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CHARLESTON – Consideration of charter schools is on hold after the West Virginia Senate Finance Committee agreed to put a proposed bill on the backburner.
During the Monday afternoon meeting, Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, proposed the bill be put on hold indefinitely. Committee members voted 8-6 in agreement, with three absent. The vote fell along party lines.
“I looked around the room and knew we had more votes than they did,” Kessler said. Republicans “have been running over us this session with a narrow majority. This let us flex our muscle a little bit and killed a bad piece of legislation.
“This bill, for this session, is done,” he added.
Kessler said the bill, which was created without input from the state Board of Education, superintendent or teacher and school board groups, was pushed through the Senate Education Committee by Republicans.
Charter schools have been lauded by Republican lawmakers as a way to spur innovation and accountability in state public school systems. Critics have argued charter schools would take resources from public schools.
“I’ve yet to see anyone come out and say this is a good thing,” Kessler said. “I knew it had been a highly contentious bill in the Senate Education Committee. I figure I saved us all of lot of angst in the Finance Committee by keeping us from rolling around with this for the next several days. I’m very proud of what I did.”
The end of the Senate bill may not be the end of the discussion. An identical House bill is waiting to be taken up by the House Education Committee.
Delegate Amanda Pasdon, R-Monongalia, chairwoman of the House Education Committee, could not be reached for comment. Earlier in the session, Pasdon said the Senate had planned take up charter schools while the House took up other education legislation.