Kentucky’s Amendment 2 has taken center stage on the ballot, but confusion has swirled about what it actually would do if passed. A community discussion in Erlanger aimed to provide clarity.
Kentucky’s controversial Amendment 2 took the spotlight at a LINK nky hosted community conversation Monday evening just weeks before voters decide whether they will alter the state’s constitution and change where public tax dollars are allocated for education.
Conversation among the four panel members was dominated mostly by Bridget Blom, president and CEO of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, and Jim Waters, Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions president.
Waters argued heavily in favor of the amendment’s passage while Blom passionately made the case against opening the door for tax money to be spent on private education, something the passage of Amendment 2 would open the door to.
Former teacher Colette Cole-Sanger stormed out of the forum early.
“It was a very lopsided panel,” Cole-Sanger said.
She was deeply against the amendment’s passage and said the other two panelists’ comments on national school choice issues created a three-to-one bias toward Amendment 2’s passage.
“There was not equal time, and I found that to be undemocratic,” Cole-Sanger said.
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WCPO reached out to political scientist Stephen Voss for clarification about what Amendment 2’s passage would actually mean away from the debates.
“The language itself doesn’t do very much,” Voss said. “Amendment two simply removes from the constitution barriers to having public money fund education through channels other than the common public education system.”
Voss said anti-amendment voices will continue to promise it will lead to tax dollars funding private schools, and amendment supporters will guarantee that it will improve education by increasing parent choices in where to send their kids.
He said neither one is wholly truthful.
“Strictly speaking, neither one is telling the truth because something else would have to happen for either the good or bad outcomes from Amendment 2 to take place. Legislation would still need to be passed,” Voss said.
The amendment would add the sentence “the General Assembly may provide financial support for the education of students outside the system of common schools” to the state’s constitution.
The constitution, as written, prohibits the use of public money outside of public schools, but the amendment as written wouldn’t automatically force public funds to be directed to anything other than public schools, according to Voss.
The state legislature has repeatedly had its funding formulas struck down by the state supreme court due to the language currently found in the constitution.
LINK nky reporter Nathan Granger said the conversation within the Erlanger branch of the Kenton County Library was crucial to further understand what the larger implications of passage or failure would be.
“This is something that affects the entire state. What’s more, this issue has drawn a lot of passion,” Granger said.
The forum conducted a snap poll of what audience members in-person and online thought of Amendment 2 at the beginning of and toward the end of the event, and the poll revealed opinions had virtually gone unchanged.