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Gov.-elect Fletcher: Lead school choice initiative for Kentucky
By
Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions
A wise man once said: “If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you
discourage something, you get less of it.”
Gov.-elect Ernie Fletcher should advocate education policy that follows such
common-sense advice in dealing with a unidirectional educational system that
consumes nearly 60 percent of Kentucky’s budget. Previous administrations have
neglected the fact that Kentucky is one of four remaining states refusing to
supply parents whose children attend failing schools with competitive
alternatives .
For years, the state’s “educrats” (teachers’ unions, administrators and
politicians focused more on their own self-interests than on students) have
encouraged more spending on education with little transparent accountability.
The Kentucky Education Reform Act, passed by the Legislature in 1990, promised
that massive spending increases would result in an education system that would
be the envy of the nation.
Certainly, the spending part of the equation has been fulfilled.
According to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), taxpayer
expenditures per pupil in Kentucky increased from $4,582 in 1989-90, the year
before KERA was approved, to $6,425 in 1999-2000. This enormous increase raised
per-pupil spending from 45th in the nation to 22nd during the same time period.
According to the 2000 Census, this amounts to quite a burden on Kentucky
families who generated incomes ranking them just 43rd among the 50 states in
America.
Nearly $4 billion was allocated for education in this year’s state budget, yet
Kentucky educrats say that’s not enough.
The Kentucky Department of Education recently commissioned two studies
projecting new expenditures of between $750 million and $2.3 billion annually to
fund new education experiments. How much more can Kentucky taxpayers afford to
pay?
With this huge investment in the future of their children, what benefits have
parents received?
High school graduation rates, already mediocre when KERA was approved, are now
worse. They reached 73 percent in the 1992-93 school year among students who,
for the most part, were not products of KERA. Since then, using realistic
research statistics, we estimate graduation rates have fallen to 64 percent in
2000-2001, behind the national average of 68 percent.
Test scores are another indication of lackluster performance. Despite the
spinmeisters’ best attempts to portray grand improvements, results demonstrate
less-than-acceptable outcomes.
Using the scores from the 2002 Commonwealth Accountability Testing System
(CATS), the Lexington Herald-Leader recently analyzed last year’s raw test data
and reported that an astonishing 70 percent of Kentucky’s 1,208 public schools
would have failed to meet the new federal “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB)
standards. Such failure this year could mean harsh penalties assessed by
Washington, including a potential loss of much of the state’s federal dollars.
In an effort to counteract that possibility, Kentucky’s education establishment
is using “confidence levels,” a technique that amounts to “grading on the
curve,” to lessen the negative impact of NCLB standards. Nevertheless, after
employing this statistical maneuvering, 39 percent of Kentucky’s schools still
would have failed to meet federal standards, based on 2002 CATS scores.
Afraid of being labeled “anti-education,” policymakers have instead neglected
the call for heightened accountability. Taxpayer funds continue to be spent at a
torrid clip as political leaders cross their fingers and hope test scores
improve.
The answers to these perplexing problems lie outside the realm of government and
in the hearts of concerned Kentuckians. High on Fletcher’s agenda in the coming
months should be a school choice mandate freeing our children from the tyranny
of Kentucky’s status quo by granting literacy passports to underperforming
students.
Plenty of such successful transitions are happening across the country,
according to a new study by the
Heartland Institute
, which recently outlined the successes being demonstrated by charter
schools.
New York’s education department, for example, issued a recent report affirming
that charter schools are demonstrating “dramatic increases” after only two
years. Other states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Colorado operate
successful tuition tax credit programs. Milwaukee and Cleveland offer voucher
programs that have passed constitutional muster and provide models of success
for states like Kentucky.
Recently, Kentucky’s newly elected governor cast the deciding vote on a school
choice bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. It seeks to grant thousands of
parents, whose children attend poorly performing schools in Washington D.C., the
option of accepting a $7,500 voucher for their children. After originally voting
“no,” Mr. Fletcher changed his vote supporting the issue, saying it would be
“morally” wrong to deny these parents the hope of a better education for their
children. Surely, Mr. Fletcher will act with the same passion as he considers
educational choice opportunities for the parents in the state he now leads.
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