by Joe Miller
The 2026 West Virginia legislative session left educators around the state feeling a little glum.
The session began with an ambitious funding proposal that would have added another $200 million to the state’s schools. The session ended with school funding about $8 million lower than last year.
The legislature failed to address the state funding formula that has already left Hardy County’s schools insolvent and have Kanawha and Cabell counties laying off educators.
Del. Vernon Criss, chair of the House Finance Committee, said that the $200 million package would add too much money to the budget. Del. Joe Ellington, the bill’s sponsor, ultimately agreed with the assessment, adding, “If we had the money, I’d love to do it.”
But one education program escaped the cost-squeeze.
Legislators fully funded the Hope Scholarship – a school voucher program that provides taxpayer funds to parents who opt out of sending their children to public schools.
A Hope Scholarship gives parents the state’s full share of per-pupil public education funding. For next year, that amounts to $5435.62. That’s about double what a median West Virginia household pays in state income taxes.
That means a family earning a typical income and homeschooling two children will receive a subsidy worth more than 4.5 times what they pay in state taxes.
Under previous law, the Hope Scholarship was available to students who newly opted out of public schools. That is, only students who were about to enroll in kindergarten but instead opted into private education or those who had been in public school the prior year and opted into private education were eligible.
The new law extends eligibility to all students who are privately educated – including those whose parents were already funding the full cost of their children’s education.
That expansion carries a hefty price tag. The Hope Scholarship program cost $9.2 million when it launched in 2023. Experts estimate the cost of the fully funded program will reach $250 million in 2027.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a $240.8 million increase, going to around 45,000 students. That funding came from a legislature that couldn’t find $200 million for the roughly 235,000 children who attend the state’s public schools.
I am a graduate of West Virginia public schools, I am a graduate of West Virginia public schools, but I did spend several years in a small Christian school. I even spent the better part of a semester being home schooled during a long illness.
I even spent the better part of a semester being home schooled during a long illness.
I don’t have any particular objection to private schools or to homeschooling. It may be a better choice for some children.
Obviously, a program that spends nearly a quarter billion dollars to benefit fewer than 20% of the state’s children will be showing some spectacular results, right?
Unfortunately, we have no idea.
Public school students in West Virginia are required to take the West Virginia General Summative Assessment in grades 3–8 and to participate in SAT School Day in 11th grade. The tests measure students’ skills in mathematics and reading, with an additional science assessment in grades 5 and 8.
The state uses these results to measure individual student performance and to assess effectiveness at the classroom, school and district levels.
Hope Scholarship recipients are not required to take these tests.
Homeschooled Hope Scholarship recipients are assessed via one of two pathways. They can take a nationally normed standardized test, or they can be privately assessed by a certified teacher who then certifies that the student is proficient.
Homeschooled students who take the standardized test do not need to meet any particular score to continue homeschooling. Only 6.2% of homeschooled Hope Scholarship students even take such a test. The rest are certified privately.
Hope Scholarship recipients who attend private schools have even less accountability, as private schools are not required to provide evidence of student learning.
Hope Scholarship proponents argue that the program is parent-directed and that requiring students to take assessments geared toward public school students would be counterproductive.
But even some Hope Scholarship supporters worry about its lack of oversight. The West Virginia House passed a bill that would have required Hope Scholarship recipients to take statewide assessment tests. The bill died in the Senate. Governor Patrick Morrisey would almost certainly have vetoed it anyway.
There are good reasons to worry about the effectiveness of voucher programs.
Indiana, Ohio and Louisiana all have voucher programs that require a higher degree of assessment. Studies in all three states have found that students in voucher programs experienced large losses in both math and reading compared with similar peers in public schools.
The West Virginia legislature has scheduled a comprehensive assessment of the Hope Scholarship program for this year.
They fully funded the program before receiving that assessment.
Prior to the legislative session, the state commissioned the RAND Corporation to produce a set of recommendations for education funding. The report recommended scaling back Hope Scholarships and increasing per-pupil funding.
The legislature did precisely the reverse.
West Virginia’s leaders think that parents should have the autonomy to use taxpayer funds to educate their children with no oversight. Those same leaders also decided that parents do not have the autonomy to use taxpayer funds to buy their kid a Mountain Dew.
In West Virginia, parental autonomy ends at the soda aisle.
joe.miller@fountaindigitalconsulting.com
