West Virginia county turns to big business for schools help

  • 12 years ago
With 49 per cent of its school-aged children in poverty, the struggling schools of West Virginia's McDowell County are looking for creative solutions to significant challenges, including low test scores.

Fewer coal jobs and two floods last decade has taken the county from a population of 100,000 to 20,000.

To address the challenges facing this hard-hit, largely impoverished county, a teacher's union has teamed up with big corporate names like IBM and CISCO to create a five year plan to turn the county's schools around.

Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports from McDowell County.