Recent editorials from West Virginia newspapers:
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May 22
Register-Herald on increasing college attendance rates:
The “college-going rate” is one of the key measures of educational improvement for West Virginia, and there is good news.
After dipping for a couple of years, the percentage of Mountain State high school graduates who enrolled in community colleges and four-year colleges increased last year. The statewide percentage is still low in comparison with other states - 55.6 percent - but at least it is heading in the right direction.
The high-water mark for West Virginia was 2009, when 62 percent of high school grads enrolled in college, but the lean years of the recession and higher tuition costs likely took their toll. The average steadily declined over the next few years, hitting 55.4 percent for the fall of 2015.
That meant almost 45 percent of the state’s graduates faced the difficult challenge of finding a living wage job with only a high-school degree. Combine that with the 20 percent of the class that dropped out before graduation, and you have almost two-thirds of the state’s young workforce lacking the skills most good jobs require today.
The situation is even more severe in many counties of southern West Virginia, where the college-going rates are even lower, according to a recent report by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and West Virginia Community and Technical College System.
Counties in the northern part of the state have the best college-going rates, led by Ohio County at 71.5 percent, Mineral County at 66.3 percent and Monongalia at 66 percent. Cabell, Wayne and Logan moved up to close to 60 percent for 2016, and Putnam was at 63 percent. But other area counties were in the 50 percent range with several in the 40-45 percent range.
No wonder, our region has so many young people who are neither working nor in school - 18 to 25 percent in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, according to a recent Measure of America study.
In his last two years, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin put a particular focus on urging high school students to pick a post-secondary education path, and Gov. Jim Justice, in his first few months, also has made education a central part of his agenda. The Higher Education Policy Commission also launched its innovative GEAR UP program to help high-schoolers see the importance of college. We hope those efforts will continue.
“These gains, while subtle, represent a solid step in the right direction,” said Dr. Paul Hill, HEPC chancellor. “Now that the economy is beginning to stabilize, we’re more confident that the small strides we’re witnessing represent genuine progress in creating a college-going culture in West Virginia - a process that takes time and occurs student by student, community by community.”
Building that “college-going culture” is critical for the Mountain State - whether the coal industry rebounds or not - and leaders, educators and families need to keep the momentum going.
Online: https://www.register-herald.com/
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May 21
The Charleston Gazette-Mail on tax reform:
To his credit, Senate President Mitch Carmichael has focused like a laser beam on the idea of reducing the state income tax. Good for him. It will be even better for West Virginia if he can make it happen.
The love Carmichael, R-Jackson, and many of his fellow Republicans have for this idea came naturally. Coming of age in the Reagan era, they saw that a significant income tax cut could yield economic growth and business expansion, job creation, and even increased revenue to the federal government.
Though nearly half of West Virginia’s annual revenue comes through the state income tax, many freedom-loving citizens have long dreamed of going even further than President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s.
Rather than just across the board tax relief, why not reduce the size of West Virginia’s unwieldy government and eliminate the state income tax altogether?
The Senate’s current plan, pushed by Carmichael, is a good first step. No one can accuse him of not painting in bold strokes. It’s not a plan to benefit the rich, as tax-loving critics contend, but a plan to let people keep more of their own money and encourage the economy to grow - which will provide more people with more money to grow the economy more, and so on.
Once word gets out that West Virginia has no income tax, a loud and clear signal would be sent across the nation that the state has indeed changed, and investment and newcomers are welcomed.
The problem this year, however, seems mainly to be a matter of timing. Facing a severe financial shortfall, even Republican members of the House of Delegates are skeptical for now.
In such a volatile budget year as this, proponents of the Senate plan are having a difficult time convincing not just Democrats but some Republicans that the hoped-for economic energy from cuts will compensate for the loss of revenue.
Beside being wary of the increase in consumer sales tax to make up the lost revenue, House Republicans appear wary of the anticipated shortfall in revenue that the income-tax reduction shows in the plan’s second year.
