The NC Supreme Court delivers a shameful about-face on school funding | Opinion

Our Take offers shorter, urgent opinion from the Editorial Board on topics our community is buzzing about now:

The most telling aspect of the state Supreme Court’s ruling in the Leandro school funding case is not what it said, but when it arrived.

The court, with a new Republican majority, heard oral arguments in February 2024 about overturning a 2022 ruling made by the court’s previous Democratic majority. That ruling found that the legislature is required to provide school funding that fulfills the state constitution’s requirement that every public school student has access to “a sound basic education.”

After hearing arguments about reversing that decision, the new Republican-majority court waited 770 days to release its decision on Thursday. The court ruled 4-3 that it has no jurisdiction over this landmark case because a constitutional challenge to the entire state public education system had never been made. The ruling is a technical dodge that achieves the majority’s actual view — that the power over school funding belongs to the legislature, not the courts.

The ruling didn’t take so long because the court’s Republican majority was buried in the law books looking for the right answer. Their answer was clear the day the majority agreed to the Republican legislative leaders’ request that the court reconsider the Leandro ruling, despite no substantive changes in the facts of the case.

This decision was delayed by the majority’s embarrassment at being so subservient to Republican legislative leaders and so callous toward the education of North Carolina’s schoolchildren.

One of the five Republican justices couldn’t go along. Justice Richard Dietz dissented. The decisive vote was cast by Justice Phil Berger Jr., son of the Republican Senate leader. The ruling was released on the eve of a three-day Easter weekend, but the holiday hiatus won’t buffer the wrongness.

In looking for a way to get rid of the long-running Leandro case once and for all — it was filed in 1994 by low-wealth counties seeking more state funding — the court ignored the condition of North Carolina schools that now rank among the most poorly funded in the nation.

Instead, the majority decided that mandating what the legislature must spend on schools would violate the separation of powers by having the court decide what should be a legislative policy issue. Chief Justice Paul Newby concluded the majority opinion by saying, “In short, the judicial branch is not the venue in which to seek education policy reform.”

School funding is one thing. The abject neglect of school funding is another. This is not a matter of the court dictating simple allocations. It is a matter of the court interpreting the state constitution. The constitution is clear and the Republican-led legislature is in violation of it. The previous court ruling affirmed that — until its partisan makeup changed. Then the court reversed the decision and dodged the whole issue.

It’s sophistry that the court’s majority claims the reversal protects the separation of powers. This ruling is not about preserving the independence of the three branches. It is about consolidating power of the legislative branch, so long as it’s controlled by Republicans.

It took three decades for North Carolina’s schools to gain the support that the constitution requires. Then it took another 770 days after oral arguments for a new court to sheepishly reverse it. There may be no other case in North Carolina history in which justice has been so long delayed and so broadly denied.

which

This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 5:09 PM.