After the inspiring teachers’ strike in 2019, which closed every public school in the state, the billionaire Governor Jim Justice of West Virginia promised to veto any charter school legislation. He lied. The legislation passed, and the Governor signed it.
The state established a state charter board, which proceeded to award seven charters, mostly to a for-profit charter corporation that manages low-performing charters in Ohio.
But a county judge stopped the clock by issuing an injunction to halt the new charter schools.
A Kanawha County judge has temporarily blocked five public charter schools from opening in West Virginia.
Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey granted a preliminary injunction Monday sought by parents and education union members.
They filed a lawsuit against Gov. Jim Justice and leaders of the state Senate and House.
In the suit, the plaintiffs claim residents should be able to weigh in on any charter school established in their county.
They are challenging the authority of the Professional Charter Schools Board, a group that has its members appointed by the governor.
Last month, the board approved charter schools in Morgantown, Nitro and in Jefferson County, along with two online charter schools.
The judge outlined her logic in granting the temporary injunction.
“The plain language of Article 10, Section 12 of our state constitution provides that no independent school district or organization shall hereafter be created except with the consent of the school district or districts, out of which the same is created, expressed by a majority of the voters voting on the question,” Bailey said.
One of the arguments in the lawsuit was that the transfer of the student – and the tax money that goes with that student – is the same thing as creating an independent school district, and there is a specific prohibition against that in the state constitution – unless there is a public vote.
The two parents bringing suit are members of the American Federation of Teachers union.
“It is unconstitutional to create a new school system within our current school system and that’s what this bill seems to do,” AFT-WV President Fred Albert said.
After some county school boards voted no to approving a charter school in their areas, lawmakers created the Professional Charter Schools Board, which could OK charter schools without a county school board’s approval.
State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the injunction is wrong because acts of the Legislature are presumed to be constitutional and because the parents should have sued the charter school board not the governor and legislators. He said he will seek relief from the state Supreme Court.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It struck me that creating charter schools without either democratic input of the folks in the affected district, while using their taxes to support the charter school, is taxation without representation.
Exactly. Well said, Arthur!
Thank you to Judge Bailey and the AFT for enforcing the law. More states should fight back instead of inviting in the grifters to drain value from their common good. Haven’t the people of West Virginia been taken advantage of enough by the coal and energy lobby, tone deaf politicians and the Sacklers?
The racial resegregation of America’s school systems by the private charter school industry is so blatant and illegal that both the NAACP and ACLU have called for a stop to the formation of any more charter schools. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA summed it up, stating that charter schools are “a civil rights failure.”
The impartial, non-political watchdog Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a report warning that so much taxpayer money is being skimmed away from America’s genuine public schools and pocketed by private corporate charter school operators that the IG investigation declared that: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting goals” because of financial fraud and their hidden ways for skimming of tax money into private pockets.
There is NO SUCH THING as a “public charter school”. Charter school operators spend a lot of taxpayer money telling taxpayers that charter schools are “public” schools — but they are not. As the Supreme Courts of Washington State and New York State have ruled, charter schools are actually private schools because they fail to pass the minimum test for being genuine public schools: They aren’t run by school boards who are elected by, and therefore under the control of and accountable to voting taxpayers. All — ALL — charter schools are corporations run by private parties. Taxpayers have no say in how their tax dollars are spent in charter schools.
The Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) — which is funded by pro-charter organizations — has been conducting years-long research into the educational quality of charter schools. And yet even this charter-school-funded research center’s findings are that charter schools don’t do any better academically than genuine public schools. Moreover, CREDO reported that in the case of popular online charter schools, students actually lose ground in both reading and math — but online charter schools are the fastest-growing type of charter school because they make it easiest to skim away public tax dollars.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2019/03/29/report-the-department-of-education-has-spent-1-billion-on-charter-school-waste-and-fraud/#ab1fbdb27b64
With the exception of a few legitimate voices, there are few organizations and voices that release accurate information on the privatization scam that works against the interests of civil rights, equity and justice. NPE operates on a shoestring. Yet it continues to track and report the charter scandals and fraud that plague the privatization of our public asset, public education.
Very well said, quikwrit! Clearly, however, your pieces are not quickly written. They are well reasoning, careful, beautifully expressed. Thank you. A pleasure to read.
cx: well reasoned
Last paragraph is a good point. In the face of evidence from the reformers themselves, there is still no reaction from the reformers. A savage indictment of reformer motivation. Just because you claim to be a Christian missionary does not mean that you bring the gospel.