiscal year, there was a $156.3 million surplus in SEEK appropriations.”

To determine estimated costs for each biennial state budget, KDE works with the Kentucky Office of the State Budget Director “to gather data projecting property values, public school enrollments and student special populations” as lawmakers consider the budget, Fletcher wrote.

The state budget director’s office in November that Kentucky’s general fund revenue will decline by $213 million or 1.4% in fiscal year 2025. Some Republican lawmakers have questioned the projections and noted that actual revenues are up a bit through the first five months of this fiscal year.

Fletcher added that KDE is currently working with the state budget director and chairs of the General Assembly’s Appropriations and Revenue committees, Republicans Rep. Jason Petrie and Sen. Chris McDaniel, “to explore funding options that may address this estimated shortfall and minimize impacts to Kentucky’s public schools.”

Lawmakers met earlier this month to begin their 2025 legislative session and will return to Frankfort in February. The House already has approved a reduction in the state income tax rate from 4% to 3.5% and the Senate is expected to quickly follow suit.

“These shortfall numbers are only estimates now and are subject to change in the upcoming weeks as the department completes final SEEK calculations,” Fletcher said. “State law requires KDE to complete final SEEK calculations by March 1 of each year. KDE will provide information to school districts regarding the impact to individual districts as soon as those final calculations are complete. While we know this estimated shortfall is critical to our public schools, it is important to keep in mind that it represents 1.43% of our overall SEEK funding of $2.7 billion.”

The SEEK formula was established by the of 1990, but questions around school funding have been raised recently.

Last week, students on the filed a lawsuit against the state for failing to provide “an adequate and equitable public education.” Among claims in their suit, the students say eroding state financial support for school districts has made the inequality gap even wider than it was before 1990. KSVT’s data came from sources such as KDE, the federal government, and a data analysis from the progressive think tank .

However, Republicans in Frankfort have argued they are funding schools at record-levels. At the earlier this month, Republican House Speaker David Osborne criticized “people that have not provided one single, substantive, creative, thoughtful, intentional policy change to improve education” and said that “asking for more money is not big. Asking for more money is not bold. Asking for more money is just an ask — and it’s not working.”

Kentucky has 171 public school districts.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that SEEK funding shortfalls occurred four times between fiscal years 2010 and 2024. 

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

Mississippians who are dead set on enacting private school vouchers could do like their counterparts in Kentucky and attempt to change the state constitution to allow public funds to be spent on private schools.

The courts have ruled in Kentucky that the state constitution prevents private schools from receiving public funds, commonly known as vouchers. In response to that court ruling, an issue was placed on the ballot to change the Kentucky Constitution and allow private schools to receive public funds.

But voters threw a monkey wrench into the voucher supporters’ plans to bypass the courts. The amendment was overwhelmingly defeated this month, with 65% of Kentuckians voting against the proposal.

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Kentucky, generally speaking, is at least as conservative or more conservative than Mississippi. In unofficial returns, 65% of Kentuckians voted for Republican Donald Trump on Nov. 5 compared to 62% of Mississippians.

In Mississippi, like Kentucky, there has been a hue and cry to enact a widespread voucher program.

Mississippi House Speaker Jason White, R-West, has voiced support for vouchers, though he has conceded he does not believe there are the votes to get such a proposal through the House Republican caucus that claims a two-thirds supermajority.

And, like in Kentucky, there is the question of whether a voucher proposal could withstand legal muster under a plain reading of the Mississippi Constitution.

In Mississippi, like Kentucky, the state constitution appears to explicitly prohibit the spending of public funds on private schools. The Mississippi Constitution states that public funds should not be spent on a school that “is not conducted as a free school.”

The Mississippi Supreme Court has never rendered a specific ruling on the issue. The Legislature did provide $10 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to private schools. That expenditure was challenged and appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court. But in a ruling earlier this year, the state’s high court did not directly address the issue of public funds being spent on private schools. It instead ruled that the group challenging the expenditure did not have standing to file the lawsuit.

In addition, a majority of the court ruled that the case was not directly applicable to the Mississippi Constitution’s language since the money directed to private schools was not state funds but one-time federal funds earmarked for COVID-19 relief efforts.

To clear up the issue in Mississippi, those supporting vouchers could do like their counterparts did in Kentucky and try to change the constitution.

Since Mississippi’s ballot initiative process was struck down in an unrelated Supreme Court ruling, the only way to change the state constitution is to pass a proposal by a two-thirds majority of the Mississippi House and Senate and then by a majority of the those voting in a November general election.

Those touting public funds for private schools point to a poll commissioned by House Speaker White that shows 72% support for “policies that enable parents to take a more active role in deciding the best path for their children’s education.”&�Բ�����;But what does that actually mean? Many have critiqued the phrasing of the question, wondering why the pollster did not ask specifically about spending public funds on private schools.

Regardless, Mississippi voucher supporters have made no attempt to change the constitution. Instead, they argue that for some vague reason the language in the Mississippi Constitution should be ignored.

Nationwide efforts to put vouchers before the voters have not been too successful. In addition to voters in Kentucky rejecting vouchers, so did voters in ruby-red Nebraska and true-blue Colorado in this year’s election.

With those election setbacks, voucher supporters in Mississippi might believe their best bet is to get the courts to ignore the plain reading of the state constitution instead of getting voters to change that language themselves.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

LOUISVILLE — 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, — 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. , 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.

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“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, executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said he was not surprised Amendment 2 failed.

“The opposition to 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 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.

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.

Thayer said 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 voiced their opposition to the amendment while campaigning. “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 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.

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.”

A lot of money has been spent trying to sway voters on Amendment 2, with both sides reporting , 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 , 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 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.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

A third measure in Colorado, appeared headed for defeat. 

Despite the growing popularity of such programs with conservative lawmakers, the results continued the trend of voters, when given the chance, rejecting the idea of allowing public funds to pay for students’ tuition at private schools. 

“These bills are super unpopular, even in rural Trump country,” said Joshua Cowen, a Michigan State University professor and outspoken voucher opponent. 

He was particularly surprised by the results in Kentucky, where voters defeated , 65% to 35% even though former President Donald Trump won the presidential contest there by the same margin. The measure would have allowed state funds to pay for students to attend anything other than a traditional public school. “In an election that seems to be turning on ‘What has the government done for my family?,’ a lot of conservative voters in deep rural parts seem to be asking ‘What would vouchers do for my family?’ ”

In Nebraska, a law, passed last year, that created a private school scholarship program. Support Our Schools Nebraska, a union-backed group, led the campaign to get the referendum on the ballot. In Colorado, a state that would create a right to school choice was failing to reach the 55% threshold to win. Criticized for its vague wording, the initiative could pave the way for voucher legislation in the future. 

Like public school supporters in other states, opponents argue that vouchers drain funding from state budgets and are more likely to serve families who never attended traditional schools. In Colorado, Christian homeschooling families because the initiative also acknowledged the rights of students. They viewed that language as a threat to parental rights.

But school choice advocates say families deserve options outside of the public system. 

“The results from these three states are disappointing and discouraging, especially in light of what other states like Florida have shown school choice can do for students and families over the long haul,” said Ben DeGrow, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, a nonprofit that advocates for private school choice.

“Opponents have once again shown they can unsettle enough voters with rhetoric that ultimately denies students needed educational opportunities.”

Nevertheless, he doesn’t expect the movement to slow down. In addition to Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott and wealthy conservative donors worked hard to elect pro-voucher members to the House, DeGrow said Tennessee and Idaho are also likely states to push for private school choice programs next year. 

While choice initiatives drew significant attention this election year, there were also several other contentious ballot measures affecting education. 

Florida

A measure that would have required school board candidates to state their political party, failed to win 60% of the vote — the required threshold for the measure to pass. Backed by the legislature and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the measure received just 55%, according to unofficial results. 

“Honestly, I thought more people would vote no,” said Sue Woltanski, a school board member in Monroe County, Florida, who has written about the influence of conservative candidates endorsed by DeSantis and Moms for Liberty. “Where I live, people are so tired of the division in the community and seemed to be turned off by the hyper-politicization of school boards in particular.”

But Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, which has focused on culture war issues, like trans students in girls sports and sexually explicit library books, said she didn’t understand why anyone would be opposed to candidates disclosing their political affiliation.

“People want to say, ‘Well, the school board isn’t political,’ but the teachers unions have politicized school board races for years,” she said. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the that teachers unions give go to Democrats. I just think more information is good for voters.”

Massachusetts

Voters approved a proposal, sponsored by the Massachusetts Teachers Association, to relax high school graduation requirements, with a vote of 59% to 51%. Tenth graders would still have to take state exams in English, science and math, but they wouldn’t have to earn a passing score to receive a diploma.

The measure highlighted the debate between opponents of high-stakes testing and those who argue states have lowered the bar for achievement in the aftermath of the pandemic, leaving students less prepared for college. 

“Now watch inequities grow wider,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union and a Massachusetts resident, , noting how voters in towns known for high-performing schools rejected the measure. “May the odds be ever in your favor, kids.”

California

Voters approved a $10 billion bond issue — $8.5 billion of which will go to school districts for new construction and renovation projects. Some districts are also likely to use the funds for teacher housing as a way to ease shortages, but they’ll have to come up with local matching funds in order to receive the money.

Voters rejected the last statewide bond issue in 2020, meaning some schools have gone without , but opponents argued it didn’t make sense to spend billions on upgrades when student enrollment is declining.

The following are remaining results:

• With almost 90% saying yes, Arkansas voters overwhelmingly approved that would allow students attending vocational and technical schools to be eligible for the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery. 

• With a vote of 54%, approved a on firearms and ammunition to take effect April 1, 2025. The tax is expected to raise roughly $39 million a year, with $1 million going toward a school violence prevention program, staff training and facility upgrades to improve safety. Another $3 million would expand access to youth behavioral health programs.

• New Mexico voters approved a to fund upgrades and materials for school libraries, as well as early childhood education centers at both the state school for the blind and the school for the deaf.

• , voters approved a measure to increase from 4% to 5% the cap on investment earnings the state can transfer from the State School Fund to education. Local school councils of parents and educators decide how to use the funds. 

A affecting education funding was dropped from the ballot because it wasn’t published in a state newspaper 60 days before the election. The initiative that would have removed a state constitutional requirement that all revenue from income taxes and intangible property, like capital gains and royalty payments, be spent on education, children and people with disabilities. 

After receiving what she called “numerous” complaints about foster children in Kentucky without supervision by trained staff, state Auditor Allison Ball said Tuesday the Office of the Ombudsman will investigate.

Calling it an “ongoing crisis” that is “years” in the making, Ball said the will investigate the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to get at the root causes.

Terry Brooks, the executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said the problem isn’t new — and solving it won’t be  simple or cheap.

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It involves a “niche population” of high-needs youth who likely need specialized care, he told the Lantern.

“It’s not typically 5-year-old kids who look like they fell off a TV commercial,” Brooks said. “You’re talking about older kids, teenagers, high levels of acuity, probably some special needs, probably with a history of aggressive behavior. I’m painting a portrait of a young person who we definitely need to care for, but we know it’s going to take creativity and resources to be able to do that.”

A spokesperson for the auditor said the office thinks the practice has “been going on for two years and has affected about 300 children, but we’ll know exactly once we dig in.”

The cabinet said in a statement that it has “taken action to address the challenges that come with placing youth with severe mental and behavioral problems or a history of violence or sexual aggression with foster families or facilities.”

“We’ve publicly addressed this many times with lawmakers and have offered more funding to secure additional safe, short-term care options for youth,” a cabinet spokesman said. “When one of these placements are necessary, we work to make sure each youth has a safe place to stay until a placement can be made. We urge those interested in becoming a foster parent to help us meet the needs of all our youth, please visit .”

In 2023, The Courier Journal reported that a was a factor in the state’s decision to house some youth in a Louisville office building. earlier this year that the practice has continued, despite concerns raised by a Louisville judge.

“My office has continued to receive numerous complaints of foster children and teenagers sleeping on cots and air mattresses in office buildings, often not supervised by trained staff,” Ball said in a statement. “I have instructed the Ombudsman’s Office to investigate this issue to uncover the problems associated with this ongoing crisis.”

“The vulnerable children of Kentucky deserve to be placed in nurturing environments where they are provided with the resources, stability, and care they need,” Ball said.

Staff are still trying to confirm how many office buildings are involved, a spokesperson for Ball said, though “we can confirm that this is not exclusively a Jefferson County issue.” 

Sleeping in an office building can compound trauma youth already have experienced, Brooks said. “It certainly is not going to create a positive childhood experience,” he said. “It’s going to create more adversity to kids who have already experienced too much adversity.”

Kentucky ‘can’t do this on the cheap’

Kentucky needs more families to , but it also needs a better system to support children who can’t be placed, Brooks said. Kentucky must “incentivize” — through higher wages and reimbursements — a “willingness to take on tough cases.”.

Lawmakers can look to Tennessee, he said, which has faced and responded by increasing  payments to foster parents and wages to state staff working with higher-needs children.

“They have just owned the fact that,‘if I’m getting paid $15 an hour, I’m probably not going to be volunteering to get bitten, spit on and other issues with tough kids,’” Brooks said.

Another solution Kentucky should consider, Brooks said, would be  to — safe, secure, designated spaces — to temporarily house children who can’t immediately be placed.

“If the General Assembly cares about those kids sleeping in offices as much as (CHFS Secretary Eric Friedlander) and Auditor Ball, then they’ve got to take action,” Brooks said. “And it can’t be rhetorical. It has to be resources. So I don’t know if that is looking at existing resources, I don’t know if that’s taking the big swing (and) reopening the budget, but you can’t do this on the cheap.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

In , voters will decide whether to preserve or overturn 2023 legislation that created a private school scholarship program. Initiatives in and , if approved, could pave the way for lawmakers to create vouchers or education savings accounts in the future.

Despite past defeats, “school choice is continuing to gain support across the country with every demographic,” said Ben DeGrow, a senior policy director at ExcelinEd, which supports the expansion of private school choice. “We’re only likely to see more states add programs by the end of the decade.”

Over the past two years, several GOP governors and lawmakers have been able to push through education savings accounts, which allow families to use state funds for private school tuition, homeschooling or a combination of programs. Nearly 600,000 students in eight states were enrolled in universal ESA programs in 2023-24, according to , a think tank at Georgetown University. In 2022, only Arizona had a universal program that served about . But it’s unclear if that momentum will continue at the polls in the face of opponents who argue such programs hurt public schools.

11 measures in 9 states

The questions on school choice are among 11 education-related initiatives on the ballot in nine states this November. Other measures likely to drive voters to the polls include a union-led Massachusetts proposal to relax high school graduation requirements and a asking whether school board elections should be officially partisan. A few measures would impact school funding, including a that would provide $8.5 billion to modernize outdated K-12 schools.

But with enrollment in district schools continuing to  decline, the questions about public funds for private schools have attracted the most attention. 

While Colorado offers charter schools, there are few school choice options in Nebraska and Kentucky. Votes in favor of choice in those states would “represent a significant step forward for families in terms of educational opportunity,” DeGrow said.

But all three states have large rural areas, where resistance to vouchers has traditionally . In states like Texas, Republican lawmakers from rural communities have been the fiercest opponents. Some worry ESAs would prompt more families to choose homeschooling and private schools, forcing public schools to close or consolidate. Others argue such programs don’t benefit families in rural areas because there aren’t enough private schools. 

The question is “whether rural voters themselves can be convinced to support vouchers,” said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.  

Well-funded conservative organizations, like in Colorado and the in Nebraska, have tried to make the case that voters need to pass school choice to keep up with neighboring states offering more education options for families.

While have mobilized against private school choice, “I expect that the money battle will be lopsidedly pro-voucher,” Welner said. “It will be interesting to see how much of an effect that money has in shifting popular opinion.”

In Kentucky, Amendment 2 wouldn’t automatically result in a school voucher program, but  asks voters if they want public funds to pay for education outside of what the law calls a “system of common schools.”

