Jim Wayne

Opinion contributor

I have benefited from a Catholic school education. My dad worked two jobs and my mother worked as a nurse to pay for their five sons’ Catholic grade and high school tuition.

Today, with many fewer sisters, brothers and priests teaching, Catholic school tuition has mushroomed, prompting the establishment of groups like the amazing Catholic Educational Foundation (CEF) to help make Catholic school affordable for struggling families.

My parish also subsidizes the cost of tuition for our parish school.

So it would seem reasonable for me to support the Kentucky General Assembly’s House Bill 205, which gives a state tax credit for donations to groups like the CEF to boost the opportunity for more families to send their children to Catholic schools.

But House Bill 205 is simply a bad bill.

According to the Legislative Research Commission, HB 205 will siphon $25 million from public schools its first year of implementation. Within four years it will grow to $50 million.

Having served on the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee for 26 years, I am well aware of the fiscal crisis in Kentucky government. For the past 10 years we have shortchanged public schools, leaving them with poorly paid teachers, threats to teacher pensions, no money for textbooks or professional development and teachers using scarce dollars from household budgets for school supplies for tens of thousands of children living in deep poverty.

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A hallmark of Catholic social teaching is the responsibility to assess every public policy through this lens: How will the policy affect the poor? If the poor are hurt, the policy is immoral.

Some argue that the tax credit bill will expand school choices for families in need. That may be true, but both the way the bill is written, which allows middle to upper class families to participate, and the way Catholic schools currently operate make it very unlikely many poor children will be able to participate.

Why? Because public schools must take in the homeless child, the mentally and physically disabled child, the child with severe learning challenges and the child who does not know English.

The average Catholic school is not equipped to handle such diverse student populations. They must screen out most children with special needs.

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Only the public school system can include all children. To take money from a poorly funded public school system that serves the child on the fringe of society to give a state tax credit to primarily middle class and upper class families is counter to my church’s teaching, regardless of the good intentions of the advocates of HB 205 to serve poor children.

But even if Catholic schools took all comers, our public schools had all the money needed to be stellar and teacher pensions, expanded Medicaid, Kinship Care, Child Protective Services, state universities, environmental protections, and the court systems all received adequate funding, as a Catholic I still recoil at receiving a government hand out for my financial support of Catholic schools.

Why? Because of the importance of separation of church from state. Catholic schools teach the Catholic faith. We Catholics want to share our amazing faith with the next generation. But should tax dollars be spent to promote one faith over another? I am confident most Catholics think not.

For over 200 years, Catholic schools have educated eight generations of Catholics in this country. We have done it with sacrifice, hard work and hard cash. I believe in my Catholic community’s ability to continue and expand the opportunities for children of the next generation to learn in a Catholic school. Without a tax credit.

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Jim Wayne was a Kentucky representative from 1991 to 2019 from Louisville’s 35th district.