On a chilly day in January, a group of high school students stood outside the Franklin County Courthouse in Frankfort, Kentucky, to explain why they had just filed a major lawsuit against their home state.
The commonwealth, the students alleged, had not fulfilled its obligation to provide them with an “adequate and equitable” education — in defiance of their state constitution and a 35-year-old Kentucky Supreme Court ruling.
“Right now, half of Kentuckians can’t name a local elected official or our three branches of government,” said one young person.
The speaker was a member of the Kentucky Student Voice Team, or KSVT, a grassroots organization of youths from the Bluegrass State that advocates for better schools and communities. On January 14, plaintiffs from KSVT, who are being represented by Harvard Law School’s Education Law Clinic, filed a lawsuit asking the district court to confirm that their educational rights had been violated — and to start the process of rebuilding their state’s education system.
“We believe Kentucky’s public schools are well worth fighting for,” said another local student.
‘Kentucky residents … want to protect their public schools’
KSVT was founded in the late 2010s by public school students. Today, with nearly 100 active members, the organization has claimed several victories for their peers. Among its many accomplishments, the group pushed for and won more counselors for schools around the state and convinced the Kentucky Board of Education to add a seat for a teacher and student representative.
Recently, the group’s advocacy was instrumental in convincing the state’s voters to reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would have created a universal voucher system for schools, says Michael Gregory ’04, the faculty director of the Youth Advocacy & Policy Lab at Harvard Law School (which includes the Education Law Clinic).
“Thanks in part to their work, the amendment lost by over 30 points,” he says. “It shows how much Kentucky residents, whether they are red or blue, want to protect their public schools, because you don’t lose by that margin in the state without voters from both sides.”
But Gregory says that his clinic’s partnership with KSVT predates that accomplishment. In winter 2023, Gregory’s Education Law Clinic students were exploring the history of “educational adequacy” cases brought under state constitutions to see whether such cases could be a viable strategy for improving democratic practices in public education.
When the Harvard Law students learned about KSVT and its grassroots focus on local youth voices, they were eager to connect to hear more about the Kentucky students’ advocacy. “We thought we had found a group from whom we could learn a lot about the long-term impact of education adequacy litigation,” Gregory explains.
Thankfully, Gregory adds, KSVT was also eager to share their experiences and knowledge with Harvard Law students. “After reaching out to them, we had an answer within seven seconds. Yes, they would be interested in meeting to talk more.”
Gregory says he was immediately impressed by the young advocates. “They’re just remarkable young people, and they have so much leadership ability. They have so much hope for the future and real empathy for their peers,” he says.
Peter Goeckner ’25, a student in the legal clinic, says that working with the group has been inspiring. “It’s amazing, that in this day and age, with technology making us feel further apart than ever, this group is getting back to the core of engaging people in the community and state and working together despite political differences.”
Goeckner emphasizes that every piece of the partnership between KSVT and the clinic has been driven by the Kentucky students. “We are tools for the students in the group and their parents,” he says. “We are just using our legal skills to help them gain access to a right they once had — and should again.”
Learning from the community
Gregory and his students met with KSVT to get to know the students, learn about their interests and goals, and explain an important Kentucky Supreme Court case — Rose v. Council for Better Education — which confirmed that all residents of the commonwealth have a constitutional right to an “efficient system of common schools.”
By the time of the court’s decision in 1989, public education in Kentucky had been lagging other states, suffering from low test scores, graduation rates, and per pupil spending. “… It is crystal clear that the General Assembly has fallen short of its duty,” the court’s opinion bluntly declared. “The common school system in Kentucky is constitutionally deficient.”
After the decision, something amazing happened, Goeckner says. “The next session, the legislature scrapped the whole education system. They wrote a comprehensive, and frankly, incredible law. And within a decade, Kentucky schools started shooting up in the rankings across the board.”
But, despite Kentucky’s initial progress, the education system began backsliding in the mid-2000s, when the commonwealth began “whittling down all those components that we think made such a significant impact,” says Goeckner.
Gregory says that the KSVT students had not heard of the Rose case, nor the seven “capacities” that the court had identified as necessary to an “adequate” and “equitable” education, such as written and oral communication skills, knowledge of economic, social, and political systems, and an understanding of government processes.
“We asked the students if they felt they were being provided the capacities by their schools, and they said they were not,” Gregory says.
“It’s amazing, that in this day and age, with technology making us feel further apart than ever, this group is getting back to the core of engaging people in the community and state and working together despite political differences.”
Peter Goeckner ’25
Together, KSVT and the clinic decided to explore whether others across the state felt the same way, holding several community gatherings in which teachers, parents, students, and community members were encouraged to share their thoughts on their schools and their education system.
