The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A coalition that includes Fortune 500 companies, labor unions and nonprofit foundations plans to spend the next five years focused on rescuing a West Virginia school district, one of the country's most downtrodden, state education officials learned Thursday.
McDowell County is the target of a public-private sector campaign that its organizers consider the first of its kind. They aim to turn around the county's underperforming schools by also tackling such related problems as poverty, substance abuse and outdated infrastructure.
The American Federation of Teachers has assembled the partnership. Union President Randi Weingarten outlined the Reconnecting McDowell covenant to the state Board of Education on Thursday. The board is expected to vote to join the partnership.
McDowell County schools continue to struggle despite a decade under state control, with West Virginia's worst dropout rate and lagging behind all or most other counties in reading, science and math. The county also suffers from one of the lowest median incomes in the country, and ranks high for the percentage of residents living in poverty, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. Drug abuse and prescription painkiller overdoses are an issue as well.
Organizers say Reconnecting McDowell envisions the county's schools becoming hubs for much-needed social and health-related services. With some areas lacking even dial-up access to the Internet, the project aims to expand broadband and cell phone coverage. Other thorny topics facing the partnership include economic development, transportation and housing.
AFT officials say the coalition's more than 40 partners range from IBM and Cisco Systems Inc. and coal operators Alpha Natural Resources and Patriot Coal, to such nonprofits as Save the Children, the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Benedum Foundation. The United Mine Workers union and the AFL-CIO are also on board, as are West Virginia's two U.S. senators, the Legislature's education committee chairs and other state officials and agencies.
Each partner will commit something concrete to Reconnecting McDowell, AFT officials said: money, products, services, expertise. They expect the AFL-CIO's Housing Investment Trust, for instance, to help finance middle-income housing for teachers who now live in neighboring counties or even nearby Virginia for wont of adequate housing in McDowell. Cisco will help improve the county's Internet access. The nonprofit First Book has pledged to provide every child in the county a steady stream of free books over the next five years.
Organizers have so far held two town hall-style meetings in McDowell County with local leaders and residents, to pitch the project and enlist the communities there. A third is planned for Thursday evening.
Weingarten credits former first lady Gayle Manchin, the board's vice president, as the driving force behind the project. Manchin had appealed to Weingarten for help with McDowell County when she visited its public schools this summer, and continued her efforts after moving to Washington, D.C., when her husband, Joe Manchin, was elected to the U.S. Senate in November.
Gayle Manchin, Weingarten and representatives of several coalition partners are scheduled to join Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin at the state Capitol on Friday for a signing ceremony to mark the covenant's launch. Weingarten said the partners will spend the next six months mapping out detailed strategies for McDowell County, identifying specific needs, and also arriving at a price tag for this effort.
McDowell County was once the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, and as a result hosted the third-largest population in West Virginia for much of the early 20th century. That population peaked at nearly 100,000 in 1950, when machines began replacing miners. The mechanization of the coalfields and the playing out of major coal seams led McDowell's population to plummet. Bypassed by the interstate highway system - stretches of flat land are rare - the county is pocked with crumbling and abandoned former mining towns. The 2010 Census counted 22,113 people there, marking the sharpest population decline among West Virginia's 55 counties.