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Dear Colleagues:
House Bill 563 is currently sitting on the governor’s desk and I have asked Gov. Andy Beshear to issue a veto on that bill.
HB 563 is an omnibus “school choice” bill. It allows state SEEK funding to follow a student to a nonresident district; and creates a scholarship tax credit scheme that can be used for many educational options – including private school tuition.
While we can have a thoughtful conversation about the merits of public school choice and whether or not we want to use state tax credits to fund private educational enterprises for Kentucky’s students, the late and rushed manner in which this bill was moved forward is highly problematic.
HB 563 was first reported out of committee on the 25th legislative day this session, which has just 30 days. There was no time given to have hearings or bring together all of the stakeholders – including superintendents, teachers, parents, community members and the K-groups – to look at possible issues and come up with solutions that work best for our students.
Besides the rushed timeline, there are many policy-related reasons why I asked for the governor to veto this bill. For a piece of legislation that would so markedly change how education operates in the Commonwealth, there are precious few specifics as to how these systems would work and there have been too few opportunities for input from key groups – including our state’s superintendents. There are no proper safeguards in place to ensure a smooth transition and the bill does not have a comprehensive vision for how funding would follow the student.
HB 563 also is vague on how nonresident pupils must be treated. In fact, it says that “the policy shall allow nonresident children to be eligible to enroll in any public school located within the district.” So, a district could be forced to allow nonresident students access to any school within the district or to its magnet schools and programs, when there aren’t enough seats for the community’s own students who want them. This seems to give nonresident students more rights than resident students and flies in the face of common sense.
As this bill has been poorly vetted and crammed through at the end of the legislative session, there are numerous other examples of poor education policy HB 563 will bring. From my reading, there is nothing to prevent districts from encouraging parents to enroll their disruptive students in another district, to the home district’s benefit. Likewise, students with Individual Education Programs that are costly to implement or students with low test scores could be encouraged to change districts. And what happens when districts receive students who later do not perform well academically or if they are truant concerns – would districts be permitted to not accept them for enrollment the next year to return to the resident district?
On the tax credit side of this bill, we again have unvetted “model” language dropped in from national educational choice think-tanks that is ill fitted for Kentucky’s context. The system it will create is ripe for fraud, abuse and profiteering from donors, “account granting organizations,” and “education service providers” and provides no safeguards for quality or accountability for results. This tax credit scheme creates a shell game with public funds that will move resources available to rural communities into private schools in more populated areas and has too many opportunities for recipients of these funds to discriminate against students who don’t fit the right profile the private school is looking for.
I want my students, your students and all of Kentucky’s students to succeed in school and life. Our best way of doing that is to work on building up the public education system Kentucky has, where 93% of the state’s students are enrolled.
We should not reflexively oppose efforts to expand school choice or to think creatively about how funding could work differently. But this legislation will have enormously consequential impacts on the education of 650,000 of Kentucky’s youth. Therefore, it needs – and deserves – more time.
Thank you for all your hard work and I urge you to let your legislator know your position on this deeply flawed legislation.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Kind regards,
Jason E. Glass, Ed.D.
Commissioner & Chief Learner
Averting Targeted School Violence
Join the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) for the release of its latest study, "Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools," noon-3:30 p.m. ET on March 30.
The study examines 67 disrupted plots against K-12 schools and highlights the importance of proactive reporting and intervention. This free virtual event will feature presentations from NTAC researchers and special guest speakers.
Space is limited; registration is required. All who register will receive a Microsoft Teams event link, via email, prior to the event.
For more information, email Richard Nord, senior special agent, U.S. Secret Service, Louisville Field Office.
Nominate Best Practices to KDE by May 7
The Kentucky Department of Education’s Best Practices and Sustainability website is open for submission of best practices from schools and districts.
The Best Practice website is designed to serve as a clearinghouse to promote practices that motivate, engage and provide measurable results in student learning, achievement and school/district processes. Any aspect of a school system that can impact student outcomes through improved instruction or operations can be submitted as a best practice.
Best practices should be submitted to the Best Practices database by May 7 to be considered for acknowledgement at the Continuous Improvement Summit, scheduled for Sept. 22-23. For more information, email Natasha Stein.
Register Now for Part Three of Remote Teaching Series
The Office of Educator Licensure and Effectiveness and the Principal Partnership Project are providing Part 3 of “The Framework for Remote Teaching” professional learning series at 10-11:15 a.m. ET on March 24.
This session will hone in on the research-based best practices for asynchronous and synchronous instruction, including discussion about how school leaders might strive for equity in educational opportunities to promote each student’s academic success and well-being.
Registration is free; a link to join the virtual platform will be provided after registration.
Guiding questions are available in this attachment.
Part 1 and/or Part 2 of this professional learning series are available online.
For more information, email Jenny Ray.
Buster Bynum Scholarship Applications Open
The Southeastern States Pupil Transportation Conference is making a one-time $2,000 scholarship available to one student in each of its 14-member southeastern states, which includes Kentucky.
To be eligible, a student must be a high school senior, have a parent or guardian employed in the public school pupil transportation field for at least the past three years (since Jan. 1, 2018), and be planning to attend a postsecondary educational institution in 2021.
Completed applications should be submitted to the local district’s supervisor/director of transportation or the local district’s scholarship selection committee chairperson. Local school districts may set their own deadline for applications to ensure they have time to select one finalist to submit to the state by 5 p.m. ET on April 30.
Each district will select a local winner and submit the winning application pupiltrans@education.ky.gov or mail it to the address on the application. See this document for more information about the scholarship.
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