CHARLESTON – The Mountain State’s leading left-wing think tank, the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, recently released a report aimed at discrediting the state’s Hope Scholarship program.
WVCBP’s report trots out the same tired talking points that have been debunked across the nation, as state after state adopts programs similar to Hope.
The Hope Scholarship allows parents to access 100% of the average state tax dollars allocated to fund their child’s education (currently roughly $4,500). Under the law passed in 2021, parents can now choose any combination of public, private, virtual, at-home, and vocational curricula. Hope is helping parents, especially low-income families, tailor their child’s educational experience based on their child’s individual needs, aptitudes, and dreams. This program is extremely popular indicated by a recent poll of likely Republican primary voters indicates that 67% support the concept.
Huffman
| Courtesy photo
The authors’ main assertion is Hope students take money away from public schools. This is a misnomer because West Virginia funds education on a per-pupil basis, meaning that dollars are largely allocated to kids, not systems. When a child takes a Hope Scholarship, they take their state per-pupil funds with them, and their parents direct those dollars to their desired education service providers. But public schools retain the local and federal education funds for that child.
In reality, public school’s per-pupil funding is actually increasing because, for every Hope student, they keep two-thirds of the funds for a child whom they are no longer educating.
The authors’ next tranche of pure speculation asserts that the “cost” of the Hope Scholarship will “quintuple” when Hope expands its eligibility to all school age children in 2026. Of programs across the nation like Hope, no program has over 10% enrollment out of the eligible population. Based on those trends, we do not anticipate a massive flood of students into Hope after the expansion. Further, the authors omit that, even if Hope was not an option, there is nothing stopping students who are currently outside the public system from enrolling in public schools, which would generate the exact same cost — as will incoming kindergarten students, whether they choose Hope or traditional public school. Grasping conclusions about ballooning costs under Hope fall flat under scrutiny.
Next, the authors cherry-pick a single study that purports to show a negative student achievement effect when it comes to reading and math. Unfortunately for the authors, the study they reference is only concerned with voucher programs, which the Hope Scholarship is not; Hope is an education savings account. Hope students can fully customize their educational pathway via a multitude of educational services that can be utilized concurrently, not just take the private school route as with voucher programs. In fact, the states that the study cites don’t even have universal education savings account programs.
Programs like Hope are novel, so data about them is not robust yet. But according to Ed Choice, taken in the aggregate, educational freedom policies tend to have positive effects on educational achievement, parental satisfaction, and even public school test scores. What’s clear is that parents are choosing to use Hope, which is the best market signal as to the impact the program has on the more than six thousand families who are enrolled.
Sadly, the ideological left will continue their rabid and misleading criticism of any educational option that empowers families to choose an educational environment that best suits their children. West Virginia led the way with the nation’s first universal education savings account by creating the Hope Scholarship.
The swift adoption of similar programs that continues to sweep across the nation is a clear market signal that parents want educational freedom for their children. Parents and students should be trusted with the robust educational choices they deserve.
Huffman is the West Virginia state director at Americans for Prosperity. Ballengee is the executive director of the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy.