State Board of Education President Paul Hardesty’s comments about school choice and the school aid funding formula cut through the noise this week. His words carried from one end of West Virginia to the other. Word of mouth, social media, radio, TV and print… people are talking, and that’s healthy.
Yes, fewer students means fewer dollars for public schools. That’s the cold math of a funding formula tied to enrollment. We need to reform it if we can.
No, Hardesty isn’t out to kill school choice. He isn’t campaigning to eliminate the Hope Scholarship.
Yes, the Hope Scholarship has helped families pursue options that might otherwise be out of reach, and in many cases, those students are thriving.
No, we cannot abandon the public school system, even if some would gladly walk away. The Hope Scholarship doesn’t fully cover private tuition in all cases. Some communities don’t even have alternative schools nearby. A strong public school system is still essential – for every child and, frankly, for every West Virginian.
And yes, the regulatory burden tying the hands of public educators deserves a hard look. That education code book Hardesty held up for all to see Wednesday outlining what the Department of Education must comply with, as Dave Wilson rightly pointed out, looked like the Guttenberg Bible.
The “either/or” argument is a false one. We should want both strong school choice and excellent public schools. That’s not only possible – it’s necessary. That point shouldn’t be up for debate.
The Deeper Problem
Personally, what alarms me more than the debate over school choice or the funding formula is what most people are not talking about, a key factor related to these woes. The real problem in West Virginia is not funding formulas or school choice – it’s our shrinking, aging and underemployed population. That’s the issue driving almost every other challenge we face.
We are fewer, less productive, and older than at any other point in our recent history. That is a recipe for permanent decline.
In 1980, West Virginia had nearly 1.95 million people. By 2022, that number had dropped to 1.77 million – a loss of more than 9 percent. During that same time, the U.S. population grew by nearly half. Every state but West Virginia added to its ranks. Our labor force participation rate – the share of working-age adults actually in the workforce – has bounced up and down, but today it sits at a discouraging 54 percent. One of the worst in the nation. Meanwhile, our median age has climbed, and we now have more residents 65 and older than any other age group – 376,000 in 2022 compared to 239,000 in 1980. That’s an increase of about 58 percent.
That demographic imbalance has consequences. It doesn’t just mean fewer kids in classrooms – it means fewer taxpayers, fewer workers, fewer consumers, fewer young families planting roots.
Boone County as a Case Study
Take my native and beloved Boone County for example. From 1980 to 2022, Boone lost nearly a third of its population. That’s staggering – akin to an economic death sentence.
Yet, Boone still operates the same number of high schools. It still maintains the same miles of roads. It still requires the same utility infrastructure to serve far fewer people. Those costs don’t shrink just because the population does. The burden is simply increased and shifted to the residents who remain, and many of them are already stretched thin. And you can only raise taxes so much until those that can pay it will hop on the train as well.
Only about 1,000 residents of Boone County are under the age of four. It was more than 2,700 in 1980.
Boone is not unique. Across West Virginia, counties are facing the same arithmetic. Fewer people, higher fixed costs, and fewer young families stepping in to keep the machine turning. Only a few counties are immune.
The New Reality
For a long time, we could ignore these trends. When coal was booming and populations were even slightly larger, West Virginia had enough breathing room to shrug off talk of regional government, to keep half-empty schools open, to pretend that the future would take care of itself.
That luxury is gone. Our hand is not good enough anymore.
Hardesty is right to raise alarms about school funding. But the conversation he sparked should force us to go deeper. The real challenge is not just about schools. It’s about survival.
It’s also about having the political courage to execute change. West Virginia needs to face some hard truths right now. We cannot cling to every county-level institution, every school building, every outdated system as if nothing has changed. Things have changed – dramatically. If we don’t adjust, the slow bleed will turn into something much worse.
Better to have these hard conversations now – and make tough decisions today – than wait until tomorrow, when the choices will be even tougher, and the costs far higher. Hopefully, we grow and can curtail some of the needed reforms along the way. But until that day comes and the math works, change seems a necessity.
Will we make it?