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    • Why private schools support the measure
    Washington

    Why private schools support the measure

    Madoc Meredith Posted on

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    Trisha Siegelstein didn’t hesitate to express her disappointment in her alma mater after seeing Assumption High’s Facebook post in support of Amendment 2 last week.

    A 1998 graduate of the Louisville private school, she quickly found administrators’ email addresses and warned them that if she took advantage of public money, her donations to the institution would be stopped.

    “If AHS truly cares about the community as a whole, it should care that children in public schools get the resources they need and that those resources are not diverted to private schools,” she wrote to them that same day.

    In response, Assumption President Mary Lang wrote: “You may disagree, but there is no amount of money that can fix JCPS. “It is a broken system that is constantly struggling.”

    “Giving all families, regardless of means, the opportunity to choose the best educational environment for their child and not be limited to attending a low-performing school, to me, represents our compassion for those less fortunate,” Lang continued in one email that Siegelstein shared with The Courier Journal.

    Voter Guide: Learn more about candidates in key races

    In recent weeks, Amendment 2 has increasingly become a heated topic of debate, with both public and private school advocates increasing their efforts to get voters on their side.

    However, while public schools in Kentucky were barred from voicing their opinions on the constitutional amendment, private schools across Louisville have openly supported the measure, which could lead to the creation of a school voucher program that could allow taxpayer dollars to be spent on private school tuition.

    Signs urging voters to support the amendment have popped up at some of the city’s most expensive private schools, including Trinity, DeSales and Assumption. The average tuition at these schools is $16,185 per year, or about 26% of the median household income in Louisville.

    Many of the city’s private schools are operated by the Archdiocese of Louisville, and some say they support the change because it could provide an opportunity for families who otherwise cannot afford to send their children to private schools. Some have also acknowledged that the change could help families already attending their school.

    “Depending on which school choice options are adopted, it could benefit our current families who attend our Middletown campus and our Providence School,” said Darin Long, superintendent of the Christian Academy School System, when asked about enrollment space there another student. While the two schools are near capacity, some grade levels or programs may accommodate more students, he continued, but the school has “no plans to expand capacity.”

    Amendment 2 does not directly create a program or make any changes to current funding levels for the state’s public schools. But if passed, opponents believe it could give the Republican-led Legislature free rein to craft a program that benefits wealthy families while leaving public schools with less money to serve the state’s neediest children.

    In several states with voucher programs, including Indiana, most families who use a voucher are already in private schools.

    At a Courier Journal forum on Amendment 2, Jim Waters, president and CEO of the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, said not all private school families in Kentucky are wealthy, but that there are many who are “suffering greatly” to provide that their children are best suited for their education.”

    However, Siegelstein said that private schools pursuing money that would otherwise go to public schools “is really selfish and small-minded, and that comes from extreme privilege, and I come from that background.”

    “I really just want people to think about community,” she said as tears welled up, explaining that she wants people to care about all children, not just her own.

    Different rules for public and private schools

    Amendment 2 asks Kentucky voters whether the state should be allowed to use tax dollars for education outside of the public school system.

    Debate over the change and who might voice an opinion on it grew in August when national school choice advocates became aware of social media posts from a southern Kentucky school district accusing it of violating the law to have.

    Pulaski County Schools, which serves about 7,500 students in and around Somerset, posted an image on its website and Facebook page warning that Amendment 2 will “harm” the district.

    In response, Kentucky’s top prosecutor released a notice saying that public school district resources and social media may not be used to advocate for or against constitutional amendments or to express “any partisan political message.” .

    The recommendation has not stopped public school leaders from voicing their opposition after hours, with principals holding evening news conferences and submitting opinion pieces to local media.

    But the fact that Pulaski and other public school districts were blocked from taking a stand on Amendment 2 shows the playing field isn’t fair, said Maddie Shepard, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association.

    “Public schools, which educate 90% of Kentucky’s children, have not been fully funded by the state for years and struggle for funding every year,” Shepard wrote in a statement. “They are not legally allowed to advocate for maintaining funding and rejecting Amendment 2. Meanwhile, private schools that select their students and are not held to the same accountability requirements as public schools are legally allowed to lobby for more funding by siphoning off funds from public schools through Amendment 2.”

    Catholic schools have always benefited from school vouchers

    For several decades, the Catholic Church has advocated “school choice programs to provide social uplift for the economically disadvantaged and to give low-income families the opportunity to benefit from some of the same choices enjoyed by more affluent families,” said Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre of the Archdiocese of Louisville told the Courier Journal.

    The archdiocese operates 48 schools in seven counties. While some are at capacity, others still have room to grow, according to Mary Beth Bowling, the system’s director. She did not make it clear which of the schools could accommodate more students.

    Louisville residents have a long history of supporting Catholic schools. But vouchers have been a “financial lifesaver” for schools across the country, according to Adam Laats, a professor at New York’s Binghamton University and an expert on the history of education and struggles over educational culture.

    Parishes have struggled to keep schools open and have seen drastic declines in enrollment across the country in recent years. Since 2014 alone, around 600 Catholic schools have been closed or consolidated. Today they serve approximately 1.7 million students, a significant decrease from the 5.6 million students in 1965.

    However, Wisconsin’s voucher program is credited with saving Milwaukee’s Catholic schools, with a report finding that each received about $1 million a year from the program in 2012.

    Laats compared today’s school choice landscape to the consequences of court-ordered integration, which temporarily led some Southern states to provide white families with resources to attend private, segregated schools.

    When that practice ended, “a lot of these schools didn’t survive for financial reasons, but if you can get voucher money, if you can get (education savings account) money, if you can be a charter school and just benefit from the state budget, that’s radical.” different,” he said.

    Contact reporter Krista Johnson at [email protected].

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    Madoc Meredith
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