Until now, Kentucky courts have had the final say over whether the state joins the 29 others with at least one school choice program. In 2022, the said a 2021 law creating tax credits for “education opportunity accounts” violated the state constitution. A yes vote on the ballot measure would give the Republican-dominated legislature a “safe, legal path” to pass a school choice program, DeGrow said. 

Supporters like Republican Rep. Jared Bauman say it’s time for the state to catch up with neighbors like Indiana and Ohio that offer parents some form of school choice. But , including Democratic , warn that a voucher plan could cost the state as much as $1.19 billion if it reached a scale similar to that of Florida’s universal program. 

The “common schools” wording of the constitution has also held up efforts to fund charters. Kentucky has had a since 2022, but in December a state court it unconstitutional. 

In Nebraska, where lawmakers passed a $10 million private school scholarship program last year, Support Our Schools Nebraska, a union-led advocacy group, gathered enough signatures this summer to put a veto referendum on the ballot. 

Like public school supporters in other states, opponents argue that such programs are a drain on state budgets and mostly serve families who already pay for private school instead of the neediest students. But Republican state Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, who sponsored the school choice legislation, that students shouldn’t have to attend schools that are failing or can’t meet their needs.  

Finally, in Colorado, a ballot question asks voters if they support adding language to the state constitution that would guarantee children a right to the full array of school choice options — traditional district schools, charters, private schools, open enrollment and homeschooling. 

Some the measure could invite more government oversight into homeschooling, while Welner predicted it would prompt legal challenges “because it’s so vague and yet touches on so many issues.”&�Բ�����;

Bond issues, graduation requirements 

Beyond debates over school choice, several other ballot measures affect both education policy and funding. Here is a brief rundown:

Arkansas 

Since 2009, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has provided over 720,000 college scholarships, totaling $1.2 billion. But students attending vocational and technical schools haven’t been eligible for the awards. The legislature placed on the ballot that would change that. 

California

Almost 40% of California’s public schools fail to meet basic facility standards, according to a from the Public Policy Institute of California. Students often attend schools with unsafe conditions, like gas leaks, faulty electrical systems or structural damage. asks voters to approve a $10 billion bond issue that would provide $8.5 billion for new construction and renovations at district schools, charters and career and technical centers. Local districts would have to provide matching funds. 

After voters rejected a $15 billion bond in 2020, repair projects have piled up, but in addition to renovating schools, districts would also be able to use the funds for . Teachers often can’t afford to live in high-priced parts of the state, like Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area, which creates recruitment and retention challenges for districts in those metro areas. 

An anti-tax organization, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that  the measure doesn’t make sense at a time when the state is losing enrollment and would likely lead to higher property taxes. 

But Public Advocates, which focuses on the needs of low-income students, is for a different reason. They say the measure should include a sliding scale that allots poorer districts a greater share of the funds. 

Colorado

A proposed on firearms and ammunition would take effect April 1, 2025 and raise roughly $39 million a year. Most of the revenue would fund services for victims of gun violence, but $1 million would go into a school security program for violence prevention in schools as well as staff training and facility upgrades to improve safety. Another $3 million would expand access to youth behavioral health programs. 

Rep. Monica Duran, a Democrat who sponsored legislation to get the measure on the ballot, says the tax doesn’t infringe on gun owners’ Second Amendment rights. But gun lobbyists argue that gun and ammunition purchases are already subject to an 11% federal tax. 

Florida 

School board races have become increasingly partisan, especially since the pandemic, when issues like mask mandates and disputes over curriculum split communities in half. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis further politicized school board races in 2022 when he endorsed a slate of 30 candidates, 25 of whom won that year in the general election.

Amendment 1, which the legislature placed on the ballot last year, would officially change the Florida constitution to end nonpartisan races and require candidates to state their political party. 

Sixty percent of voters would need to approve the measure for it to pass. If they do, the new provision would apply to elections in 2026. Opponents of the idea argue that education issues have grown overly divisive and that partisan races would who aren’t registered party members. Proponents say the requirement would increase transparency. 

One former Polk County school board member thinks there won’t be enough support for the measure to reach the 60% threshold. 

“I think voters here are actually very tired of the school drama,” said Billy Townsend. “While they tend to vote GOP in state offices, [voters] also tend to prefer non-partisan offices locally. I would bet it falls short of 50%.”&�Բ�����;

Massachusetts

Decisions over academic expectations are generally left up to state and local school boards. But in Massachusetts, voters will whether high school students should still have to pass state exams in English, math and science to graduate.

The , the state’s largest teachers union, led the effort to get the referendum on the ballot. The union argues that teachers spend too much class time preparing students for the tests and that the requirement hasn’t achieved the results testing proponents want. Under their alternative, students would have to master state standards to graduate.

Opponents, however, say scrapping the requirement would ultimately hurt students and leave them for college and careers. They’ve launched a $250,000 to convince voters to reject the measure. 

New Mexico

New Mexico voters have a strong track record of for capital improvement projects on education facilities. Since 1995, they’ve approved that have been on the ballot. This year, they’ll vote on a that would fund, among other items, furniture, equipment and materials at school libraries, as well as early childhood education centers at both the state school for the blind and the school for the deaf.

Utah

Utah voters will decide on two school funding measures, both placed on the ballot by the legislature. The asks voters to remove a state constitutional requirement that all revenue from income taxes and intangible property, like capital gains and royalty payments, be spent on education, children and people with disabilities.  If the measure passes, the law would only say that the state must provide a “framework” for funding schools.

The state teachers union was initially neutral on the change, but now opposes it. Lawmakers say revenue is up and this change would make budgeting easier.

The measure asks voters to increase from 4% to 5% the cap on investment earnings the state can transfer from the State School Fund to education. Local of parents and educators decide how to spend the funds for purchases like library books or an extra teaching assistant position. Last year, the state distributed over $100 million from the fund.

A Western Kentucky University student has a confirmed case of measles and may have exposed others, according to the Barren River Health District and the Kentucky Department for Public Health.

The student is unvaccinated against the highly contagious disease, the health departments said.

The student, whose name, gender and other identifying information were not released, recently traveled internationally. This is where they “are presumed to have been exposed to measles.”

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Upon returning, and “while infectious with measles,” the student attended public events on Aug. 28, 29 and 30, the health department said.

People who were at the following locations may have been exposed:

• The Commons at Helm Library (WKU)
  • 1906 College Heights Blvd #11067 in Bowling Green
  • Wednesday Aug. 28, 2024, (7:45 a.m. – 10  am and 8 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.)
  • Thursday Aug. 29, 2024, (7:45 a.m. – 10 a.m.)
  • Friday Aug. 30, 2024, (7:45 a.m. – 10 a.m.)
• WKU student union Starbucks
  • 1906 College Heights Blvd in Bowling Green
  • Wednesday Aug. 28, 2024, 6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
• Simply Ramen restaurant trivia night
  • 801 Campbell Lane in Bowling Green
  • Thursday Aug.  29, 2024, (7 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.)

Measles “spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes,” . It can cause serious complications and death, according to WHO, which reported most deaths from measles in 2022 were in unvaccinated children.

Vaccination is the best defense against measles, WHO says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a first dose of MMR vaccine for children 12–15 months and a second dose between ages 4–6. Teens and adults should also stay up-to-date on this vaccine, , which is generally available at pharmacies.

Symptoms of measles are fever, cough, watery eyes, runny nose and rash.

If you have questions about exposure or your risk, call your healthcare provider or the Barren River District Health Department at 833-551-0953.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected efforts by the Biden administration to temporarily put on hold a federal court’s decision that blocks a central part of new Title IX rules for schools from going into effect.

The by the justices allows a to block the rules to remain in place for now. Reeves had sided with Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and five other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the new Title IX rules, which aim to protect transgender students.

A federal appeals court last month , and that court is hearing an appeal of Reeves’ decision in October.

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“The Court expects that the Courts of Appeals will render their decisions with appropriate dispatch,” the majority of justices wrote.

The order also another federal court decision blocking the new Title IX rules brought separately by the Louisiana attorney general and three other Republican attorneys general.

Coleman in a statement on the order said the Republican attorneys general were defending “equal opportunities for Kentucky’s women and young girls” at the country’s highest court.

