Op-ed: Don’t attack school choice in West Virginia

newsandsentinel.com
June 29, 2024
CHAD CONLEY

School choice, specifically homeschooling, has been a major topic of discussion over the last couple of weeks. With the tragic death of 14-year-old Kyneddi Miller from Boone County, W.Va., State Sen. Craig Blair and Gov. Jim Justice have decided we need to regulate homeschooling further. For those who aren’t familiar, Kyneddi Miller tragically lost her life due to neglect by her mother and grandparents. She starved to death and her body was found in a skeletal state. Kynnedi had supposedly been homeschooled since 2021. There are reports in March 2023 that a state trooper did a welfare check on Kyneddi. The trooper had some concerns about what he saw and heard from Kynnedi, and reported it to the local CPS office, which as far as we know, did absolutely nothing when they heard these reports from the trooper. The Boone County Board of Education has also reportedly been neglectful in this case. When a student is homeschooled, a parent has to periodically submit assessments to the board of education, to ensure benchmarks are being met. Kyneddi’s mother or grandparents, whom she lived with, did not submit the required assessments, but the Boone County Board of Education reportedly did nothing to follow up on the family.

Senator Blair and Governor Justice say there needs to be more checks and balances in place to protect the children who are homeschooled, but the problem lies in our government officials not doing their job. Both CPS and school officials had current roles in checking on this family, which they failed to do.

I would submit to Senator Blair and Governor Justice that we need more checks and balances to protect children in the public school system. There are countless cases of child abuse or child neglect of children who are in a public school. There are several cases of children who are abused or assaulted in our government-run schools, by teachers or others in a position of trust. There was a case of sexual abuse in Harrison County Schools just within the last month. There was also a case in Putnam County a few years ago where sheriff’s deputies found three children, two of whom were in the public school system. These children were living in deplorable conditions. The residence was full of dog feces, toilets overflowing with human waste. They had to put masks on to keep bugs from constantly flying into their mouths. One of the children could not tell officials when she last had a bath. Where were the checks and balances to protect these children who are in government-run schools?

Homeschooling is not the only form of education under attack by our government. School choice in general is under attack. The public education system and our government leaders seem more concerned with funding than about children. The fear of losing funding from students who choose something other than public schools, leads many to demagogue school choice but ignore that all the locally raised money stays in the local public schools, so the actual per pupil funding for the students in the public school goes up! The public schools get this money even though the taxpayer citizens are not using the school district.

I would argue that school choice is a positive thing for the public education system. We live in a capitalist free market society. The great thing about the free market is competition. More school choice and options for education will breed competition. The public education system has been failing our children for decades. More education options will force our public schools to improve. If they fail to improve and continue to fail our children, we will see many more families choose to use other means of educating their child. The Hope Scholarship has been an excellent resource to make other means of education affordable for West Virginia Families. Our government and public school system should welcome the competition of school choice. The government is using the Kyneddi Miller tragedy as a scapegoat to interfere with homeschooling and other alternative methods of education. But what is needed is greater accountability and support for all educational options that families may choose.