The Kentucky legislature, controlled by Republicans, passed voucher legislation. The Governor, Democrat Andy Bashear, seems certain to veto it.
Linda Blackford of the Lexington Herald-Leader wonders why Republicans are both anti-public school and anti-teacher, since most of them graduated from public schools and send their own children there. Why are they so eager to take money away from their community schools to fund what are almost certain to be inferior choices? Is it revenge on teachers for leading protests against pension changes?
She writes:
Back in the 1990s, Kentucky was a shining model of a state that valued education. The Kentucky Education Reform Act revolutionized school funding by creating a central pot of property taxes rather than an uneven patchwork of rich and poor. There was much more: cracking down on corruption and nepotism, raising academic standards, new money for teacher training, important supports for struggling children.
But over the past two decades, the state’s politics have turned crimson and all that potential — and state support for it — is slipping away. Why do Republicans appear to dislike and distrust public schools so much? Is it because their teachers are represented by politically powerful unions that happened to get our Democratic unicorn governor elected? Is it because those unions negotiated pretty good pension promises? Is it because they resisted reopening schools? Is it because the very notion of public education recognizes that government can do good things?
“I think what you see is a demonization of public education that’s coming from all these right wing groups,” said Nema Brewer, a co-founder of 120 Kentucky United, an education advocacy group that helped defeat Republican plans for teacher pensions and elect Beshear in 2019. “The Republican Party of Kentucky has bought into this demonization of public schools, completely forgetting the majority of them are products of public schools. It’s just amazing to me that this is what’s happened.”
Those Republicans got their political revenge on Tuesday night when they passed House Bill 563, what’s known as a “neo-voucher bill.” It hurts teachers and rural school districts, while creating more segregation and less school funding, a veritable lottery for the GOP.
By now, the research on vouchers is compelling: they don’t raise the academic achievements of students. Voucher schools are typically inferior to public schools because they are free to hire uncertified teachers and principals. They discriminate at will. Why would Republicans think it was a good idea to waste public money on low-quality religious schools or to subsidize the tuition of students already in religious schools?
Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/linda-blackford/article249974744.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
WHY? Here’s a guess: Big donor $$$$. CBK
The motivation of those who advance the Koch political/social/economic agenda in Kentucky and elsewhere is the same as for voter suppression, preserving a white, male, ruling class entitlement.
The conservative religious will be the last to abandon racism and sexism.
Linda If the Catholic Church’s record on recognizing Galileo’s truth is any indication, try three or four centuries. Sigh . . . Though in fact, I think it won’t take that long. CBK
OMG …
KY just shot itself in the foot.
Too many red states have a brainwashed citizenry. They have been trained to mistrust anything from the government. When you talk to them, they want a small government that cannot function. I just read that the IRS does not have enough people to go after the Trumps and other tax evaders. This is what the right wing wants, a government that cannot function so they can have their way. The IRS do not pursue the billionaires and millionaires because they do not have the resources to go after an army of lawyers. The IRS goes after little people because it is easy and cheap. They have failed to collect over $2 billion in taxes from the wealthy. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-15/irs-failed-to-collect-2-4-billion-in-taxes-from-millionaires?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmarkets&stream=business&sref=0KUfhQHv
You’re right, retired teacher.
I talked with a friend who is an evangelical, former Catholic, about Peter Thiel’s support for J.D. Vance in the race for Portman’s seat in Ohio. My friend, despite the fact that she and her whole family worked for state and local governments their entire lives and who receive the accompanying pensions, believes the “government is bad” propaganda. Her most recent attempt at reconciling the absurd is to say, she doesn’t like any politicians. But, she will still go and vote and she will fill in the circle for the conservative GOP. Her influence group is the conservative church.
I agree with those who think the best approach is to get new voters to the polls not to waste time on lost causes. In order to get those new voters, a strategy that exposes the threat to separation of church and state being advanced by the religious, is necessary.
Well said. We need to stop blending religion into politics. It completely muddies the water and has brought us to current irrational place where we use public dollars to fund religious schools.
“Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
Ronald Reagan
The GOP shrunk the government so that there could be no oversight. It’s how they have “won” for so long.
“The U.S. is the only democracy in the world with a written constitution that does not have an Equal Rights Amendment”.
An internet search of Equal Rights Amendment and USCCB informs readers that the Catholic Church is using its political influence to stop the ERA.
If women in the church stand silent…
It’s apparent to me that the answer is that most if not all of the elected Republicans in Kentucky are afraid of Trump’s alleged majority support base in the GOP. If they do not do what Trump says, they fear losing re-election to another Trump supporter that is a hardcore QAnaon follower.
Imagine the paranoia, the lost sleep, the deep stress these poor Republicans are dealing with that the Republican Party would end up with a majority of Marjorie Taylor Greene clones running Kentucky.
They also fear the flood of death threats pouring in from Trump’s violent mob of QAnaon followers threatening them and their families for not doing what Trump wants. To escape, they might have to move to California or another blue state to find a place where they might be safe from Trump’s mob.
Do these numbers tell another story?
Presidential election results in Kentucky, 2020.
Trump: 1,326,646 votes
Biden: 772,474 votes
“The bill allows the creation of “education opportunity account program, where people and corporations can donate money to completely unregulated organization can offer scholarships, ”
Completely unregulated. No regulation, no accounting for public funds and no transparency.
Within five years you’ll see the massive scandals come to light, that’s if anyone can ever get a look at the books.
This is a real achievement for ed reformers though- their ideological crusade against public schools and public school students is really starting to pay off.
If you’re wondering why no one in the “ed reform movement” got anything at all accomplished to assist public schools in the pandemic, here’s your answer. They were all busy lobbing for private school vouchers.
OMG!