By Don Martin

WINSTON-SALEM (December 23, 2025) – In 2013, the NC General Assembly passed the “Opportunity Scholarship” law to provide scholarship funds for low-income students who wished to attend private schools.

The premise was that poor students were trapped in public schools (often referred to as “failing” public schools) and needed an “opportunity” to attend a private school.

However, after several years, much of the funding for Opportunity Scholarships was not used. Some speculated that this was because private schools did not offer transportation, free school lunches, or the scholarship wasn’t enough to attend many private schools.

But it might also be true that Opportunity Scholarships remained unclaimed because poorer students and their families were pleased with their public-school experience – the curriculum and teachers, no tuition, the transportation provided, and the opportunity to receive a free breakfast or lunch.

In 2023, the NC General Assembly created income-eligibility tiers for students who want to take advantage of opportunity scholarships. Now any student can receive at least $3,300 ($3,458 in 2026) and low-income students can receive as much as $7,400 ($7,886 in 2026) to attend any private school that accepts vouchers.

With universal access, the Opportunity Scholarship became nothing more than a voucher – state taxpayer funds for any student to attend a private school. Tuition-paying private school students can continue attending their private school of choice and now receive at least a $3,300 voucher, a state-funded rebate on their tuition.

While the number of students receiving vouchers continues to grow, no one knows exactly how many were former public-school students. Since private school enrollment as a percentage of traditional school enrollment only grew 2/10 of 1% between 2023 and 2025, it appears that most of the growth in voucher payments resulted from students who were already attending a private school and now receive a voucher.

Statewide, 75% of students are continuing to choose public schools. In 2019-20, there were over 1.41 million students attending traditional public schools. Five years later in 2024-25, there were over 1.39 million students attending traditional public schools – a loss of some 20,000 students, or less than 2% in five years. Some of this enrollment decline is due to lower birth rates in NC – some estimates say that between 2015 and 2022, the number per 1,000 births fell from 12.0 to 11.4.

So why are many students remaining in traditional public schools, and why should they?

I’ve identified five reasons: nationally competitive student performance, well-trained staff members, a choice among many academic offerings, a wide range of extracurricular opportunities, and diversity among students. Consider the following:

•Participation among NC traditional school students in the nationally acclaimed Advanced Placement (AP) courses and the performance on the national AP exam beat the national average the past two years. NC graduation rates reached 87.7% in 2025, the highest mark in 10 years. And the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results for NC students released in 2025 showed that NC students are at or above the nation in all tested areas.

•There is no business in America that does not require and benefit from employee training and credentials. Public schools require all teachers to have a teaching license or be enrolled in an alternative licensing program. To understand the importance of teacher training, one only has to look at the NAEP reading success in Mississippi attributed to the successful implementation of the acclaimed Science of Reading program. North Carolina is now implementing the Science of Reading program statewide.

•North Carolina offers a wide range of academic programs in math, science, English, and social studies, as well as special programs (like art, music, and career education). Every school district receives funds to offer academically or intellectually gifted education for qualified students. In addition to AP course offerings, many districts offer the International Baccalaureate and Cambridge International Education programs. Local districts offer dual-enrollment programs for high-school students with NC institutions of higher education (including the Career and College Promise program and the Cooperative Innovative High School program). The state provides the nationally acclaimed Governor’s School for talented academic and artistic students. And for students with any sort of handicapping condition, there is a program in every district to serve those students.

•While there are private schools that serve as athletic academies, the range of athletic opportunities offered by NC public schools is far-reaching. Thousands of students each year receive college scholarships, some of whom would not have been able to attend college without an athletic scholarship.

•Young people live most of their lives after high school. The traditional public-school experience exposes young people to the diversity of America and transmits American values to the next generation.

Bottom line, traditional public schools present a better option for most students; there will never be enough private schools to accommodate all NC students.

Public schools have traditionally served as the heart of every community. While there are more choices, there is no question in my mind that public schools are good for all children in NC. We need to support them better.

Don Martin, former superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, is now Chair of the Forsyth County Commissioners, serving his third term.