Is our children's education the top priority, or is it something else?
Sometimes, we need to look at numbers to understand the facts; West Virginia is number 25 in spending per public school student
In a recent call with reporters, State School Board President Paul Hardesty shared concerns about traditional public schools in West Virginia. He said, “I think we’re going to see some of our 55 business units run the risk of financial insolvency at some point of time here in the near future.”
While it is refreshing for school leadership to recognize there are merits to operating public schools as business units, it is very concerning that the actions that Mr. Hardesty suggests can be summarized in seven words: more money for serving for fewer students.
If Tudors was selling fewer biscuits because people stopped getting the good food they expect, but then started charging more per biscuit, what do you think would happen to this West Virginia staple?
You have to offer a service or product that people value, even when it's taxpayer funded.
People won't pay for hard, gross tasting biscuits. The same applies to education.
Even when schools are free, people look for other options when the quality of education is bad enough.
Facing financial challenges is one of the hardest things a business or household can face. Overwhelming debt or bankruptcy are extremely traumatic situations. This is why most people agree we should be helping kids become financially literate and responsible at an early age, so we can help them protect themselves from financial ruin as adults.
Part of that education is learning how to live within your means. West Virginia public schools need to have a serious adult conversation about living within their means.
West Virginia public schools are not the lowest funded in the nation, we are not even in the bottom 25% for per pupil funding.
Of the total school funding including local, state, and federal sources, only about a third is directly enrollment based.
I disagree with Superintendent Hardesty that West Virginia public schools are underfunded. Our schools are overregulated and micromanaged to death, resulting in a lot of wasteful spending. Our state laws and policies have taken teaching out of the hands of educators in our public school classrooms and handed it to lobbyists and bureaucrats, leading to an overwhelming amount of fraud and abuse.
The result has made teachers, students, and parents unhappy, frustrated, and disappointed in the results. The exodus of West Virginia students from public schools speaks for itself.
For decades every failure in the schools has caused a knee-jerk reaction with leadership, and often partisan politics of picking sides, ultimately adding more surface level bureaucracy instead of working together to identify and solve root cause problems. Education is not the only important policy area in our state where this has happened.
We have proven in West Virginia that a focus on screening, benchmarking, and standardized test scores is not effective at developing students who are prepared for “the real world” when they graduate.
Our kids are miserable and struggling with basic skills. Teachers don’t get to teach because they lack authority in the classroom and are constantly interrupted by screenings, discipline issues, and administrative roadblocks. Parents are at odds with the schools because they know there are problems but they have so little access to their local school that they feel alienated.
These are solvable problems, but they are not solvable with more money. They can only be addressed by major cultural and policy changes to prioritize students over adult employment, politics, special interest lobbyists, and sweetheart deals with educational technology and consulting firms.
It’s time to put students and families first. They are, after all, the customers. With such poor performing schools, it's no wonder families have been pursuing other educational opportunities when the education of our kids has not seemed to be the highest priority for West Virginia public schools for decades.
Start with a focus on results instead of screenings. The goal is improved reading, better math skills, post-secondary education readiness, and increases in practical vocational skills students can take into the workforce. It is not standardized test results.
Removing requirements to teach to standardized tests will give teachers more flexibility. They need SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Found. If we focus on the goals for students instead of micromanaging how to get there, there’s going to be improvement and clear indications for what educators, methods and schools are effective and what we need to stop doing.
Secondly, we need consequences for schools and educators who are not achieving those SMART goals. These do not need to be putative (although sometimes they will need to be). Those consequences should involve increased oversight, forcing certain curriculum with a history of effectiveness (such as UFLI for reading) in classrooms that are not achieving results, or termination of leadership or educators who are unwilling or unable to be part of the solution.
Third, we need to stop catering to politics. School district consolidation will be unpopular with many, especially politicians, but it is a must to reduce overhead, improve transportation, and allow schools close to county lines to be utilized instead of closing.
Fourth, organizations providing educational technology and consulting, and ESCs should be thoroughly reviewed for results. No organization should be allowed continued contracts with our schools if positive academic results are not obtained.
Finally, a focus should be placed on the student and staff experience at schools. This should include building back relationships between families and educators. They are on the same team, and creating programs and partnerships to reinforce that needs to be a priority if we are serious about improvements for everyone.
While this might feel like the bottom of a valley for public education in West Virginia, I believe that the increased competition and scrutiny created by very successful school choice programs will lead us to the top of our beautiful mountains as we work together to improve our public school systems. We look forward to more cooperation between all types of education in our beautiful state, for the sake of our kids and their future.
Katie Switzer
I am a mechanical engineer with experience working in aerospace, chemical plants, and nuclear power. In 2019, I began staying at home to better support my daughter who struggled with apraxia of speech. Since that time, two of our children have been diagnosed with profound dyslexia and we began homeschooling to meet their educational needs. In 2022, our family helped defend the Hope Scholarship in the West Virginia Supreme Court on behalf of our children and all WV children.
