Chapter 19: Kentucky

Any discussion of school finance in the Commonwealth of Kentucky must deal with two realities. First, there are great disparities between Appalachia and the rest of the state. Henry Caudill’s 1963 classic, Night Comes to the Cumberlands,¹ inspired President Johnson’s War on Poverty,² but that war was lost in Eastern Kentucky.³ By any objective measure, the 54 Kentucky counties⁴ served by the Appalachian Regional Commission lag behind the rest of the Commonwealth and the nation.⁵ In terms of per capita income, poverty rate, percentage of adults with a high school diploma, percentage of adults with a college degree, and homes with broadband access, the non-Appalachian counties of Kentucky (population 3.2 million) closely track the national average,⁶ but the Appalachian counties (population 1.1 million) represent the worst of American poverty.⁷