Franklin Circuit Court's charter-school ruling: Our founders would not agree

The Bluegrass Institute issued the following statement in response to the Franklin Circuit Court’s ruling deeming charter-school legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2022 unconstitutional. House Bill 9 creates a funding mechanism for public charter schools in Kentucky, and requires the establishment of two pilot charters – one in Jefferson County and the other one in Northern Kentucky.

Today’s ruling by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd denies Kentucky families whose children remain trapped in failing schools the opportunity of enrolling their children in charter schools – a public-school option available to parents in 45 other states, including many with which Kentucky competes for population growth and economic development.

This ruling also goes against the respected opinions of great legal minds like Paul Clement, the nation’s former Solicitor General, who concludes: “whatever obstacles to the creation of charter schools may exist, the Kentucky Constitution should not be one of them.”

The Kentucky Supreme Court will doubtless be the final arbiter regarding the constitutionality of HB 9. That court should consider the fact that these schools are changing the educational trajectory of millions of at-risk students nationwide. Surely, our commonwealth’s founders would not have opposed such an important and positive policy.

More than 7,800 public charter schools now educate 3.8 million students in 44 states and the District of Columbia. A majority of these students are minorities from low-income homes whose parents cannot afford a private-school tuition or an expensive move to a better school district.

We urge the Kentucky Supreme Court to carefully consider the fact that charter schools are:

· public schools managed differently than traditional public schools;

· free of some of the regulations that deny great teachers and hungry students the opportunity for a stellar education that works better for them;

· schools of choice. Unlike traditional public schools, students are not assigned to charters. Parents must choose them, which creates the strongest accountability of any approach to public education. If parents are dissatisfied with the performance of a charter school, or if charters fail to meet the performance standards they agree to in their “charters” or are guilty of financial malfeasance, they can be closed.

Disingenuous claims by opponents of educational freedom that offering parents alternatives would destroy public education ring hollow in light of improvement in academic outcomes in states expanding alternatives for parents.

For example, Florida’s public schools’ academic performance has steadily improved as the state expanded education freedom while spending notably less per pupil than Kentucky. More than 380,000 students attended over 700 public charter schools in 46 districts in Florida during the 2022-23 school year.

Meanwhile, the Bluegrass State’s education performance, particularly in key academic areas, has shown little improvement while per-pupil spending has risen by a whopping inflation-adjusted 80% since passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act 33 years ago.

We urge the Kentucky Supreme Court to end the embarrassment of the commonwealth being the only state in America with an enabling charter-school law but no existing public charter schools.

For more information, please contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com or 270.320.4376 (cell).