These listening sessions were held everywhere from the southwestern part of the commonwealth, to Lexington, to rural Appalachia, says Goeckner. But no matter where they were, what they heard was dire, he says, adding that Kentuckians often felt that their schools were not preparing students for life after graduation.
They weren’t even teaching students to think critically about important issues, Goeckner says. “There is a huge appeal in being able to converse with your neighbor, even if you don’t agree with them.”
Michael Rebell, an expert in civic education and visiting professor at Harvard Law, says that one recurring theme was that young people felt unprepared to participate in civil life. “One of the students had just turned 18, and she said, ‘I’m going to be a voter now, and I don’t know anything about how our local government works. I don’t know anything about this, and I’m feeling personally deprived for that reason.’”
After over a year of these conversations — and after careful and thoughtful consideration, Gregory says — KSVT decided to file a complaint.
‘Outcomes are not equitable’
As KSVT’s representation, the Harvard Law students interviewed the Kentucky students one by one, learning each of their stories and perspectives.
“I left every interview feeling like it was a real privilege to get to speak to these young people about their educational experiences,” says Kaveri Sengupta ’26. “They were so thoughtful and provided such incisive reflections about how they felt about their education. They demonstrated great care for what they were and were not getting in the schools, and for what their peers were or were not getting.”
“What we learned is that while there are some bright spots in Kentucky — students identified some amazing teachers and leaders — the state is under resourced and the outcomes are not equitable,” Goeckner adds.
“I left every interview feeling like it was a real privilege to get to speak to these young people about their educational experiences.”
Kaveri Sengupta ’26
Sengupta, who has a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says that it was important to her that the KSVT students felt that the experience was valuable personally. “I’ve done some work with youth in advocacy spaces before, and I’ve always tried to be cognizant of what they’re getting out of it, not just in terms of our collective desired outcome, but in how it immediately impacts their sense of agency and empowerment,” she says.
Sengupta says she gained a lot from the opportunity to work on real litigation as a law student — especially given how creative and youth-led the process was. “It’s great to get that hands-on experience with something real, not just a classroom exercise.”
Goeckner, who is continuing to work on the lawsuit this semester, says that the work has affirmed why he came to law school in the first place. “I wanted to work on things related to education. I tried a bunch of other things while I was here, but I keep coming back to education.”
What’s next
Now that the suit has been filed, Gregory says that the Harvard Law students will turn their attention to the discovery process, which will enable them to uncover more information about the commonwealth’s school systems.
Goeckner says the big goal is for a court to recognize that the commonwealth is not meeting its obligations under Rose. “The idea is to establish, once again, that Kentucky students should have access to high quality and equitable education. It’s pretty simple, and they’ve done it before,” says Goeckner.
(At the time of publication, Kentucky had not yet commented on the current lawsuit, but a response was expected soon. Governor Andy Beshear has stressed the importance of raising the commonwealth’s education budget.)
Even if the state court agrees that the educational system is unconstitutional, there will be more work ahead, Gregory acknowledges.
That’s also why the members of KSVT are gearing up for another robust public engagement campaign, Gregory says. This time, their goal is to understand the solutions preferred by parents, teachers, and community members.
“What I hope is that folks on the ground, students, families, educators, administrators, are able to take a positive decision by the court and use it to put the pressure on the legislature to co-develop and co-implement solutions to rectify the inadequacies in the system,” he says.
Gregory says he is proud of the work his students — in partnership with KSVT — are doing. “Michael [Rebell] and I get to work with these law students, who themselves get to mentor these young people,” he says. “The co-generational layers of that is so fun and wonderfully complex and interesting.”
Ultimately, Gregory says, each part of the litigation process will be driven by Kentucky residents. “Our clients hope to build a coalition in a very grassroots way,” he says. “That’s why I can’t say exactly what the solutions are going to be, because the whole point of this is that they have to come from the people.”
Rebell says that if the suit is successful, perhaps it will inspire advocates across the country to work toward change in their own states. That was the impact of the original Rose decision, he notes.
“Almost every state constitution has a provision that says that kids are entitled to some kind of quality education,” says Rebell, who is also a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. “If we get Kentucky saying yes, that’s the breakthrough precedent we’re looking for.”
And even if the change is limited, it’s important, Goeckner says. “If change happens in Kentucky and spreads across the nation, that would be amazing. But if something positive happens in Kentucky, we will be ecstatic.”
No matter what, Sengupta believes the students in KSVT are to be commended. “Many of these students will graduate by the time there’s a final decision in this case, and so they will never get to reap the benefits of what we hope is a favorable decision,” she says. “That, to me, makes their work even more meaningful, because the impact will be for future generations.”
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