Almost Heaven, West Virginia School Choice

Neal McCluskey2021, the new, reigning, “Year of School Choice” saw two especially startling things happen. One was Kentucky enacting a private school choice program, getting itself on the school choice board. The other was West Virginia doing the same. Yesterday, to kick off ourSchool Choice Week postings, Colleen Hroncich brought youup to speed on the Bluegrass State. Today, let ’s quickly visit the Mountaineer State.Like Kentucky, West Virginia had long been a holdout on not just private school choice, but any major choice, not passing a charter school statute until, well,2021! And like Kentucky (which passed its charter law in 2017) West Virginia just a few years ago had seen a massive “Red for Ed” wave – indeed, it started there – a rush of teacher power focused on getting big spending increases for public schools. Usually, major displays of public ‐​school teacher power don’t bode well for school choice.Enter COVID-19.Like much of the rest of the country, by 2021 many West Virginians were likely frustrated with public schools that often would not or could not respond to their needs. That set the stage for state legislators to create a new education savings account program – theHope Scholarship– for which any family is eligible as long as they have a child who has been in a public school or is entering kindergarten. Each year, an enrolled family will get $4,600 per child placed in an account on which the...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs