PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release September 9, 2026
Mingo County Lawsuit Forces Treasurer Pack to Talk About the Damage Being Done to West Virginia Public Schools
West Virginia Democratic Party Responds to Treasurer Pack's Defense of School Closures
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Democratic Party today said the lawsuit filed by 11 Mingo County parents challenging the massive expansion of the HOPE Scholarship voucher program has accomplished at least one thing already: it finally got State Treasurer Larry Pack talking about the crisis facing West Virginia's public schools.
Mingo County families are facing the closure of their children's school while West Virginia pours hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into an ever-expanding voucher program. Their lawsuit argues that the Legislature's expansion of HOPE, combined with its failure to adequately address the public-school funding formula, violates the West Virginia Constitution's requirement that the state provide a “thorough and efficient system of free schools.”
Pack responded by calling the parents' anger “misdirected” and promising to “aggressively oppose” their lawsuit. But he also conceded that West Virginia's public schools face “urgent challenges” and that “our schools are demanding help.” The parents of Mingo County deserve credit for finally getting his attention.
Pack and Republican politicians have championed the HOPE voucher scheme while ignoring the consequences for the public schools that educate the overwhelming majority of West Virginia children. And they have done it while advancing the agenda of Americans for Prosperity, the national political organization built with the financial backing of Charles and David Koch and their donor network.
AFP has been one of the most aggressive forces pushing school vouchers and privatization nationally and in West Virginia. Journalist Christopher Leonard, author of Kochland, spent years investigating the Koch political network and Americans for Prosperity. His conclusion about the network's education agenda was stark: “Public education must be destroyed.”
Leonard said the network's “ultimate goal is to dismantle the public education system entirely and replace it with a privately run education system.” West Virginians should understand that context when politicians like Larry Pack tell them that the HOPE Scholarship is simply about “choice.”
The HOPE voucher scheme isn't separate from that agenda. It is part of making that agenda a reality in West Virginia. Now, West Virginia families are living with the consequences.
Public-school enrollment falls. Funding tied to enrollment falls. Teachers and service personnel are cut. Schools consolidate and close. Meanwhile, taxpayer dollars are increasingly diverted into a voucher program that can pay for private education and other expenses outside the public-school system.
“Larry Pack says the Mingo County parents' anger is misdirected. I think their anger is directed exactly where it belongs,” said Johnny Nick Hager, Chair of the Mingo County Democratic Executive Committee.
“These parents are watching their community school face closure while politicians in Charleston pour taxpayer money into a voucher scheme promoted by an out-of-state organization whose principal goal is to dismantle public education.”
“Our public schools are the great equalizer. They are supposed to give every child in West Virginia — whether they’re born into wealth or born into poverty — a fair chance to learn, succeed, and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps,” said West Virginia Democratic Party Chair Mike Pushkin. “But Republicans are dismantling that promise piece by piece. They would rather spend taxpayer dollars subsidizing a voucher scheme than adequately fund the public schools that serve every child who walks through their doors. You have to ask why. I believe it’s because they prioritize an economy built on cheap labor over a West Virginia built on educated minds. Democrats believe our greatest investment is in our children — because an educated child grows into an empowered adult, and empowered people build stronger communities and a stronger West Virginia.”
Johny Nick Hager concluded, “West Virginia's Constitution requires the state to provide a thorough and efficient system of free public schools. It took a lawsuit from one of the poorest regions of one of the poorest states to finally get the Republican leadership in Charleston to acknowledge that.”
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