Carmichael and his fellow senators are concerned of that, too, but point out that there will be another legislative session before then to make adjustments if the economy doesn’t pick up and bring in more revenue.
With the House passing its own revenue plan Friday - sans income tax reduction - and with 40 days remaining before the start of the next fiscal year, perhaps now is the time for legislators and the governor to agree on a more simple, yet still conservative, 2018 budget.
But not first without a commitment from all to seriously focus on long-term proposals that Senate leadership, House leadership and the governor can agree on to truly and thoughtfully reform West Virginia’s tax structure and the size of its government for a long time coming.
Online: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/
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May 23
Parkersburg News and Sentinel on grants improving the state’s nutrition:
In the coming days of the special legislative session in Charleston, convening - once again - to address a budget for the state this coming fiscal year, political leaders will hit upon a compromise that will measure the relative value of budget cuts and tax increases.
No matter the compromise, it should be seen as a new start at an honest attempt to fix all that ails our struggling state. But as we all know, there is no such thing as a quick fix. And then, how does that lead to the next step in a very long process?
It all seems so critical no matter what piece of the argument you subscribe to - from jobs to drug addiction, from the condition of our roads to the delivery of health care services as offered by the Department of Health and Human Resources.
Gov. Jim Justice exaggerates our collective condition by saying West Virginia is 50th in every last ranking that matters. Well, that’s just not so, but from where we sit, you can see the bottom without craning your neck too far.
So the questions for our legislative leaders, from the left and the right, from the House to the Senate to the governor’s office, are this: where to begin? And what follows?
Or, as Justice likes to say, “What’s the plan?”
If we were to consider the state as a patient in need of care, as the governor has on occasion, and our political leaders as attending physicians, we might first encourage them all to take the Hippocratic Oath: First do no harm.
We do not believe that the state can continue to cut away the cancers that are slowly consuming the health and welfare of our state’s residents. Cutting is not a cure - but only a temporary fix.
The state needs investments in its people and that will not come without some pain - higher taxes, in one form or another, for all.
We are most concerned with education in this state, from preschool on to K-12 and all the way up to the hallowed halls of higher education on state-supported campuses.
But the only debate in Charleston regarding educational matters is whether we can cut funding or give a 2 percent pay raise for teachers. Perhaps a bit of both. Regardless, be not fooled. There is no semblance of a plan in either approach.
We are not Pollyannas. The best that education can do in next year’s budget is to avoid any additional cuts. But in truth, we need an overhaul of our educational system that examines the following:
A reorganization of K-12 school districts away from the 19th century map where every county constitutes a district.
We believe funding 55 districts for this largely rural state is a bridge too far. Currently, we suffer from and waste valuable resources on duplicative services and excess administrative salaries.
In restructuring the administration of education across the state, we could also address how to keep small community schools in place or develop a plan for consolidation of services that makes sense geographically. That’s a big one that is being played out - to no one’s satisfaction - across the state. No kid should be stuck on a bus for an inordinate amount of time going to and from school - and no kid, through no fault of his or her own, should be offered anything less in a classroom based on where he or she was born.
Teacher pay and benefits need a boost, encouraging our home-grown talent to stay put - as many have said they would like to do but have been lured by more attractive salaries and educational environments across state lines.
We appreciate the governor wanting to bump teacher pay, but at a time when schools are losing population and revenue is falling at the county level, schools are being forced to cut teacher positions. In that environment, any teacher pay hike is false hope - not a long-term remedy.
At the very least, the state’s colleges and universities need to keep tuition flat. Rising tuition is putting a college education into a box that only the well-to-do can afford to purchase. Our goal as a state should be to make higher education, either at four-year colleges or at community colleges, affordable for anyone who has done the work in high school and now wants to take the next step.
To say the least, we need to improve our state’s “human capital,” and that begins with an educated workforce.
We think it is central to any plan to get this state out of the economic ditch.
So, we are left to ask, what’s the plan for education?
Online: https://www.newsandsentinel.com/
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