By Matthew Young, RealWV
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The West Virginia chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), on Friday, hosted a Hope Scholarship panel discussion at the Four Points by Sheraton in downtown Charleston. Moderated by AFP State Director Jason Huffman, panelists included the Cardinal Institute’s Tiffany Hoben, State Senator Mark Maynard, R-Wayne, and House of Delegates-member Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam.
“What does it mean for the people of our state now that we have educational-freedom in West Virginia?” Huffman asked to begin the discussion.
Maynard was the first to respond.
“I think it’s the parent’s decision as to what their kids’ education should be and how they should get it,” Maynard said. “There’s so many tax dollars involved now that the people of West Virginia pay, and they should have a choice as to how those tax dollars are spent.”
“In the end, the parent is responsible for their child,” Maynard added. “It’s not some bureaucracy. I think the parent knows what’s best. If they are the caretaker and legal guardian, then they should be the one in charge of their education.”
According to the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. based public policy research organization, the terms “educational freedom” and “school choice” refer to the belief that traditional state-funded public schools provide a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education that is not in the best interests of all students, while advocating for alternative approaches, such as private or homeschooling options.
The term “educational freedom” is itself a misnomer, as families in West Virginia have always had these alternative options available to them. However, it is with the caveat of taxpayer-funded financial support that the term “educational freedom” gains weight.
While the Hope Scholarship – West Virginia’s version of this type of financial support program – is not a necessary component to gain “educational freedom,” as argued by AFP, the $5,267.38 per student, which the scholarship is providing for the current school year, makes the concept more viable for families who otherwise could not afford public school alternatives.
“Education freedom, and especially the Hope Scholarship, is vital because it recognizes that the parents know their children the best,” Crouse noted, echoing Maynard’s remarks. “They know how they learn best, they know what they need to learn, what’s best for them, and they can take it as slow or as fast as they need to.”
“Every child learns differently,” Crouse added. “And every child needs to have an education that is specific to them.”
Crouse further added that educational freedom has afforded West Virginia’s students the opportunity not to be “stuck in a classroom all day long in a school that’s failing every single student there.”
“I tell parents all the time in my homeschool group that you don’t need an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), because homeschooling is the perfect IEP,” Crouse continued. “It is individualized for every single student in your household. I fight very strongly to keep these options out there, and I’m glad West Virginia finally has them.”
While West Virginia has allowed families to seek alternatives to public schooling since the state’s public school system was established in 1863, the Hope Scholarship was created by the State Legislature in 2021, and launched in 2022. Crouse, who serves as moderator of the state’s largest homeschooling social media group, was not appointed to the House of Delegates until after the Hope Scholarship was passed, and therefore not officially involved with its creation.
Adding to Crouse’s reference of IEPs was Hoben, who cited loss of specific services tailored to students with special needs as a common criticism of the Hope Scholarship.
“What I’ve found, over and over again, is that families that have students that have IEPs pull their students from the schools, and they no longer need those specialized services because the environment that they’re in is conducive to who they are,” Hoben said. “They’re with their family, they’re with their siblings, or they’re in small microschools where the people that are running those schools can pay closer attention to the needs that they have.”
“That really is the best example to me of what school choice (educational freedom) offers to families,” Hoben continued. “It’s really to just be able to do the calculus of ‘what are the trade offs, what do I want to get out of this, and what am I looking to give up?’ Maybe I don’t care about transportation – I’ll drive to that microschool everyday because my kid gets the best education there.”
“I just support families being able to sit down as a family and say, ‘What’s the calculus, what are the trade offs, and what do we want for our kids?’ Hoben added.
Huffman then took the opportunity to add that West Virginia offers, what he called, “One of the best open-enrollment walls in the nation,” adding that, “It essentially allows you to put your child in any public school that you want.”
“So we have educational choice inside the government-run school system, and also inside the private sector,” Huffman added.
In its initial year of 2022, some 2,300 students participated in the Hope Scholarship program, with that number more than doubling ahead of the 2023/2024 school year. As reported by the WV Center on Budget and Policy, this increase in enrollment saw the program’s cost swell to more than $22 million. And with universal eligibility set to take effect in 2026, critics of the program argue that the rapidly-approaching $245 million price tag estimated by State Treasurer Larry Pack will deal a crippling financial blow to public schools.
“We spend $4 billion on education in this state,” Hoben said. “It’s literally half of our state budget that goes to public school education. The budget for the Hope Scholarship makes up less than one-percent of that entire amount. So to say that it’s massively-defunding public schools, and to use that as an accusation borderlines on silly, and it makes me question people’s math skills.”
“The way the money moves – down the road, maybe a year from now – the school will lose the state portion of the funding for a child that elects to use the Hope Scholarship,” Hoben continued. “But here’s the thing, in the meantime, they retain this year’s funding because the head-count was done last year. So the first year that the student is not sitting in their seat, the school district received all of the funding for that student.”
“Even after the student leaves, local and federal money for education is based on population, not enrollment,” Hoben added. “So the local funds and the federal funds do not change, and that makes up like 50% of what the districts get for each child.”
“They’re getting a windfall,” Hoben noted. “The child is no longer there getting educated, but they’re (school district) retaining approaching $7,000 of the funding that would have come to them for that child. And they make more money per pupil because students left to take the Hope Scholarship.”
The ongoing debate surrounding the Hope Scholarship is expected to continue into the 2026 Legislative Session, which begins on Jan. 14. For more information about the Hope Scholarship, visit hopescholarshipwv.gov.
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