EdChoice (formerly the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation) conducted a telephone poll of 600 people in Kentucky and found support for “scholarships,” also known as “vouchers.”
Proponents of vouchers avoid using the V word, because the public understands that it means sending public money to religious and private schools. The public is okay with scholarships but opposes vouchers.
When proposals for vouchers (or scholarships that allow public money to be spent for religious or private schools) is on the ballot, the voters say no. They said NO last week in Arizona by a vote of 65-35%.
EdChoice and the Goldwater Institute are based in Arizona. The Koch brothers and DeVos’ American Federation for Children supported the voucher referendum (called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts), and despite the money and the euphemism, it was defeated overwhelmingly.
Watch out, Kentucky. The voucher zombies are coming for you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good report, Diane. The voucher vultures continue to thumb their noses at and offer their middle fingers to the voters who in 30 (!) state referenda from Nebraska in 1966 to Arizona in 2018 have rejected all such plans by an average margin of 2 to 1.
Taint-ucky does it again…kicking itself in the gut.
Kentucky is following Florida’s lead by misleading its people. The people should understand that these vouchers will really move public money out of the public schools and into private schools of questionable value. Most voucher schools provide a worse education than comparable public schools. It will also provide tax credits to wealthy individuals resulting in working families shouldering more of the tax burden. This is a loss for the middle class and a win for the wealthy.
One wonders if KY politicians have bothered to read their state constitution, Section 5 of whose Bioll if Rights clearly forbids compelling taxpayers from having to support such religious institutions as parochial schools. And one wonders what stupid question the Friedman gang used in thsi poll.
If EdChoice conducted the telephone poll, I think it is a safe bet they paid for 600 safe names from a data broker that would answer what they wanted, a vote for vouchers.
Someone calls up and asks residents if the state should support scholarships for poor students, most people will respond positively, particularly if the gory truth of the shift of public dollars is withheld. This is public fraud.
(I worked in statistical analysis for the US Commerce Dept). Polls can be ‘massaged’ by several means, already discussed here. The questions can be phrased to “push” the respondent to answer favorably. The sample group can be “stacked” to yield a result desired by the pollster.
(If you had a deck of cards, and all 52 cards were the Queen of Diamonds, and you had a person draw one card, chances are , it would be the Queen of Diamonds).
Kentucky is not Arizona. I am certain that the political leadership of Kentucky is looking across the Ohio river, at the situation in Indiana, and watching it closely.
Financial support can be provided to families, who choose to enroll their children in non-public schools, notwithstanding the admonitions in the Kentucky constitution. (See Trinity School District v. Pauley, 2017).
I was born and brought up in Kentucky. I was educated in Kentucky public schools. School choice is coming to the Bluegrass State.
Parents and teachers and pastors are fighting school Choice in Kentucky.
Agreed. This is going to be interesting to watch.