Northern Kentucky districts' funding, academic results affirm need for education freedom

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jim Waters

Monday, October 14, 2024 270-320-4376

COVINGTON, Ky. – Just ahead of tonight's forum on Amendment 2 in Northern Kentucky, the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kentucky’s free-market think tank, released a policy point today showing that the patterns of funding, academic performance and teachers’ salaries in the region’s 13 public school districts mirror those of the entire state.

In “Northern Kentucky Public School Districts: An Overview of Facts and Trends” Bluegrass Scholar John Garen, Ph.D., reports that despite large increases in per-pupil funding, a majority of students in a majority of the region’s districts fail to reach proficiency in reading and math. The policy point is the latest in Garen’s continuing series of data snapshots, revealing a near-continuous rise in overall per-pupil funding since 1990 yet little improvement in educational outcomes in rural and urban local school districts as well as the commonwealth’s public education system as a whole.

While inflation-adjusted per pupil funding, on average, has risen across the region to more than $21,000 – up from barely $8,000 in 1990, when the Kentucky Education Reform Act was passed and slightly largely than the statewide average increase – academic achievement gaps between Black and White students remain cavernous while teachers’ salaries continue to be largely stagnant. Local per-pupil funding varies widely – from nearly $33,000 in Newport schools to less than $17,000 in the Beechwood district. The Covington and Southgate districts each had funding of more than $25,000 per student.

“Despite significant funding increases, thousands of students in the region are not proficient in key academic areas and thus unprepared for future academic and career success,” Bluegrass Institute President Jim Waters said. “Kentucky’s low proficiency rates make it imperative that we provide more options for parents to find the education that best fits their children’s needs.”

Waters will argue for giving Kentucky parents educational freedom at tonight's forum in the heart of the school districts covered by this policy brief at the Erlanger Branch of the Kenton County Public Library, 401 Kenton Lands Road, Erlanger, KY 41018. The event is presented by LINK nky and EducateNKY and will be livestreamed here. RSVP here for a free ticket to the in-person event.

“A growing mountain of research suggests that when school choice is introduced in a city or state, public school student achievement improves as school realize that when parents have a choice, they must step up their game to offer a higher quality of learning for every student,” Waters said. “If we want to see educational outcomes improve in these Northern Kentucky school districts, then we need to do what most other states -- including Ohio and the other six states neighboring Kentucky have done: empower parents to choose where and how their children are educated.”

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Bluegrass Institute works with Kentuckians, grassroots organizations, and business owners to advance freedom and prosperity by promoting free-market capitalism, smaller government and defense of personal liberties.

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