A member of Kentucky’s House GOP leadership filed a bill Friday to amend the state constitution to allow lawmakers to fund private and religious schools.
House Bill 2 , sponsored by Majority Caucus Chair Suzanne Miles, is the second measure filed this session that would allow taxpayer dollars to go towards tuition and other educational expenses outside the public school system.
A measure filed by Republican Rep. Josh Calloway earlier this month , House Bill 208 , proposes a similar change.
HB 2 would amend parts of the constitution that have been the downfall of previous attempts by lawmakers to create programs to fund private and charter schools . Advocates refer to such policies as “school choice.”
Courts have repeatedly interpreted sections of the 1891 constitution as preventing tax dollars from being spent outside the system of “common schools” — the constitution’s language for public schools.
HB 2 would allow lawmakers to ignore those sections so that “the General Assembly may provide financial support for the education of students outside the system of common schools.”