As Gov. Jim Justice and Senate President Mitch Carmichael spar over their differing versions of “education reform,” there’s one aspect of public education in West Virginia that’s being forgotten. Our schools are the meeting places for our communities. West Virginia needs to focus on building up our public schools and on training, hiring, and adequately paying its great teachers, not on lining out-of-state, for-profit charter school operators’ pockets.

We pass on this story by The Intercept on West Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stephen Noble Smith because we think its is interesting how the online news magazine has framed Smith’s campaign.

West Virginians look after one another and this extends to youth in foster families, too.

Has West Virginia really benefited from laws that make it difficult for working people to improve wages and working conditions? Sometimes, conservative lawmakers seek to save money, but end up making things worse in the process.

What happened when Big Coal picked up the dinner tab in this year’s legislative session? They got a big old dessert for their investment.

As the state Legislature's Special Session on education has unfolded, the conversation on education reform centers on whether or not to move funding away from public schools into Charter Schools or Educations Savings Accounts (ESA)—and how to punish teachers who stand up for themselves and their students.

Clearly the West Virginia legislature and Governor Jim Justice have no respect for the traditions of policymaking, the West Virginia taxpayer OR our school personnel, who are on the front lines helping our kids every day. Who's driving this clown car?

We’re in the midst of an addiction crisis that is ravaging families and communities. But there’s hope and possibility in West Virginia’s young people. They need the support to overcome obstacles. They need the freedom to thrive.

West Virginia’s public schools, and the teachers who fill their halls, continue to fight an uphill battle to prove their worth to state legislators. The problem is that the loyalty of those legislators seems to be more to the folks funding their campaigns than to the schools that teach children in their districts.

Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster Memorial in Whitesville, W.Va. | UBB Memorial Facebook

Carolyn Diana Davis has been waiting almost a decade for justice after her husband died in the Upper Big Branch explosion.  How long will other families have to wait for mining companies to be held accountable for not keeping their workers safe?