In a time when educational equity hangs in the balance of votes, a diverse group of students, teachers, and administrators gathered at Tates Creek High School to confront a looming educational threat: Amendment 2. This proposed constitutional amendment has the potential to reshape the landscape of public school funding, raising critical questions about the future of education for students across the state. Attendees explored the potential ramifications, emphasizing how funding redactions could impact resources, educational programs and jobs, and overall student support. 

According to the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, cuts already made in funding are causing challenges in school districts having essential personnel, especially amid teacher shortages and bus driver shortages.  One junior, Logan, thinks often of teachers whose jobs could be cut, and what happens if their income is taken away. 

For him, the fear of what could potentially be defunded to fund vouchers is personal. “A lot of what I do is because of the public school– all the fee waivers from the public [school] system,” he said in the discussion. “I'm so close to graduating, but I have a two-year-old sister who will come into the Kentucky school system. How will she be able to go on a field trip or all the extra stuff that I'm able to do?”

Meanwhile, an Associate Principal and dedicated educator highlighted what he sees as two key concerns with reallocating funds to private schools.  “Whatever we think about state accountability testing, that is our way of assessing school performance, and private schools don’t have to follow those,” he said. Secondly, he said, all the diversity and inclusion work the school has been doing could be undermined, as publicly funded schools are required to serve everyone, while private ones can choose whom to accept or reject. “That's counterintuitive to the progress we’re trying to make as a nation,” he said.

Read on to explore the full conversation. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Some names have been withheld to protect privacy and allow participants to speak openly about their beliefs and opinions.

Carlie

What were your initial thoughts or feelings when you first learned about Amendment 2?

Logan, student

It just seems to me like the government doesn't care about how schools are doing. I mean, it could just be the political ideology, right? If they're supporting private schools, which could discriminate against things that they don't agree with.

Carlie

How do you think the passage of this amendment could affect the quality of education in public schools, especially in underfunded districts and communities like Tates Creek? 

Will, student

Me and Alex are in Latin class. I don't know if it was the beginning of this year or sometime last year–we heard news that the Latin class might get cut because of lack of funding. We thought we were gonna get cut. We were planning on doing IB Latin too. Later, I hear about this amendment, and I didn't really put the two together at first, until that same teacher spoke to us about it in class today. We realized, if this gets passed, that could happen for real this time.

Alex, student 

Because when you take funding away from public schools, then the first things that get cut are language programs and art programs because those are the most expendable things that they can remove from

Carlie 

And that's just within our school, within Fayette County. There's so many other schools that would face the same problem, that are facing the same problem. 

Danielle, student 

The extracurriculars, they'll probably get cut too which means, students won't have a place to be out there, to expose their talents, because of the lack of funding. When there's no funding, that means there's nothing the school can do, or any community itself can do, to make sure those extracurricular activities are still taking place. 

‍Logan, student

Students are important, but you're thinking about the teachers whose jobs are getting cut. A lot of them have families. That’s their source of income getting taken away. What are they gonna do after that? A lot of them don't have a plan B.

Carlie  

That also sets a tone for students that they don't have the option to be able to look into a profession,  because the resources aren't there. It  kind of gives these students preconceived ideas that they aren't meant to follow a certain pathway, or that they could potentially explore, but they don't have the means to so it is kind of limiting students in many ways.

So as a teacher or student, how do you think amendment to passing could impact you personally?As a senior, I'm graduating out of the Kentucky public school system and going to college, but looking at the students who are going to be going into the K-12 system, I fear for them, because there is a lot of uncertainty. These students are going to be our future judges, our future policy makers, our future teachers–all of these different positions [and] they are not going to be given an adequate or equitable education, which Kentucky is meant to provide for all students. 

Danielle, student  

Reflecting back to when I was an EL (English learner) student, I'm thinking of those other EL students. Cutting those resources means they won't have enough resources for them to be able to learn English enough for them to be able to go in the real world. Taking away the public dollars means limiting access to resources for students to be successful. How would these students feel about this? It’s kind of the way, like, they want students to be successful, but they're taking away the chances and resources for these students to be successful. 

Carlie 

How do you think the amendment would impact some of the most vulnerable students who rely on public education and their resources?

Logan, student

I come from low-income housing. A lot of what I do is because of the public school– all the fee waivers from the public system. I'm so close to graduating, but I have a 2-year-old sister who will come into the Kentucky school system. How will she be able to go on a field trip, or all the extra stuff that I'm able to do because of the funding that we get for low-income housing? So my fear is that people from lower incomes will not get the same opportunities as people who can afford it. It's not really their fault that they can't afford it, so why should they be punished or be told that through the government that they're not important enough to pursue their educations. 

Carlie  

To look at your siblings or your friends who are in lower grades and being like, I hope that you have the same opportunities that I've had to grow and explore my interests. I've been set up for success by the Kentucky education system, and I feel like it's shaped me into who I am. That’s why I care so deeply about it, and that's why I feel like a lot of students care deeply about it. So instead of implementing this amendment, what kind of other solutions do you think could help improve educational funding or quality education? 

