Coal and Education

Our coal team apprentice JeaYoon Lee attended a great forum about coal and education last week, and we wanted to share her report.

Coal Mining's Impact on Education in Appalachia

In Congress, the No Child Left Inside Act is bringing environmental consciousness and education together to encourage curricula that encompass environmental issues and "green" jobs.  Last weekend, it was coal mining, strangely enough, that brought environmentalists and educators together in West Virginia.

The Ann Porter Memorial Symposium took place in Charleston between September 26-27, and the primary focus was to show the effects of mining on education in Appalachia, particularly in West Virginia.

The discussion panels consisted of two groups, environmentalists and educators.  The former were represented by Sierra Club and Coal River Mountain Watch, and the latter by Challenge West Virginia. 

So what is the connection between mining and education? In short, the coal companies pay a lilliputian amount of taxes compared to individuals, while at the same time owning most of the land and resources in Appalachia.  This means very limited school funding which lead to school consolidation in rural neighborhoods. 

This also means that if the majority of community members vote on a policy which goes against a coal company’s interest, the coal company can easily squash their voices.  For more information on the battle against the closing down of 5 schools to build a new one on top of a "reclaimed" mountaintop removal site, read "West Virginia—A rich place with poor people" at Challenge West Virginia's website.

There are other connections between mining, education, and lack of funding.  Ann Porter was a school teacher concerned about the state of education in WV and an activist with the Pennies of Promise campaign, an effort to raise funds for moving the Marsh Fork Elementary School. 

Why? The direct reason is its close proximity to a coal silo (think of the noise and the fine coal dust) and 385 foot tall something called "an impoundment dam" holding back over 2 billion gallons of toxic sludge from mountaintop removal mining (think of the Martin County sludge spill that dumped 7 feet of thick sludge over Kentucky lawns).

The indirect reason has to do with the coal industry's negative impact on education on three levels:

• First, at the economic level, the lax tax that the coal companies enjoy withholds a lot of the funding that could be available for use by the schools.  Linda Martin, one of the panelists from Challenge WV, cited a 1980 study which revealed about 15% of the state's taxes paid by "corporate landlords" with WV citizens paying about 85%. "Corporations likely pay much less tax today," she said. Also, the coal industry's long, historic monopoly on the Appalachian economy continues to stunt local potential for businesses, as well as entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth.

• Second, at the infrastructural level, the coal companies' chokehold on land rights and school funding lead to school consolidation, which uproots small rural schools from their original communities.

• Third, at the social and political level, due to the immensely powerful presence of the coal industry in every social aspect of the Appalachian communities, they have the most say in who gets elected into office.  It is not uncommon for community members to feel rather powerless because “coal is king,” an unfortunate mantra.

In effect, the economic ineptitude takes a toll on the community's sense of civic duties, then weakens the political voice of the community. These three negative impacts of the coal industry lead to the decline of educational quality and the weakening of political power.

In the case of Marsh Fork Elementary, the problem came first when the state Dept. of Environmental Protection did nothing to stop Massey Energy from violating safety codes by constructing the silo so close to the school.  The problem right now is that nobody in the  State—neither the State School Board of Education nor Governor Joe Manchin—is willing to build a new school for the safety of the children.

For more information on Pennies of Promise, visit http://www.penniesofpromise.org