Commentary
By Delegate Todd Longanacre
During the recent debate on the closure of Crichton Elementary School, I have heard blame thrown around to various entities from the Greenbrier County Board of Education to the Legislature’s passage – and subsequent funding – of The Hope Scholarship. Therefore, I wanted to weigh in on this topic to briefly explain some key elements being left out of the argument. I will attempt to set the record straight on a few of the misleading arguments and misplaced blame I am currently hearing about the potential closure of the Crichton School.
First of all, it might be worth considering how the area was suffering a depopulation crisis long before the Hope Scholarship was ever conceived. In fact, the 2020 Census showed such a significant population decline over the course of the previous ten years. This was such that even our legislative districts across the entirety of the State, by law, had to be changed. So, it’s not entirely fair to blame the Hope Scholarship for the declining population.
Secondly, I read that a Member of the Greenbrier County School Board publicly placed the blame squarely upon your Legislature for fostering, and subsequently funding, the Hope Scholarship. My only comment here is this…your Legislature represents your neighbors, family members, and friends. It represents we the people. So, when the majority of the Legislature passes a bill, and the Executive signs it into law, be angry at the majority of we the people, your neighbors, family members, and friends… not your Legislature for they are only listening to the majority, or they should be. And we the people said “It is not fair that a portion of our personal earnings are being confiscated to fund the public school system when our children are either homeschooled or educated in a private school. We would like to have a little bit of that back to help with tuition or materials.” And your Legislature listened.
A third factor to consider is that the same voters who elected representatives who promised to give them education freedom (in the form of The Hope Scholarship, among other education freedom initiatives), are the same voters who voted against the ballot initiative in 2022 which would have given their elected officials the opportunity to review and approve – or not approve – any educational policy initiatives recommended by the State’s Department of Education. Because the ballot initiative failed, and the status quo continues, the DOE has full authority to promulgate its own rules and policies impacting our public school system, and they can do so with limited recourse from we the people.
Finally, during the WV Teacher’s Strike of 2018, the Legislature loudly and clearly heard from the Teacher Union Reps. Among their grievances was a call for more funding, and either more teachers in each classroom or fewer students in each classroom. While I was not a part of these conversations due to not yet being elected to the Legislature until 2020, later I did extensively research, advocate for, and vote to pass the Hope Scholarship Bill as a member of the House Education Committee in 2021. In my estimation, this bill addressed two of the grievances the Teacher’s Union Reps were advocating for… more funding for education and fewer students in the classroom. It accomplished this by letting the school district keep funding for students it was no longer responsible for educating. How is this so? Currently, the amount of public funding the school district receives is based upon population within the County, not within the walls of the school. They receive $11,248 (tax dollars) per student. If parents exercise their free choice to remove a student from the public school system, opting instead to educate them in a private school, that parent essentially gets a $4921.39 refund of their personal earnings to use towards tuition, books, uniforms, etc. This is the average cost of a private school education in WV. While some would argue that these parents should get all $11,248 of their tax dollars back to educate their children in the way they desire, that is not what is happening. The school system retains the remaining balance ($6,326.61) for a student they are no longer responsible for educating. This results in the school system essentially getting “free money” and fewer students in the public school classroom; a scenario many Legislatures thought would be welcomed by educators. The only educators that should be upset about the Hope Scholarship are those who believe that there exists only a one-size fits all approach to education… the public system. If we are to be honest on the issue, we must admit that some kids thrive in a private school setting while others struggle, and some kids thrive in a public school setting while others struggle.
So, who to blame for the Crichton Elementary School situation? Depopulation? The Legislature? Hope Scholarship? The voters? All the above? At the end of the day, is it not the locally elected Board of Education which – which we the people elected – who will ultimately vote to close, or not close, any school in its jurisdiction? Again, it is we the people who must elect the decision makers on our behalf and must be willing to assume some of the responsibility for our voting habits.
In closing I will offer the following take away…
As one of your Greenbrier County Delegates for the past four years, I have witnessed wasteful spending, both at the state and local levels. I have voted against so many “good idea fairy” unnecessary and waste-filled bills that I have become a target of both the left and the right. I have seen prominent Legislators in both parties take tens of thousands of dollars from lobbyists in exchange for advancing terrible bills which they know in their hearts will not benefit the majority of the tax payers but would certainly fill their re-election coffers. I was even one of the few to vote against salary increases for Legislators. I have watched as elected officials campaign as “fiscal conservatives” only to turn around and advance some of the most waste-filled legislation to the tune of a couple billion dollars over the past two years alone. This is money we could have been spent on our roads, matters of education, pay increases for hard working public employees, our correctional facilities, or any number of other things. I can only pray that the students of our state, both in private or public school environments, will learn from our mistakes going forward, and strive to be the best and most productive citizens they can be regardless of what happens here now. And, I hope that due diligence is taken by those making the decisions on this issue to ensure that the best interest of the students is priority.
Todd Longanacre
WV House of Delegates, District 47