HB2 proposes to amend the Kentucky Constitution to authorize the financial support of students outside the public school system.
The Senate passed HB2 on March 15, 2024, by a vote of 27 to 8. We have assigned pluses to the nays because ratification of this amendment would further expand the government’s monopoly on K-12 education, which seeks to displace traditional private schools and homeschooling in favor of universal state-sponsored schooling. Its exchange of public subsidies for curriculum and other regulatory controls effectively turns every participating student into a government-school student. Moreover, education is not the role of government. A child’s education is the responsibility of his or her family. The best “school choice,” by far, is for parents to choose not to place their child’s education in the hands of the state. Educational and economic freedom cannot be achieved by forcing other citizens to furnish their hard-earned tax dollars to fund all that now entails a compulsory, failing, and government-run K-12 school system.