A young boy walks down the hallway of Carter Traditional Elementary School in Louisville, Kentucky. Kentucky is one of three states with school choice questions on the agenda this fall. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
School choice advocates in Kentucky hope voters will do what the state courts would not: allow a new path for state-backed payments to private schools.
Kentucky, along with Colorado and Nebraska, is one of three states with school choice questions on the agenda this fall. Voters will be asked to decide whether public money should go to private education. Opponents say the measures would undermine public schools by siphoning money away from them, while supporters argue that state aid would give parents more control over their children’s education.
The measures come as school choice is gaining momentum across the country. Thirty-three states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico already have at least one type of school choice program, according to EdChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for the programs. They range from state-sponsored education savings accounts to voucher programs to various types of tax credits that help provide scholarships or cover education costs for private schools.
But the measures have sparked some controversy. In Arizona, which in 2023 became the first state to make all students regardless of family income eligible for a school voucher, parents have tried to use the voucher money for dune buggies and expensive Lego sets.
Teacher unions and other public school professionals generally oppose school choice plans, while many conservative politicians, religious institutions and private education groups are in favor, as are some people of color in districts with underperforming public schools.
The choice programs have struggled to gain traction in rural areas, where there are fewer private schools than in cities and suburbs.
To overcome that resistance in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott has worked hard to elect like-minded allies to the state Legislature. He led a multimillion-dollar political offensive that led to the defeat of six Republican House members who opposed his school choice initiative in this year’s primaries. Stateline reported earlier this year that Abbott could pass a school choice program within a few votes when the Legislature reconvenes in January.
Ballot measures
In Kentucky, the Republican-dominated Legislature in 2021 approved a program to provide tax breaks to individuals or companies for donations to nonprofits that provide scholarships to students attending private schools.
Lawmakers narrowly overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of the measure. But the state Supreme Court ruled the plan unconstitutional in December 2022.
And last year, a district judge struck down a 2022 Kentucky law that would have allowed public funding of charter schools. Kentucky currently has no operating charter schools. Such schools are publicly funded but run by outside organizations that operate them autonomously, without many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools.
Now advocates want Kentucky voters to approve changes to the state constitution that would allow tax breaks and public financing of charter schools.
The proposed constitutional amendment would give the Legislature the authority to pass laws providing state funding for the education of students outside the public school system. It says lawmakers could do this despite parts of the Kentucky Constitution that prohibit state funds from being used for “any church, sectarian or denominational school.”
The ballot measure would give the Legislature the authority to pass laws similar to those that were rejected, said Republican Sen. Damon Thayer, a major supporter of the referendum.
“We succeeded [private education] fairs in the past,” Thayer said in a telephone interview. “Those would be on the table in the near future if the amendment is passed.”
He said it would give parents “the option to send a child to another school if the public school is not giving them what they need, private or parochial.”
But a coalition of public education advocates formed the group Protect Our Schools KY to oppose the amendment. Tom Shelton, a retired Kentucky school superintendent and leader in the campaign effort, said it is a travesty to send public money “to unaccountable private schools” when public schools in the state should receive the money can use.
He said rural areas would fare particularly poorly if a proposal were introduced that would direct public money to private educational institutions. Shelton said the vast majority of private schools in Kentucky are in the two largest cities of Louisville and Lexington — meaning rural public schools would lose money diverted to private schools and rural students would be less able to to benefit from the change.
“Who will lose the most? The poor kids in the country,” Shelton said.
In some cases, private schools have raised tuition in states with school choice. And The Wall Street Journal has reported that vouchers mainly benefit families who already have students in private schools.
In Nebraska, voters will choose whether to partially repeal a law enacted this year that allowed the state to partially repeal a $10 million education grant program for private school students.
The state’s highest court ruled in September that the referendum can remain on the ballot.
State Sen. Dave Murman, a school choice advocate who identifies as a Republican in Nebraska’s nonpartisan Legislature, said he is disappointed the referendum was allowed to proceed.
Murman said he expects the referendum vote to be close.
He stated that public schools “are afraid of competition. They are afraid they will lose students to private schools.” But he said he hopes public schools will improve despite the competition.
But Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, which supports the referendum, said competition already exists among public schools.
“In 1989, Nebraska created ‘optional enrollment’ that allows any family to attend any public school in the state as long as they do not meet capacity,” he told Stateline.
He said the teachers union could have challenged the law directly in court, but thought it would be better to put the law to a vote and let voters decide. Teachers think parents and students are happy with the public school choices they now have, he said.
In Colorado, the ballot measure would enshrine a school choice option in the state constitution. It would add language saying that every “child in primary and secondary education has the right to school choice” and that “parents have the right to determine their children’s education.” School choice would explicitly include neighborhood schools, charter schools, private schools, home schools, open enrollment options, and future innovations in education.
Conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado proposed the amendment. Colorado already allows students to attend any public school for free — even outside their district — and has long had charter schools. Critics of the ballot measure say it would open the door to private school vouchers, though proponents argue that is not their intent and that it is simply intended to protect charter schools. Some Colorado Democrats last year proposed tightening requirements for charter schools.
Ongoing disputes
States with existing school choice programs have faced setbacks this year.
The South Carolina Supreme Court threw out the state’s voucher program last month, confusing parents who had already received money. State education officials and Republican Gov. Henry McMaster asked the court to reconsider the ruling, but the Supreme Court declined to hear the case again in early October, likely ending any possibility of resuming private tuition this year.
In Arizona, reports of misuse of funds to purchase equipment not directly related to a curriculum prompted the attorney general to open an investigation. The state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program allows parents to use state funds for various education expenses, including tuition and school supplies.
But after the school system clarified documentation requirements that purchases must be tied to a curriculum, the Goldwater Institute, a conservative Arizona think tank, sued the state Department of Education over the requirements, on behalf of some homeschooling parents. The institute called the verification requirements an “absurd new burden” on homeschooling parents that would prevent them from purchasing pencils, flashcards and other equipment not specifically required in homeschool curricula.
The Grand Canyon Institute, a centrist think tank focused on economics, found in a report last month that Arizona parents had not spent $360 million on Arizona’s voucher accounts as of June.
“These parents chose not to spend the money on their children’s education,” Dave Wells, the institute’s research director, said in a telephone interview. “There is no follow-up to see if the children are doing well.”
The institute advised the state to monitor the money to see if and where it is spent.
In response to the report, Education Department spokesman Doug Nick told Arizona radio station KJZZ that the department is administering the program as required by state law.
“If the legislature makes changes to the law, we will comply with those changes,” he said.
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