NC’s private school voucher program will get state audit. Here’s what to know

North Carolina’s state auditor will examine the Opportunity Scholarship program, which now sends taxpayer dollars to more than 100,000 private school students. The audit comes as the program has tripled in size and funding over two years.

Here are key takeaways:

• State Auditor Dave Boliek plans to audit the Opportunity Scholarship program, with the review expected to be complete by fall, according to a spokesperson for the State Auditor’s Office.
• The voucher program provided $587.5 million to 106,841 students as of May, compared with $185.6 million for 32,549 students in the 2023-24 school year, a sharp expansion fueled by opening eligibility to all families.
• Opportunity Scholarship students now make up the majority of enrollment in at least 520 of North Carolina’s 930 private schools, a News & Observer analysis of state data found.
• Some private schools have raised tuition, reduced financial assistance and launched expansion projects since the program grew, with Grace Christian School in Sanford requiring families to apply for a voucher and now seeing 94% of students receive one.
• State lawmakers have pledged to raise funding for the program to $875 million a year by 2032, even as the State Board of Education and Superintendent Mo Green sought a moratorium on new vouchers this year.
• There is no publicly available testing data showing how voucher students are performing, because the state agency administering the program says individual results are not public record and aggregate data isn’t in a releasable form.
• A state-commissioned study from N.C. State University researchers recommended narrowing the list of approved standardized tests for private schools but acknowledged the approach would prevent direct comparison with public school results.

The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by T. Keung Hui, the News & Observer education reporter. The source reporting referenced above was reported and written by T. Keung Hui.