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Not long ago, I ate dinner with a college friend who is now a public high-school teacher.

Eventually, our pleasant banter led to the topic of school choice. I said that school choice would quickly create conditions within Kentucky public schools that would improve education for all children. Not surprisingly, my friend – the teachers union representative at his school – found the whole idea of school choice appalling.

During our ensuing debate, my friend voiced his anti-choice arguments. I took on each one:

“School choice will erode teacher compensation and teacher quality,” my friend said.

“Hardly,” I said. “The competition for students would eliminate mediocre teachers and high-quality teachers would become hot commodities whose pay would increase to the level of their talent and effort.”

“School choice is unconstitutional and will be used to support religious schools of doubtful merit using public funds,” my friend said.

“Not so,” I said. “For years, our postsecondary education system has allowed using public money to pay for both secular- and nonsecular-based schools. America’s universities remain the envy of the world.”

“What about kids with disabilities?” my friend asked in exasperation. “Private schools would never be willing to take on this burden!”

“Burden?” I said. “It’s not true that school choice would leave students with disabilities behind, the insensitive signature inherent to such a statement notwithstanding.

“On the contrary, based on Kentucky’s experience in the delivery of community-based services to adults with severe disabilities, we have every reason to believe that a school-choice program would offer a tremendous benefit to special-needs students.”

Let me explain why I pointed that out to my friend. Beginning about 30 years ago, Kentucky – as did the rest of the United States – began to move people with developmental disabilities from large, congregate institutions to small, community-based settings. Fortunately, in the early 1990s, Kentucky shifted its community services from the monopolies held by the quasi-public regional mental-heath and mental-retardation centers to a system based on consumer choice. This opened the door for the public to use private-care providers.

With the eventual establishment of a uniform fee-based system, families of adults with severe disabilities essentially were provided with open choice of service providers.

Following these reforms, dozens of private-community providers emerged with a willingness to design and operate innovative residential and support services. With few exceptions, the result was that people with the severest disabilities – often with great behavioral challenges – now live in safety and with dignity in community settings.

Thanks to the support of some legislators, disabled students may soon enjoy the benefits of choice and competition. The Kentucky Students with Special Needs Scholarship Program, which would be created by House Bill 30, co-sponsored by Reps. Stan Lee and David Floyd, would provide the parents of learning-disabled students the essential benefits of school choice.

It would offer parents scholarships equal to the amount of state funds typically allotted for the education of special-needs children and could be used at any qualified school, public or private.

If Lee’s legislation passes, I believe that within a few years, new and better educational options for special-needs children will emerge in much the same way the adult system produced new and pioneering forms of service delivery far superior to the old public-sector system of institutional care.

Thanks to the leadership and insight of Lee, Floyd and others, a new day may soon emerge for Kentucky’s learning-disabled children. This important change would foster innovation and improvement, and provide parents with peace of mind.

Parents would know that their children were in the hands of people who believe that educating special-needs children is a privilege … not a burden.

Rick Christman is CEO of Employment Solutions of Lexington, Kentucky.  This column previously appeared through the website of the Bluegrass Institute.