The Kentucky Education Action Team is an action advocacy group whose mission is to develop united messages that will persuade the Kentucky General Assembly, parents and the public to provide and sustain sufficient resources that will advance and support learning for all P-12 public school students to reach their potential for career and college readiness.

Mission Statement

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Beliefs

KEAT partners believe:

  1. •  Kentucky public schools are a great investment.

  2. •  The Commonwealth of Kentucky has a moral and ethical obligation to assure that each student is given every opportunity to reach his/her full potential.

  3. •  Each student's opportunity for an excellent public education comes just once.

  4. •  Adequate and sustainable funding of public schools is the General Assembly’s constitutional obligation.

  5. •  Other sources of revenue must be explored quickly if adequate funding for education is not available.

  6. •  The General Assembly and Kentucky citizens demand more of our schools than ever before.

  7. •  Kentucky has among the highest proportion of students living in poverty compared to all other states; more support is needed to ensure that these students succeed in school and in life.

  8. •  Our students must have the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in a global society, competing economically, socially and ethically with those from around the world.

  9. •  A strong and effective education system is essential to both the survival and prosperity of our democratic society.

  10. •  The needs of our students, schools and state are urgent. Current revenues are not adequate to meet the needs. The time to act is now.


To support our beliefs we believe:

  1. •    Shared leadership builds capacity for improved student learning

  2. •    Collaboration creates energy that inspires others

  3. •    Collaboration is needed among all supporters of public schools for the good of our

        students and democracy.

Download “Our Message” Document

Download “Expectations Up, Resources Down” Document

Sources

KEAT Message on the Budget

Message The members of the Kentucky Education Action Team (KEAT) are deeply disappointed by the funding cuts to education.  However, we do acknowledge that Gov. Steve Beshear’s budget plan represents his best efforts to prioritize in light of the growing demands on Kentucky’s public services and the state’s dire need for additional revenues to support those services to the people of the Commonwealth, especially to its children.

As KEAT announced in its Jan. 4 capitol news conference, Kentucky’s public schools need an additional $323 million this year just to return state support to its financial levels in the FY 2007- 2008 budget. Obviously, if this budget plan is adopted, there is a very real and present danger that teaching and learning in Kentucky classrooms will regress. We agree with Governor Beshear that without additional funding, we will not be able to maintain the progress education has made in attaining 14th nationally in Quality Counts.  Our children in today’s classrooms may benefit from additional revenues four to five years down the road, but by then, our students will be another four to five years behind where they could and should be.

We fully expect that the governor and policy makers will work to generate new revenues to provide adequate funding for education in 2013. In an effort to find solutions, KEAT has reached consensus to support, as a first step effort to generate revenue for education, putting gaming on the ballot to let the citizens of Kentucky decide.  We also support the work of the statewide task force on tax reform.