RALEIGH (October 4, 2024) – North Carolina legislators will soon be able to stop a massive expansion of private-school vouchers that would pose a drain on the state’s public schools.
They should undoubtedly uphold Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill.
The bill legislators approved last month would commit $4 billion in taxpayer dollars over the next decade to vouchers for students to attend private schools – with no limit on the incomes of families that receive them. Students who already attend private schools would receive them as well.
The bill would spend an additional $463 million on private-school vouchers this year and next to relieve a backlog of 55,000 families that applied for the vouchers after legislators removed income limits last year. It would then expand taxpayer funds for vouchers to $825 million a year by 2032-33.
“This bill takes public taxpayer dollars from the public schools and gives it to private school vouchers that will be used by wealthy families,” Cooper said. “Studies show that private school vouchers do not improve student performance, but we won’t know with North Carolina’s voucher scheme because it has the least accountability in the country.
“Private school vouchers are the biggest threat to public schools in decades because they don’t improve student performance and they drain taxpayer money from badly needed investments like better teacher pay,” the governor said.
Based on an analysis by the Office of State Budget and Management, the vouchers could redirect nearly $100 million in state dollars from public to private schools in the first year alone.1
“Vouchers crater state budgets, with rural schools being hurt the worst,” Cooper said.
Meanwhile, North Carolina lost 10,000 public school teachers who left the classroom last year. Average teacher pay ranks 38th in the nation, and starting teacher pay 42nd.2 North Carolina lags South Carolina, West Virginia and Alabama in starting teacher pay.3 And the General Assembly approved no additional raises for teachers this year above the 3% awarded last year.
The tax dollars the bill spends on vouchers could instead be used to award public-school teachers an 8-1/2% raise and a $1,500 retention bonus, Cooper said.4
LEGISLATORS WILL RETURN to Raleigh Wednesday with new, competing demands for state dollars after the devastation Hurricane Helene wrought on Western North Carolina last week.
They could be asked to override the governor’s veto next week or later, after the Nov. 5 election. In either case, they will face a choice whether to use tax dollars to fund the public schools that more than 80% of North Carolina students still attend – or private schools.
Vouchers were introduced to North Carolina in 2013 as “Opportunity Scholarships” to give low-income families choices in where to send their children to school.
Don Martin is the former superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and now Chair of the Forsyth County Commissioners – and a Republican.
With the removal of income limits for voucher recipients, Martin says in the accompanying video, even someone who makes $5 million a year qualifies – so they can no longer be considered “opportunity” scholarships. Instead, they become a subsidy to upper middle-class and wealthy households.
“I think we need to revisit this issue of no income caps,” he says. “I could compromise on a lower income cap and probably be fine with that.”
PRIVATE SCHOOLS that receive vouchers tend to be clustered in metropolitan areas.
So if state legislators commit billions of tax dollars to subsidize private schools, rural North Carolinians will likely see a flow of their tax dollars to urban counties.
In states like Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio and Texas, rural Republican legislators have pushed back against vouchers due to the drain they impose on rural public schools.5
Cooper was joined at his veto announcement by Wendi Craven, a principal and Burke County school board member who described herself as “an educator first, a Republican second.”
North Carolina has underfunded its public schools for decades. Craven pointed to the Leandro lawsuit over state funds for public schools that’s been resisted by legislators for 30 years.
“I don’t understand how the Leandro case can be fought for years with no progress, and then miraculously millions of dollars are found for vouchers for private education,” Craven said.6
Martin says there’s no doubt how the dollars will flow.
“If there are no private schools to send dollars to, then those dollars will be concentrated in urban areas,” he says.
“There’s no doubt about it. You can argue, ‘My tax dollar out in Swain County may be going to Forsyth County to pay for somebody to go to a private school.’ … You can clearly look at it as exporting some of your tax dollars that are not coming back to help you.”
Martin also spoke about the lack of accountability in North Carolina’s voucher program, because private schools aren’t required to give the same tests public schools do.
“I think the state has some duty when they spend money (to) know that you get something for it,” he says. “Most people want to know how their children are doing and whether the state’s investment is actually making a difference.”
Legislators recently added a modest testing requirement. “But it’s not uniform, and there’s no way to compare the data easily,” Martin says. “The state has no idea what’s happening over time.”
SOUTH CAROLINA’S Supreme Court struck down that state’s voucher program last month as a violation of that state’s constitution. “After we clear away the window dressing, we can see the act funnels public funds to the direct benefit of private schools,” the court said. “This is what our constitution forbids.”7
In our state, research by the Public School Forum of North Carolina has found that 90% of the top voucher-receiving schools in North Carolina are religious schools.8 Private schools are allowed to discriminate among which students to admit.
With all income levels eligible for help with private school tuition, vouchers could also fuel the resegregation of our schools.
The bill includes some essentials – enrollment growth funds for community colleges, for example. But the voucher expansion is bad for North Carolina in so very many ways – please contact your legislators and ask them to uphold the governor’s veto.
1 https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2024/09/20/joined-education-and-business-leaders-both-parties-governor-cooper-vetoes-hb10. See also: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article291323245.html.
2 https://publicedworks.org/2024/05/nc-slips-in-teacher-pay-ranking/.
3 https://publicschoolsfirstnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5.2024_Fast-Facts-Teacher-Pay.pdf
4 https://www.wunc.org/education/2024-09-20/cooper-veto-private-school-vouchers-harm-rural-schools
5 https://www.propublica.org/article/rural-republicans-school-vouchers-education-choice.
6 https://www.wral.com/story/cooper-vetoes-bill-expanding-private-school-vouchers-require-sheriffs-ice-cooperation/21634304/.
7 https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article292298679.html.
8 https://publicedworks.org/2024/06/school-choice-or-schools-choice/.
Cheryl Allen says
No vouchers for private schools!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Public education already works hard to stretch what money they get.
Edward T Samulski says
I was born and raised in South Carolina and the qualitative superiority of the Old North State to my home state was apparent. I attributed that to NC’s educational system and its seminal role in attracting new industries and talent from other parts of the country. Now a resident of NC for several decades, I am discouraged to see the gap between SC and NC closing because of the politicization of education at all levels. This hurts our ability to attract corporations which have been the key to our economy. I am in a high-tech scientific field and we are already seeing a decline there with respect to other states..
Matt Smith says
All valid points, but don’t forget that Community College enrollment growth is in the same bill. Community Colleges (which continue to grow) are working off budgets from TWO YEARS AGO! They are in desperate need of funds.
Bob Mitchell says
While I 100 percent support adequate funding for teachers and public schools, I also support private school vouchers that give our families a choice on where they want to send their students. Not all people, even those above the poverty line, can afford to send their children to private schools but should have the same options to choose where their students go to school. It shouldn’t be only the ultra-rich who have options when it comes to their children’s education.
In my opinion, it is a matter of fairness and choice. Most parents are required to pay taxes to support student education. It is not fair, in my opinion, to not allow them to use those tax dollars to choose the education that best suits the needs of their own children.
As far as the comments on religious schools, I can attest that all 3 of my children went to public school and received quite a bit of indoctrination while there.