www.thecentersquare.com – By Christina Lengyel | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-05-22 11:58:00
West Virginia leads the nation in opioid use disorder (OUD) costs, paying over \$500 per capita, with OUD costs exceeding 6% of its GDP. The state’s 2024 projected expenses include \$52 billion tied to an OUD rate above 2%, far above the national average. OUD’s economic toll spans government, businesses, individuals, and society, with an average case costing \$695,000 nationally, but over \$1.2 million in West Virginia. Overdose deaths hit 80.9 per 100,000 in 2022. Treatment with behavioral therapy and medication can save up to \$295,000 per case, yet stigma and legislative resistance hinder access to effective care.
(The Center Square) – A recent report from Avalere Health shows West Virginia’s state and local governments pay more per capita for opioid use disorder, or OUD, than any other state.
That figure tops $500 per person. It also topped the nation as a percentage of GDP, coming in at more than 6% of the state total.
The study looked at past figures to project estimated costs for 2024 for federal, state and local governments, private businesses, society as a whole via lost property and crime, individuals and households.
The total national costs were in excess of $3.9 trillion. West Virginia accounted for more than $52 billion of that with an OUD rate of more than 2%.
The figures reveal what could be described as an opioid tax levied upon the entire country, one that came in three waves beginning with the overprescription of pain medications like morphine and hydrocodone in the 1990’s. It gave way to a brief few years in which heroin proliferated starting around 2010 before escalating to the current flood of fentanyl and synthetic opioids on the street.
While external stakeholders like the government bear a significant portion of the burden, individuals bear the lion’s share of the cost. Nationally, the average case of OUD was about $695,000 annually, with $532,000 on the individual.
In West Virginia, the cost per case nearly doubles the national average, amounting to more than $1.2 million.
Much of the money lost comes in earnings for both employees and employers. Meanwhile, involvement in the judicial system, medical expenses, mortality and the treatment of neonatal dependence are typical expenses for both systems and individuals.
West Virginia has the highest overdose mortality rate in the country. In 2022, the CDC reported 80.9 deaths per 100,000 people. This represents 1,335 lives and a massive economic impact.
There is some hope to be found in the projections, however. Avalere calculated the average cost savings for different forms of treatment. Behavioral therapy alone can save $144,000 per case.
When medication is added to the treatment options, that number jumps. Behavioral therapy alongside any of the three approved therapeutic drugs, which include methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone, can save between $270,000 and $295,000.
This is an increasingly thorny problem in West Virginia, where resistance to medication assisted treatment has significantly narrowed the window of available options for patients. In March, SB 204, which would make methadone clinics illegal in the state, moved to the Senate Health and Human Services committee.
The bill demonstrates the persistent stigmatization of OUD, one of the biggest obstacles to accessing treatment. According to Avalere, educating more primary care doctors about treatment is an important step. Experts say it’s much easier to confront a case of OUD when patients are able to continue working and living in their communities while accessing help.
The study notes that Black and Latino youth are more likely to suffer from OUD, while white people are more likely to be prescribed painkillers that lead to the disorder. People who are incarcerated have additional challenges with recovery and are more likely to die from overdose after being released.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a factual and data-driven report on the economic and social costs of opioid use disorder in West Virginia, relying heavily on statistics and findings from Avalere Health and the CDC. It describes the scope and impact of the opioid crisis without using charged language or advocating for specific political ideologies. While it does touch on the controversy surrounding medication assisted treatment and the state bill concerning methadone clinics, it refrains from adopting a partisan stance, instead highlighting challenges such as stigma and barriers to treatment in a neutral manner. The focus remains on informing the reader through objective reporting rather than promoting any particular ideological viewpoint, resulting in an overall balanced and centrist tone.
SUMMARY: Boyd County, Kentucky, is partnering with a private developer to build a new sports complex at Camp Landing, purchasing 92,000 ft² of land for $19 million. This project, four years in the making, aims to create Kentucky’s largest entertainment district. Funded by $15 million in bonds paid through sports complex profits and tourism, the complex is expected to boost visitors from 2.3 million in 2024 to over 4 million annually. Local businesses anticipate increased sales, while county officials see the complex as a vital quality-of-life and economic development tool. Construction begins in July, with completion planned for spring 2026.
Boyd County is teaming up with a private developer to bring a large project to the area. The county is buying land at Camp Landing to build a sports complex. The development has been four years in the making with 92,000 square feet being purchased for the complex for a variety of sporting options.
