Does Kentucky spend the right amount on schools?

The Bluegrass Institute and the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice recently conducted an opinion poll to find out what Kentucky voters – our readers – think about the state’s education system.

I showed you what you think about the schools overall a couple of days ago.

A solid majority of you, 59 percent, think the schools are doing only a poor to fair job, at best.

Now, let’s look at what you told us about school funding.


As you can see, an overwhelming portion of you either think we spend enough now (26%) or we spend too much (44%). Less than one in three of you think we need to spend more.

Since you also don’t think the schools are doing very well, I have to conclude that you don’t think the schools are using the dollars they get in effective ways.

This is something our school bureaucracy, which constantly has its hand out for more dollars, simply must come to grips with. Our school “folk” need to figure out how to do their job more efficiently rather than just continuing to plan on getting a lot more money so they can continue as they have in the past.

The poll indicates you don’t think the past performance of Kentucky’s schools is very good, but you also don’t think more money is the answer.