A new report reveals how North Carolina’s school spending falls short of the law
For the past several years, Republican state lawmakers have made two counterintuitive claims. They have taken credit for cutting taxes, but also said they’ve been big spenders on public schools, increasing teacher pay and overall state funding for K-12 education.
Now a comprehensive new report on North Carolina’s public schools reveals what most teachers, principals, administrators and school board members already knew: State spending has been far short of the need and the quality of public education is declining.
That’s the finding of the report from WestEd, an independent consultant hired at the request of Superior Court Judge David Lee. Lee is overseeing the state’s compliance with the state Supreme Court’s 1997 Leandro decision, which found that the state Constitution requires every school-age child have access to a “sound, basic education.” Lee took over the case when Judge Howard Manning retired after years of exhorting the state to come into compliance.
Meeting that mandate has been elusive, but the report says progress was made in the form of more funding and improved student scores the 1990s and early 2000s. But the state has lost ground during the past decade. Republican lawmakers have pushed tax cuts and let the public schools slide.
“As North Carolina educators prepare for the 2019–20 school year, the state is further away from meeting its constitutional obligation to provide every child with the opportunity for a sound, basic education than it was when the Supreme Court of North Carolina issued the Leandro decision more than 20 years ago,” the report said.
The report puts a number on what it will take to adequately fund schools in low-income areas, bring most North Carolina students up to proficiency in reading and math and expand pre-K education: $8 billion more over the next eight years. That’s a big number, but it’s far smaller than what state tax cuts are costing: $3.5 billion a year.
Eric Davis, chairman of the State Board of Education, said in a statement: “The WestEd Report tells us that considerable work must be done – and done soon – for the State to meet the promise of our Constitution for all North Carolina students. The State Board shares this sense of urgency and recognizes our constitutional duty to ensure access to a ‘sound, basic education.’ ”
That urgency isn’t shared by state Senate leader Phil Berger, whose answer to declining public schools is to provide tuition vouchers for private schools. In Republicans’ view, Democrats overspent in the years leading up the recession, and better public schools are not a matter of money.”
“Money doesn’t buy outcomes,” Berger spokesman Pat Ryan said in a statement. “New York spends more per student than any state in the country – two-and-a-half times as much as North Carolina – and their scores are still lower than North Carolina’s.”
Studies and North Carolina’s own experience have shown that more money does improve outcomes. But the money must be well allocated to reach schools in counties that lack the tax base to spend much beyond what the state provides. The WestEd report calls for a change in the state’s allocation formula to target low-performing schools. It also calls for better pay for teachers and principals and more school support staff.
North Carolina has known for a long time what’s needed to improve public schools. In the 1990s through the mid-2000s it made real progress in improving teacher pay and students scores. The cuts required by the Great Recession broke that progress and a Republican fixation on tax cuts has left that austerity in place.
The WestEd report offers a detailed and ambitious map for moving forward again. For now, Republican lawmakers may use the 300-page document as a doorstop, but it will still be there after the 2020 election. After that, providing all North Carolina’s children access to a sound, basic education may once again be the top priority of the General Assembly.
This story was originally published December 15, 2019 at 12:00 AM.