West Virginia & Charter Schools West Virginia's charter schools have had a long and difficult road to approval. The state legislature passed the original law allowing the creation of this new kind of school in 2019. This law set a cap of 3 schools within the initial 3 years. In 2020 West Virginia Academy stepped forward…

West Virginia’s Path: A Different Future or the Eternal Now?  Sweaty, breathing heavily on a stationary bike at 5:30am, I was watching the most recent season of Netflix’s popular show, Castlevania, when a main character, Isaac, said something that floored me:   “They convince us that there is no future. There's only an eternal now.”  Isaac’s statement hit me…

Sandboxes Promote Innovation Regulation and innovation are inherent competitors with government-mandated constraints to what a person can and cannot do. The laws dictated by federal and state agencies create significant barriers to startups and protect existing companies from new competition. However, regulatory sandboxes have opened up opportunity for businesses to develop new services and products…

West Virginia Needs More Addiction Treatment Services The principle of supply and demand has been with us since Adam Smith. This principle is at the core of West Virginia’s decades long drug problem. The supply of drugs has skyrocketed all while government mandates have ignored demand for recovery services.  Cartels and pharmaceutical companies have reacted to increased demand by increasing the supply of…

Lemonade Stands & CON Law Did you start a lemonade stand as a child? I certainly did. My mom had a fantastic lemonade recipe – perfectly tart and sweet. We would make it in the kitchen during the summers. My little brother and I would set up a stand at the end of our driveway.…

Big Wins In K-12 Public Policy, But What's Next? There is little doubt that West Virginia’s public policy problems are legion. They have built up over the last several decades. First and foremost among said problems was a lack of options in the state’s calcified K-12 education system. With the recent passage of the Hope…

West Virginia Isn't Healthy Across the nation, West Virginia is known for its poor health. We face an opioid epidemic, have the highest obesity rate in the country, and rank 1st in coronary heart disease. To make things worse, we lack access to basic health care with more than 1 out of every 5 residents…

Addiction Recovery in West Virginia Addiction stinks: it drains individuals, families, and entire communities. We have lost thousands to this plague, but there has been hope in those who have overcome it. If Mountaineers are ever to overcome this horror, the focus should be on getting more people into treatment, not fewer. There are many…

Why Are Taxes So Hard? As tax season winds down and you’re deep in your last-minute filing, you’ve probably caught yourself thinking, “why are taxes so stinkin’ hard?!”   No doubt, I’ve sat in front of my computer on late nights trying to figure this all out. More than once, I’ve yelled at the umpteen…

  “I’m a native of Arizona and I grew up in Arizona public education. I love this state. I was a huge public education advocate for years. When I raised my own kids, I started to take a more active role and visited hundreds of classrooms, then I started to shift in my thinking.”  …