Kentucky

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In 1985, 66 property-poor rural school districts in Kentucky filed a lawsuit claiming that the state education finance system violated the state constitution. In response, in 1989, the state supreme court in Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S.W.2d 186, issued a final ruling declaring “Kentucky’s entire system of common schools . . . unconstitutional.” The court ordered the General Assembly to provide funding “sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an adequate education” and to reform the property tax system. In defining an adequate education, the court enumerated seven learning goals, which have served as a touchstone for other courts deciding similar cases ever since. As many other courts have done subsequently, the Kentucky court concluded that “money matters” and that state responsibility for public education cannot be disclaimed in the name of “local control.”

In 1990, the legislature enacted a comprehensive package of education reforms and tied those reforms to the court-ordered funding reforms. As a result, school funding increased dramatically, and all schools have adopted at least some of the innovative education reforms. The seven learning goals, for “each and every child,” are:

1. sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization;
2. sufficient knowledge of economic, social, and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices;
3. sufficient understanding of governmental processes to enable the student to understand the issues that affect his or her community, state, and nation;
4. sufficient self-knowledge and knowledge of his or her mental and physical wellness;
5. sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage;
6. sufficient training or preparation for advanced training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently; and
7. sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market.

Young v. Williams

In 2004, a coalition of school districts filed a new case, Young v. Williams, challenging the legislature’s funding cut-backs in recent years. They argued that the school funding system in Kentucky is “inadequate and arbitrarily determined,” and asked the court to order the state to use a “specific, systematic method” to determine the appropriate level of state funding. According to plaintiffs, state funding in the 2003-2004 school year, for example, fell between $1.08 billion and $1.2 billion short of what was needed to provide an adequate education. The inadequacy of funding in recent years has meant that students have not received the opportunities mandated by Rose and subsequent legislation. While acknowledging that there had been improvements in student outcomes, plaintiffs emphasized that the pace of improvement would not permit students to meet the benchmarks set forth by the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System.

On February 13, 2007, Judge Thomas Wingate of the Franklin Circuit Court dismissed the case, finding that there was no “objective evidence of shortcomings in Kentucky’s education system.” Judge Wingate, while saying that the Kentucky General Assembly’s failure to commission a cost study was “puzzling,” and that perhaps the legislature is merely “afraid of the results that study will produce,” also said that the Kentucky Constitution’s strong separation of powers clause prevents him from ordering a study. In addition, he ruled that the significant improvement in student output measures following the legislative response to Rose is evidence in itself of the adequacy of Kentucky schools.

In May 2007, the trial court denied plaintiffs’ motion to reconsider. Plaintiffs decided not to appeal, but Roger Marcum, president of the Council for Better Education (CBE), stated that the CBE “will continue to lead efforts for adequate resources,” and noted that additional litigation remained an option if the Commonwealth failed to address the funding system’s shortfalls.

RECENT EVENTS

On January 14, 2024, a group of Kentucky students, filed a groundbreaking lawsuit,  Kentucky Student Voice Team (KSVT) v. Commonwealth of Kentucky  against  the Commonwealth of Kentucky, asserting that the state has failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to provide all students with an adequate and equitable public education, as required by the 1989 decision of the Kentucky Supreme Court in Rose v. Council for Better Education. Rose was a landmark decision in which the Kentucky Court declared not only the state’s education finance system, but the entire state school system unconstitutional. As noted above, the Rose Court defined an “adequate education” in substantial terms, specifying seven major “capacities” that Kentucky students were entitled to learn and develop during their time in school.

The landmark Rose decision was relied on by at least seven other state court education adequacy decisions. In the decade following its enactment, Kentucky’s school system was substantially overhauled, funding was greatly increased and student achievement measures rose significantly. Beginning in the early 2000s and especially after the 2008 recession, however, funding, accountability, and academic progress plummeted;  by 2024, funding levels were 25% below their 1990-91 level in inflation-adjusted terms, inequities in funding between high income and low income school districts were at pre-Rose levels and student achievement statistics were far below levels from a decade earlier.

“The Kentucky Constitution guarantees every student the right to a quality public education,” said Khoa Ta, a policy coordinator for the Kentucky Student Voice Team and a junior from Daviess County High School. “This right was clarified in the 1989 Rose v. Council for Better Education decision. But today, the legacy of Rose is wilted as its promises have gone unfulfilled for far too many Kentucky students.”

The Plaintiffs in this case are KSVT, a state-wide student organization and 13 individual students from diverse communities throughout the states. Their complaint highlights critical issues that undermine the quality of education across the Commonwealth, including:

• Declining literacy skills: Only 41% of Kentucky 8th graders are proficient or above in reading. (2023-24 Kentucky Summative Assessment)
• Lack of civics education: Kentucky is one of just 11 states without a civics course requirement, leaving students unprepared to engage in government processes and civic life. (2023 Committee for Economic Development)
• Mental health crises: In 2023, nearly 1 in 5 (18.6%) of Kentucky high school students reported seriously considering taking their own lives. (Kentucky Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2023) Yet many Kentucky schools lack adequate counseling resources, with some schools having no counselors at all.
• Limited Arts Availability: Just 18.5% of Kentucky schools report offering no visual or performing arts class of any kind. (2023 Kentucky School Report Card)
• Severe academic disparities: There are  vast differences in achievement between Kentucky districts, in many cases of over 70 percentage points. (2023 Kentucky School Report Card)

Michael A. Rebell, Executive Director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University and co-counsel for the plaintiffs stated that “ KSVT v. Commonwealth is the first state court constitutional litigation that is asking the Court not only to increase educational funding, but also to enforce students’ rights to the quality of education guaranteed by the educational clause of the state constitution; in Kentucky, that right emphasized the importance of preparing students to be capable citizens. We hope that the Kentucky Supreme Court’s decision in this case will again set a national precedent that will lead state courts around the country to ensure that students receive a meaningful educational opportunity.” Other attorneys for the plaintiffs are Kaplan, Johnson, Abate, & Bird, a Louisville-based firm with substantial experience in constitutional litigation and Michael Gregory, a Professor and director of the Youth Advocacy & Policy Lab at Harvard Law School are also representing the plaintiffs in this action.

“Generations before us fought to reimagine Kentucky schools, and we are here to ensure that promise is renewed for every student,” said Danielle Chivero, a student plaintiff from Tates Creek High School. “Our schools should be places where students are prepared to thrive, regardless of where they live or their family’s income.”

The Kentucky Student Voice Team plans to complement the lawsuit with a year-long series of public hearings to gather insights and ideas from stakeholders across the Commonwealth. These hearings will inform recommendations for improving Kentucky’s schools and holding decision-makers accountable.