West Virginia House Kills Education Bill After Teachers Strike to Block School Privatization
Yesterday, Tuesday, West Virginia’s teachers walked out to protest an omnibus education bill moving through the state legislature. The bill, known as Senate Bill 451, included another pay raise for teachers, but the Republican dominated West Virginia Senate had also inserted poison pills—authorization for seven charter schools and a statewide education savings account neo-voucher program for 1000 eligible students with special needs.
At noon yesterday, as schools were shut down in 54 of the state’s 55 counties and teachers from across the state had gathered at the statehouse, the West Virginia House of Delegates voted to table Senate Bill 451 indefinitely—killing the bill.
Teachers announced last night, however, that their strike will continue through today, Wednesday, because of fears that some members of the legislature will try to resurrect the bill. All of the state’s public schools have been closed today.
Yesterday’s statewide walkout was almost exactly a year after the state’s teachers struck for decent pay. At the end of last year’s strike, teachers won a 5 percent raise. In October, Governor Jim Justice promised teachers an additional raise this year.
West Virginia is among the states that has, until now, not pursued marketplace school choice through the creation of charter schools or any kind of voucher program. The Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation for Public Education recently graded West Virginia A+ for its commitment to public education and its avoidance of these schemes to privatize the public schools.
This week’s sudden teachers’ strike broke an impasse in an all-Red state, with a Republican governor, and Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. The Senate had, however, shown itself to be more ideological, filling the omnibus Senate Bill 451 with ideas straight out of the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council, which offers model CONTINUE READING: West Virginia House Kills Education Bill After Teachers Strike to Block School Privatization | janresseger