Banding together with school districts across the state, a group of western Kentucky superintendents gathered to oppose state cuts to school funding and the “privatization” of those funds through “vouchers, tax credits, or any other methods.”
In a news conference Tuesday at the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative, held concurrently with similar media events across the state, the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents unveiled its priorities for next year’s legislative session.
“The burden of education funding is shifting from the state to local districts, which have limited means of raising much-needed revenue,” Cumberland County Schools Superintendent Kirk Biggerstaff said.
When state lawmakers meet in January to begin drafting a two-year budget, Kentucky’s superintendents will make additional funding for teachers and schools their top priority.
Main priorities of the superintendents for the General Assembly
The superintendents said restoring state funding for teacher training, textbooks and instructional materials, and support for new teachers and administrators, will be their main priorities in next year’s legislative session. They want to roll back cuts to funding for textbooks and instructional materials, teacher training and new teacher mentoring.
To attract the best teachers, Union County Superintendent Patricia Sheffer said the state should provide funding for competitive salary and benefits packages, a secure state pension and money for professional development and classroom resources.
Sheffer said doing so would allow “teachers to actually teach rather than, as happens so often, making them take on roles like counselor, social worker, nurse, psychologist, therapist, police detective and even in some cases, a surrogate parent.”
The Kentucky Association of School Superintendents will also campaign for greater funding through the Support Education Excellence in Kentucky program, which it said will help equalize school funding across the state.
“Though the base SEEK funding has seen modest increases, this has been offset with cuts” in other areas, Biggerstaff said.
When state funding levels fall, superintendents contend, local school districts are forced to pass on the difference with higher local property tax rates.
“Kentucky needs to make a stronger investment in its public schools,” Biggerstaff said, adding that education now makes up about 40 percent of the state’s budget as opposed to more than half 20 years ago.
Urging voters to go to the polls
The timing of the event fell one week before the gubernatorial election between Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and his Democratic challenger, Attorney General Andy Beshear.
Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton, who led the local news conference, closed the event by urging voters to go to the polls Tuesday.
In an interview, he said schools across Kentucky have become less equal when it comes to funding. He cited state money for school transportation as one example.
“When the state continues to diminish the funding for transportation, it’s going to hit the larger school district, such as Warren County Public Schools, at an exponentially higher level,” Clayton said.
Given how spread out his own district is, Clayton said WCPS now arguably operates the largest transportation operation in the region, despite the state only covering about half of the cost.
“That means that our local taxpayers have to bear almost half of the transportation costs,” he said.
Superintendents laid out other legislative priorities, including shoring up the state’s troubled pension system, funding for school safety efforts, and giving superintendents a greater voice in curriculum and principal hires, a move that could potentially weaken the power of school-based councils in those decisions.
A legislative agenda given to members of the media also described a priority to oppose efforts to divert public funds for education.
“We oppose any diversion of public education funds to private agencies through any mechanism including vouchers, tax credits or any other methods,” the agenda said. “Because public education is currently underfunded in Kentucky, we oppose funding charter schools until our public schools are adequately funded.”
The event echoed a similar news conference superintendents held in March to oppose legislation for a tax credit for donations to private school scholarship programs. Shortly afterward, the measure died in a House committee.
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Written by Aaron Mudd. Cross-posted from the
Bowling Green Daily News via the Kentucky Press News Service.