How Beshear and Cameron are courting the teacher vote in Kentucky governor's race

Public officials and school leaders often say education policies are all about the kids. But Kentucky's race for governor may turn out to be all about the teachers.

It certainly was that way in the 2019 election when teachers turned out for Andy Beshear and he narrowly upended a Republican governor who had enraged educators with attempts to restructure their pensions and his comments as they rallied at the state Capitol.

Beshear, who had joined teachers during their rallies, chose educator Jacqueline Coleman to be his running mate for lieutenant governor. She had stood against the proposed state takeover of Jefferson County Public Schools and the pension reform plan.

The ticket won by a little more than 5,000 votes.

Now Daniel Cameron, the attorney general running to unseat Beshear, is trying to take back some of the teacher vote. In an August press conference to unveil his multipronged education plan, he pleaded with educators who may have voted for Beshear in 2019 - after they were routinely criticized by former GOP Gov. Matt Bevin - to give him a chance.

“I know that you might have some apprehensions about me, or for that matter, any Republican nominee for governor,” Cameron said. “So, let me just simply say, I’m sorry - sorry for any comments that have made you feel less than valued or have led you to have serious misgivings about the Republican Party on the topic of education.”

But are teachers willing to vote for him?

Beshear has been endorsed by the state's largest teacher unions - the Kentucky Education Association and Jefferson County Teachers Association, whose leaders pointed to his support of public schools.

"He has proven himself as a champion of public education," said Eddie Campbell, president of the KEA. "He has shown his commitment to not only students and families, but also to educators."

JCTA, which has nearly 6,000 members across Jefferson County, has contributed $200,000 to Beshear's campaign.

Meanwhile, Beshear has played on any residual animosity teachers may feel toward Republicans following Bevin.

“We've got to stop doing what my opponent and (former Gov.) Matt Bevin have consistently done, which is attack our teachers. Governor Bevin called them terrible names," Beshear said in a debate. "This attorney general claims they're doing terrible things in their classrooms. But I've heard it over and over across the state, people's kids aren't being exposed to things through the classroom or through libraries. They're being exposed to them through my opponent’s commercials.”

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Cameron and Beshear promise teacher raises

Brent McKim, JCTA president, noted Beshear's commitment to increasing teacher pay - proposing significant raises each year he's been in office, though he fell short of getting support from the GOP supermajority in the legislature to get those approved.

Cameron has seized on that.

“Andy Beshear has promised teachers raises three times and has never delivered," Cameron told The Courier Journal. "Words are not enough. He has zero relationships in the legislature to actually get his plan passed. I have the relationships to deliver for our teachers.”

Beshear has said he believes he can get a raise passed, though.

"I believe I have a track record of getting the hardest things imaginable passed," he said. "They said that I couldn't get sports betting or medical marijuana passed while I was governor and guess what, we got the job done."

Teacher pay is among the most important issues Campbell and McKim pointed to, given Kentucky lags behind much of the country, ranking 44th for its starting teacher salary ($38,010) and 40th for its average salary ($54,574), according to the National Education Association.

Each state neighboring Kentucky pays their new teachers more on average, and only two ranked worse for their average salary.

In Ohio, the average salary for teachers is about $10,000 more.

"Clearly we have a critical issue with teacher pay because we have a major shortage of teachers," McKim said. "We live in a supply and demand market place so if we don’t offer adequate salaries then we don’t attract and keep people in the profession."

He pointed to the "teacher pay penalty," which has reached a new high, according to a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank supported partially by teachers’ unions.

The institute found that in 2021, teachers earned 23.5 percent less than comparable college graduates.

Both Beshear and Cameron have promised to raise teacher pay.

Beshear's goal is an 11% pay increase for all school personnel, which would bring the average Kentucky teacher's pay to $62,576. The state would still trail Ohio ($64,353) and Illinois ($72,315) but would outpace all other neighboring states. Nationally, teachers earn an average of $66,745.

Cameron's plan includes raising the starting salary for new teachers to $41,500, which is more than the average starting salary in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia, but less than the national average.

“In my first budget as Governor, I will prioritize public education,” Cameron said. “My wife spent nearly 7 years in the Oldham County Schools system and over 90 percent of Kentucky’s kids are in public schools. We've got to make sure that we take care of our public education system and increase the pay of our teachers.”

His education plan, called the "Cameron Catch-Up Plan," also targets learning recovery following COVID-19 school closures, improving school discipline and ensuring more resources go to teachers and classrooms, rather than a district's central office.

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School vouchers a contentious issue

Both union leaders took issue with Cameron on another front: vouchers.

While the Republican has remained mum on the topic of school choice during recent debates - repeatedly dodging questions about vouchers that would divert public tax dollars toward private school tuition - Cameron has in the past showed his support for this sort of program.

When a lawsuit was filed following the passage of a 2021 school choice program that would have provided dollar-for-dollar tax credits to those donating money for nonpublic school tuition, Cameron, as attorney general, intervened in the case and argued for the constitutionality of the program.

School choice is bound to be one of the hottest topics in the 2024 legislative session, with Republican lawmakers planning to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot next November that would allow the state to create a voucher-like program - which McKim and Campbell oppose.

"I really think school choice is just a nice way of phrasing privatizing education," McKim said. "It's a really bad idea for multiple reasons. ... We're already way short on funding for what we have, so you'd be taking the pie that's already not big enough, then dividing it into many more pieces."

McKim also referred to these programs as a "political calculation" for some lawmakers who see it as a way to decrease teacher union membership, given the unions' financial support for Beshear and against some Republican policies.

"If the teacher unions disproportionately endorse and help to support candidates of one party, then the candidates of the other party - if they can de-unionize the schools - then that diminishes the base of support for the rival party," he said.

Beshear has used vouchers as a wedge issue, saying in debates that he is "100%" against them because "they would defund our public education system in devastating ways" and impact teacher raises.

In addition to JCTA's donation, the National Education Association contributed $500,000 toward Beshear's campaign.

McKim also took issue with Cameron's defense of a law that would have stripped powers from Jefferson County Public Schools' board members.

After a second court ruled the law was unconstitutional this month, Cameron's office said he will appeal the ruling to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

"It's really undemocratic to take away the authority of the school board and give it to the superintendent who isn’t elected by anybody," McKim said.

While the teacher vote helped Beshear secure the governor's office last election, he still has a battle on his hands as he attempts to keep it. He only beat Bevin by a few thousand votes and now the state has more registered Republicans than it does Democrats. Beshear is also the only Democrat who holds a state elected office.

Cameron is also relying on the fact that Kentucky is more conservative as he courts teachers to back him.

"I want to make sure that we have a world-class education system here in Kentucky, one in which our schools are about reading, writing and math – and they aren’t incubators for liberal and progressive ideas," he said in a debate this week. "... We need leadership that's going to catch our kids up, make sure that we increase the salaries of our teachers, restore discipline to the classroom, and remove any bureaucracy that might exist that disconnects our teachers from our students."

Contact reporter Krista Johnson at kjohnson3@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky governor's race: Teacher vote may be key for Beshear, Cameron