‘It is an emergency’: Gov. Cooper ‘sounding the alarm’ over GOP school voucher expansion
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper watched a classroom of fourth grade students at Huntingtowne Farms Elementary School take on an engineering challenge Wednesday.
The youngsters tried to build the tallest tower possible using materials their teacher provided.
It was a fitting activity for Cooper’s visit, considering he’s facing similar colossal obstacles in trying to stop Republican-proposed legislation that he says will “dismantle public education” in North Carolina, worsen the state’s teacher shortage and provide veteran teachers with only $250 in salary increases over two years.
“Our public schools have meant a lot to our state,” Cooper said, “and I want future generations to benefit from public schools.”
Cooper’s visit to Huntingtowne Farms Elementary in south Charlotte was part of his state tour speaking out against education legislation from the Republican-controlled General Assembly. It comes days after he declared “public education in North Carolina is facing a state of emergency.”
GOP lawmakers want to increase funding for private school vouchers so that any family, regardless of its income, would qualify to apply for vouchers to attend a K-12 private school.
“There is a private school voucher scheme that’s going to siphon a little over $3 billion from the general fund and it will directly affect a number of public schools throughout North Carolina,” Cooper said. “This is private school vouchers on steroids. Anybody at any income level can get money to send their children to private school.”
Cooper also called Republicans’ proposed salary increases for teachers “paltry and woefully inadequate” and warned they would worsen the teacher shortage in a state that has more than 5,000 teacher vacancies. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has 506 as of May 19.
“It’s really disheartening to see our legislators funnel millions of dollars away from public schools,” Lorin Bent, who serves on Huntingtowne Farms’ PTA, told The Charlotte Observer. “It’s really sad, and we are getting a coalition together to fight it.”
‘Sounding the alarm’
Cooper told CMS officials Wednesday that the state has the money to raise teacher salaries substantially, but legislators have proposed giving greater pay raises to other state employee classes and “intentionally put teachers at the bottom.”
“A millionaire is going to get $5,300 to send his or her kid to a private school, while a veteran public school teacher gets $250,” Cooper said. “That’s what we’re talking about here.”
Cooper’s $5,300 figure was inaccurate. Proposed legislation Cooper was referring to would give veteran teachers $250 raises across two years. Under the voucher bill, highest-income earners would get $6,492 to help send their child to a private school over that same two years.
CMS teacher Justin Parmenter serves on the advisory boards of Public Schools First NC and Red 4 Ed NC and was elected NCAE Region 3 Director in April 2020. He writes about public education in North Carolina in his Notes from the Chalkboard.
Parmenter says many public schools are struggling with the impacts of poverty and the loss of good teachers due to unreasonable workloads, inadequate resources and low pay.
“Rather than painting those schools as failures and luring families away,” Parmenter said, “state legislators need to focus on ensuring our students and teachers have what they need.”
Cooper declared Monday that “public education in North Carolina is facing a state of emergency” in the face of “extreme legislation” from Republican state lawmakers. He also said the Republican legislature is aiming to “choke the life out of public education.”
On Wednesday in the media center of Huntingtowne Farms, Cooper said the vast majority of North Carolinians support public schools. He said some legislators have given up on public schools and “that’s unacceptable.”
And he reiterated he’s sounding the alarm with those same words — it’s a state of emergency.
“No, it’s not an executive order like during the pandemic or for a hurricane, but it is an emergency,” he said. “It’s time for people to respond.”
The legislature’s agenda for the coming weeks includes passing a state budget for the year starting July 1.
North Carolina U.S. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis issued a statement shortly after Cooper’s visit ended Wednesday.
“Through his partisan temper tantrums, it’s clear that Cooper isn’t handling being a lame duck governor very well,” Tillis said. “Gov. Cooper created a phony state of emergency in a desperate attempt to block bipartisan, fiscally responsible legislation that will cut taxes for hardworking families, provide pay raises for teachers, more educational opportunities for students, and fund Medicaid expansion.”
Parmenter, who teaches at CMS’ South Academy of International Languages, said Rep. Tricia Cotham’s recent party switch from Democrat to Republican will make it difficult to “stop bad policy” in the state.
“I am grateful that Gov. Cooper is getting the word out about the harm this massive expansion of school vouchers will do to public education,” he said.
Declaration ‘ridiculous’
Cotham, of Mecklenburg County, in a tweet Monday afternoon, called Cooper’s public education campaign “political theater.”
“The Governor is advocating for systems rather than students themselves,” Cotham wrote. “Education is not one-size-fits-all and NC families should have the freedom to determine what kind of education is best for them. My bill to expand the NC Opportunity Scholarship program, to allow all NC families to make that choice, will soon be on his desk, waiting on his signature.”
Brooke Weiss, the chapter chair of Moms for Liberty - Mecklenburg County, was on Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning to discuss “Cooper’s ridiculous declaration of a ‘state of emergency,’” Weiss told the Observer.
Weiss says her local Moms for Liberty chapter supports the private school voucher legislation, “although we don’t take an official stand on school choice.”
“Families are finally going to get an opportunity to get their children out of a failing system,” Weiss said on Fox & Friends.
In CMS, 34.5% of CMS students achieved proficiency in fourth grade math, according to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card. For fourth grade reading, 32.8% of CMS students achieved proficiency.
“More resources for private schools means fewer resources for public schools, at a time when we already don’t have what we need,” said Parmenter, the Charlotte teacher. “Also, the majority of voucher recipients are white, a trend which will certainly persist with the voucher income eligibility requirement being scrapped. That means racial and economic segregation in our traditional public schools will continue to increase.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on May 25 to provide more accurate numbers than Cooper gave about how much the wealthiest stand to receive from expanded vouchers.
This story was originally published May 24, 2023 at 4:57 PM.
