The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
GOPers should have helped during busing woes
Thomas Jefferson said this abut public education: “Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.”
While we can disagree about the role of slave-holding Jefferson, our early history and thereafter is replete with the support of public schools as a central role in a democracy.
Jefferson County Public Schools is the public school system for Jefferson County. The bus disaster at the always stressful start of the new school year was horrible and an additional stress for students, parents and our community. Superintendent Marty Polio and staff accepted responsibility and worked diligently to make the busing work and sensibly delayed the further opening of the schools after the first day disaster.
In the meantime, one Jefferson County legislator sent an open letter and used the issue to stir up fears of crime and violence while pretending to be for students and teachers even though he knows the legislature has failed to fully fund public education for years.
He claims JCPS is allowing guns to flood the schools (Fact: there were 26 gun incidents 2022-23; yes, 26 is too many, but he neglected to remind people that the Kentucky legislature has seen that Kentucky makes it easier and easier for people to have guns and carry them openly, everywhere).
Further, he states that JCPS has not funded security officers (Fact: the legislature requires that schools hire SROs with no funding provided; and security costs take away from instruction: metal detectors alone in high school and middle schools are estimated to cost $17 plus million). He claims JCPS is a transportation not an education system (Fact: children have to get to school to be educated and again, the legislature has not fully funded busing all over the state).
This legislator and 11 others have a plan to fix the busing issue (or is it more than that?):
● We have a plan, let us hear from you;
● The popularly elected school board of Jefferson County needs to go (the plan fails to mention that the legislature has already limited the number of times the school board can meet to once a month);
● JCPS should not be the only choice (Fact: it isn’t but the legislators’ idea of choice is to take public tax money and give it to private or charter schools in a variety of ways that decrease the state’s educational resources);
● Set up a commission to decide about dividing up the JCPS District (Fact: this would be a hurricane-style disaster for the Jefferson County community that would make the busing disaster this new school year seem like a soft shower; one wonders if these legislators even know and understand the makeup of Jefferson County, demographically, culturally, geographically and economically;
● Finally, the legislators promise we will spend more public money requesting a special session so we can take over JCPS.
When you read their plans, understand that there is nothing that provides help, money or resources, to solve the problems, especially the shortage of bus drivers, a national problem; and forget about the failure of the legislature to support raises for teachers.
Finally, a snarky pundit and former legislator had the audacity to compare the bus disaster to D-Day in 1944 when 10,000 soldiers and sailors died.
“Help is on the way” would have been welcomed by all, but the legislators and the pundit decided that “attack” mode was the better political tactic: no “What can we do to help”? “What is needed?” “Are there state resources that can help?” No, their plan is a takeover: We part-time legislators, who don’t like diversity, equity, marginalized students, non-English-speaking immigrants and poor people, we will show JCPS. OH, and did they not see that Jefferson County has nationally recognized schools: Manual, Ballard, J. Graham Brown, Butler, Atherton, and Fern Creek. I missed the applause for those achievements.