NC has a $5.6 billion, long-term plan to improve K-12 schools. But will it be funded?
North Carolina education leaders have a $5.6 billion plan that they say will help the state meet its unfulfilled Constitutional obligation to provide every student with a sound basic education.
The State Board of Education and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration filed an action plan this week that calls for at least $5.6 billion in new education spending through 2028. The actual cost of the eight-year plan would likely be much higher because some recommended items — such as raising pay for teachers, principals and assistant principals — doesn’t have a total amount.
The “comprehensive remedial plan” is the state’s answer for how it will improve North Carolina’s public schools as part of the long-running Leandro school funding court case.
“All Parties agree that the actions outlined in the Plan are necessary and appropriate actions that must be implemented to address the continuing constitutional violations and to provide the opportunity for a sound basic education to all children in North Carolina,” the state wrote in the plan filed Monday with state Superior Court Judge David Lee.
But much of the new funding would have to come from the Republican-led General Assembly, which has been critical of both the state’s and Lee’s handling of the case.
“Education policy is set at the legislature, which is comprised of 170 elected members from all over the state, multiple education committees, and a public legislative process that allows for input from all corners,” Pat Ryan, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger, said in a statement this week.
“The legislative process stands in stark contrast to a select group of lawyers and out-of-state consultants meeting by themselves to propose suggestions to an appointed trial judge.”
The Leandro case
The long-running Leandro case began in 1994 when school districts in five counties — Hoke, Halifax, Robeson, Vance and Cumberland — took the state to court. Leandro is the family that was originally the lead plaintiff when the lawsuit was filed.
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.
In a January 2020 court order, Lee said the state is further behind than it was in the 1990s in terms of providing students with a sound basic education. Lee ordered the state to “work expeditiously and without delay to take all necessary actions.”
In September, Lee backed a state plan to spend $427 million over the next year. The new report says not all of that plan could be enacted because of the impact of COVID-19.
But the report says the pandemic, which resulted in the state’s 1.5 million public school students getting limited in-person instruction over the past year, has made the plan even more important now.
“While all children have experienced significant disruption or trauma, the pandemic’s public health, economic, and educational costs are disproportionately borne by Black, Latino, Native, and low-income North Carolinians, and the Leandro remedy implementation must prioritize providing resources for those students,” according to the report.
The action plan notes that Congress has approved several COVID-19 relief packages to help schools in the short-term. But the report says that the state must provide funding for the “significant and recurring needs” over the long term.
Plan calls for more state funding
Here are some of the biggest ticket items in the action plan:
▪ Increase funding for economically disadvantaged students — $1.2 billion.
▪ Increase funding for specialized instructional support personnel, such as school psychologists, nurses, counselors, social workers, instructional coaches and mentors, to meet nationally recommended ratios — $743 million.
▪ Increase funding for students with disabilities — $561.8 million.
▪ Increase funding for SMART Start program, which helps children from birth prepare to enter school — $532 million.
▪ Increase funding for NC PreK program — $421 million.
The plan calls for steadily ramping up the new funding over the next eight years. But the report says action is needed.
“State funding for education in North Carolina has declined in real terms over the last decade,” according to the report. “As of fiscal year 2018, North Carolina’s total per-pupil spending was 6th lowest in the nation. When adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending in North Carolina has declined about 6 percent since 2010.”
But Ryan, of Sen. Berger’s office, says more recent data from the National Education Association shows that total per-pupil spending in North Carolina was higher in 2020 than 2010, even after adjusting for inflation.
The report touches on many other areas as well, including calling for:
▪ Putting a statewide $2 billion school construction bond referendum on the ballot.
▪ Increasing funding to provide a teacher assistant for every 27 K-3 students — $217.7 million.
▪ Expanding the N.C. Teaching Fellows program, which helps pay the tuition cost for aspiring educators, to produce up to 1,500 new teachers a year — $41.1 million.
▪ Increasing salaries for teachers, instructional support personnel, principals and assistants based on a study that would be conducted.
Plan ‘readily affordable’
The plan is “readily affordable,” according to Every Child NC, a coalition of community groups that has been calling on the state to carry out the Leandro court order.
“The plan can easily be funded if North Carolina’s leaders increase this effort by prioritizing their constitutional obligations to students over tax cuts benefiting corporations and the wealthy,” Every Child NC said in a statement this week.
“Further, lawmakers must understand that Leandro funding is intended to address longstanding funding disparities that predates COVID-19. Federal relief funding is intended to address immediate needs school districts face because of the pandemic, and cannot be relied upon as a cure-all for more chronic issues.”
The group says that state lawmakers have no excuse not to act because the plan lays out a detailed, year-by-year process for them to follow.
Answer ‘isn’t more money’
Ryan pointed back to comments that Judge Howard Manning, who was in charge of the Leandro case before he retired, gave in an August interview to WRAL.
Manning said “providing the opportunity for a sound, basic education isn’t more money. It’s competent management from principals and effective teaching from educators.”
Ryan said that the state should have involved legislators more in the development of the plan.
“Even though the legislature is the only body with the constitutional authority to implement many of the suggestions contained in the document, its authors have not engaged in any meaningful way with legislators for a year,” Ryan said.
“It’s possible that legislators review these suggestions and take some of them into consideration, as has happened before. It’s also possible that legislators spend the same amount of time engaging with this document as the authors spent engaging with legislators.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 1:26 PM.
