The health and welfare of public education in North Carolina is being challenged on a number of fronts. Public Schools First NC has identified several areas of particular importance and concern. Learning more about these issues will help you advocate for what each child needs to succeed in school and in life.
Charter Schools
North Carolina charter schools are publicly funded elementary and secondary schools operated independently by non-profit organizations, some of which partner with for-profit groups. Charter schools first opened in North Carolina in 1997. In 2011, despite evidence of uneven student outcomes, lawmakers abandoned the original statewide numerical cap. Where the legislature once had limited the statewide number of charter schools to 100, there is now no cap. Predictably, the number of charter schools in the state has significantly increased.
Education Budget
View details of the public education budget set by the state and federal governments. We keep you updated during the legislative session to track the various budget proposals and how funding impacts public schools.
Leandro
In 1994, in Leandro v. State cases, parents, students and school districts in low-wealth, rural counties filed a lawsuit alleging that students in these counties were denied their right to a sound basic education under the NC constitution. The case affirmed that inequitable and inadequate school funding bars access to a sound and basic public education, particularly for students of color and those from families with low incomes. After nearly three decades of litigation, North Carolina legislative leadership is still refusing to fully fund The Comprehensive Remedial Plan—Leandro—leaving schools, students, families, and communities without essential resources.
Privatization
Privatization of public schools refers to efforts by policy makers to shift public funds into the private sector. Many think of privatization as the “corporate takeover” of our public schools because well-funded corporations and corporate leaders often lead this coordinated effort that could alter how America’s children are educated. The movement to privatize education is decimating our traditional public schools. Vital resources have been siphoned from already cash-strapped public schools and reallocated to charter schools and to private schools via school vouchers.
Private School Vouchers
Private school vouchers use public dollars to fund private schooling, taking resources from our accountable, transparent public education system and sending them to an unaccountable private system. Private school vouchers are a way for the government to pay a student’s tuition at a private school. Instead of the tax-payer funds going to a public school that the student would be able to attend free, the funds are used to pay for the student to attend a private school. Vouchers come in many forms including the two we have in North Carolina: traditional vouchers and education savings accounts. Traditional vouchers use public funds to pay all or part of the private school tuition for students. Education savings accounts (ESAs) deposit public funds into a personal account managed by a parent or guardian. The funds are intended for use on educational expenses (e.g. tuition, tutoring, technology, curriculum).
Resilience
Another key issue to student academic success is the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on children and how these life experiences affect their schooling. A documentary, Resilience, examines how abuse, neglect and other adverse childhood experiences affect children’s development & health outcomes in adulthood. Film is virtually screened during the year.
Teacher Pipeline and Teacher Pay
The teacher pipeline is an interconnected system that extends from recruiting individuals into the profession, developing them as teaching professionals, and retaining them through retirement. Teacher pay is an important aspect of the teacher pipeline and in NC it has failed to keep up with inflation or the rest of the nation. For more than a decade, the teacher pipeline in NC has been shrinking as fewer teachers enter the profession and more retire early or leave to pursue other careers. The shrinking pipeline is a critical issue for the state; fully staffing classrooms with high-quality professionals is essential to our students’ and our state’s future.