State Senator Mike Romano of West Virginia wrote an article about the hoax of charter schools, which will cost the state’s public schools hundreds of millions of dollars without improving education.
He wrote:
In the shadows of Covid, bills have passed during the 2021 Legislative session that will move West Virginia backwards. From the weakening or elimination of state licensing for electricians, plumbers, crane operators, elevator technicians, among others, to the weakening of drinking water standards, to creating a new layer of government with an Intermediate Court that no one wants (except insurance companies), which will cost tens of millions of tax dollars every year.
As bad as those bills are, no bill has the potential to damage our collective future or waste more of our tax dollars than charter schools. The obsession of the Republican Majority with charter schools and private school vouchers could result in the loss of nearly one-half of our public school funding.
Charter schools have mixed results around the country, at best. Ohio lost $4 billion on charters and rural states have had almost no success. In 2019, county boards of education were permitted to approve applications for and oversee charter schools preserving local control of education. The bill passed this Session eliminates local oversight by creating a new board, appointed by the governor, to approve charter schools regardless of the will of the citizens. Local control and oversight of public education have ended.
In-person charter schools are limited to 10 percent of each county’s public school population, but, as bad as that could be for public schools, the bill also authorizes two statewide virtual charter schools for up to another 10 percent of the statewide public school population. Those numbers should be alarming. If in-person and virtual charter schools take just half of the permitted public school students (10 percent), more than $200 million will be taken from public school budgets every year with little accountability. Although the charter school itself may be not-for-profit, in a clever ruse, for-profit Education Service Providers or ESPs can be hired to run it with our tax dollars.
Most important, virtual charters will receive the same amount of money (around $7,400 per student) as in-person charters, yet virtual classes are conducted over the internet without the need for school buildings, desks, cafeterias, janitors, liability insurance and all other costs of a brick and mortar school. Virtual charters won’t even hire the same number of teachers. In Florida, for example, each virtual charter teacher instructed over 250 students. Profits will be the priority and staggering. Someone’s pocket is getting lined with tax dollars and no one cared.
Amazingly, the Republican Majority did not know that more than $200 million in public school tax dollars were being shifted to private, for-profit ESPs if charters take just one-half of the students permitted under the bill. According to the State Board of Education, more than 6,000 public school teachers and service personnel would lose their jobs as a result. If the teacher/student ratio in virtual charters is like Florida, 50 teachers will replace over 3,000 public school educators and staff, most of whom will leave the state. Add the $130 million being taken from the public school system for the Republicans’ private school voucher program, and the public school system could evaporate.
As West Virginia ventures into this great unknown, the negatives have not even been acknowledged let alone considered. For example the effects on high school sports of the loss of 20 percent of the public school population would be devastating. Undoubtedly, student-athletes will go to charter or private schools and not play for their local teams. Coaches will lose their jobs or be required to take on additional responsibilities to keep their jobs. Every dollar that goes to a charter school student is eliminated from our public schools, which will reduce funds for facilities, uniforms, medical care, and other sports-related needs. The loss will be felt by every school.
While the legacy of the Republican majority has been one of voting contrary to facts, their obsession with charter schools in our state has led to a grand deception. They have underfunded public education for years. They now claim it’s broken and, in a move to defend it, preach school choice. The smart course, given the majority’s obsession for charter schools and vouchers, would be a slow march with common sense limits on in-person charter schools and, more important, on the number of students allowed to attend virtual charters. Unfortunately, those limits were eliminated under pressure from Senate Republican leadership.
Public schools are the backbone of our nation, providing a future for our children, but the Majority’s plan will make public schools a place for those not lucky enough – or rich enough – to escape. It will be a modern form of segregation, and we all will pay the price when undereducated students become unproductive adults.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wait wait, you just got done talking about texas was the charter school boogy man…. now it’s west virginia? This reminds me of the first 10 years of the afghan iraq war. Every other month we got to hear the great news that we just killed the number 2 Taliban guy. Like forty of them. Like no one was counting…. how many number 2 Taliban guys did we kill and how were they all the number 2 guy? Durrrrr
Yup, yer rhetoric is showing.
Now you can read this with new insight, Love Aunt Joan
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The standard for excellence in education, Finland, has public schools with unionized staff. What they don’t have that Texas and West Virginia have (as much of the US), are 1/4+ children raised in poverty. My own children went to public school, were taught by unionized faculty, went to college, graduated, and are doing well. Charters are a privatization scam for the most part. They prey on poor communities mostly and gut the precious little resources they have. Poverty sucks for a reason. Children raised in those circumstances are less ready for school than their more affluent counterparts. Curricular gimmicks, so-called choice, standardized testing, and martyr teachers won’t help these kids. Eliminate poverty and watch the nation’s children grow.
“Eliminate poverty and watch the nation’s children grow.”
After that lets eliminate the universe! This sky aint no limit!
John-
Thanks for adding your comment. Slaying Goliath, Diane’s recent book, exposes the charter school rip-off and she names names to identify the predators from Wall Street and the tech sector who plot to destroy Main Street.
Reportedly, Ohio has the billionaire-funded Fordham Institute governing state education for the plutocrats. Fordham’s founder is associated with the Hoover Institute as is the discredited Scott Atlas (Covid opinions).
It is unfortunate that state Catholic Conferences, like West Virginia and Ohio’s promote the agenda of the self appointed “reformers”. It appears they have significant influence in Ohio and Indiana. Ohio state Sen. Mike Huffman and his first cousin, also a legislator, have pushed school privatization. The cousin was in the news last summer for racist comments during a congressional hearing.