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Kentucky
Recent Events | Useful
Resources
Historical Background In 1985, 66 property-poor
rural school districts in Kentucky filed a lawsuit claiming
that the state education finance system violated the
state constitution. In response, in 1989, the state
supreme court in Rose v. Council for Better Education,
790
S.W.2d 186, issued a final ruling declaring "Kentucky's
entire system of common schools . . . unconstitutional."
The court ordered the General Assembly to provide funding
"sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an
adequate education" and to reform the property
tax system. In defining an adequate education, the court
enumerated seven learning goals, which have served as
a touchstone for other courts deciding similar cases
ever since. As many other courts have done subsequently,
the Kentucky court concluded that "money matters"
and that state responsibility for public education cannot
be disclaimed in the name of "local control."
In 1990, the legislature enacted a comprehensive package
of education reforms and tied those reforms to the court-ordered
funding reforms. As a result, school funding increased
dramatically, and all schools have adopted at least
some of the innovative education reforms.
The seven learning goals, for "each and every
child," are:
1. sufficient oral and written communication skills
to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly
changing civilization;
2. sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and
political systems to enable the student to make informed
choices;
3. sufficient understanding of governmental processes
to enable the student to understand the issues that
affect his or her community, state, and nation;
4. sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his
or her mental and physical wellness;
5. sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each
student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical
heritage;
6. sufficient training or preparation for advanced
training in either academic or vocational fields so
as to enable each child to choose and pursue life
work intelligently; and
7. sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills
to enable public school students to compete favorably
with their counterparts in surrounding states, in
academics or in the job market.
Young v. Williams
In 2004, a coalition of school districts filed a new
case, Young v. Williams, challenging the legislature’s
funding cut-backs in recent years. They argued
that the school funding system in Kentucky is “inadequate
and arbitrarily determined,” and asked the court
to order the state to use a “specific, systematic
method” to determine the appropriate level of
state funding. According to plaintiffs, state funding
in the 2003-2004 school year, for example, fell between
$1.08 billion and $1.2 billion short of what was needed
to provide an adequate education. The inadequacy of
funding in recent years has meant that students have
not received the opportunities mandated by Rose
and subsequent legislation. While acknowledging that
there had been improvements in student outcomes, plaintiffs
emphasized that the pace of improvement would not permit
students to meet the benchmarks set forth by the Commonwealth
Accountability Testing System.
On February 13, 2007, Judge Thomas Wingate of the Franklin
Circuit Court dismissed the case, finding that there
was no “objective evidence of shortcomings in
Kentucky’s education system.” Judge Wingate,
while saying that the Kentucky General Assembly’s
failure to commission a cost study was “puzzling,”
and that perhaps the legislature is merely “afraid
of the results that study will produce,” also
said that the Kentucky Constitution’s strong separation
of powers clause prevents him from ordering a study.
In addition, he ruled that the significant improvement
in student output measures following the legislative
response to Rose is evidence in itself of the adequacy
of Kentucky schools.
In May 2007, the trial court denied plaintiffs’
motion to reconsider. Plaintiffs decided not to appeal,
but Roger Marcum, president of the Council for Better
Education (CBE), stated that the CBE “will continue
to lead efforts for adequate resources,” and noted
that additional litigation remained an option if the
Commonwealth failed to address the funding system’s
shortfalls.
Recent Events
According to a November 2007 study prepared for the
Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, virtually
none of Kentucky’s additional education spending
between 1992 and 2004 was spent on academic programs.
According to “A Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
A Review of the State School Funding Landscape in Kentucky,
1990-2008,” almost all of the increased funding
between 1992 and 2004 was devoted to keeping pace with
inflation and the skyrocketing cost of benefits.
According to the study, most of the additional spending
between 1990 and 1992, the years immediately following
enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, was
devoted to academic programs. Of recent spending, Robert
F. Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee
noted, “We started catching up after 2004, but
it was like filling potholes because we had fallen so
far behind by then.”
Useful Resources:
Molly A. Hunter, All Eyes Forward: Public Engagement
and Educational Reform in Kentucky, 28 Journal of Law
& Education 485 (October 1999)
D. Frank Vinik, The Contrasting Politics of Remedy:
The Alabama and Kentucky School Equity Funding Suits,
22 Journal of Education Finance 60 (Summer 1996)
Last Updated: February, 2008 |
