Morrisey pushes school choice; lawmakers face ‘balancing act' as counties lose public schools

Yahoo

12-02-2025

An empty class at Coral Glades High School, Tamarac, Florida. (Dan Forer | Getty Images)
Gov. Patrick Morrisey campaigned on school choice, wanting to give West Virginian families freedom and funds to explore options outside of public school.
In the poor and rural state, the majority of students will use their public schools, which offer free meals, special education services and other programs not always guaranteed in private schools and microschools or through homeschooling.
'For most West Virginians, school choice options don't really exist,' said House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay. 'I don't want us to lose sight of that … The idea that we're going to have widespread migration to other opportunities, I think it's unrealistic.'
As the legislative session kicks off Wednesday, several Republicans — the party that holds a firm grasp in both chambers — are returning from districts losing public schools. School finances are in trouble, and local school superintendents say the Hope Scholarship, the state's education savings account program, is partly to blame for the funding woes that have shuttered dozens of community schools.
'If they take that school away, that little community will completely die. Nobody will want to move there,' said Del. D. R. Buck Jennings, R-Preston. His county will close two elementary schools after shuttered coal mines led to a local population decline. 'We've got to figure out a way of keeping these small schools open.'
Hanshaw is the husband of a public school teacher, and Clay County, his rural district, will lose its only middle school at the end of the 2026-27 school year because of a lack of funding.
'The public school system is the workhorse of education in most of West Virginia,' he said. 'I think most West Virginians expect the Legislature to not lose sight of that and keep our focus on what's available to most West Virginia students.'
In Clay County, dozens of students are using the Hope Scholarship, equating to $157,000 in state funding no longer available to the county as some school funding is tied to student enrollment, according to the county superintendent.
The Hope Scholarship gives roughly $4,400 per student in taxpayer money to families to use for private school, homeschooling and more; Hanshaw said the House didn't have an appetite for increasing the amount.
Morrisey hasn't yet called for specific legislation on the Hope Scholarship, but lawmakers will at least vote on funding the program. The program's eligibility opens up to all public, private and homeschool children beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.
That could cost up to $300 million, according to several Republican lawmakers.
For Hanshaw, the price tag has always been a concern. It led him to vote against the bill that created the Hope Scholarship program in 2021.
'I had concerns then about whether we could afford what we were proposing then, and I'm not sure we can afford it now,' Hanshaw said. 'I don't know how much more needs to be done on Hope Scholarship, frankly. I think we have done more than our finances warrant right now.'
The budget is likely to be a focal point of the 60-day session. Morrisey says that former Gov. Jim Justice, now a U.S. Senator, left him with a projected $400 million deficit, while Hanshaw told reporters that he doesn't 'share the belief that we're in quite the same kind of budgetary situation that others have suggested we are.'
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Fifty-three public schools in West Virginia have closed in the previous five years, and counties this year have proposed or approved to close 25 schools in the next few years. The state's overall population decline is the biggest driver of closures, county superintendents said.
In November, the state school board voted to close or consolidate six schools in Kanawha County as the district has lost thousands of students over the last few years. The county, which is the state's most populous, has the highest number of kids using the Hope Scholarship.
Del. Andy Shamblin, R-Kanawha, teaches civics and history at Nitro High School. His fellow teachers and constituents talk to him a lot about the impact the Hope Scholarship is having on local school finances.
'It's definitely a balancing act for myself as a public school educator and someone who is very much a product of the public school system. It's always been a balance between the philosophical commitment that so many in the GOP have or school choice but recognizing the vast majority of our students are educated in the public school system,' he said.
Kanawha County Schools Superintendent Tom Williams told state school board members in November that the county lost 5,000 students over the past 11 years, equating to a $30 million drop in funding. More than 1,200 students left to use the Hope Scholarship. The county's excess levy hasn't covered necessary costs, he said.
'It's devastating to some of these communities, especially rural communities, when they lose their community school,' said Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha. The eastern part of his county will consolidate four elementary schools into one new building.
Shamblin said that, while he respects school choice, the public school finances weigh on him when he votes.
'To me one of the most important things we do is educate, and I think we need to focus a lot more on the public education system,' he said. 'I think we have a lot of challenges.'
In Wood County, more than 300 students are using the Hope Scholarship this school year. The superintendent said the district didn't get $1 million in state funding because those children were no longer counted in the enrollment-based formula.
Del. Dave Foggin, R-Wood, a public school teacher, supports the Hope Scholarship, saying that it benefits taxpayers who pay into the education system but don't want to use the public schools.
'I can't explain why they're leaving, but if you offer a good product people will buy it,' he said. 'If we as a state school system can offer a better product, we will have more people use that product.'
He didn't want to comment on how he'd vote on any Hope-related legislation this year as he hadn't yet seen any bills.
'I also feel like with any other government program, there probably are some problems and some inefficiency but I still feel like as a whole the program is based on a good idea,' Foggin said.
House members, including Hanshaw, Foggin and Shamblin, in May voted to give an additional $27 million to the Hope Scholarship from unused state dollars. Pushkin, along with some Republicans, voted against the measure.
Pushkin, who serves on the House Education Committee, said that House Democrats plan to sponsor a measure that would ban the use of Hope funds on out-of-state schools.
Last school year, while most of the money was spent in-state, the Hope Scholarship was used in 12 other states for schools and education services. According to a Hope Scholarship report, $210,311.41 was used for non-public school payments in Virginia. New Mexico received $7,115 from the program, which included the New Mexico Military Institute.
'Our biggest problem with the Hope Scholarship is the serious lack of oversight,' Pushkin said.
Some lawmakers, including Senate Education Chair Amy Grady, R-Mason, have discussed revisiting the school aid formula in the wake of the state's population decline. Grady has also said lawmakers must help elementary teachers deal with disruptive and violent students if the state wants to retain its public school students.
Jennings suggested cutting down the number of school days in an effort to put money back in school budgets.
'If we go to 160 days, that cuts down on how many people you have to have in administration and everything. We can take that money and use it to support the [schools],' he said.
Morrisey has called for a teacher pay raise as West Virginia has an ongoing public school teacher shortage and low wages. Hanshaw supports the proposal, saying he has worked well with Morrisey ahead of the session.
'The governor called for pay raises in his inaugural address. We've tried to march down that pathway as judiciously as we can. I'd certainly support doing more there,' he said.
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