Recent claims about the Hope Scholarship defunding public schools are unequivocally false. The real problem is not school choice. Public schools are losing students and instead of addressing why students are leaving, some school leaders are blaming families for choosing a better option. A combination of serious population decline coupled with poor policy decisions have backed public schools into a corner. And the only way out will be to face the hard decisions ahead, with student outcomes, not bureaucratic interests, as the priority.
The state’s public education budget is $2.2 billion, a massive portion of West Virginia’s $6 billion total budget. This is to say nothing of the billion-dollar increase over the last several years due to COVID relief funds. These funds have been temporary patches covering up the realities that school systems have refused to face. Public schools are failing despite massive funding.
When school choice opponents focus on the potential job losses for employees, they often sidestep the far more urgent issue of consistently catastrophic student performance across every metric. This reveals a troubling priority: protecting jobs for adults rather than addressing the needs of students. If school systems were truly designed to serve families, the conversation would be focused on why parents are choosing to leave, not how many administrators might lose their jobs.
Reading and math scores in West Virginia are at an all-time low despite the additional $1.18 billion in federal funding over the last four years. According to the most recent NAEP assessment 83% of 8th graders are not proficient in mathematics and 79% are not proficient in reading.
Declining standardized test scores show no return on this massive investment; the only metric that seems to be improving or holding steady is the graduation rate, which raises red flags. Are West Virginia students really learning? Or are standards being changed to push them through? How is it possible that, according to their own state testing results, only one out of five of West Virginia’s 11th graders is proficient in math, but every county’s graduation rate hovers at around 97%?
Alongside an outright academic failure are a plethora of other reasons why families are leaving public schools. Since COVID, public schools have repeatedly misplaced their priorities, pushing inappropriate content, including pornographic books in school libraries and discussions of gender and sexuality, despite parent objections. Public schools continue to spend taxpayer dollars on curricula whose content assumes systemic racism and promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion despite a nationwide push to eliminate these ideologically driven programs from public school settings.
The $100 million spent on the Hope scholarship this year pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse within our public schools, ranging from non-compliant purchases, spending sprees for county officials, and unallowable sports facilities. Several West Virginia school districts have been taken over by the state Department of Education in the last two years due to various compliance, financial, and operational issues.
Meanwhile, public schools have become unsafe for students and teachers. Recent testimony from elementary teachers in the legislature has raised concerns about the severe lack of discipline in West Virginia classrooms. Yet school districts continue to spend tax dollars on ineffective social-emotional learning programs like PBIS and restorative justice. These programs lack a solid research founding, fail to improve discipline issues and often exacerbate them. Teachers are being physically attacked, and students face no consequences. Why would parents feel safe about sending their kids to a school where teachers are being beaten up?
So, no. Families are not leaving because of the Hope scholarship they’re leaving because of safety concerns, declining academic standards, and radical ideological shifts in public education. Public school advocates should stop blaming school choice and start asking themselves what they can do to make families want to stay. The truth is more school closures are coming, not because of the Hope Scholarship or funding reduction, but because the public school system has lost the plot, failed students and driven families away.
The opposition is correct about one thing: families do consider the educational landscape of a state when deciding whether to move. But they are not coming to West Virginia for our failing public school system. They are coming here for parental agency and to find an education option that best fits their families’ unique needs. Until public schools correct course, parents will continue to vote with their feet and public education will have no one to blame but itself.
