Fearmongering fails, Ky families and new teachers win

Bluegrass Institute President and CEO Jim Waters praised state lawmakers who supported historic school choice and pension reform legislation by voting to override vetoes by Gov. Andy Beshear in Monday’s session of the Kentucky General Assembly. 

House Bill 563, whose primary sponsor was Rep. Chad McCoy, R-Bardstown, offers parents statewide the opportunity to enroll their child in a public school in a district different than the one where they reside with state SEEK dollars to follow children who transfer. 

“We commend legislators for recognizing that no child should be denied a better public education just because they don’t happen to live in the district where the school which would provide them that opportunity is located,” said Bluegrass Institute President and CEO Jim Waters. 

“This bill benefits both students who transfer and those who remain in their districts by creating the dynamics that we’re hopeful will result in failing and underperforming public schools improving their performance in order to not risk losing students and the state dollars which follow them,” Waters added.

HB 563 also creates education opportunity accounts funded by tax credits to provide financial assistance to students in counties with more than 90,000 residents who come from homes with incomes at or below 175% of the federal poverty level. These accounts will provide funding for a variety of educational services, including private-school tuition for eligible students with those from the lowest-income homes at the front of the line. 

Students from homes in Jefferson, Fayette, Kenton, Boone, Warren, Hardin, Daviess and Campbell counties meeting the income requirements will be eligible for these accounts and the scholarships they will create. 

“We commend legislators for seeing through the blatant mischaracterizations and alarmism by opponents of educational liberty, including that this policy is an attack on public education,” Waters said. “Not only do several other states have similar and successful school choice programs but those states’ public education systems consistently outperform Kentucky academically while spending less.”

Legislators’ override of Beshear’s veto of House Bill 258 will result in a modernized pension system for new teachers who begin in Kentucky’s classrooms after Jan. 1, 2022. 

The bill, which was sponsored and shepherded through a challenging legislative process by Rep. C. Ed Massey, R-Hebron, creates a new pension tier in the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) and is based on ideas offered by the Bluegrass Institute creating a hybrid pension plan offering new teachers a generous defined benefit at retirement while protecting taxpayers from future unfunded liabilities by including defined-contribution components.  

"This governor may remain in a 20th century state of denial about TRS’ continuing deepening liability – now $15 billion – despite huge infusions of funding in recent years, but the legislators looked beyond the fearmongering of the governor’s ideological allies in the legislature to offer a mobile 21st century retirement plan which will attract new teachers to Kentucky,” Waters said.

For more information, please contact Jim Waters at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com, 859.444.5630 or (cell) 270.320.4376.