Jeff Bryant has written a thorough investigative report of the attack on the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville) in Kentucky. The report was funded partially by the Network for Public Education.
Louisville has one of the best integrated school districts in the nation. Its NAEP scores are better than those of other urban districts.
The only “crisis” in Louisville is caused by the election of Matt Bevin, a rabid Tea Party Governor who wants to seize control of the Louisville public schools and introduce charters.
A transplant from Connecticut, Bevin swept into the governor’s job despite the fact he had never held political office anywhere, running on a Tea Party inspired campaign was mostly self-funded with earnings from hedge funds he operates.
Bevin has taken unprecedented actions to remake the Kentucky Board of Education, stocking it with critics of public schools and Jefferson County Public Schools in particular. One Bevin appointee, Gary Houchens, an associate professor at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, is listed as a “policy scholar” for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a rightwing think tank. Another pick, Kathy Gornik, has served as board chair for the organization.
The Bluegrass Institute was founded with money from two libertarian networks, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network, and has benefited from a pipeline of dark money.
One of Bluegrass’s top issues is “education reform,” which it defines as “charter schools, tax credits, and vouchers”—all forms of “school choice” that divert taxpayer money from public schools to private entrepreneurs. The Bluegrass Institute’s staff education analyst, Richard G. Innes, has been attacking Jefferson County Public Schools for years. After the announcement of recommended takeover, he penned an op-ed endorsing it.
Fortunately, parents are organized and fighting back.
The parent leader is a public school parent, Gay Adelmann:
“Jefferson County Public Schools is a district of choice, [and] parents can look for schools and not houses,” says Gay Adelman, a white Jefferson County Public Schools parent with a student who attends The Academy at Shawnee, a magnet middle school and high school in the West End with a focus on aerospace. Shawnee has a student population that is 59 percent non-white and 79 percent on free and reduced price lunch, a typical measurement of poverty.
Adelman helped form the grassroots group Dear Jefferson County Public Schools that pushed to elect the current school board. She recently ran for State Senate in the Democratic party primary, campaigning on a platform supporting Jefferson County Public Schools and opposing state takeover. She lost but managed to garner 44 percent of the vote as a first-time candidate with little funding.
Bevin fired the state commissioner and hired one of his own choosing, Wayne Lewis, a charter zealot who is determined to grab control of the Louisville district.
But Bevin and Lewis face a community that supports its public schools. The recent school board elections saw public school supporters beat the Dark-Money candidates:
In the 2016 school board election, Kolb, a first-time candidate for the board, won an improbable upset victory against well-financed incumbent board chairman, David Jones Jr., the son of the co-founder of health insurance giant Humana. Kolb estimates he was outspent by up to fifteen-to-one, but he won because he and his volunteers knocked on over 13,000 doors.
Running as a one-term incumbent, current JCPS school board member Chris Brady was also targeted by big money for defeat, with over $350,000 from a local Super PAC that backed his opponent. He won anyway, he tells me, by “running on my record” of supporting the district and new leadership he helped put into place.
Jeff Bryant casts the battle for control of the public schools of Louisville as a battle for democracy:
But if the takeover of Jefferson County Public Schools is all about politics, it’s not a contest between “red vs. blue,” but whether democracy matters at all.
The pro-public schools coalition is planning a big rally on October 18 in the afternoon. I will be there and so will my friend and civil rights leader Jitu Brown of the Journey for Justice. We will be there to support the students and parents of Jefferson County.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks Diane!
Thanks for your investigative journalism.
Not one good idea or positive program or effort to improve any public school anywhere in the state.
This is what passes for “education reform”. A “movement” that completely and utterly excludes public schools, students and families – the entities and people who make up the vast majority of ALL schools, students and families.
I’m for truth in advertising. They really need to let people know this is ABOUT charters and vouchers. They figure it out eventually anyway when they start to notice no one in ed reform actually does anything for public schools.
If you’re voting for ed reformers you’re making a decision- the decision is to abandon your existing public education system and replace it with their preferred system. The rest is details.
All dept. of education/interventionist deform activity summed up in a nutshell: “…abandon existing public education system and replace it… The rest is details.”
You can find daily examples of this in ed reform.
Here’s what they accomplished in Illinois:
https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/12-things-we-should-have-known-about-illinois-new-private-school-scholarships/9110669f-7800-442c-beda-2d2537b12fa0
A giant voucher program. If you landed here from Mars and read the ed reform agenda or record of “accomplishments” you would not know US public schools exist.
Illinois belatedly got around to working on a budget for “public education”. Ed reformers hijacked the process and the ENTIRE FOCUS became jamming thru a giant voucher program.Not one adult in state government was working on behalf of the 85% of families in that state who attend public schools. Public schools were an afterthought, and it shows. Every public school in the state was subordinated to The Goal, which was vouchers.
You can’t even find coverage of what happened to public schools in this budget bill. They’re simply never mentioned.
We can do better. We can hire people who actually intend to work on public education. We’re paying these people anyway. Let’s find some who value our schools and our kids.
I was born in Louisville KY. I was educated in public schools in Lexington and Bowling Green KY, and graduated from Western Kentucky University. My sister taught in Jefferson County public schools.
I am watching this story with great interest.
Here’s some more information to add to this saga.
In the June KY Board of Education (KBE) meeting, a change in procedure of determining the chair of the KBE was changed. The “order” was that a nominating committee be formed and nominations come from those members who have been on the KBE for at least a year. This was changed and in the August KBE meeting, Hal Heiner was elected chair of the KBE. While Gary Houchens is given a “poor light” in this article, he is the one person who did NOT accept Dr. Pruitt’s resignation, fought the change in election order, AND abstained from voting for Heiner as chair. Also, he is the ONLY educator currently on the board, thanks to Bevins.
Wayne Lewis, from what I’ve read, has never attended a public school. According to an article from NC State, it appears as though his schooling was accomplished in Catholic school. His doctorate is in Education Policy and is interested in teaching in higher education (https://ced.ncsu.edu/news/2018/08/08/five-questions-with-wayne-lewis-09-phd-on-public-education/).
KY has hired a new General Council: Deanna Durrett, who worked for Success Academy.
Speaking of charter schools, Dr. Pruitt was very insistent on having strong charter regulations (Bevin was able to get a charter law passed in 2017). He went as far as having national experts on “both sides” speak to the previous KBE members, discussing all the pros and cons. The KBE, in its last meeting. called for a committee to “review the charter regulations.” We all know what that means.
As a life-long Kentuckian, I cannot wait until November!
Well, it’s official. If we want democracy we have to buy it. WFP described a kickstarter campaign, asking citizens to donate $20.20 to the next opponent of Sen. Susan Collins, if she votes for Kavanaugh. What a despicable place, oligarchs like Gates, Arnold and the Kochs have led the United States. The oligarchs demean every sacrifice ever made for this nation.