“The Biden-Harris Administration is threatening to rip away 50 years of Title IX protections. Together with our colleagues in Tennessee and four other states, we are fighting to uphold the promise of Title IX for generations to come,” Coleman said.

Title IX deals with sex-based discrimination at any school that receives federal funding.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miquel Cardona previously said in a statement the new Title IX rules would have built “on the legacy of Title IX by clarifying that all our nation’s students can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and respect their rights.”

The rules, which would have went into effect Aug. 1, sought to that narrowly defined sexual harassment and directed schools to conduct live hearings, allowing those who were accused of sexual harassment or assault to cross-examine their accusers.

Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia joined Kentucky challenging the administration’s order.

Reeves’ opinion said the states represented in the lawsuit argued that the Title IX rules would “invalidate scores of States’ and schools’ sex-separated sports policies.” The Kentucky General Assembly passed to require athletes in schools to play on teams associated with their biological sex

A sponsor of that law, Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, applauded the U.S. Supreme Court order in a Friday statement, which he said “directly condemns the woke ideology promoted by the U.S. Department of Education and the Biden-Harris administration.” Henderson thanked Coleman for defending the law.

“Wokeism and gender ideology must never trump Kentucky values and the U.S. Constitution,” Mills said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Saturday morning with additional comments. 

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

But the , a music group made up of second- to 12th-graders began in humbler circumstances at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1993, Downs was searching a school closet for bulletin board paper but found a closetful of instruments instead. So, she asked her students if they wanted to do a concert. 

“You know, being second- and third-graders, they’re fearless,” she said. “So they were just, ‘Let’s do this!”

First, they played at a PTA meeting and then at a nursing home. Ms Downs said the invitations to perform kept coming, leading them to play all over Louisville, and then across the country. 

In 2003, the group became a non-profit organization, offering the Leopard experience to more kids beyond King Elementary. Three years later, HBO documented the group’s journey to New York City to open for the Chick Corea Trio in the film The Leopards Take Manhattan. 

But what really skyrocketed the Leopards to stardom was when a YouTube video of them playing Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train went viral.

“Out of the blue, we got a check from Ozzy Osbourne to help support our group,” Downs said. 

A couple years later, they were invited to appear on the reality show Ozzy and Jack’s World Detour. 

“Some of the kids didn’t know who he was, so we had to do a little education, and they know who he is now,” she added.

The group’s cover of Led Zeppelin later also went viral on YouTube. Downs said the views went from 6,000 to 6 million views in a week. The students did interviews with media outlets all over the world. 

While the students don’t really understand the impact that the group had in their lives when they were younger, Downs said, “I have had alumni come back to me and just say, ‘I can’t believe I did that when I was a kid… I can’t believe that happened to me.”

This story mentions suicide.  If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

LOUISVILLE — Anthem Medicaid announced Wednesday it has launched a free digital mental wellness course, which is available to 1,512 students in 17 Kentucky schools.

The announcement comes during and as more adolescents, especially girls, .

Called “,” the interactive program is for students in grades eight to 10. According to EVERFI from Blackbaud, which designed the course, it contains , each 15 minutes long.

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The course, Anthem says, exposes students “to the experiences of others in order to develop awareness and empathy, reduce stigma, and provide facts on the prevalence and symptoms of mental health conditions.”

Students then “explore their own mental health, identify challenges they may face, and develop concrete strategies for managing those challenges while increasing their awareness of resources and empowering them with the knowledge, skills, and language necessary to identify and support a peer in need or at risk.”

show a tour of mental health through the program, starting with a lesson on what mental health is and ending with the chance to create a personal wellness plan.

Since the onset of COVID-19, In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that sadness and hopelessness had increased from pre-pandemic levels, especially for teen girls. In 2017, 41% of female high school students and 21% of male high school students felt sad or hopeless. By 2021,, respectively.

“Young people need resources and education from trusted sources to protect their mental health,” Leon Lamoreaux, market president for Anthem Medicaid, said in a statement.

The Understanding Mental Wellness program “will help us reach students from all over the Commonwealth and equip them with tools and strategies that will make a positive difference in their lives for years to come,” Lamoreaux said.

Tom Davidson, the CEO of EVERFI, said the goal in creating this program was to “(benefit) those who are impacted by mental health challenges, those who want to build and maintain positive mental health and those who have the opportunity to positively .”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

More than 250 Kentucky child care providers responsible for 150,000 children across the state sent lawmakers a letter Tuesday pleading for more support, saying in the state budget “is not enough” as their industry is “.”&�Բ�����;

The letter asks lawmakers to pass a supplemental lifeline funding bill in the final days of the 2024 legislative session Friday and Monday.

Such support, the providers said, should “at a minimum:” 

Provide routine, direct sustainability payments to child care providers to help keep doors open, stem tuition hikes and prevent wage cuts. Maintain Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) eligibility at 85% of state median income to prevent thousands of parents from losing access to this aid, which could result in many dropping out of the workforce and withdrawing kids from child care. The current version of the budget hold eligibility at. Provide enrollment-based CCAP reimbursements to providers. 

“Without these crucial supports, there is no chance of survival for many of our child care centers and home-based care providers,” the letter states. “Families will be left with even fewer options that are more expensive, quality will suffer, and many will decide it is better to leave the workforce.”&�Բ�����;

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some would like to — is about to lose the federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close,

The budget that the legislature passed  includes $42 million in new spending on child care in 2025 and $50 million in 2026. That includes $1.3 million a year to cover the cost of background checks for potential employees and  $1.5 million a year to add a six-month adjustment period for families who are no longer eligible for CCAP.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy previously estimated that $300 million is needed to replace the federal aid that’s ending. The state Department for Community Based Services says the need is closer to $100 million.

In its  of the legislature’s budget, the center says: “While all of the policies the budget funds are necessary to support   and the  ,   in light of the coming fiscal cliff, particularly with the loss of quarterly stipends to child care providers previously funded with federal dollars.”

The largest legislative proposal for child care this year, . Its sponsor cited its $300 million price tag as the main reason behind the demise. 

Lawmakers return to Frankfort on Friday and Monday for the last two days of the 2024 session, during which they could pass additional legislation. But they must send Gov. Andy Beshear veto-proof bills at that point, since they will no longer have the ability to override him. 

“An investment in child care is an investment in the commonwealth’s present and future,” the child care letter states. “The Kentucky General Assembly should step up and make that investment now, before you gavel out on April 15. We cannot hold on until the next budget.”&�Բ�����;

Letter to lawmakers from child care providers

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

Through it all, we believe this post-COVID, tech-accelerated world needs a pragmatic approach to accountability, one that measures conventional academic attainment and adds critical social-emotional and career skills to the mix. Most importantly, this approach must honor the unique strengths and opportunities each community faces and ensure all its voices are heard, including students, families, teachers, administrators, and business and local leaders.

We call this approach Accountability Plus. 

Over the last three years, our organization, , has partnered with over 150 schools and districts across the United States to rethink what success means for their students. We help each district and its community — the school board, business leaders, families, staff and students — generate a unique vision for success and systems for tracking, celebrating and communicating what students have achieved.

These locally defined accountability models expand the definition of success to emphasize real-world skills like problem solving, collaboration and communication, as well as whole-child outcomes like physical, mental,and emotional well-being, while maintaining an emphasis on growth in math, reading and other academic subjects. School systems then track student progress through like performance tasks and portfolios, not just standardized tests.

Logan County Schools in Kentucky is a great example of what is possible when both state and district policies are oriented to the whole child and measure what matters. As a member of the the district has been designing and testing a local accountability model that focuses on measuring four “” — student performance, growth, readiness and well-being — through state testing, classroom observation and school climate survey data.

This model doesn’t ignore standardized test scores, but uses them as one of multiple measures. It is powerful to see communities determine what matters most and hold themselves accountable to getting there using a process that tells a more complete story.

Another example involves the Hawai’i State Public Charter School Commission. Learner-Centered Collaborative and several other consulting organizations have been engaged with a network of Hawai’ian-focused charter schools created to integrate Hawai’ian culture, language and identity.

