This column is is meant to be a place to write about the things I couldn’t fit or had to cut out of stories. Newspapers only have so much space and I’m sure editors curse my name when they see a 2,000-word story.

I wrote a couple pieces last week focused on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2022 Report Card results, which were not good both for the nation and our home here in West Virginia. I also included the West Virginia Department of Education’s Balanced Scorecard.

I won’t rehash the score. You can read my stories from last week. But I’ve been doing some active research for a while for a whole slew of West Virginia education statistics. In short, our education system has more funding than ever even as the number of students has decreased steadily for close to 20 years. But the funding doesn’t appear to be trickling down to teacher salaries.

Let’s go through the numbers.

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The state saw an approximate 6% drop in total enrollment for the academic year between the end of the 2019 school year and the end of the 2022 school year, from 237,968 students to 224,108 students. West Virginia began the 2021-2022 school year with 250,899 students — a nearly 20% drop from total enrollment at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year when there were 279,899 students in West Virginia’s schools.

Department of Education data includes enrollment from 646 public schools, 29 pre-Kindergarten programs, and nine alternative schools.

While enrollment dropped, the combined federal and state per-pupil expenditures between the 2019 and 2022 school years increased by more than 8%, from $12,245 per pupil to $13,256 per pupil according to the state Department of Education’s own data.

According to the K-12 Education Spending Spotlight published annually by the libertarian Reason Foundation, West Virginia saw a 15% increase in total revenue (federal, state, and local) per pupil over 18 years. Adjusted for inflation, per-pupil expenditures increased from $12,350 per pupil in 2002 to $14,163 per pupil by 2020. Enrollment during the same 2002-2020 timeframe decreased by 6.6%, from 282,245 to 263,486.

“Well before the pandemic decimated student enrollment numbers, many states were already losing students,” the Reason Foundation report stated.

Between the 2019 and 2022 school years, West Virginia was allocated more than $1.2 billion in federal COVID-19 emergency funds through the CARES Act in March 2020, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act in December 2020, and the American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021. According to the Department of Revenue, federal public education funding accounted for 7.1% of the estimated $7.462 billion the state was expected to receive from the federal government in fiscal year 2022 ending in July.

According to the State Budget Office, approximately 42.7% of the state’s more than $4.635 billion general revenue budget goes to pre-K-12 education. In fiscal year 2021, the state spent more than $2.09 billion on public education through the general revenue fund, special revenue fund, and lottery/excess lottery funds – a 4.5% increase from fiscal year 2019.

Yet, despite three 5% pay raises for teachers and school service personnel since fiscal year 2019 (and a fourth proposed by Gov. Jim Justice for lawmakers to consider during the 2023 legislative session), pay remains low. According to the National Education Association, West Virginia ranks 40th in the nation for an average starting teacher salary of $37,987. The state ranks 49th for overall average teacher pay of $50,261.

A stat from the Department of Education I’ve seen on multiple media outlets, including MetroNews, stated there were 1,196 teacher vacancies in West Virginia last school year. Officials expect that number to grow during this school year. I suspect with older teachers retiring and the state having a hard time attracting new teachers, you’ll also see the overall average teacher pay slip from $50,261 to a lower amount.

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I interviewed Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Amy Grady, R-Mason, about what needs to happen going forward to improve educational attainment in schools. We talked about the funding issue, and she had a good answer.

“We spend a lot of money in education on directors and at the board office, but the first place that money gets cut is the local schools,” Grady said. “Instead of cutting positions at the board office or things like that, we are cutting budgets at schools and we’re top-heavy. That’s a huge issue I feel that needs to be addressed and needs to be changed in order for it to trickle down to our schools to make them more successful.”

I listened in last week to an emergency meeting of the West Virginia Board of Education over issues within the Logan County school system, its board of education, and county assistant superintendent. I read the full report too. One read of it and you’ll quickly see that perhaps Grady has a point.