Leaving no wiggle room, Ky. Supreme Court trips up GOP march to destroy public schools [View all]

[In It to Win It]

Lexington Herald-Leader

If you appreciate any of the following things: public schools, public teachers, the civic good, the Kentucky Constitution, the Commonwealth, and general fair play, then the Kentucky Supreme Court handed you a very nice early gift.

They ruled unanimously that the Education Opportunity Account Act — which allows people to get tax credits for donating to organizations that then give scholarships to private schools — was completely unconstitutional. No wiggle room at all. The reason as Justice Lisabeth Hughes wrote is simple: “Applying the plain language of this section, the income tax credit raises money for nonpublic education and its characterization as a tax credit rather than an appropriation is immaterial,” Hughes wrote.

Because the Kentucky Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of the Kentucky Constitution, this idea to divert funding from public schools to private ones is now quite dead and cannot be appealed.

‘It was pretty straightforward, they took a very textual approach and relied on some past precedents, they go back almost 100 years,” said University of Kentucky professor Jonathan Straub. “They wrote it in a very black and white principle that taxpayer money has to go to public schools and we’re not going to buy into these tricks or workarounds.”