Our engagement with these schools began with a review of their vision, mission and values to ensure clarity of purpose. From there, we helped them develop one-page that are specific to each school. Each provides a high-level overview of desired success metrics (e.g. 70% of students participate in school-provide leadership opportunities) as well as where the data will be sourced from (e.g. student surveys) and how well the school is is attaining specific outcomes (e.g. 55% of students participated in first semester).

In Hawai’i, the metrics also include a strong cultural identity,  social-emotional skills such as collaboration and adaptability, and academic measures like reading and math.

We are now creating dashboards to help educators visualize their schools’ results and brainstorm ways to improve them. 

The key is that they are not seeing tests as the sole focus of their efforts. Instead, they are emphasizing ongoing assessment and continuous improvement based on the data collected through their expanded set of metrics. This is a model that can be adapted for any community.

We and our partners are not the only ones answering the call for a pragmatic approach to accountability. Action is being taken in communities across the country where there is a clear dissatisfaction with the industrial-era model of education and its legacy accountability system. 

Getting started takes only belief in two things: that every school has the ability to listen to students and the broader community, and that it can redefine success and establish shared goals for accountability around metrics that matter.

In a recent letter, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona invited states to apply for funding for innovative, flexible accountability models. Conditions are ripe for educators, policymakers and stakeholders to collaboratively define what matters most and to develop holistic models that incorporate multiple measures of success. These honor and celebrate the many ways in which people are smart, rather than just ranking and sorting them based on narrow measures. 

It is incumbent upon everyone who has a stake in the education of young people to create new accountability models that serve the unique needs of every child. Redefining success and creating meaningful accountability frameworks can ensure that all learners know themselves, thrive in their communities and actively engage in the world as their best selves.

Long awaited financial help will be coming to “” Kentuckians who are raising a minor relative such as a grandchild or niece, thanks to a bill that received unanimous approval in the House Friday.

now heads to Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk for a signature or veto. It passed .

, president of the , hailed the bill’s passage as a “game changer for a lot of families in the future.”

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The bill allows kinship caregivers to change their placement status from temporary custody to a child-specific foster home, a change that will come with financial assistance, as the .

It will also let children being removed from homes list their potential preferred caregivers, allowing them more say in their placements.

Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield, brought the Senate bill to the House floor. The bill, she said, is all about giving kinship care families in Kentucky more flexibility.

“This flexibility will close the services, supports and resource gap that is currently plaguing many of the families,” she said.

, who has been raising two grandchildren for nearly a decade, is a longtime champion of kinship families and renewed her push for help from the legislature this year. She told the Lantern on Friday that the bill’s passage was “hugely emotional.” She said she cried in the House gallery  as the bill was approved.

The fact that both chambers passed the measure unanimously “says very clearly this needed to happen,” she said. “And it’s the right thing to do. I mean, there’s just absolutely no doubt anywhere.”

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said  final passage of HB 151 means “thousands of Kentucky’s kinship and fictive kin families flat out won today.”

“Just as these caregivers step up at a moment’s notice to provide a safe space for their young loved ones to grow and heal, our General Assembly has stepped up once again to prioritize the well-being of these children who have experienced abuse or neglect,” Brooks said.

Still, work remains, Hatfield said. She’s closely watching a that, if passed, would establish a . Members would study kinship in Kentucky and submit findings by Dec. 1, which Hatfield said could provide needed data revealing needs facing kinship caregivers.

“I’m hoping that the study will clearly identify those things, educate the legislators as well, educate the public, and then we can start working on the rest of the supports that are needed for these families that are kind of caught in a gap that don’t have anything,” she said. “I have high hopes for that.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

FRANKFORT — A Republican senator wants to ensure that students become proficient in cursive handwriting in Kentucky’s public elementary schools.

Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, of Smithfield, presented , which would require cursive writing to be taught “as a course of study” in elementary schools, to the House Education Committee Tuesday. The Senate has already passed the bill.

Tichenor said she filed it as a response to the handwriting style not being part of , which began in 2010 as a way to bring cohesion to the way states taught English and math.  More than 20 states, including , have adopted directives to require teaching cursive writing.

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Kentucky’s standards for elementary education already include instruction in cursive and print handwriting.

Under the cursive writing is taught to second- and third-graders, and print letters to kindergarteners and first graders.

State law gives school superintendents authority over instructional resources and assessments for meeting goals. School councils are also required to adopt a program consistent with policies from their local boards of education. Principals are required to ensure the implementation of the program in school curriculum.

Tichenor’s bill says that beginning in the 2025-26 school year, “cursive writing shall be included as a course of study in all elementary schools and shall be designed to ensure proficiency in cursive writing by the end of grade five.”

Tichenor said that learning cursive can improve literacy skills. A found that writing in cursive activates different electrical activity in the brain for students compared to when they type.

“Every grandma out there who sends a birthday card is going to be so happy that their grandkids can read their birthday cards,” Tichenor said.

While Tichenor received a lot of positive feedback, some representatives raised concerns about implementing the requirement in schools.

Rep. Lisa Willner, D-Louisville, said that she was often contacted as a former school board member about requests to teach cursive. She did raise concerns about the requirement becoming another burden for teachers, especially those who might not feel comfortable teaching the material and as Kentucky faces a shortage of teachers in classrooms.

McKee Republican Rep. Timmy Truett, a school principal, said he sees education trending toward technology over written assignments. He gave an example of a statewide writing test that is now submitted on a computer.

“I almost think that typing in the world we live (in) would be more important than the cursive writing,” Truett said.

Tichenor responded that cursive writing encourages students to use motor skills. She also said she has not had a lot of teachers reach out to her with Willner’s concerns.

Both Willner and Truett ultimately voted for the bill. The House Education Committee forwarded the bill to the full House with 15 yes votes, one no and a pass vote.

Tichenor’s legislation must now be approved by  the House before it can be considered by Gov. Andy Beshear for signature.

A spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Education said it does not have a comment on the legislation at this time.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

Courtney Rhoades Mullins faces a difficult predicament: the Eastern Kentucky woman is expecting twins in May but doesn’t know if she can find child care for them any time soon.

One location, she said, might have openings in April of 2025. Another could take the twins — when they are 3 years old.

That “leaves the question of what do you do until they’re 3?” Rhoades Mullins said Wednesday. “We’re looking at possibly a year to three years before having any type of child care or day care available to them.”

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She joined other parents on a call with media organized by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, which has released a new survey of 1,357 parents from 88 counties revealing the challenges facing Kentucky families who need child care.

The :

• Among private-pay families who do not participate in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), 30% spend $100 to $200 per week on child care; 30% are spending $200 to $300 per week; 28% are spending $400 or more per week for child care.
• 67% of parents had reduced non-essential spending in favor of affording child care.
• 54% of parents have delayed major purchases to afford child care.
• 34% of parents reduced essential spending to afford child care.
• 32% of parents used emergency savings to afford child care.
• 24% of those surveyed delayed their health care needs in favor of child care.
• 20% of those surveyed delayed having children because of the price of child care. And.

Kentucky’s child care industry — which some are working to — is counting on a financial boost from the 2024 legislative session as federal COVID-19 dollars that helped stabilize the industry during the last few years are running out. This leaves many centers to cut pay for their workers, raise tuition for parents, cut services and even close.

Without help from the General Assembly, Industry experts have said neither the nor t proposals adequately address the problem, .

Without adequate child care, families and contribute to the overall economy. Wednesday’s revealed 12% of parents who responded had already quit work to stay home.

Situation is ‘not fair’

For Rhoades Mullins, being forced to stay home is “not fair” but “it’s also not an option for my family.”

Her husband is a public school teacher, she said, and she works for a Letcher County nonprofit, which currently provides her family’s medical insurance.

“The loss of an income would not be able to be sustained in our household,” she said.  “We really are having to have difficult conversations and make difficult choices  as we try to … celebrate the opportunity of having these twins here with us soon but at the same time (wondering) ‘how do I go back to work when my maternity leave ends?’”

Dustin Pugel, policy director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said about 65% of mothers of young children are in the workforce, a number that jumps to 95% for fathers of young children. 

