All session Senate President Mitch Carmichael and his leadership team have consistently been willing to betray West Virginians by blatantly pushing the agenda of a national corporate interests wanting to shift state education funds from public to private schools.

After several years of budget cuts, WV is finally running a budget surplus again. All types of proposals have come forth for how to spend these additional funds. Many programs and institutions that had their funds slashed over the past years breathed a cautious sigh of relief. The years of the budget shortfalls seemed to be at an end…or so we thought.

Senate Education Chair Patricia Rucker (R-Jefferson) recently stated that she thinks “there needs to be fear for teachers in public schools. She thinks that, in addition to working long hours for low pay, in addition to serving communities in addiction crisis, in addition to using their own money to buy supplies their schools cannot afford, teachers should live in constant fear that their jobs could be stripped and handed to someone without a high school education. This is coming from someone with no experience as a teacher or parent in WV public schools.

Politicians lie. That’s not news. But one big reason some of them lie is because they think we can’t handle the truth. Especially if the truth might affect our pocketbooks or their chances of getting elected or re-elected.

The WV Department of Education has started a series of forums on education “betterment.” With a special session on education on the horizon, these forums should be a valuable opportunity for our state’s parents, teachers and community members to advocate for their local schools, and provide input onto what types of reform would actually help the majority of our states’ kids.

How would you feel if you were paid a fourth less than everyone else? If you’re a woman in WV, you likely know. Nationwide, women earn 80% of what men earn, but in WV, it’s only 74%, the fifth worst income gap in the nation, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Carol Amos and Linda Morgan could have done a lot of things during their retirement to celebrate their many years of service; instead, they decided to honor the history of Fairmont Senior High School by writing a book about it for future generations. This serves as more evidence of West Virginia teachers doing more than asked for the kids of West Virginia.

West Virginia is independent and free, but it has never been easy to survive in our mountains, which present challenges as well as opportunities to those who live here. Thankfully, the federal government provides help to our aging population with programs like Medicare and Social Security. And with high unemployment, low wages , and widespread poverty widespread, many West Virginians are eligible for Medicaid and other forms of assistance like SNAP (food stamps).

In the midst of the addiction crisis, it’s going to take people power to heal our people and our communities. We need politicians willing to explore many different solutions, politicians who listen to us and care more about West Virginians than wealthy interests or drug companies. And we need residents who are willing to keep pushing.

Our last three governors, including our current one, have paved the way for West Virginia’s road repair crisis. They did this by neglecting their duties to our state’s citizens who need safe and secure roads to get to work. This crisis wasn’t created overnight. Mismanagement and neglect over several administrations got us here.