The West Virginia Senate School Choice Select Committee voted Tuesday to advance legislation that would strip nearly all state oversight from private, parochial, and church schools.
The bill heads to the full Senate floor just months before the state’s Hope Scholarship voucher program opens eligibility to all students, creating a system where hundreds of millions in public funds will flow to institutions with almost no accountability requirements.
Senator Craig Hart, the freshman Republican from Mingo County who sponsored the legislation, titled his bill the “Restoring Private Schools Act” as though current requirements for basic attendance records and standardized testing represent some intolerable government overreach.
Hart represents one of the poorest districts in the state, covering parts of Wayne, Mingo, McDowell, and Mercer counties, communities with virtually no private school infrastructure.
His constituents’ tax dollars will fund Hope Scholarships flowing overwhelmingly to families in Berkeley, Kanawha, and Monongalia counties while he works to ensure those recipient institutions face no obligation to demonstrate they are actually educating children.
Senate Bill 216, titled the “Restoring Private Schools Act of 2026,” eliminates a broad range of regulations currently imposed on non-public schools. Under the legislation, private schools would no longer need to maintain a minimum 900-hour instructional year, keep disease immunization records, provide student enrollment information to county boards, administer standardized achievement tests, or comply with compulsory attendance requirements. Special education students would also be exempt from the assessment methods currently required to evaluate their progress.
Amendments Fail
Two amendments attempted to preserve minimal oversight. Senator Charles Clements, a Republican from Wetzel County, proposed returning language requiring private schools to administer standardized testing or nationally recognized evaluations comparable to those used in public schools. The committee rejected his amendment. Senator Michael Woelfel, a Democrat from Cabell County, tried to maintain the immunization record requirement. His amendment was also rejected. The bill advanced to the full Senate with a recommendation for passage, essentially intact.
The timing is not coincidental. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship becomes universal in August 2026, opening the program to every school-age child in the state regardless of whether they ever attended public school. The State Treasurer’s Office projects the program will need approximately $245 million next year, up from $48.9 million in 2025. When the Hope Scholarship launched in 2023, it cost $9.2 million. The expansion will roughly quintuple annual expenditures in a single year.
West Virginia law currently requires private schools to meet certain standards, including standardized testing and immunization tracking, that apply whether or not they receive public funds. As more taxpayer dollars flow to these institutions through the Hope Scholarship, the legislature is choosing to reduce oversight rather than increase it.
Data from the Hope Scholarship’s existing operations suggests this is a feature rather than a bug. According to the Treasurer’s Office annual report, only 6.5 percent of scholarship recipients submitted nationally normed academic achievement test results. Nearly $14 million, representing 44 percent of program funds, went to unaccredited schools that are not required to employ credentialed educators or meet established graduation requirements. Over $2.5 million flowed to entities located outside West Virginia entirely.
The lack of accountability is by design. Private schools accepting Hope Scholarship funds face no requirement to provide assessment results, utilize certified teachers, follow specific curriculum standards, undergo financial audits, accept all applicants, or hold public meetings. Public schools serving more than 85 percent of West Virginia’s students must meet all these standards.
Oversight Getting The Ax
The following provisions, which have historically been imposed on private schools (and provisions that will continue to apply to their public school competition) will no longer remain a requirement:
- Observe a minimum instructional term of 900 hours per school year.
- Maintain accurate annual attendance and disease immunization records for each student enrolled and regularly attending classes.
- Provide a list of names and addresses of all students enrolled between the ages of seven and 16 to the county board.
- Child attendance must comply with the compulsory school attendance requirements.
- National standardized achievement tests must be administered to students at the same grade levels and subject areas as required in public schools.
- Require special education students or students with learning disabilities to be assessed by one of the following methods: standardized group achievement test, standardized individualized achievement test, written narrative of an evaluation of a portfolio of samples of a child’s work, etc.
A Republican Failure Disappointing Nationalists
Hart arrived in Charleston just this month after defeating an incumbent in last year’s primary, and apparently decided the most urgent business facing southern West Virginia was making sure wealthy families in the Eastern Panhandle can collect state money for schools that need not prove their students can read.
The fiscal implications extend beyond the voucher program itself. West Virginia faces an estimated $400 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2026. The Hope Scholarship’s rapid cost growth has already exceeded projections lawmakers reviewed when passing the original legislation, which estimated the universal expansion would cost roughly $103 million. The actual figure will be more than double that amount.
Public schools, meanwhile, continue losing both students and the funding tied to them. Enrollment in West Virginia public schools has declined by over 4,000 students between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years alone. The state’s funding formula allocates resources based on enrollment, meaning each student who leaves takes money with them. In some counties, the Hope Scholarship award actually exceeds the per-pupil state aid provided to public schools.
Senate Bill 216 represents the logical endpoint of West Virginia’s school choice experiment. Having established a mechanism to transfer public funds to private institutions, the legislature is now removing the regulations that might allow the public to evaluate whether those funds produce educational results. Private schools will receive taxpayer money with fewer strings attached than virtually any other government expenditure, while the public school system absorbs the enrollment and funding losses.
The bill now awaits action by the full Senate. Given Republican supermajorities in both chambers and the committee’s recommendation for passage, substantial opposition appears unlikely.
