Imagine you’re a stressed-out parent in search of the right educational fit for your child. You support your local public school, but it just hasn’t met his needs, no matter how hard you try to make it work. As the school years go by, you begin to panic. Time is running out. You’re desperate to get him on the right track, but you can’t afford private school, and you definitely can’t afford to move in a market with sky-high inflation rates and home prices.
Then, a glimmer of hope appears. You hear on the news about a new “school choice” program — the Hope Scholarship. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship program, generally referred to as an education savings account program, opens up a wide range of new educational opportunities to thousands of families. Every West Virginia student is eligible to participate in the program, which awards each student on average $4,600 per year to go toward the school of his family’s choice. The Hope Scholarship was set to launch last month.
You apply and, wonder of wonders, the application is approved. He’s in!
But just when you stop pinching yourself and start accepting that things are looking up, a court injunction places the Hope Scholarship program on hold and puts your child’s future in jeopardy. What will you do now, with the first day of school rapidly approaching?
Sadly, families across the state of West Virginia are experiencing this in real time. In fact, more than 3,000 families who were accepted into the Hope Scholarship program earlier this year have been left scrambling to figure out how to help their children after a July 6th Circuit Court ruling indefinitely delayed the program’s launch.
Many of these families are disadvantaged. Others have children with special needs. And still more have students who are struggling to overcome years of learning disruptions spurred by schools’ pandemic response. Yet special interest groups that oppose educational freedom have thrown salt in their wounds.
One of the groups looking out for these families, West Virginia Families United for Education, has compiled real-life testimonials from Hope Scholarship parents who desperately need to get their children out of a public education system that is failing them.
One mother, Kristen, was “devastated to hear of the overturning of Hope. It took the only hope I had remaining in our state’s education. We are now scrambling to figure out our next step. We have invested so much money in enrollment, testing, and uniforms only to now have this pulled from under us.”
Another mother, Kari, made a plea about basic fairness: “Does my son not deserve access to a quality education just because the school system isn’t the right fit for our family? Why is my state that I have lived in my entire life turning its back on my family? Please do not take Hope from the children of our state.”
And a third mother, Rachael, pointed out how children attending public schools would benefit from the program as well: “The opportunity that public schools have here, to decrease expenses while reducing class size, should be one that all who care for the future of WV children should get behind.”
These testimonials serve as a sober reminder: School choice benefits real people. Politically motivated actors sued to crush Hope, and now the lives of thousands of families and their children have been turned upside down.
Thankfully, not all hope is lost.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has appealed the court’s injunction, and the failed stay of the injunction, to the West Virginia Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court could accept the case and expedite a ruling.
In addition to a judicial lifeline, private philanthropists are stepping up to offer some of these children an opportunity.
But students should not have to wait for the wheels of justice to turn, nor for kindhearted patrons to empty their wallets to access the education they rightfully deserve. The Hope Scholarship was and still is a beacon for the nation. Should the program be restored, states across America will continue looking to Hope as a blueprint on how to bring educational freedom to their own students.
All children are worthy of an education that meets their needs. Kristen’s, Kari’s, and Rachael’s children can’t afford to wait any longer. The best time to reinstate Hope for these families was yesterday. The next best time is today.
Marc LeBlond is the director of policy and Ed Tarnowski is a state policy associate at EdChoice, a national education nonprofit organization.
