KERA at 20: The Increase in Cost

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990. I thought you might be interested in the sharp increase in education funding we have experienced in the Bluegrass State since KERA began.


In uncorrected dollars, our most recently reported school finance figure for the 2008-2009 school term was 302 percent higher than the amount collected back in the year KERA was enacted.

In inflation-adjusted dollars, we still are spending 82 percent more today in real dollars than we were in 1990.

That’s the “BUCKS” part of the equation.

By any measure, this is a huge increase in real funding.

Here’s one interesting question: where is all that extra money going? Have our teachers seen a 302 percent increase in their paychecks since KERA began?

If I get some time, we’ll look at some of the “BANG,” which may be mostly just a little “pop,” at best, that we got for all that cash in future blogs.



Data Sources:

Kentucky Department of Education, Office of District Support Services, Division of Financial Data Management, Calculations & Reporting Branch, Receipts and Expenditures Reports for listed years. On line here.

Inflation calculation performed with Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator. On line here.