This legislative session is in its early stages but that doesn’t preclude terrible bills from surfacing. That is exactly the case of House Bill 2480. The bill, introduced by Delegates Hackert, Criss, Fehrenbacher, Riley, Green, Foggin and Browning would virtually do away with local boards of education and eliminate local control.
The school board consolidation bill contains a lot of rhetoric, most of which has to do with saving money. Maybe money would not be as big a deal if the current republican controlled legislature wasn’t so hell-bent of funneling public education money to the private sector through Hope Scholarship and financial support of Charter (for profit) Schools.
This bill would reduce the current 55 boards of education to 11, each representing 5 counties. Each county would have 2 representatives. How on Earth can anyone perceive this to be in the best interest of local schools and local children is beyond me.
If you fear losing your local school now, wait till 8 people, you didn’t elect and don’t have to face you every day, will be making that decisions. I see this system creating a constant battle for funding and programing. I also see it being a breeding ground for politics. That too is counterproductive considering the extensive effort that has been made in recent years to eliminate politics from our school system.
The board of education has a tough enough job as it is, considering they have almost no control over how much money they have to run their system, plus, constantly have to deal with unfunded mandates forced upon them. In the last two or three years their job has been compounded by having to contend with public money going to private people and for-profit institutions that have little accountability or oversight.
I looked at where the sponsors of this bill are from, four are from Wood County, one from Wayne, one from Harrison and one from McDowell. Reasoning tell me that bigger counties would have more influence in these new five county district boards. While I have never heard of any of these delegates, I don’t know how experienced they are. While their intentions of saving money is commendable, this is not the way to do it… particularly without in-depth research as to who how it will operate and what side effects could occur.
I certainly hope our delegates from smaller counties have better sense. This bill is a terrible piece of legislation that is certain to be detrimental to the education of our youth. I can only hope it dies a quick death.