After a judge faults NC’s education system, governor’s panel suggests giving more money
A commission created by Gov. Roy Cooper called Thursday for increased funding to help fulfill a judge’s order to improve North Carolina’s education system.
Earlier this week, state Superior Court Judge David Lee signed a court order directing the state “to work expeditiously and without delay to take all necessary actions” to ensure students are getting their Constitutional right to a sound basic education. Lee gave the parties in the long-running Leandro school funding lawsuit 60 days to come up with a plan to address the state’s education deficiencies.
On Thursday, the Governor’s Commission on Access to Sound Basic Education adopted its final report, which mirrored many of the recommendations from a consultant’s report that Lee had endorsed. Among the commission’s findings is that the state’s current funding is not sufficient to provide students with a sound basic education.
“We now know what the Constitution demands,” said Rick Glazier, a commission member and executive director of the N.C. Justice Center. “We have a remedy and a plan to get there, and now it’s up for everybody to fulfill the oath they took.”
This week’s court decision added a new sense of urgency to the Leandro case that began in 1994 when school districts in five counties — Hoke, Halifax, Robeson, Vance and Cumberland — took the state to court.
In 1997, the state Supreme Court declared that the state constitution guarantees every child “an opportunity to receive a sound basic education.”
Then in 2004, the state Supreme Court held that the state’s efforts to provide a sound basic education to poor children were inadequate. The court did not prescribe specific solutions; that was left up to legislators and education leaders.
Schools lack the funding they need
But Lee said Tuesday that it’s time to act because the state is falling further behind in its obligations to students. Lee backed the recommendations from WestEd, which proposed a series of education changes, including increasing state education funding by $8 billion over the next eight years.
“School districts lack the funding necessary to meet the educational needs,” Jason Willis, director of strategy and performance for WestEd, told the commission on Thursday.
The commission has been working for more than 18 months to draft a final report. In addition to calling for more funding, other recommendations that mirror WestEd include improving teacher pay, expanding the N.C. Teaching Fellows and N.C. Pre-Kindergarten programs and changing the system of giving schools an A through F grade based on their performance.
Unlike WestEd, the commission doesn’t recommend a specific amount for increasing state education funding.
The commission on Thursday also began discussing areas it can recommend that the state prioritize when it reports back to Lee. Short-term priorities discussed include expanding Teaching Fellows, restoring flexibility to school districts in how they spend state money and studying how to replace the current school grading system.
“It’s really important for people to see, after 25 years, the judge ordered something and something happened. Because I think that’s a part of getting momentum,” said Henrietta Zalkind, a commission member and executive director of the Downeast Partnership For Children.
Amid the discussion Thursday was the concern of how much state lawmakers will be on board with funding the changes proposed. The Republican-led legislature has clashed with the Democratic governor, resulting in a budget not being adopted. GOP leaders have also criticized the WestEd report.
Brad Wilson, the commission chairman and former CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, said they’ll have to be careful in how they present their request. He said they want to hit that “sweet spot” in what they can get this year.
“There’s an art to this, I think, about right-sizing your request, which makes the prioritization that much more important in making the list as long as necessary and no more,” Wilson said.
This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 3:38 PM.