“The reality is that a lot of mothers are involuntarily staying home because they can’t find or afford child care nearby,” he said. “A constant conversation we hear in Frankfort right now is that . This seems like a situation where you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to get people into the workforce, the primary group of prime age folks who are not in the workforce are moms and particularly moms of young kids.”

Rhoades Mullins lives and works in an area trying to recover from deadly. She still sees a significant “lack of resources in this area” to recover from the disasters.

“You talk a lot about the need for economic development, but until there is a robust system of child care, we’re not going to see any change in our community,” she said. “Until the state decides to provide sufficient funding for these opportunities, you cannot expect Eastern Kentucky or our state to grow and to thrive economically.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Senate on Friday joined the House in passing legislation for a constitutional amendment — called a “game changer” by one Republican supporter — that would allow public dollars to fund nonpublic schools.

In a vote of 27-8, senators approved House Bill 2. Eastern Kentucky Republican Sens. Brandon Storm and Phillip Wheeler joined six of the seven Senate Democrats in opposing the bill. Democrat Robin Webb did not cast a vote, nor did Republicans Jared Carpenter and Brandon Smith.

Because the bill would amend the Kentucky Constitution, voters will decide the proposal’s fate in November. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who has , will not be officially weighing in because constitutional amendments are not subject to gubernatorial veto.

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The Senate Education Committee chairman, Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, said the bill could pave the way to offering “school choice” to Kentuckians. During the House’s debate, Speaker David Osborne admonished members for speaking about possible future legislation stemming from the amendment, rather than the bill before them.

West said the constitutional amendment is an attempt to “modernize” the state’s education system.

“This is a game changer,” West said. “This will dictate where we are 25 years from now.”

The bill’s primary sponsor, House Republican Caucus Chair Suzanne Miles, of Owensboro, has said the bill would “let the voters decide” if the General Assembly should have the option of funding education outside the “system of common schools,” an option not allowed by the Constitution adopted in 1891.

In the Senate, Republican leaders backed the bill. Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, of Greensburg, argued that it’s not new for public dollars to go to private entities. He pointed to contractors who build roads.

“If I had the list of vendors for which we send public funds to private entities, I can certainly more than fill my 10 minutes, Mr. President, reading that list of vendors,” Givens said.

Majority Floor Leader Sen. Damon Thayer, of Georgetown, urged Democrats to visit blue cities across the country in states like New York and California.

“The minority party and the education establishment here in Kentucky continue to protect the status quo despite the shift that is happening nationwide in blue cities and blue states in favor of more and more ‘school choice,’” Thayer said.

Like their House counterparts, Senate Democrats raised concerns about the bill being fast-tracked through the General Assembly this week. Democratic Caucus Chair Reggie Thomas, of Lexington, called it a “flawed approach” to doing the public’s business on a bill of such importance. The Senate Education Committee forwarded the bill in . The House gave its approval Wednesday despite .

West pushed back on Thomas’ point, saying the bill is two-pages long and has been made public since January.

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, admonished the proposed amendment for “notwithstanding,” or suspending, seven sections of the 1891 Constitution.

“I worry Mr. President, that we are so desperate to pass this amendment and give money to private schools to take it away from our public schools that we are risking shredding the Kentucky Constitution to make that happen,” she said.

Kentucky’s Constitution strictly bars using tax dollars to fund any but the state’s “common schools” (or public schools), and courts citing the Constitution have struck down legislative attempts to steer tax dollars into private or charter schools.

Courts have struck down the General Assembly’s charter school legislation. In December, wrote that charter schools are “private entities” that do not meet the Kentucky Constitution’s definition of “public schools” or “common schools.”

The unanimously struck down a Kentucky law in December 2022 creating a generous tax credit to help families pay for tuition at private schools. , which upheld a circuit court ruling by Shepherd, cited a long line of precedent reinforcing the Kentucky Constitution’s ban on the state financially supporting private schools.

Democratic Floor Leader Sen. Gerald Neal, of Louisville, said Kentucky’s existing public schools are already “simply underfunded” and should be prioritized. The General Assembly has yet to finalize the next two-year state budget.

“I think we have the capacity to do it,” Neal said. “The question is, do we have the will? Do we have the commitment? Do we have the wisdom to do it?”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

FRANKFORT — Priority GOP legislation that would allow public funding to non-public schools was filed in the Kentucky House Friday.

The primary sponsor of House Bill 2 is Majority Caucus Chair Suzanne Miles, R-Owensboro. The legislation seeks to amend the state Constitution to give the General Assembly the ability to give dollars to “the education of students outside the system of common schools,” or non-public schools. If approved by lawmakers, Kentucky voters would decide on the amendment in November.

Appearing with House Speaker David Osborne after filing the bill, Miles said it would be up to voters to “modernize our education system.”

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“This has been a conversation for really multiple decades now, so I think it’s time for us to let the voters decide,” she said.

Osborne said the number assigned to Miles’ bill is a “pretty good indication” that it will continue to move in the House. He declined to speculate on how such an amendment would fare at the ballot box, though he predicted it would be an expensive campaign. 

A similar bill, , had been previously filed by Rep. Josh Calloway, R-Irvington. Miles said her bill was a “cleaner version.” Calloway’s bill would require the state to fund non-public schools, unlike Miles’ version, which offers the option as the General Assembly sees fit.

Calloway’s legislation has not received a committee assignment, but it has gained 31 Republican co-sponsors.

The phrase “common schools” has often been a legal hurdle for previous laws passed by the General Assembly to allow charter schools in Kentucky. Such schools are funded by taxes and allow all children within its district to attend if they meet age requirements.

When striking down a charter school law in December, wrote that charter schools are “private entities” that do not meet the Kentucky Constitution’s definition of  “public schools” or “common schools.”

In December 2022, the Kentucky Supreme Court a Kentucky law creating a generous tax credit to help families pay for tuition at private schools. The , which upheld a circuit court ruling by Shepherd, cited a long line of precedent reinforcing the Kentucky Constitution’s ban on the state financially supporting private schools.

As for whether lawmakers would look to renew some of those laws struck down in court, Osborne said there were “discussions to be had” if the amendment passes because that involves policy.

“This is not a policy question,” the speaker said. “This is simply a clarification of our constitutional authorities.”

Osborne said the Senate has reviewed the language and was comfortable with it.

Earlier this week, Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said in an interview with multiple media outlets that lawmakers were having a lot of discussions around putting forth an amendment. The push for an amendment is “probably more of a reflection of doing something with the Jefferson County Public School system,” he added.

Stivers cited reporting from the Courier Journal about the in JCPS and issues with as required under special education law, as well as the more recent that prevented JCPS from opening for a few days in August.

Opening charter schools would depend on how the local community feels about its school system, Stivers argued. For example, a town with a school district like that ranks highly on its assessments may not see a charter school open nearby.

“I don’t think you’ll see the impact of a charter school in rural areas, but there will always be that concern,” Stivers said. As for arguments that funding charter schools in urban areas could mean less money for rural public schools, Stivers called them “bogus” and a “red herring” because of the (SEEK) program, which is the foundation for legislative education funding.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

It wasn’t until after 7 p.m. that evening when the boys, 5-year-old William and 8-year-old Joseph, arrived on a school bus unharmed.Their delayed return was the result of what officials at Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools a “transportation disaster”: A tech-enabled bus routing system implemented to improve efficiency backfired and some kids didn’t make it home until nearly 10 p.m. 

“I was wondering, ‘Is my son safe?’ ” Bramel told The 74. “Are they safe? Are they OK? Did anything happen?”

Months later, Bramel is once again upset and concerned that his kids had been left vulnerable. Again, technology is the culprit. After the bus delay fiasco, school officials in Louisville signed up for a GPS tracking system offered by the Montana-based company Education Logistics, commonly known as Edulog. Through an app, the system gives parents real-time information about the location of their children’s school buses. 

The service offers parents valuable updates about bus arrivals and departures and tools like it have been embraced by families and heralded by school officials across the country, especially when there are busing snafus. Bramel said he now regularly relies on the Edulog service. Yet in Louisville and at districts nationwide, cybersecurity researchers found, vulnerabilities could have left sensitive data open to exploitation by bad actors. 

