RALEIGH (September 13, 2024) – Public dollars belong in public schools.
So in what perverse world is it OK to divert hundreds of millions of tax dollars to private schools while denying inflation-adjusted raises to public school teachers?
Apparently, it’s the peculiar world of the North Carolina General Assembly.
Legislators voted this week to devote $625 million in taxpayer dollars to vouchers for students to attend private schools next year – and $825 million a year by 2032-33 – rather than give better raises to the state’s K-12 public school teachers.1
“Instead of finally giving public school teachers the raises they deserve or tackling the child care crisis, Republicans are draining hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from public schools to give it to private school vouchers for the wealthiest people,” said Gov. Roy Cooper.2
Last year, legislators removed income limits on which families can qualify to receive vouchers that range from $3,360 to $7,468 a year per student, depending on family income.3
With middle- and high-income families newly eligible, applications for the private-school subsidies surged from 12,000 to 72,000 this year.
A poll last week of 900 North Carolinians by WRAL News found that 41% think the state is spending too much on private school vouchers, while 37% said the state should spend $300 million or more and 21% said they were “not sure.”4
The bill legislators approved this week – which Cooper is expected to veto – would spend an additional $463 million to clear the waiting list of 55,000 families for vouchers. But Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in both houses of the General Assembly and are expected to override the governor’s veto.
The bill also provides $94 million for growing enrollment in public schools – which more than 80 percent of North Carolina children still attend – and a badly needed $64 million to meet enrollment growth in the state’s community colleges.5
MEANWHILE, MORE THAN 10,000 teachers left North Carolina’s public school classrooms last year – the most in two decades.6
Average teacher pay in the state ranked 38th among the states in 2022-23 and is projected to fall to 41st this year. Starting teacher pay in North Carolina ranked 42nd last year.7
The NC School Superintendents Association reported this week that public schools started the year with 3,142 teaching vacancies – 12% less than last year. But schools also hired 5,242 teachers this year who are not yet licensed, a 45% increase from two years ago.8
Raises for public school teachers have not kept pace with inflation, yet the bill approved this week did nothing to raise average teacher pay beyond the 3% raise approved last year.
This is short-term thinking. A state that’s been ranked No. 1 in business can’t keep that ranking if it doesn’t invest in its workforce. People who say government should be run like a business really should have a better grasp of supply and demand for their workers.
COOPER HAS noted that the $625 million the legislature is steering to private schools with vouchers could give public-school teachers an 8.5% raise.9
The voucher expansion will hurt rural counties – which simply don’t have as many private schools as metropolitan counties – the most, Cooper says.10
“Rural counties will be hit the hardest,” said a statement from Cooper’s office.
“Not only will their public schools lose funding, but most of the money from voucher expansion will go to private schools in urban areas. Nearly half of all participating private schools are in just ten counties – nearly all urban. County commissioners will be left to fill the hole for public schools that lose funding because of this expansion.”
AND DO STUDENTS get a better education in private schools through vouchers?
We don’t know in North Carolina, because private schools that receive vouchers aren’t required to administer the same tests public schools are.
But research in Indiana, Ohio, Washington, DC and Louisiana found that students who received vouchers lost ground academically, particularly in math. In Louisiana, students who started at the 50th percentile in math and used vouchers to attend private schools dropped to the 26th percentile in a single year.11
Research by the Public School Forum of North Carolina also found that 90% of the schools that receive vouchers in North Carolina are religious schools.12
IT’S HARD not to infer that state legislators are out to defund North Carolina’s public schools, resegregate schools and return to the days before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education.
What don’t our legislators get about the schools that more than 80% of North Carolina students still attend?
Public schools – rural or urban – should not be collateral damage in legislators’ zeal to steer taxpayer dollars to private religious schools.
Please remember this when you vote in November.
Because public dollars do indeed belong in public schools.
1 https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2023/Bills/House/PDF/H10v5.pdf.
2 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article292264230.html.
3 https://www.ncseaa.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1171/2020/10/HHIncomeEligibilityGuidelines.pdf.
4 https://www.wral.com/story/most-nc-adults-don-t-support-private-school-voucher-expansion-new-wral-poll-shows/21616365/.
5 https://publicedworks.org/2024/08/derelict/; https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2023/Bills/House/PDF/H10v5.pdf.
6 https://www.wral.com/story/nc-teacher-turnover-hits-highest-mark-in-decades-new-report-shows-changes-in-who-is-leading-classrooms/21361469/,
7 https://publicedworks.org/2024/05/nc-slips-in-teacher-pay-ranking/; https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article288227865.html.
8 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article292374609.html.
9 https://governor.nc.gov/nc-voucher-fact-sheet/open.
10 https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2024/09/05/governor-cooper-and-democratic-leaders-highlight-republican-legislators-plan-pour-millions-taxpayer.
11 https://governor.nc.gov/nc-voucher-fact-sheet/open.
12 https://publicedworks.org/2024/06/school-choice-or-schools-choice/.
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