KY House Bill 9: The Death of Public Education in the Commonwealth?
Blog Post | 110 KY. L. J. ONLINE | March 29, 2022
KY House Bill 9: The Death of Public Education in the Commonwealth?
By: Katherine Morsman , Staff Editor, Vol. 110
On the final day for Kentucky House Representatives to submit bills to the floor, Republican Representative Chad McCoy introduced KY House Bill 9.[1] This bill would amend the Kentucky statute governing charter schools, allowing those schools to receive public funding.[2] In essence, the bill would allow charter schools to become a reality in the Commonwealth. While charter schools have been legal in Kentucky since 2017, none have been opened due to the lack of a “permanent funding stream.”[3] House Bill 9 could potentially divert taxpayer dollars from the Kentucky public schools to charter schools, causing irreparable damage to the Kentucky public school system.
A charter school is a “tuition-free school of choice that is publicly funded but independently run.”[4] While charter schools are new to the Commonwealth, they were “[c]onceived over 25 years ago in Minnesota as a means to loosen red tape around public schools and free up educators to innovate.”[5] As their name suggests, charter schools are bound by a contract or “charter” that “lays out a school’s mission, academic goals, fiscal guidelines, and accountability requirements.”[6] The charter school is subordinate to an “authorizer—such as a state agency, a university, or a school district, depending on the state—that has the power to shut down charter schools that do not meet the terms of their contracts.”[7]
Charter schools are controversial. These schools do not draw students from certain areas; families choose to send their children to charter schools.[8] Advocates of charter schools argue that they provide an opportunity for disadvantaged students to receive a quality education they would otherwise not receive from their local public schools.[9]
Opponents of charter schools stipulate that allowing those schools to take limited public funds from public schools will harm the quality of education Kentucky public schools provide.[10] Without adequate funding for resources and teacher salaries, students are subject to lower-quality education. This is an especially troubling proposition for Kentucky counties already struggling for proper funding.
Charter schools also create a grave risk of abuse. Charter schools are, in essence, a business, operated by a private authorizer in most cases.[11] While most charter schools require that their authorizers be “nonprofit. . . some of them have simply entered into contracts with separate for-profit companies that [the authorizers] also own” in order to make money.[12] This practice allows authorizers to finance their expenses with tax-payer dollars, “creat[ing] an enormous incentive to overpay for facilities and supplies and underpay for things like teachers and student services.”[13] Legislators in other states have made millions leasing land to charter schools they are responsible for creating.[14]
Critics of House Bill 9 condemn the broad authority the bill grants to charter schools’ operators. Kentucky education commissioner, Dr. Jason Glass, commented on the bill: “[r]ather than ensuring that quality standards are in place for charter schools and their authorizers, this bill creates a vacuous space ripe for corruption and graft.”[15]
In reality, charter schools have largely performed adequately alongside public schools. The national conference of state legislatures noted that “[t]he most rigorous studies conducted to date have found that charter schools are not, on average, better or worse in student performance than the traditional public-school counterparts.”[16] The lack of evidence of charter school success begs the question—why was this bill necessary?
This bill may be viewed as an elitist measure. It has the potential to divert funds from public schools, causing the quality of Kentucky public education to suffer. This may not bother families who can afford private school tuition, but for many Kentuckians, public school is the only option. This bill has the capacity to sacrifice the education of many, for the profit of the few.
House Bill 9 passed the Kentucky House of Representatives with a vote of 51-46, a slim victory for its Republican sponsors.[17] As the bill advances to the Kentucky Senate, the future of public education in the commonwealth hangs in the balance.
[1] Olivia Krauth & Joe Sonka, New school choice bill would give Kentucky charter schools what they've lacked — funding, Louisville Courier J. (Mar. 1, 2022, 5:54 PM), https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/ky-general-assembly/2022/03/01/kentucky-charter-school-issue-reignited-new-school-choice-bill/6982359001/.
[2] Id.; see H.B. 9, 2022 Reg. Sess. (Ky. 2022).
[3] Id.
[4] Arianna Prothero, What Are Charter Schools?, Education Week (Aug. 9, 2018), https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/what-are-charter-schools/2018/08.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] See Jim Stratman & Grason Passmore, Ky. House passes controversial charter school funding bill, WKYT (Mar. 22, 2022, 11:35 AM), https://www.wkyt.com/2022/03/22/ky-charter-school-funding-bill-passes-committee-by-slim-margin/.
[10] Id.
[11] Derek W. Black, Bruce Baker & Preston Green, Charter schools exploit lucrative loophole that would be easy to close, The Conversation (Feb. 19, 2019, 6:30 AM), https://theconversation.com/charter-schools-exploit-lucrative-loophole-that-would-be-easy-to-close-111792.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Stratman, supra note 9.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.