The recent U. S. Supreme Court ruling that Cleveland’s school choice program was Constitutional caused cheers throughout the country. Although some of theses cheers were coming from Kentucky, when it comes to school choice, Kentuckians have a little bit less to cheer about.

Along with 27 other states, Kentucky has a provision in its constitution that prevents any education money from going to religious organizations. So, unless Kentucky amends its constitution, school vouchers aren’t even an option. However, a school vouchers option is not the only avenue of school choice. Tax credits are another means toward the same end, and a way some believe is less problematic than vouchers.

In a tax credit plan, educational expenses can be deducted directly from the tax families would otherwise pay to the federal or state government that enacted the tax.

The last two sessions of the General Assembly have introduced bills to create a tax credit, but have failed to come for a vote, thanks to legislative opposition from key legislators, some of whom chair committees that oversee education legislation.

In the recent Supreme Court decision supporting school choice, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, a group of Ohio taxpayers sued the state. They maintained that the program violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits the establishment of religion, on the grounds that some of the money (in fact much of the money in the program) goes to religious schools. But the Court ruled in favor of the program, saying that the money went to religious schools only incidentally—as a result of the independent decisions of parents who received the vouchers, not because of any incentives in the government’s program itself.

In fact, as Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out, the incentives were actually against parents putting their children in religious schools, since parents ended up having to pay part of the tuition when they sent their children to religious schools. If, on the other hand, they sent them to public schools, or one of Cleveland’s "community" schools (similar to charter schools) they would pay nothing extra.

Although the Zelman decision deals only with vouchers, there is no apparent reason to believe the same reasoning would not apply to a tax credit plan like those proposed in recent years in Kentucky. In order for any action to be taken on a tax credit plan, however, there needs to be support, and it has been in short supply in the state, due partly to the influence of the state teacher’s union, the Kentucky Education Association (KEA).

The reaction in Kentucky was predictably mixed, with groups representing those with vested interests in the current system sounding a note of deep skepticism. Frances Steenbergen, President of the Kentucky Education Association (KEA) criticized the decision. "How many students will those private and parochial schools accept?" she asked. "Will they accept everyone? Until we fully fund public schools, public tax dollars should not be used to fund private schools."

Teachers unions have traditionally been opposed to all moves toward greater freedom of parents to send their children to the school of their choice

In a recent debate on Kentucky Educational Television, Steenbergen squared off against Martin Cothran of The Family Foundation on the issue. Steenbergen, along with Wilson Stone, former past president of the Kentucky School Boards Association, both argued that a choice plan would hurt public schools by taking resources away from them. But Cothran pointed out that private school education is significantly cheaper than public school education.

"If parent took a child out of a public school system where it cost, say 6,000 a year to educate a child, and placed him in a private school that cost, say 3,000 a year, then, under a plan like Cleveland’s, the district would keep the difference," Cothran said.

"That would mean that, far from leaving public school students high and dry, the available spending per child would actually increase. The only losers would be the established public school bureaucracy—those who make money from the system. Similar reasoning would apply to tax credits—the more students are educated privately, the less cost to the state," Cothran said.

But such reasoning has not convinced key conservative legislators to take the initiative on tax credits up to this point. On the national level, it is Republican lawmakers who have led the charge. In Kentucky, Republican leaders have declined to take a strong position on the issue. Until they do, school choice will remain something that only parents in other states have.