In an attempt to turn two years of economic progress into 20-plus years of prosperity, Governor Andy Beshear announced Monday his intent to ardently push for a state-record $2 billion budget investment into education reform for pre-kindergarten through high school, and a 12% spending increase on higher education.
At the top of his list: the Commonwealth’s youngest learners in 4- and 5-year-olds. Beshear’s budget would provide the universal cost for preschool and full-day kindergarten for every Kentucky child for the first time in the state’s history — in what the Council on Postsecondary Education President Aaron Thompson said would effectively be putting money back into the pockets of young families.
Among its many boons — early childhood development, social interaction, and good eating habits — Beshear added that pre-K and kindergarten also help provide needed child care for working families.
While the Kentucky House and Senate own a GOP have a supermajority — and the House GOP has for the first time in state history released its budgetary recommendations prior to the Governor’s office — Beshear notes the Commonwealth finds itself with a unique opportunity to make sweeping, non-partisan changes in the classroom.
And that it shouldn’t be left on the table.
Other key items on Beshear’s education budget include:
— A minimum 5% salary increase for all school personnel, on top of regular schedules
— $22.9 million each of the next two years to restore funding on professional development, textbooks, and instructional resources
— $6.2 million each of the next two years to provide educator training on student’s mental health
— $26.3 million each of the next two years for student loan forgiveness programs, based on a $3,000 annual award for each year of employment as a teacher in a public school
— More than $97 million to support the renovation of 11 Career and Technical Education programs not awarded in the 2021 “Better Kentucky Plan,” including Livingston and Marshall counties
— Another $75 million, plus $8 million each of the next two years, to improve 12 other Career and Technical Education programs, including Hopkins County
— An additional $3.2 million in 2023 and $3.6 million in 2024 for additional funding in state-operated area technical schools
— More than $28 million over two years for schools identified by the U.S. Department of Education in need of additional leadership, literacy, and numeracy attention
— The restoration of a $2.5 million annual grant for local libraries
— $6 million annually to support 874 Family Resource and Youth Service Centers in Kentucky’s 1,200 schools
— $60 million for the “Bucks for Brains” program, matched with private donations, to nurture students in the employment and entrepreneurial climate
In a push for asset preservation and the lowering of college tuition costs, agency bonds, third-party donations, and investiture will also assist with 19 new university capital projects across the state — including the construction of a new Model Laboratory School at Eastern Kentucky, a new science and engineering building at Morehead State University, renovating classrooms and offices supporting nursing and science study at Murray State University, a new health education building at the University of Kentucky, an addition to the Speed Engineering School at the University of Louisville, a new Gordon Ford College of Business at Western Kentucky University, and the renovation of KCTCS buildings at Elizabethtown, Jefferson County, and Somerset.
