West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty took aim recently at parents who choose something other than the traditional public school system. He has blamed the HOPE Scholarship, homeschooling and other school choice options for declining enrollment. He fails to admit the truth: parents are leaving the system because the system failed them and their children.

Mr. Hardesty had many fallacies in his impassioned yet misplaced speech. I must correct one of the most glaring: under HOPE Scholarship Exemption M, which receives state money, those who choose the IIP (Homeschooling option) have never been required to provide a high school diploma. Meanwhile, traditional homeschoolers under Exemption C who take no state money are required to provide a diploma to teach their own children. Why should parents who receive nothing from the state prove their education to teach their own kids, when those receiving public dollars are not held to that standard? A diploma is certainly not the sole qualifier for future success.

Homeschooling families under Exemption C receive no state funds. They teach their children at their own expense and by their own sacrifice. The HOPE Scholarship (Exemption M) is not a “10-year program.” It has been in place for only three years — 2023 was the first year families received payouts. Other options, such as microschools (Exemption N) and charter schools, are legal and legitimate. Charter schools are still public schools.

Parents simply now have choices. They are not fleeing the system because they suddenly don’t believe in education. They are leaving because public schools have stopped putting children first. Parents are sick and tired of bad teachers being protected while good teachers leave; administrators ignoring bullying, from students and staff; curriculum pushing ideology instead of math, reading and science; children being left behind academically, socially and emotionally; IEPs and 504s not being followed; and not being allowed within the school or informed of students’ health choices. The list could go on.

COVID accelerated this movement. For the first time, parents saw just how little their children were learning and how capable they were of teaching at home.

Some enrollment decline is from population loss. But choice is also a factor, and that’s a good thing. In 2017-2018, West Virginia had a population of 1.8 million, with 270,600 public school students. That was 14.9% of our population. By 2024 – 2025, our population dropped to 1.77 million, and public school enrollment fell to 241,013 students, or 13.6% of the population. That’s only a difference of 1.3%. Where did those students go? To enjoy better options. Today we have approximately 24,500 homeschoolers under Exemption C, about 14,200 HOPE Scholarship students under Exemption M (roughly 33% IIP and 62% private), close to 150 Exemption N microschoolers, approximately 13,000 Exemption K&B private schoolers and about 3,400 students in charter schools.

But the Board of Education refuses to talk about how even with fewer students, the public school system keeps all county funding and most federal funding tied to enrollment. That means schools are receiving more money per student now to educate fewer children and in many cases, they still cannot get the job done. In 2018 that was $2.023 billion in state funding, or $7,476 per student. In 2025 it is $2.36 billion in state funding, or $9,792 per student. When you include state, county and federal dollars, West Virginia now spends almost $16,000 per student every single year. Meanwhile, the 55 county superintendents alone collect more than $7.5 million in salaries annually.

I am proud to have been a leading voice in expanding homeschooling and school choice across West Virginia. Parents deserve to decide what works best for their children, whether that is homeschooling, private school, micro-schools, charter schools or the HOPE Scholarship. At the end of the day, education belongs to parents, not the state. The school boards can no longer bully families into staying in a system that does not serve them. Parents are refusing to be ignored, refusing to let their children be left behind and refusing a system that will not change. It is why they are leaving and why I will continue to stand with them.

School choice is not the problem. It is the solution. As a member of the Legislature, I urge my colleagues to keep standing firm, keep defending parental rights and keep demanding accountability in our schools. The future of West Virginia’s children depends on it.

Delegate Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam, has served in the West Virginia House of Delegates since November 2021. She serves as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Educational Choice.