It’s always interesting to hear what people defending positions on public policy have to say during live interviews. Some of the “stuff” that comes out just isn’t right.

I already provided one example about nonsense regarding education funding in Kentucky that came up during the October 26, 2021 edition of the Kentucky Tonight show. That show featured a discussion on school choice and House Bill 563, which the Kentucky Legislature passed early this year, that will bring choice to the state’s many parents and students of modest means once the delays caused by current legal challenges to the legislation are ended.

As I pointed out in an earlier blog, Tom Shelton, spokesman for the Council for Better Education — the group which filed the lawsuit against the bill — and former head of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, claimed on the show that the big increase in spending after the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 came along was locally generated tax revenue from things like real estate taxes and not from state sources. You can read that first blog to see how off-track Shelton’s comment really was.

But, Shelton’s was far from the only nonsense to come out on the show. Around 11 minutes and 38 seconds into the video, Brigitte Blom, who heads the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, said something that must have really irritated every low- to modest-income viewer in the state. She said:

“When we us the term choice, parents have choices now. So, there isn’t a lack of choice.”

Wow! Ms. Blom apparently doesn’t understand that there are very limited choice options in Kentucky. And, the few school choice options that are available generally are only affordable for well to do parents. For example:

• There are no charter schools, now found in almost every other state, that offer free, public school alternatives open to any parent who needs a better fit for their child.

• There’s no voucher program, which in some states with compatible constitutions directly allows tax dollars to follow the child to whatever school the parents think is the best fit.

• (At least until the constitutionality of House Bill 563 is finally upheld) there’s no tuition tax scholarship program in Kentucky where private donations fund services for needy students who otherwise couldn’t afford them, including scholarships to private schools.

• The ability of parents to transfer their students to a better-suited school in another district is currently very constrained in most areas of Kentucky and often involves considerable costs for both tuition and transportation. It appears HB 563 might improve this problem somewhat, but with the funding provisions in the legislation still under a court stay, the ability to fund tuition payments for such transfers are in doubt, leaving this another option only for the wealthy.

• And, as a really shocking set of stories last week from the Courier-Journal point out (sorry, only available to subscribers), even when the state’s largest public school system seems to offer parents choices, the most desirable choices, like entry to exclusive magnet schools, are in fact just that – exclusive. Students from poor families need not apply – they have very little chance of getting in. And, students bused across town to supposedly better schools in Jefferson County often wind up in segregated classrooms where they get a much poorer education than the children of the elites attending the same schools.

Blom also said that there are opportunities for people to contribute to private scholarship funds now, but as BIPPS’ CEO Jim Waters, who also participated in the show, quickly pointed out, Blom really isn’t interested in stimulating too much of that by offering such donors more incentives to contribute.

That’s too bad when you consider the long-term trend of Kentucky education for things like Grade 4 Reading. The lack of choice is a really sad situation, especially for poor Black parents.

Thus, even such options as Blom pointed out remain unavailable to many in Kentucky.

So, let’s not have anymore nonsense about parents in Kentucky having choice. For a large proportion of our parents, the economic facts of life dictate that they are basically trapped in whatever public school their Zip Code requires their child to attend.

Real choice, which is still very limited in Kentucky compared to other states, is pretty much for the wealthy only in the Bluegrass State. It’s simply astonishing that anyone like Ms. Blom, who’s worked the education scene here for many years, apparently doesn’t understand that.