Over the last six years, as the state of Kentucky shrank public education funding, it spent nearly $18 million to pay for student busing at private, mostly religious schools in two dozen counties, according to state financial records.
In Nelson County, for example, the state last year paid $182,943 for 257 students to be bused to Catholic schools. Nelson County Fiscal Court matched that with $49,388 from its own budget. That money was split between the city and county school districts, to compensate them for carrying private students on their buses, and private Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, which runs five buses on several daily routes.
"It really is pretty critical for us," said Tom Hamilton, principal of Bethlehem High School, part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville. "Bus transportation is a high-ticket item. This doesn't pay for all of our costs, but it pays for a lot of it." The state's spending is about to grow.
In March, amid lobbying by the Catholic Conference of Kentucky and other groups, the General Assembly voted to boost the private school bus subsidy to $3.5 million annually, up from $2.9 million, a 17 percent increase.
So not only has this taxpayer gift to private schools already cost the citizens of Kentucky millions, it will soon cost them even more.
As it turns out this is in direct defiance of section 189 of the Kentucky constitution:
No portion of any fund or tax now existing, or that may hereafter be raised or levied for educational purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used by, or in aid of, any church, sectarian or denominational school.
So to be clear these public schools are losing the revenue for each child who is no longer showing up for classes, all while funding for public schools overall is shrinking, AND now they are losing money that is being spent to bus their potential students to other schools.
You know choosing a private school for your child is every parent's right in this country. IF you can afford it.
And part of affording it should include being able to get them to and fro, without asking the taxpayer to foot the bill.
(H/T to the Friendly Atheist.)
Past time to tax the political churches and slam down the bigots using our tax money to pay for their bigotry. No vouchers, no free rides and get their lazy mooching butts out of bed to drive their next generation of ignorant little brats out of bed.
ReplyDeleteOn the "plus" side, at least these idiots aren't home schooling.
State of Virginia allows school districts to bus students to private schools.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.doe.virginia.gov/students_parents/private_home/
It violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, also too.
ReplyDeleteLouisana buses tons of private school kids.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edchoice.org/Documents/SchoolChoice/Private-Schools-Laws-and-Regulations/louisiana.pdf
Private school students may ride on public school buses for free if they live more than a
mile from the school and the school is within the local school district. Where no busing is
available, parents may seek reimbursement from the state for travel costs up to a total of
$125 per student or $375 per family per year.
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/05/senate-candidate-joni-ernsts-sarah-palin-schtick-is-now-beyond-parody/361702/
ReplyDeleteConnecticut requires use of public funds to bus students to private schools.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0085.htm
State law requires towns to provide their resident students with the same school transportation services to private, nonprofit schools located in the school district as it does to public schools, provided a majority of the students attending the private school are Connecticut residents. The amount a town must spend to provide this transportation is limited to twice the per-pupil amount it spent on public school transportation in the preceding school year...
New York State requires non-city districts to provide transportation to non-public schools.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.p12.nysed.gov/nonpub/handbookonservices/transportation.html
According to Wisconsin law, a pupil attending a private elementary or high school, including four- and five-year-old kindergarten in Wisconsin is entitled to transportation provided by the public school district in which the student resides, if certain criteria are met.
ReplyDeletehttp://sms.dpi.wi.gov/sms_trprvgen
Iowa
ReplyDeleteIowa Code section 285.1(14), which states: "Resident pupils attending a nonpublic school located either within or without the school district of the pupil’s residence shall be entitled to transportation on the same basis as provided for resident public school pupils under this section."
https://www.educateiowa.gov/pk-12/school-transportation/nonpublic-reimbursement
250 kids in a grade 1-8 private/parochial school can save a school district over 1 million dollars per year. In the mostly rural district I grew up in, there was no way the taxpayers wanted to get all those kids into the public school. The bus cost was a bargain.
ReplyDeleteUntil they start the cry for "vouchers."
DeleteWhen I look at all of those school buses, I don't know why, but I keep thinking of Track Palin.
ReplyDeleteSame transportation law in Pennsylvania. My public school district has transported kids to several religious private schools on the taxpayer dollar for many years.
ReplyDeleteSue the fuck out of that backasswards state
ReplyDeleteIt is also done here in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteIt is also done here in Illinois.
ReplyDeleteIt's legal in MI too, but we recoup some of it because our public school music, art, and Spanish teachers teach in the parochial schools as well as the public, so we can count those kids as part-time public school students, and get some tax money for them.
ReplyDeleteImagine how these same religious idiots would scream if that money were being spent to bus children to Muslim or Hindu schools.
ReplyDelete