By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – When political leaders drop their guard and start speaking from the heart, it can have explosive results – especially when recording devices are rolling.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have already learned that lesson.

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But the nine individuals who make up the West Virginia State Board of Education may be the next to experience the fallout that comes from speaking candidly in front of a running tape recorder.

An enterprising reporter with the Charleston Gazette recently submitted a freedom of information request for the audio recordings of a two-day state board of education conference that occurred last March.

The conference provided board members with the opportunity to determine how to respond to the findings of a $750,000 audit of the state’s K-12 education system, which consistently ranks last in the nation.

As the Gazette’s reporting on the conference recordings shows, state board members understand that West Virginia’s schools are in utter disarray, but many of them are unwilling to push for tough reforms that would anger the American Federation of Teachers and the West Virginia Education Association, the state’s teacher unions.

For example, during a discussion about allowing principals to promote or retain the most qualified teachers available regardless of their standing on the employee seniority chart, board member Lowell Johnson cautioned his colleagues from poking a finger in the unions’ eyes.

“I don’t know whether fighting the teachers unions is a big deal to most people or not … but I think it can be a big deal,” Johnson said, according to the Gazette. “I don’t see it accomplishing anything except creating teacher anger throughout the state. So I don’t know that it’s worth putting a lot of umph into.”

“I wouldn’t touch it,” agreed board member Priscilla Haden.

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Board member Lloyd Jackson II noted that seniority is only one of seven criteria principals must consider when hiring teachers, though he admitted that typically “the senior person gets the job. You have a few principals who stick their neck out, but that’s how it is.”

In the end, the board took the easy way out and wrote “a vague response to the audit’s recommendation that didn’t mention seniority at all,” reports the Gazette.

“It’s easy to say, ‘We support hiring the most qualified person for a teaching position,’ and then let it go. Period,” Johnson said. “Let other people argue what seniority means.”

Board members play ‘Mother, May I’ with the unions

Teacher seniority wasn’t the only issue state board members wimped out on.

Board members scuttled the audit’s recommendation of offering merit pay to teachers, reasoning that such a plan would undermine “collaboration” among educators.

They also backed away from requiring all West Virginia school districts to have 180-day school years, reports the Gazette. The audit revealed that none of West Virginia’s 55 school districts offered 180 days of student instruction during the 2009-10 school year, which is typical for districts across the nation, and that nearly half of those districts offered only 169 instruction days.

Board members were concerned the change “could create morale problems,” presumably among union employees.

The board’s lack of resolve in pushing bold reform policies is troubling, considering that the Mountain State’s K-12 schools are in academic shambles.

A 2011 analysis, for example, found the state’s students are “far below” the national average in science and math readiness.  A 2012 report stated that 69 percent of eighth-graders aren’t proficient in math, and 73 percent of fourth-graders aren’t proficient in reading. Those numbers paint a bleak picture for the state’s economic future.

If the West Virginia Board of Education was simply a powerless advisory body, nobody would care if its members played “Mother, May I” with the teacher unions.

But West Virginia’s public education system is widely considered the most top-down, state-controlled system in the nation. And the state board of education – which is established by the West Virginia Constitution – exerts considerable power over how the state’s K-12 schools operate on a day-to-day basis.

Board members are appointed by the governor – instead of elected by voters – and serve nine-year terms. Such strong job security should give board members courage to stand up to special interest groups like the teacher unions, but that’s apparently not the case.

Board members are responsible for carrying out the education policies passed by the state legislature. They also select the state superintendent of schools who ensures that all 55 public school districts and school boards are following the state’s education laws, according to Ballotpedia.com.

Granted, some of the 100-plus education reforms recommended by the audit would require legislators to change state law before they could be adopted. However, West Virginia’s State Board of Education has considerable clout and could help sell those reforms to taxpayers and lawmakers alike.

But the board’s unwillingness to cross the teacher unions means many of these important education reforms will never see the light of day.

‘This is the stuff that drives you insane’

West Virginia taxpayers and education reformers can take some comfort in knowing that Board of Education members haven’t completely caved to the unions.

According to the Gazette, board members favor the audit’s recommendation that Teach for America be allowed into the state’s classrooms.  Teach for America identifies, recruits and trains top college graduates from across the nation and places them in high-need school districts.

West Virginia has a severe teacher shortage, and board members want to address that problem by allowing TFA into the Mountain State. Such a move requires easing teacher certification laws, which could lead to a nasty scuffle with teacher unions.

That’s one battle the board seems willing to fight.

“If we had teachers in all the slots, then I can see why we would be picky about [Teach for America],” board member Gayle Manchin said in the recordings. “But a lot of [teachers] sitting in those seats aren’t qualified in their content area. [School boards] are just trying to put warm bodies into the seats. This is the stuff that drives you insane.”

But the entire reform agenda is at a standstill until the state board delivers its final recommendations to lawmakers, which is expected next month.