During this year's general election in November, Kentuckians will decide whether to approve Amendment 2, a school choice ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution and allow lawmakers to pass bills to fund private and charter schools with taxpayer dollars.
Lawmakers tried to enact a program to fund school choice options before, but it failed after the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled the program unconstitutional. As the issue now comes to voters, advocates on both sides are building up their campaigns and refining their messaging to reach voters across the Commonwealth before they cast their ballots.
What those against Amendment 2 say
Protect Our Schools KY, a campaign launched earlier this year by a coalition of public school educators and advocates against the amendment, is working to educate voters on what they say are the potential negative impacts of passing the school choice measure.
The group says if Amendment 2 passes, it would enable lawmakers to divert resources away from public schools by creating a private and charter school voucher program that utilizes public money to cover the cost of enrollment for students attending those schools.
Eddie Campbell, president of the Kentucky Education Association, says Kentuckians are about to start seeing messaging from Protect Our Schools KY soon. The group has launched a social media toolkit to promote and rally support against the amendment. Additionally, the group is gearing up to distribute yard signs and hold events to get more people involved and informed on the issue.
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Campbell says the campaign will do "all things necessary" to defeat Amendment 2, but he says those who are expected to have the biggest influence on voters will be the educators themselves utilizing their connections in the community to reach voters directly.
"Local educators across the Commonwealth who know and work with our public schools every single day will be leading this effort," Campbell said.
Those local educators include people like Kelly Read, who spent more than two decades as an English teacher at Boone County High School and currently serves as president of the Boone County Education Association. Read says public school advocates in Northern Kentucky will have to sell voters on a "no" vote in a way different than other parts of the state.
A report from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy shows many of Kentucky's private schools are concentrated in areas around Lexington, Louisville, and Northern Kentucky, and many of the students attending those schools come from wealthy, white families.
Read points to examples in other states that already have voucher programs where many students using vouchers were already in private schools before becoming eligible for the program.
In rural areas of Kentucky, Read says encouraging people to vote "no" may be easier since many of those communities don't have access to a private school. If the amendment were to pass and allow lawmakers to start a voucher program, many rural families would likely be paying into a program without the ability to benefit from it.
Elsewhere, like in Northern Kentucky, many families have already chosen to send their kids to private school, so convincing them to strike down an amendment that will likely benefit them directly is more challenging.
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That means knocking on doors and holding in-person events, which advocates on the other side of the school choice amendment issue plan to do, too.
What those in favor of Amendment 2 say
Jim Waters, president of the free market think tank the Bluegrass Institute for Policy Solutions, says groups promoting school choice will be looking to hold events in both urban and rural areas of the state to discuss what Amendment 2 will mean for Kentucky and the future of the Commonwealth's education system.
He says public school advocates misrepresent school choice as an attack on public schools, so groups like EdChoice Kentucky want to reframe the issue as a positive for students and their families.
"The challenge is what school choice is and what it's not," Waters said. "It is not about eliminating our public education system. It's about improving our education system and offering alternatives to parents who need something different for their children."
WVXU reached out to EdChoice Kentucky several times for comment but did not receive a response.
To get that message across, Waters says school choice advocates will need to continue to discuss the amendment and hold debates on school choice all around Kentucky to clarify their stances. Waters participated in such a debate at the Louisville Forum earlier this month.
"Those kinds of events are important, too. They go beyond the soundbite and to the issues," he told WVXU.
After Labor Day, when more voters start to turn their attention to the general election and the presidential race, they can also expect to see a big push from groups on both sides of the issue. That means plenty of advertisements on social media, yard signs, and rallies just like the political candidates themselves.
"When you find something that's effective and it works, it usually works for more than one type of issue," Waters said.
Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
