Posted on 12/17/2022 1:53:28 AM PST by blueplum
A Kentucky Supreme Court judge struck down the state’s so-called school choice program Thursday.
The state’s highest court unanimously ruled House Bill 563, officially called the Education Opportunity Account Act, as unconstitutional.
The legislation creates an almost dollar-for-dollar tax credit for Kentuckians who donate to scholarship-granting educational nonprofit organizations. ...
...“It’s always been clear to the plaintiffs and their supporters that the Kentucky Constitution prohibits any attempt to divert tax dollars from our public schools and students without putting the question to voters,” Campbell said in a statement. ...“We simply can’t afford to support two different education systems — one private and one public — on the taxpayers’ dime,....."
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Because the ‘needs’ of the State wre best served when the government controls the drivel being pumped into impressionable young minds.
Wow. Seems fair to me, if your children aren’t getting the “benefit” of your tax dollars in per pupil spending because they are in private schools, the education bureaucracy and corrupt union has no fundamental right to those dollars. Parents/students should be treated as customers. If Kentuckians find education to be a fundamental right, the dollars should follow the students and not the failing institutions. No surprise the union cries for more tax dollars.
Unionist driven.
I feel the same way about paying taxes on other people’s children to fail in a crumbling education system. Not that the education system bothers me so much but not having children, or no school age children and having to pay the same taxes irks me, and always has. That’s socialism. I’ve heard all the arguments and overall, I do not agree with funding other peoples children’s schooling.
It’s kind of like paying back student loans on the backs of taxpayers if you think about it.
And since the local, state, and feds are collecting these taxes, I also don’t understand why States collect money for K through 12 but refuse to fund College tuitions at state schools for top performers or even top performing STEM students.
Why aren’t ALL students K-12 riding the buses if taxes are being collected to maintain the fleet, technicians, and drivers?
“But it’s for the children” from what I’ve observed it throwing good money after bad and disenfranchises the taxpayers who have no skin in the game. Just like federal college loan relief debacle is designed to do.
This ruling unambiguously imposes the government monopoly on education. Poor parents and kids are trapped in the gulag. They’re prisoners of the state. Stalin would be so pleased.
It’s always been clear to the plaintiffs and their supporters that the Kentucky Constitution prohibits any attempt to divert tax dollars from our public schools and students without putting the question to voters,” Campbell said in a statement. ...“We simply can’t afford to support two different education systems — one private and one public — on the taxpayers’ dime,.....”
**************************************************************************
Well then… put it to the voters and/or change the Kentucky constitution.
“This ruling unambiguously imposes the government monopoly on education. Poor parents and kids are trapped in the gulag. They’re prisoners of the state. Stalin would be so pleased.”
You nailed it succinctly and perfectly.
Oh. So the Kentucky Supreme Court now claims the right to decide what the state can and cannot afford, and it is prepared to override the legislature in determining tax and spending priorities.
This is naked judicial usurpation of power, claiming control of political questions that should be left to the legislature and governor.
Mitch McConnell can’t even suggest good judges for the state legislature or people to vote on in KY? The black children will be suffer.
Kentucky should have made all educators contractors, putting them on equal footing with road maintenance crews, so that the alternative institutions are just responding to open tenders for the “service” of education. They should also have bundled all voucher systems in the same bill so that these POS judges would have to address the fact that, if evenly applied, their ruling would also knock welfare vouchers, which are issued upon the same premise as school vouchers.
The proper interest of the state should be an educated public, not public education.
Between the compromised social media mouthpieces, the related theft of the 2020 election, and the treatment of the January 6 prisoners, it is clear that this is exactly the message they want to send.
“Real power is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them from the masses as if they were privileges.”
George Orwell
Section 184
Common School Fund -- What Constitutes -- Use -- Vote on Tax for Education other Than in Common Schools
The bond of the Commonwealth issued in favor of the Board of Education for the sum of one million three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars shall constitute one bond of the Commonwealth in favor of the Board of Education, and this bond and the seventy-three thousand five hundred dollars of the stock in the Bank of Kentucky, held by the Board of Education, and its proceeds, shall be held inviolate for the purpose of sustaining the system of common schools. The interest and dividends of said fund, together with any sum which may be produced by taxation or otherwise for purposes of common school education, shall be appropriated to the common schools, and to no other purpose. No sum shall be raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters, and the majority of the votes cast at said election shall be in favor of such taxation: Provided, The tax now imposed for educational purposes, and for the endowment and maintenance of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, shall remain until changed by law.[1]
Section 186
Distribution and Use of School Fund
All funds accruing to the school fund shall be used for the maintenance of the public schools of the Commonwealth, and for no other purpose, and the General Assembly shall by general law prescribe the manner of the distribution of the public school fund among the school districts and its use for public school purposes.[1]
This ruling unambiguously imposes the government monopoly on education. Poor parents and kids are trapped in the gulag. They’re prisoners of the state.
That is a stupid statement and on the face of it untrue. If the KY Constitution makes it a requirement that such things be voted on by the citizenry then that part is correct. Or is the KY Court saying that the legislature has no legislative function, that everything has o go to a popular vote?
Milton Friedman said that if you want to subsidize a transaction, subsidize the buyer so you get competition.
Schools would rapidly improve competing for the business.
Plaintiff claimed: “We simply can’t afford to support two different education systems — one private and one public — on the taxpayers’ dime,.....”
*************************************
FACT IS: Taxpayer’s can’t afford to support the abysmal disaster called public education.
If parents somehow could get a voucher to cover the amount of money currently being allocated per student by the state? How many of them would choose the public education product?
At what point do voters simply pull the plug on public schools? They are pretty useless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.