aul Hardesty, the president of the West Virginia Board of Education, has a blunt message for lawmakers: if they care about competition in the education space, then untie the hands of public educators and county school systems.
“We have the best option. Ours is free,” Hardesty said Wednesday morning during the state Board of Education’s regular meeting at the Department of Education offices on the campus of the State Capitol Complex. “We try every day to make it more competitive. But you’ve got to level the playing field. This assault on public education…has got to stop.”
Article 12 of the West Virginia Constitution places the general supervision of the state’s 55 county school systems in the hands of the nine-member state Board of Education, whose members are appointed by the governor with advice and consent of the state Senate.
That same article places the responsibility of the West Virginia Legislature to provide, through the passage of laws, for “a thorough and efficient system of free schools,” and requires the state board to “perform such duties as may be prescribed by law.”
