EDUCATION ILLEGAL IN KENTUCKY 

The Kentucky supreme court has ruled the state's entire educational system is unconstitutional..

Their highest court not only ruled illegal one part of the educational system, it ruled on the whole package: the right to establish school boards, certify teachers, outline school districts, methods of taxation and allocation of funds and even the authority to set up a state department of education. The bottom line is that school boards, teachers and their unions may now be open to lawsuits for inefficiency, non-performance of duties or improper property taxation. Parents may demand compensation be their children are now 35 and still living at home due to a deficient education and inability to get and hold a job! In many ways such legal action would be similar to that going on now in Newfoundland where suits against the Catholic Church have been instigated over the question of physical and sexual abuse. Now "brain damage" may acquire equal rights with physical abuse. This is a legal opportunity that some will find irresistible.

Look for similar happenings here, sooner or later. Ontario is now preparing legislation to allow "class action" suits, a necesssary step for large groups of parents -- to take and fund -- joint legal actions. The schooling "industry" doesn't realize the backlash building up from taxpayers who see limited results from ever-growing school taxes. Taxes that now rank Canada as the second-highest country in the world in education costs and still providing unsatisfactory results.

Businesses too are fed up with school taxes when still more money and resources are required to re-train young, lower level entry job seekers because they didn't get an adequate education in the first place. Two-thirds of taxpayers see no direct benefit in the present educational system because they have no children at school! Already 50 percent of all money spent in North America on "education" is now spent outside the public education system. Teachers have lost half their market and many are not even aware of it.

The Kentucky case started like many other legal cases currently underway in the States, over school finances and the property tax system. Eight states have overturned their systems to some degree or another. None has yet gone as far as Kentucky. Now if property is taxed for schooling it must be taxed at 100 percent of valuation and at a uniform rate.

But that's just the accounting. The interesting sections of the 101-page court decision dealt with what students must receive: such as "sufficient knowledge of economic, social and political systems to enable the student to make informed choices"; also "sufficient grounding in the arts to enable each student to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage" and "sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to ... compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states".

A Washington Post editorial says that " One explanation for this kind of move, as for the renewed interest in court equalization cases generally, is impatience with reform progress by the current players". Now the court has instructed all involved not only to get with it, but to tell them just what "it" covers, since apparently they haven't been able to find out themselves during the past few decades.

The court decision found the taxpayers basically did their job; they paid their taxes. The students basically, did their job; they went to school. The failing was with teachers and school boards: they didn't educate. The evidence was clear: a high percentage of graduating students couldn't read their own diplomas!

Look for widespread educational chaos during the years ahead.

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