In The Hunt Institute’s April 2025 article, “School Choice in the 2024 Election: Pros, Cons, and What Voters Want,” a key point was bulleted at the beginning of the article: Choice for some should not come at the expense of others.

I just started my 23rd year of teaching, and I’ve been fortunate enough to teach every grade level from Pre-K through college. I had a brief stint in a private non-parochial school, and the rest public school. I’ve been to schools that are urban, rural, large, small, decently funded, and funded by the grace of Title I. I’ve found that my emotional bread is always buttered by serving those who need it the most, which is probably why I’ve spent many of my years in Title I schools from Mason County, to Charlotte, to Huntington.

School choice is something being touted as a saving grace for our “failing” public schools. Parents have more autonomy. Students have more options. Families are empowered. Proponents of school choice argue that the savage defenders of public education are too reactive, aren’t willing to admit the positives to school choice. As a staunch advocate for our public schools, I have some points to mention in the face of that argument.

For a state that chokeholds the so-called middle class into poverty, this becomes tricky. The HOPE Scholarship, homeschooling and open enrollment are innovative and give students a bevy of options they may not have had traditionally. However, a key formulary flaw of the HOPE Scholarship, for instance, is that while income is not restricted, the amount each family can receive is a set amount. The student whose parents are incarcerated and is being raised by grandparents on social security will receive the same amount as the student with two parents bringing in healthy incomes. If this is meant to elevate students academically by leveling the playing field, where is the equity?

Additionally, what about independently finding transportation for those students? What happens then? If you’re anything like I was growing up, you’re “too rich” to be poor, meaning you don’t qualify for much, if any, federal or state assistance; but you’re also “too poor” to be considered rich.

In the wake of touting a school choice meant to level the playing field, it’s the very students we are called to serve the most who are left to stand at the wayside watching even more opportunities go by. However, this time, there’s insult to injury in the fact that many of these students who need us the most almost made their HOPE Scholarship money stretch over the cost of a tuition, or they almost figured out transportation to another school with open enrollment … only to find that they were back at square one, with the school they’ve always known.

Although this time it’s even different with their home school, because funding has been depleted due to the loss of enrollment. Extra funds afforded for programs that service our most at-risk kids have now followed the students exiting the public school system. No more after school tutoring? Less homebound teachers? Not enough credit-recovery classes? The money is no longer there to support these initiatives. In some cases, counties lose staff members and positions altogether. Many costs to operate schools are fixed, even if the student population wildly fluctuates in numbers, so our cuts come at the price of programs, staff and incentives that benefit our students with the greatest need.

There’s another echelon of school choice that people either don’t want to talk about or are missing entirely. It’s in this playing field where our most vulnerable students play the game, many times only due to circumstances beyond their control.

The student who counted on after school tutoring with an activity bus to take him home no longer has that option. Figuring something is better than nothing and in an attempt to avoid truancy, his family opts to “homeschool.” The girl who needed credit recovery classes and benefitted from lunch mentoring/work time cannot do this due to a cut in funding and staffing. There isn’t a person to homeschool her, so she opts to do the WV Virtual Academy, has little guidance on course completion, gives up and decides to work full-time.

Neither student asked for the position they were in, and neither student could control what happened. It is here where we truly lose our students. The avenues they may choose in order to live or survive become more likely to be dangerous. These students could be lost to drugs, the streets, leave the state, or even die. Why aren’t we discussing this?

School choice is one of those things that looks good on paper to a lot of people but make no mistake: school choice is not as readily available, if at all, to our most underserved student populations in West Virginia. In a time where the basic tenets of what truly make America great are being weaponized, destroyed and manipulated, my teacher heart is breaking to see that we are turning on our own public school system in the same fashion. Only this time, the true victims are our children and their futures.

Choice for some should not come at the expense of others.

Brianne Barton-Solomon is the visual art teacher at Spencer Middle School in Roane County, West Virginia.