Eye on the Ominous Omnibus education "reform" bill

I've been a bit under the weather lately so am behind on blogging the ups and downs of the Ominous Omnibus education "reform" bill in the WV legislature. Here's where I think we are:

SB 451, aka SB 666, passed the Senate 18-16 Feb. 4, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against. It contained an infinity of charter schools, thousands of "education savings accounts" (ESAs) to siphon money away from public schools, anti-union "paycheck protection" measures, penalties for work stoppages and such. And a 5% raise for state workers. It was clearly an effort to punish teachers and school service workers for winning last year.

In the House education committee, amendments were made that took out some of the worst features, including paycheck, penalties, and ESAs. It limited charter schools to two.

Yesterday there were two public hearings at which teachers and parents vastly outnumbered  the out of state and astroturf bill supporters. I love it that one of the speakers against the bill compared charter schools to bedbugs. Bring two of them home and see how it goes...

THEN, the house finance committee apparently thought it was the REAL education committee and began putting more bad stuff back in the bill. THEN that failed and the earler, somewhat less bad, bill was sent to the floor, where it is now.

My friend and twitter critter Sean O'Leary of the WV Center on Budget and Policy dropped these gems during the process:

"Marathon public hearings, all night committee meetings, all for a bill that nobody but lobbyists want. Meanwhile, PEIA stuck with a band-aid of a one-year fix, with no permanent solution in sight."

and

"Lobbyists for charter schools and ESA's get called up to present to House Finance committee, while teachers and parents opposed get shuffled though a public hearing 70 seconds at a time."

It's still not clear what teachers and school service workers are going to do. I guess it depends on what goes down on the House floor...but we could be looking at an epic rematch. A rally in support of public education is planned for tomorrow at 6:30 on the riverside steps of the capitol.

And just to be clear, many teachers and school service workers are willing to give up a pay raise in order to kill a bill that threatens public education in this state.