A stubborn gap

The state's investment in poorer counties' schools continues to lag. That's unfair to kids who need more state help, not less

A widening gap between spending on schools in North Carolina's poor counties and in rich ones sounds familiar, because it is. The N.C. Public School Forum, a Raleigh-based research group dedicated to improving the quality of the state's schools, has been monitoring the gap for nearly two decades and has found it yawning wider every year.

Some may see that depressing record as reason to abandon poorer counties. They would be so wrong.

Consider, for example, the situation in struggling Hoke County, west of Fayetteville. Schools there are showing improvement for the first time since extra state money was allocated to them.

Still, Hoke's schools are handicapped by the meager local revenues produced by the county's low-value tax base. As long as that's a problem for more than two-thirds of North Carolina counties, the state must continue to find money to help those counties out. Indeed, it must strengthen those efforts. (The state pays for the bulk of school operating expenses, but local funds can be an important factor. Local money also pays for school construction.)

Courts have ruled that the state must ensure that every North Carolina student receives an equal opportunity to get a sound basic education, as guaranteed by the state constitution. Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. has been appointed to ride herd on the job the state and school systems are doing. So far, the state's effort has come up short.

Poor counties have higher tax rates than wealthier ones, such as the Triangle counties. Yet higher poverty rates mean that they have to spend more for social services, creating the widening gap in school spending.

As of 2004, the top 10 spending counties dedicated four times the $526 per student spent on average by the bottom 10 counties. "The counties whose schools have the greatest challenges tend to be the counties with the fewest resources," says John Dornan, the forum's executive director.

The General Assembly recognized the gap in 1991, when it created the fund to help poor counties. Predictably, though, tight budgets during intervening years have hindered plans to stock it fully.

Hoke County, for example, receives $2.1 million annually from that fund. Under pressure from the courts, the state set up a second fund with $25 million, and Hoke's share of that is $1.7 million. The money has helped Hoke to attract more skilled teachers with better salaries and to reduce teacher turnover. Students have fared better on state tests as a result.

Wealthier counties use local revenue to supplement state salaries for teachers, and that's fine. There are few better ways to improve the quality of education than to pay teachers what it takes to attract and retain those who are skilled and dedicated. In an ideal world, the state would match those amounts out of fairness to children in poorer counties.

Needless to say, a state struggling to emerge from a manufacturing economy weighted toward traditional, declining industries isn't an ideal world. But that doesn't relieve North Carolina from its legal responsibility to deliver on its education promise. The governor and the legislature should settle for nothing less than steady progress toward schools that are excellent in every corner of the state.