James Sebree, a senior staff research engineer at Maryland-based cybersecurity company Tenable, said his inquiry into Edulog’s Parent Portal began after a friend voiced security concerns as it was being rolled out at his child’s school. . Because the Edulog apps lacked sufficient authentication and access controls, anybody could access a large swath of sensitive information about students and families with little more than a free account. Among the exposed records were the real-time location of school buses, pick-up and drop-off times, information about scheduled delays, logs of students who were assigned to specific routes and their parents’ contact information. 

“It was startling to see the extent to which we were able to access information by bypassing the client-side restrictions, particularly when that information involved minors,” Sebree said in an email to The 74. Sebree said his firm isn’t aware of any instances where the data was actually exploited by bad actors and that Edulog worked quickly to patch the vulnerabilities once Tenable alerted them to the issues in early September. But the bug while it existed, he said, was relatively easy to exploit. 

“GPS data in conjunction with parental contact information, if compromised,” he said, “ could lead to scary situations for parents and students.”

School districts nationwide have increasingly turned to GPS tracking systems to help keep parents in the loop about arrival and departure times, particularly amid a national that’s led to chaos in many places and education leaders having to rethink their transportation logistics. 

In Louisville, the school bus woes forced leaders to cancel classes for several days right at the beginning of the new academic year. Last March, Chicago Public Schools to address widespread transportation hurdles of its own, including canceled routes and unreliable service. In some instances, the district has called on taxis and paid $500 transportation stipends to parents to get kids to and from school. 

As school districts increasingly turn to thousands of third-party education technology vendors to streamline instruction and across all parts of their operations, the Edulog vulnerability highlights how such arrangements can introduce new privacy and security risks, especially when for-profit companies collect sensitive information like real-time location data involving students. 

Edulog claims more than 6 million students are transported on school buses equipped with its software. Recent customers include the school districts in Wichita, Kansas, Newport News, Virginia, and Greenwich, Connecticut, according to data from GovSpend, which tracks government procurement. 

In , the company acknowledged that it had been notified of “a potential vulnerability” and that they had “researched the issue and resolved it in the next build of the product.” Yet the company is not contractually obligated to notify their customer districts or parents that the weakness was uncovered, Lam Nguyen-Bull, Edulog’s chief experience officer and general counsel, told The 74 in an interview. At the same time, she recognized the student safety risks involved in the potential breach of real-time GPS data is “certainly a concern.”&�Բ�����;

“That’s something that districts have to weigh, as it is any time you get into a service like this: What are you willing to risk and is it worth the cost?” she said. “You can take as many cautions as possible, but a creative and dedicated person will always be able to find a vulnerability.”&�Բ�����;

Mark Hebert, the Jefferson County Public Schools spokesperson, said in an email the Louisville district relies on Edulog’s “Lite” version, which offers parents bus location information “but little else.”&�Բ�����;

Yet for Bramel, news that the bus tracker that he found so handy carried privacy risks brought newfound anxiety. Bramel said that he had heard rumors about a Edulog security lapse but hadn’t received formal outreach from the district, leaving him to wonder about the types of information that could have been exposed. 

He said school transportation in Louisville remains so erratic that he’s considered moving out of the district boundaries altogether. Allowing anyone access to real-time school bus information, he said, could have been catastrophic. 

“That’s infuriating because that puts my child at risk, that’s their life in danger,” he said. “A perpetrator could be meeting up or something like that. Human trafficking is still going on.”&�Բ�����;

The privacy implications of bus trackers

Edulog’s Nguyen-Bull noted that privacy issues have been present ever since GPS services were first introduced to consumers in the late 1980s. Such implications are perhaps amplified in the context of students and schools, but ultimately, she said, they take a back seat for most people.

“The truth is, we generally are lazy beings, right?” Nguyen-Bull said. “We go for convenience.”&�Բ�����;

Edulog has been providing school districts with bus routing services since 1977, but Nguyen-Bull said it was consumers who ultimately began to push for real-time GPS tracking about a decade ago. 

Numerous companies now offer such services for school buses, including in big urban districts like , which just launched its long-awaited tracker last week; and Los Angeles. The services, however, haven’t always lived up to the expectations of parents or school bus drivers, with both reporting accuracy concerns. The power of real-time information has also introduced new safety risks, Nguyen-Bull said. If the app says a bus is expected to arrive five minutes late, she said that “personal optimizers” will use that information to delay their trek to the bus stop. 

“That creates problems where kids are rushing across streets or they’re not being careful in how they approach the bus,” she said, adding that the issue is compounded in instances when the GPS information is inaccurate. “We’ve become so reliant on our phones that we don’t actually look up and see what the reality is.”&�Բ�����;

Meanwhile, over the last year the federal government has placed a heightened emphasis on cybersecurity risks introduced to the education sector through third-party technology vendors like Edulog. In September, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to sign a voluntary pledge and commit to building products with robust security protections. Companies that sign the pledge agree to “radical transparency” and to “take ownership of customer security outcomes.”&�Բ�����;

In a December blog post, the federal cybersecurity agency noted that school districts should not be required to “bear the cybersecurity burden alone,” and advocated for shifting many responsibilities to vendors. 

“Cybersecurity issues facing K-12 could be much more effectively and cheaply dealt with earlier in the supply chain, by focusing on a relatively smaller number of linchpin companies serving very large numbers of students and educators instead of school district by school district, school by school,” the post noted. 

But Nguyen-Bull said her company was uninterested in signing the pledge, calling it meaningless without any clear cybersecurity standards. Yet she also balked at the idea of regulations that would set specific cybersecurity requirements. 

“We’re not just going to sign random pledges that ask for slightly different things if we don’t know if we can track those things,” she said. “As a small family-run business, we don’t have five compliance people tracking all of the different pledges and ensuring that we check all of the boxes.”

Sebree, of the cybersecurity firm Tenable, said that transparency about security lapses is key, telling The 74 in an email that vendors “have an ethical responsibility” to inform customers in a timely manner so they can make knowledgeable decisions. 

“Notifying their customers that a vulnerability had been discovered and fixed, even if no evidence of a breach was found, would have been the most transparent action here,” he said. “Customers deserve to know when their data has been at risk so they can make decisions in the future with all of the information in hand.”&�Բ�����;

Louisville father Bramel said that he and other parents should also have been notified — either by the district or the company itself — about the extent that information had been exposed to preserve trust.

“When you’ve got to rely on this system to cover your kids and they can’t have open communication, what other issues are going on besides that issue?” Bramel asked. “I’m honestly shocked there aren’t lawsuits and stuff like that happening right now … because this is completely uncalled for.”

FRANKFORT — In a year when Kentucky’s child care providers are looking to the legislature for a financial lifeline, a Senate committee heard an overview Tuesday of what its chairman called “one of the most pressing issues” facing the General Assembly .

Several members of the Senate Families and Children Committee, including chairman Danny Carroll, said they are committed to finding solutions to the .

With federal COVID-era assistance coming to an end, Kentucky’s child care providers are hoping the legislature will subsidize the industry to avoid closures, pay cuts and increased tuition for parents, the .

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Gov. Andy Beshear, in a, said he wants to spend $141 million over the next two years on the industry. But advocates said this figure falls short of what is needed.

Beshear’s desire to spend $172 million to begin funding universal preschool for Kentucky 4-year-olds also concerns industry experts. That’s because child care centers rely on children of that age to make profits, as the teacher-to- student ratios can be larger than they can be with babies.

Sarah Vanover, a policy and research director for Kentucky Youth Advocates, told the committee that “universal pre-k is a great option” but “it is a long-term goal.”

“Right now the priority is maintaining child care, and not waiting for child care to collapse,” she said.

Carroll, R-Benton, president and CEO of , whose programs include a child care center, seemed to agree, urging caution on Beshear’s proposals for universal preschool while also stressing the value of early childhood education.

Carroll said a disadvantage of Beshear’s plan for 4-year-olds is that it would be tied to the traditional school schedule and unable to meet the needs of many families.

Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said “public schools are not currently in a position to take on additional responsibilities” by adding pre-kindergarten instruction.

