West Virginia Teachers Keep On Fighting As Legislature Debates Charter Schools and Education Savings Accounts
In February of 2018, school teachers across the entire state of West Virginia walked out over the conditions in their public schools and their low pay, which has been driving fine teachers out of the profession and away from the state. West Virginia’s public school teachers thereby launched the #RedforEd movement that swept across Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Denver, Los Angeles and Oakland.
The 2018, West Virginia teachers’ strike ended when Governor Jim Justice and both houses of the state legislature agreed to a 5 percent raise for the state’s teachers, support staff, bus drivers and West Virginia state troopers. Last October, Governor Jim Justice promised West Virginia’s teachers an additional raise, but an omnibus education reform bill that included the raise stalled in February 2019, when West Virginia Republicans in the state senate insisted on combining the raise with the introduction of charter schools into the state for the first time and launching an Education Savings Account neo-voucher program.
After teachers walked out statewide this year—for the second time—to protest the addition of two forms of public school privatization, the state’s House of Delegates tabled the bill indefinitely, killing the bill earlier this spring. A special session to consider education was called, but it was put off for weeks. Some people said that the strategy was to wait until summer, until school was out of session. Then teachers would not be able to create momentum for their demands through a strike.
Now, in June, West Virginia’s legislature has been meeting in special session, and on Monday of this week, the West Virginia Senate once again passed an omnibus education bill which incorporates both Education Savings Accounts and the introduction of charter schools to the state. For the West Virginia Metro News, Brad McElhinny reports: “The state Senate again passed an omnibus education bill, just as it did during the regular legislative session. The vote on Monday was 18-15 with one absence. The votes in the regular session were consistently 18-16. During the regular session, the Senate passed a bill and the House struggled with some of its more controversial provisions before tabling it for good. That led to the current special CONTINUE READING: West Virginia Teachers Keep On Fighting As Legislature Debates Charter Schools and Education Savings Accounts | janresseger