Will, student 

At one point, I was in a preschool that was specifically for disabled or autistic children. It was publicly funded, and as I got older, I don't really need those same accommodations anymore. But I'm thinking about the people that do. I've seen the accessibility in this school, and I like to think that Tates Creek does a really good job when it comes to accessibility. But if our funding gets cut, can we really have that same accommodation for students who need it when it comes to physical or mental disabilities? This also applies to gifted and talented programs. It makes me wonder how much of that money that could go to those services to provide for those specific accommodations are going to a more general population that doesn't need it as much.

Carlie 

What do you think this amendment means in terms of equity and access in education? 

Associate Principal, educator

I'll chime in. There's two concerns when we're taking public funds to support private schools. Number one: whatever we think about state accountability testing, that is our way of assessing how schools are doing. Private schools don't have to do that, so we're sending money to institutions that just don't have the same accountability measures. So how do we know those dollars are going to a good purpose, [and] if they're serving the purpose that they say they're going to serve? Why fund something that we're not going to measure the progress [of]? And number two: all of the diversity and inclusion work that we've been working on for years, when a school is funded with public funds, but they can turn away, [and] say, we don't provide special education services, or we're this religion of school, whatever it is. It’s just counterintuitive to all the work that we've been doing as a nation. I know people who are going to take their kids to private school. They were thinking, if we went there, we would get more individualized support for our child, but then they didn't even have services at all. So just pouring money into something that's not going to support everybody, I think it's a concern.

Freshman Teacher, educator

Public schools will accept everyone and serve the needs of everyone as best we can. The private schools can choose who they accept and who they reject. So you have a group of students who will go to private school, and they may choose to only accept those people who would do well or would not need additional services. We will continue to do our best to serve those students, even though our funding will be less.

Will, student

This is a sensitive subject, but when it comes to private schools, a lot of them are religious. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but also it makes the student demographics for that school very specific. In Tates Creek, I've seen such a variety of religions and beliefs. I think that being around that kind of diversity period, not just when it comes to religion, is really important. 

Carlie

What do you think this amendment means for communities that lack private school options?

Freshman Teacher, educator 

For those communities [that] do not have private schools which your students could choose to go [to], then those communities are simply losing funding.

Alex, student

And it puts mostly a disadvantage on poor families or people who can't afford to send their kids to private schools. It basically leaves lower income families–it just leaves those children to have no other option than to receive a lower-funded education that has less resources. Just [less] options for them to succeed, because they just don't have the access to things like that.

Logan, student

I think it's important to point out that I think the people who are proposing this amendment are proposing it in a way that–this would be a way for lower-income students to go to private schools without that actually being true.  It doesn't cover the full cost of what it would cost to attend. So it's not just a free tuition voucher [that] covers the whole cost. It's not what it is. So it is still only serving students who can or families who can afford to pay the difference between the voucher and the actual cost of tuition. 

Carlie 

That kind of mislabeling or way of marketing this amendment is really dangerous. 

Danielle, student

If this amendment proceeds, that means the state is cutting the funding from all public schools across this [state]. Thinking of maybe kids in Bowling Green, Kentucky, they already don't have as many public resources as students [like me] already have. There are students in Bowling Green who are driving 40 minutes to attend the school. Just imagine if that funding gets cut, that means no more bus drivers.

Will, student

When it comes to building resources, I know that Tates Creek recently got a new building, and it is grand. I have a friend who goes to Lafayette, and he's constantly telling me about all kinds of stories. Although the building is already run down, repairs aren't going to be possible if this amendment passes. 

Carlie

In terms of our public education system and the jobs that teachers hold, how do you think this will position us compared to other states who do not have this amendment?

Language Teacher, educator  

We’re already seeing the impacts in other states that have a similar process. We're seeing funding go down in public schools. We're seeing programs being cut. We're seeing teachers losing their jobs.

Freshman Teacher, educator

In North Carolina, they passed scholarship tax credits. They initially passed that with an income base, so it was to be given to lower-income students. But that has changed, and now they've opened it up. They are in debt so much because of what has essentially drained their resources. I'm concerned about the vagueness of what could happen, honestly. It does open it up for funding, and we don't know what that [would] look like– what schools would be funded, what would be the qualifications, or anything like that. 

Alex, student 

When we were discussing this [with a teacher], I know we took things like testing and other general state testing,that  they send off the numbers. If our numbers go up, we get more funding, and if our numbers go down, we kind of get a little bit less. And private schools don't really have that, because they don't get public funding so they don't have to send out any type of test numbers or scores. It's kind of unfair for students that work very hard on these tests, and they do very well, to cut their funding when they have worked so hard to get the numbers up so that we can receive more funding to give more opportunities and more accessibility to their students, when private schools don't have the same requirement to work for that funding that we have.

Freshman Teacher, educator 

I feel like it's used against us. The testing is used against us because they're trying to compare private and public schools. They'll point to the number of novice in math and reading, etc., but they're not even testing. There is no comparison.

Carlie

I don't think that public schools are failing necessarily only because of lack of resources, because there are broader community issues that public schools, no matter how well funded we are, cannot address. But a lot of those issues that exist in our community do not necessarily exist in the communities that attend private schools. It's a false comparison.

Alex, student

It's kind of like the saying it's like, the rich get richer and the poor get poor. We're giving funding to people who already have, generally, a lot of money, or just a bigger amount of money, than the people who go to public schools have. The whole point of public school is to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of how much money your family has. So giving money to the people that already have the money isn't helping anybody else.

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