In 2021 the WV Legislature passed H.B. 2013, “The Hope Scholarship Act,” which creates a voucher program through education savings accounts (ESA), a deposit of public funds that parents who withdraw their children from public school can use for, among other things, private school or homeschool purposes. At the time it was enacted, H.B. 2013 […]
In Elementary, middle schools can open classrooms starting Jan. 19, the Gazette’s Ryan Quinn quotes a WV Department of Education spokesperson: “We believe the inequities among students inherent to remote learning are so great that, without a health and safety justification, a move to county-wide remote learning would be a derogation of the right to […]
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” ― Martin Luther King Jr., Let’s make this easy for the Kanawha County Board of Education: Keeping the name Stonewall Jackson Middle School would […]
One of the first lessons I impart on law students is the importance of being careful and precise in their choice of words as would-be lawyers. After all, our interpretation of the law can hinge on a single word or even the placement (or lack) of a comma. So, I caution my first year law […]
If the 2018 strike was about guaranteeing our children access to quality teachers, the 2019 strike is even more foundational—it is about guaranteeing that quality public schools remain free and accessible to all children rather than a select few. It is altogether fitting that this year’s strike occurs on the same week forty years ago […]
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 […]
Here I evaluate the three most convincing reasons that certain charter school provisions in SB451 are unconstitutional. Due to the non-severability clause, if any one of these three arguments prove successful, it would invalidate the entire law. 1. Charter school creation requires voter approval in each county. Article 12, section 10 of […]
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 […]
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 […]
The U.S. Department of Education recently released proposed regulations regarding Title IX, the statute that governs how colleges and universities respond to sexual harassment and sexual assault on their campuses. The proposed regulations come a year after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded Obama-era Title IX guidance and include changes that have already garnered much attention, […]
West Virginia lawmakers recently changed the way schools select textbooks and other instructional resources. Under the new law (H.B. 3089), county school boards will take over the task of selecting textbooks. The state board will maintain some oversight. For instance, publishers must still certify with the state board that their materials (1) meet evaluation criteria […]
No more than a day after it ended, the West Virginia teacher strike was heralded as “a possible catalyst for similar actions in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona; a harbinger of a new red-state populism to challenge the reactionary populism of Donald Trump; a resurrection of the glory days of labor politics; and, ultimately, a rare victory for […]
Well, you know, some of us want to change the world West Virginia teachers have been striking for seven school days to vindicate the constitutional rights of their students. They have braved the picket line in the cold rain even as some officials have threatened to sue them. Their strike or work stoppage is […]
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey stated last week that West Virginia public school teachers “impending work stoppage” was “unlawful.” The support for this claim apparently rested on a 1990 case related to a prior teacher strike. The court explained: “In short, we decline to alter the common law judicially. Public employees have no right […]
Much was made over the past few days that the teacher strike has been unlawful. The attorney general was keen to remind state agencies repeatedly that his office stood ready to pursue legal action against the teachers. To be sure, during the last statewide teacher strike in 1990s, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that, […]
I made the following remarks during a panel discussion on West Virginia education reform at the 2018 Appalachian Justice Symposium at the WVU College of Law: Modern education reform in West Virginia began with Pauley v. Kelly. Yet this was the sentiment of author of Pauley, Justice Harshbarger, just six years after that decision: “I see […]