FILE - Jefferson County Public School students transfer buses at the Nichols Bus Compound, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023 in Louisville, Ky. Kentucky’s long-running political battle over whether taxpayer money should fund private or charter schools could be settled “once and for all” when voters weigh in decide the issue in November, the state Senate’s top Republican leader said Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
Asked if school choice efforts would be dropped or still pursued if the ballot measure fails, Republican Senate President Robert Stivers replied: “I think it would answer the question once and for all.” “We think that there are going to be groups coming into Kentucky, and groups from Kentucky who are going to be investing heavily in media and the grassroots to pass” the ballot measure, Thayer said.
During the Senate debate last month, Thayer said some of the biggest beneficiaries of the school choice push would be low- and middle-income parents whose children are “trapped in bad schools.”