I repeat: “charters and vouchers are diversions,” curtailing or removing them from the omnibus bill will not end this assault on public education. Indeed, while we have all been preoccupied with charter caps and voucher eligibility, the bill has quietly advanced a new paradigm for school funding that will prove far more consequential for all […]
An Adequacy Cost Study: The First Constitutional Priority for West Virginia Public Schools
Say you want to renovate your kitchen. If you want to budget the renovation properly, you get estimates for the materials and labor. That is roughly how the West Virginia education budget is calculated—based on the costs of materials (textbooks, facilities, transportation, other operating costs) and the labor (teacher salaries and benefits), which in turn […]
Charters and Vouchers Are Diversions, Follow the Money
Accelerating through the West Virginia Senate is a controversial bill, SB 451, that ties a modest 5% average teacher wage increase and PEIA health insurance funding to sweeping measures that (1) authorize publicly-funded, less-regulated charter schools, (2) create a voucher system through education savings accounts, (3) enlarge class sizes […]