As the U.S. faces a post-pandemic teacher shortage—1 in 8 positions vacant or underfilled—states use various strategies, including salary increases and changing teacher certification rules, to attract educators. Many states are loosening training and licensing requirements, such as waiving entry exams or allowing out-of-state teachers to begin earlier. However, experts warn this may lower teaching quality and sustainability. Teachers face political battles, low job satisfaction, and mental health struggles, exacerbated by pay and classroom discipline issues. Some states prioritize recruiting paraprofessionals and offering flexible credentialing. Federal proposals seek to raise minimum teacher salaries to improve recruitment and retention nationwide.
As another school year ends, superintendents across the United States are staring down an autumn staffing crisis, with 1 in 8 teaching positions either vacant or filled by an underqualified educator.
States that are struggling with post-pandemic teacher shortages have spent millions to lure replacements and retain veterans with hiring bonuses and bumps in salaries. But hiring gaps remain, so some states also are trying another tactic: changing their standards.
The changes in teacher training and licensing come amid widespread turmoil in public schools: Tax revenue is being siphoned toward private school vouchers in many states; some classrooms are being scrutinized for banned books, displays or teaching lessons that trip into diversity, equity and inclusion territory; and students who went through pandemic-era shutdowns are struggling both with sitting still and with learning the material.
Some surveys show that fewer than a fifth of teachers are happy in their jobs.
“Teaching is not seen as an attractive profession right now,” said Drew Gitomer, an expert on teaching assessment at Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
“COVID exacerbated things, and teachers are caught in the middle of political battles — over curriculum, book bans, even personal attacks,” he said. “It’s not a healthy work environment, and that drives people away.”
Teaching is not seen as an attractive profession right now.
– Drew Gitomer, an expert on teaching assessment at Rutgers Graduate School of Education
Last year, Illinois enacted a law allowing teacher candidates to begin student teaching before passing content-area exams. It was an effort to reduce barriers for underrepresented groups, the measure’s sponsor said.
A bill under consideration this year would give more districts discretion over whether to factor pupils’ test scores into teacher evaluations, a break from a 15-year-old mandate.
In New Jersey, a new law formally removes the Praxis Core exam — traditionally used as an entry-level screening tool for aspiring teachers — from certification requirements.
And in Nevada — one of the states hit hardest by teacher shortages — a bill would streamline licensure for incoming educators. The bill would allow teachers credentialed in other states to begin working in Nevada classrooms while awaiting formal approval.
It also would remove extra steps for teachers switching grade levels and would waive application fees for recent substitute teachers.
Linda Darling-Hammond, founding president and chief knowledge officer of the Learning Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said teacher shortages hit hardest in schools serving low-income students and students of color, where instability often leads to larger class sizes, canceled courses or a revolving door of substitute teachers.
“When you walk into a school facing shortages, you see instability,” she said. “Students may be taught by people who don’t know what to do, who leave quickly, and who often rely more on discipline than engagement.”
The root cause? Teacher attrition.
“Nine out of 10 vacancies every year are because of attrition — and two-thirds of that is not retirement,” Darling-Hammond said. “Support in the beginning matters. Teachers who come in and get a mentor stay longer. If you’re just thrown in to sink or swim, the odds of leaving are much greater.”
States have long struggled to attract teachers, and credentialing changes aren’t unusual. But some education advocates fear long-term repercussions.
Melissa Tooley, director of K-12 educator quality at the left-leaning think tank New America, said most states now offer alternative and fast-track teacher certification pathways, many of which allow candidates to start teaching with little or no pedagogical training in how to teach.
“We’re churning through people who might have potential, but we’re not setting them up for success,” she said. “A lot of what states are doing is short term. It’s about filling seats, not necessarily building a sustainable or high-quality workforce.”
More than 40 states require aspiring teachers to take the costly Praxis Subject test for the subject they want to teach, which some experts argue excludes strong candidates and duplicates other assessments.
“You were excluding people who might be good teachers but didn’t do well on that specific test,” said Rutgers’ Gitomer, who has researched the test’s effects on recruitment.
However, he added, dropping tests doesn’t necessarily help.
Several states — Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Wisconsin — have dropped a licensure requirement known as edTPA since 2022, but there’s little evidence the move has helped ease teacher shortages, Gitomer said. (The acronym stands for Educative Teacher Performance Assessment and involves a portfolio that includes testing and videos of classroom performance.)
“The state eliminated edTPA but didn’t replace it with a specific alternative,” he said.
“Instead, it gave full discretion back to individual institutions to develop or adopt their own performance assessments,” he said. “When we talked to institutions, it became pretty clear they didn’t think removing edTPA would be a major driver in addressing the shortage — and they haven’t seen evidence that it has been.”
How best to credential
Tooley said state credentialing systems must navigate a delicate balance: ensuring there are enough teachers, maintaining instructional quality and increasing workforce diversity.
“There’s this triangle — three pieces that need to be in place — and I think there are real tensions when it comes to how states are designing their certification policies,” she said.
And Gitomer described a fragmented national landscape, where some states are tightening teacher entry standards while others are dramatically loosening them — even allowing non-degreed individuals to teach.
“Some states are trying to raise standards; others are relaxing them to the point where you may not even need a college degree,” he said.
Indiana now requires all pre-K through grade 6 and special education teachers to complete 80 hours of training on the “science of reading,” a method that includes phonics, and pass an exam by 2027. State Sen. Jean Leising, a Republican, has proposed cutting the requirement in half, calling it “an excessive burden with little actual benefit” in a news release.
In Texas, a bill aims to reduce the use of uncertified teachers by the 2029-30 school year. The legislation would set a gradual cap on the percentage of uncertified teachers districts can employ in core curriculum classes — starting at 20% in 2026-27 and decreasing to 5% in 2029-30.
Yet some states stand out for how they’re changing their requirements, Tooley said.
She pointed to Washington, which has designed a recruitment strategy encouraging paraprofessionals, often known as teacher’s aides, to become classroom teachers. Also known as paraeducators, they’re a group with classroom experience, community ties and higher retention likelihood.
There, school districts are required to offer foundational training — ranging from 14 to 28 hours — directly to paraeducators.
In West Virginia, a new law now allows districts to count full-time behaviorinterventionists working in one or two classrooms toward meeting the required number of aides or paraprofessionals in K-3 classrooms.
Tooley noted that Pennsylvania and Alabama are experimenting with “menu-style” licensing flexibility — allowing candidates to demonstrate qualification through various combinations of GPA and test scores, rather than rigid cutoffs.
“These are people already in schools, often from the same cultural or linguistic backgrounds as students,” Tooley said. “They’re more likely to succeed and to stay.”
Low pay
A 2024 national survey by the EdWeek Research Center found that public school teachers are increasingly reporting declines in mental health, job satisfaction and classroom stability. Seventy percent of teachers recommended student mental health interventions, and nearly half said schools lack enough counselors, psychologists and social workers.
As mental well-being has worsened, the share of public school teachers who are very satisfied with their jobs has also declined by 2 percentage points from the previous year, to 18%, according to the survey, which was conducted by the EdWeek Research Center on behalf of Merrimack College.
While teacher wellness supports remain limited, educators say improvements in pay and student discipline are the most needed changes.
To entice passionate but burned out educators from leaving the workforce, several states have raised minimum teacher pay. Arkansas boosted salaries to $50,000 statewide, and South Carolina raised starting pay to $47,000 this year, giving it a boost to $48,500 next school year. South Dakota enacted a $45,000 minimum with yearly increases, and penalties for districts that fail to comply by 2026. Connecticut advanced a bill setting a $63,450 salary floor, while Indiana and others are eyeing further increases.
At the federal level, the proposed American Teacher Act seeks to establish a national $60,000 minimum salary for teachers at a qualifying school to boost recruitment and retention across the country. The bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, remains in committee.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
The article discusses the ongoing teacher shortage in the U.S., highlighting the struggles faced by states in attracting and retaining educators, particularly post-pandemic. The piece reflects a concern for the challenges teachers face, such as low pay, increasing job dissatisfaction, and political battles over curriculum. It also mentions various states’ attempts to address the issue, including changes to teacher certification and pay. While the article includes diverse viewpoints, it leans toward highlighting the struggles in public education, particularly emphasizing the need for more support and investment, which aligns with a Center-Left perspective on education reform and policy.
SUMMARY: At 11 p.m. Wednesday, 05/21/25, southern West Virginia sees cloudy skies with a few showers, especially near Raleigh County Memorial Airport in Beckley, where it’s 60° and 64% humidity. Winds gust from the west-northwest at 10 mph. Temperatures range from 55° in Columbus to 73° in Charlotte. Two low-pressure centers influence the weather: one northwest, another off the Atlantic coast, which will push northeast, giving drier weather soon. Showers will continue overnight, mainly light rain, with cooler temps around 59°, below the average 72°. The forecast warns of wet roads due to saturated soils. Cooler temps persist through the weekend, with highs near 70° by next Wednesday and a shower chance returning Sunday.
There will be some scattered showers tonight around the area, and more are in the forecast for tomorrow. But it’s the cool …
