Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass says there’s no greater investment in the Commonwealth’s future than education funding. Glass participated in a press briefing held by Governor Beshear Monday announcing a budget that calls for two billion additional dollars in pre-kindergarten through the 12th grade.
“The priorities that the Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education had for this budget cycle included all-day kindergarten funding, funding school transportation costs, and restoring funding for professional development for our public school teachers. All of these are supported by the budget proposal,” said Glass.
Glass called the inclusion of universal preschool for all four-year-olds ‘a game-changer’.
In recalling the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act and higher education reform package of 1997, State Council on Postsecondary Education President Aaron Thompson said the budget proposed by Governor Beshear is also historic. Thompson said increased state dollars in education are needed to ensure long term benefits from an up-tempo state economy. “And if we’re going to continue to boom post-pandemic, you can’t do it without an educated workforce and you can’t have an educated workforce unless you have a strong higher ed system that’s well funded. This budget goes to that. We can’t be competitive with faculty unless we can pay em.”
Governor Beshear is scheduled to formally present his budget recommendations to lawmakers this Thursday night. You can hear the address live on WEKU.
