On Tuesday January 14, 2025, a group of students including many members of the Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) gathered outside the Franklin Circuit Courthouse to announce their filing of a groundbreaking lawsuit against the state of Kentucky.
“We are here because we believe the promise of education in Kentucky is too important to be sidelined by inefficiency, inequity, or inaction,” Luisa Sanchez, a junior at Boyle County High School, said in the statement to the press at the event.
The lawsuit asserts the state has not fulfilled its constitutional obligation to provide a quality system of public education for every Kentucky student, pointing to issues like a lack of arts education, declining literacy skills and severe academic disparities between districts across the state.
The legal complaint states, “Plaintiffs ask this Court to review the Commonwealth’s decline in educational action and accomplishment, identify the current constitutional deficiencies, and declare that the Defendants must take appropriate steps to rectify the current systemic patterns of constitutional non-compliance.”
The lawsuit builds on the precedent of the 1989 Kentucky Supreme Court case Rose v. Council for Better Education. In that landmark decision, the courts outlined seven key capacities that define an adequate and equitable education. Over the past year, KSVT hosted six Rose Revival Forums throughout Kentucky, inviting students, teachers, community members and other stakeholders to share their experiences and also to educate the public about the capacities of Rose.
“35 years ago Kentucky’s courts paved the way for groundbreaking education reform. They established a precedent that was copied coast to coast,” Michael Abate, one of the lawyers representing the case, said. “Unfortunately now, a generation later, we find ourselves back at where we were at the time of Rose in many ways.”
The data gathered in both the Rose Revival Forums and a statewide survey with over 2,500 respondents indicated a real need for reform in Kentucky’s education system. Abby Ladwig, a junior at Owensboro High School, helped to sift through some of that data.
“What the Kentucky Student Voice Team and myself found is that these seven capacities are not being lived up to or honored the way they should be now in the present times,” she said. This finding enhanced the urgency to file this lawsuit now.
Speakers at the event made it clear that the target’s of the case were not teachers, principals or any specific school district, but rather the elected officials at the state level who do not provide adequate resources to the school system.
“We see the dedicated adults in our schools every day–teachers, counselors, and staff who work tirelessly to overcome systemic challenges. And we also know that superintendents and district staff are doing everything they can with the resources they are given,” Chase Colvin, a junior at duPont Manual High School, said.
By drawing attention to the disparities and shortcomings impacting public schools in Kentucky, the team hopes to spark change for the better, raising up Kentucky’s public schools once more.
“I felt as though I was standing for something bigger than myself and that really pushed me to speak with passion,” Michelle Zheng, a senior at Elizabethtown High School, said of the experience of speaking at the event.
Khoa Ta, a junior at Owensboro High School, agreed with those sentiments. “I’m really excited to see where this continues and moves forward with towards a better future for students and the Commonwealth as a whole,” Ta said.
