School voucher vote: NC lawmakers should listen to what voters just told them | Opinion

While North Carolinians supported the Republican candidate for U.S. president, four of the most powerful positions on the Council of State were won by Democrats. Governor-Elect Josh Stein, Lieutenant Governor-Elect Rachel Hunt, Attorney General-Elect Jeff Jackson and Superintendent of Public Instruction-Elect Mo Green all ran on platforms that emphasized the importance of public education to strong academic outcomes, healthy communities and a thriving democracy.

The pro-“school choice,” teacher-demonizing, book-banning positions of defeated candidates Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow were, turns out, unpopular with North Carolina voters. Tuesday, legislative Republicans have the opportunity to show they similarly understand that supporting public education is both smart policy and smart politics.

On Tuesday, the General Assembly is scheduled to vote on whether to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of House Bill 10, which allocates nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer money to fund tuition vouchers for private, unaccountable schools. The total price tag of this privatization scheme over the next decade is estimated at approximately $4 billion.

The supporters of the tuition-voucher bill understate the devastating impact it will have on public schools. Consider that North Carolina’s 115 local school districts currently serve 84% of North Carolina’s students. Test results show that public schools are continuing their three-year upward trajectory post-lock down. In 2023-2024, approximately 72.5% of schools met or exceeded growth in 2023-24, compared to 72.3% in 2022-23 and up from 69.6% in 2021-22.

While there is plenty of room for improvement, student achievement data in reading and math, as well as high school graduation rates, are up statewide. To the extent that schools are struggling, those legislative leaders who refuse to fully fund public schools have only themselves to blame. North Carolina is near the bottom among all states in per-pupil K-12 funding and teacher pay. Schools need robust resources for their students to thrive, and too many lawmakers continue refusing to provide what’s necessary.

Now, though, the results are in. “School choice” privatization schemes are bad policy. There is no evidence that they improve student academic outcomes. Vouchers drain the public coffers to the detriment of the common good, siloing students and undermining the potential of education to strengthen democracy. What’s more, tuition vouchers will subsidize schools that may be discriminating based on race, sex, disability, national origin or religion.

Tuition-voucher schemes are also bad politics. Researchers have concluded that the biggest beneficiaries of vouchers will be in urban and suburban areas, which is where private schools are most heavily concentrated. When rural schools lose funding because of vouchers, students there will have few to no good educational options. Lawmakers from rural parts of our state should consider the unique harms that the voucher bill will create for their constituents.

They can look – in addition to the Council of State results here – across the country for examples. Voters in several states recognized the damage vouchers can do, rejecting them in Kentucky, Nebraska and Colorado on Election Day. Republican lawmakers from rural areas, therefore, should carefully consider whether they too might face voter backlash for supporting this regressive scheme.

Parents, teachers, school administrators, and all who care about the future of North Carolina should push their legislators and urge them to vote to uphold Gov. Cooper’s veto of H.B. 10 – for our public schools, for our children, and for our democracy.