Meredith also said: “Certainly this matter has our attention. … I think we’ll try our best to come up with some resolution. But I think we have to understand that this is not going to be a one-year, two-year proposition — that we have to build this infrastructure.”

Carroll said Kentucky has a “great foundation” in child care, but it’s “time for the state to step up and to make the investment that we need” to sustain it in the future. He stressed that access to child care is critical to workforce participation.

“Preschool, early childhood education, it’s about child care, but it’s about education. It’s about workforce. The importance of this is no less — and, I would argue, that it’s greater  — than what it is for primary, secondary, post secondary.”

He added: “Until we start looking at early childhood education for what it is: education and part of our system, and we start funding it in that manner, we’re not going to make any progress.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .

For Barry Shrout, raising four granddaughters is a role he willingly took on — and that he acknowledges is exhausting and expensive.

“The financial part of it is a big thing with me,” said Shrout, 66, a single grandfather from Maysville who has custody of the girls ages 10, 11, 13 and 17. “I have to daily watch every nickel and dime I spend.”

Grandparents like Shrout have prompted Norma Hatfield, of Elizabethtown, to renew her near- for more help for such relatives, mostly grandparents, who are raising an estimated 59,000 Kentucky children in what’s commonly called “kinship care.”

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Hatfield, president of , acknowledges Kentucky has adopted some changes meant to aid relatives raising children whose parents are unable to care for them or have lost custody because of neglect or abuse with addiction often a factor.

But Hatfield, who is raising two grandchildren, said more is needed to aid the many older relatives who have stepped in to raise children who likely would otherwise end up in foster care — at significant expense to the state.

“I communicate with so many caregivers and I keep hearing the same issues, the same struggles, and I don’t see a lot of change,” Hatfield said. “It’s been nine years. Why can’t we do better?”

Kentucky Youth Advocates, while commending state social services for changes meant to aid such caregivers, continues to seek more help for those, many on fixed incomes, who have taken children into their homes.

Shannon Moody, chief policy and strategy officer for the nonpartisan advocacy group, said recent reports of children sleeping in state social services offices in Kentucky for lack of a suitable placement as well as others sent out of state to residential centers or psychiatric hospitals suggest a “crisis” in the system.

Placing children with relatives or caregivers known as “fictive kin” — adults known and trusted by the child such as a neighbor or friend — could ease the strain, she said.

“Some of the recommendations we are making are making sure kids are with family or family-based care,” Moody said.

But Rep. Samara Heavrin, R-Leitchfield and committee co-chair, expressed reservations about more financial assistance to such caregivers without more oversight.

“It’s a very big ask for the General Assembly to give money out without any strings attached,” Heavrin said. “I understand your story… but we can’t just write a blank check, either.”

Hatfield and Moody said no one is asking for a blank check but said it’s clear more work is needed to help caregivers understand what they are taking on, what assistance is available and the expense involved.

“We can’t just leave them drained, completely drained,” Hatfield said.

‘Dropped like a hot potato’

Until 2013, the state offered a monthly payment of $300 per child to kinship care providers who took in children. By contrast, state-certified foster parents are paid about $750 a month.

But the state to new applicants 10 years ago, citing budget pressures.

Since then, Kentucky has , prodded in part by a class-action lawsuit that successfully argued kinship caregivers were providing essentially the same services for free that foster parents provided for $750 or more per child per month.

Now, relatives can receive foster care payments if they agree to train and become certified by the state. Monthly payments range from the full amount per child to partial pay if the relatives can’t meet all requirements — for example, if the house isn’t large enough to meet state specifications.

But when the child moves from foster to permanent status, should the relative adopt or gain permanent custody, the payments stop.

“They are dropped like a hot potato,” Hatfield said. “You take what you can when you can.”

Good news for family, foster caregivers

One bright spot: a recent federal rule change will allow relatives to get full foster pay even if their homes don’t meet all licensing standards.

Hatfield said Kentucky officials are reviewing how to implement the change that would be “huge” for relative caregivers.

In more potential good news for such caregivers, Gov. Andy Beshear, in his Dec. 18 budget proposal, included $10 million a year over the next two years to increase money available to relatives who agree to take children in care of the state social service system. And his budget proposes another $9.8 million a year each year to increase foster care rates by 12% for all foster caregivers.

Hatfield said both steps would be enormously helpful in relieving the financial strain for families.

“I’m so grateful to the governor for the proposed funding in the budget for kinship and foster families,” she said. “It gives me and many others a renewed sense of hope.”

Hatfield said she and other advocates will work to convince lawmakers of the need for the funds as legislators begin drafting the state’s next two-year budget in the upcoming legislative session.

Other aid available to caregivers includes the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program, which provides a modest monthly payment per child, Medicaid health coverage for the children, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and a “Kentucky Caregiver” program which offers an annual payment of $500 per child for expenses such as furniture, school supplies, clothes or other needs.

The child’s parents also may be required to pay child support to caregivers, though advocates say that can be hard to collect in cases where parents are experiencing addiction, are incarcerated or have left the state.

An uninformed decision — such as agreeing to take temporary custody of children — can force relatives to forfeit aid such as foster payments available only to those who agree to accept them under a foster care arrangement with the state, she said.

And state officials don’t allow any changes after that initial decision.

Workers with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services are supposed to explain options and the cabinet has information, including a on its website, but families need better, simple and clear explanations, Hatfield said.

“People are caught up in a time of stress and all they hear is, ‘You can take temporary custody or we can put them in foster care,’” Hatfield said. “They say, ‘Of course we’ll take custody.’ Once you check the box, you can’t change it.”

Hatfield and Kentucky Youth Advocates are urging several changes they believe would help.

Mileage reimbursement

Relatives who take in children, often from abusive or neglectful situations, find they are required to take children to a host of appointments for medical care and therapy for the trauma many have experienced. They also are required to take children to any visits with parents ordered by the court, which can be weekly.

While foster parents get mileage reimbursement, relative caregivers do not, even as they are required to drive children many miles per week for appointments.

Michelle Tynes, who lives in Graves County in Western Kentucky, said she had to drive hundreds of miles back and forth to Louisville with no reimbursement after one of several grandchildren she took in temporarily needed multiple medical procedures at Norton Children’s Hospital.

She was able to pay for it, but Hatfield said buying gasoline is a hardship for many relatives.

“This one is really a big deal for a lot of families,” Hatfield said.

Respite care

Relative caregivers are not eligible for outside care for children for their medical appointments or just a needed break for errands or other events although foster parents do get reimbursed for respite care.

Shrout, the Maysville grandfather, said a trusted woman from his church cared for his granddaughters when he had to stay overnight in the hospital for a heart procedure.

He said he’s grateful for the support from his church friends but said he wishes he had some of the same help as foster parents.

“The legislature seems to be bending over backwards to help foster parents instead of kinship parents like me,” Shrout said. “We’re treated differently than those people are and it’s not fair.”

Guardianship payments

Relatives often take children under temporary arrangements in which they can get foster payments. But if the court determines the child can’t return to the parents, the relative then may adopt or obtain permanent custody.

That stops foster payments.

Advocates would like to see the state take advantage of federal funds available through a guardianship arrangement where the relative is eligible for payments as a guardian until the child turns 18.

Hatfield said state social service officials have told her they are investigating this possibility and she hopes it will become available in Kentucky.

Also, while foster children are eligible for free tuition at a state college in Kentucky, kinship children are not.

Hatfield said that would be a big help to caregivers of children nearing college age.

Opioid settlement funds?

Hatfield says she doesn’t know how much all these proposals would cost or how they would be implemented.

For that reason, she said, she’s urging lawmakers to create a task force that would study the situation and try to get a handle on the scope of the need and money required to pay for any changes.

“As much as we’ve been talking for the last nine years about kinship care, why wouldn’t we have a task force to see what the needs are,” she said.

And Hatfield said she has one final thought: Why not use some of the millions of dollars Kentucky has recovered in settlements with pharmaceutical companies over the opioid addiction crisis?

Addiction is what caused many parents to lose custody of their children, Hatfield said, asking:

“Why are we not using some of these opioid settlement funds for kinship caregivers?”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on and .