Scotland County publicschools deserve betterthan voucher program

A looming education bill in Raleigh will harm public schools in the Scotland County area if it becomes law. Senate Bill 406/House Bill 823 would triple the size of the state’s Opportunity Scholarship private school voucher program by opening the program to wealthy families whose kids are already enrolled in private schools and increasing the maximum voucher size. The bill would negatively impact public schools across the state but will have a particularly negative impact on rural schools.

Vouchers exacerbate budget pressures on rural schools in three ways.

First, increased spending on voucher programs would leave less money available to support our underfunded public schools. We know from the decades-long Leandro court case that state leaders of both parties have been shortchanging rural schools. In November, the North Carolina Supreme Court ordered state leaders to implement a plan that would increase state funding in Scotland County Schools by $18.6 million per year. By instead increasing annual voucher spending by $370 million, the voucher bill makes it harder for lawmakers to meet their constitutional obligation to provide decent funding to rural schools.

Second, vouchers worsen the challenges related to declining enrollment. When a student leaves a public school, the district’s funding is reduced by the average cost of a student. However, schools face fixed costs such as principal salaries and utilities that must still be covered. The Governor’s budget office estimates that voucher expansion will cost Scotland County at least $1.4 million per year, the equivalent of approximately 20 classroom teachers.

Finally, voucher programs undermine community support for our schools. For many of us, the local school is a center of community involvement and pride. But when fewer families attend our public schools, they’re less likely to support them through fundraising or volunteerism. Connections that have brought us together across racial and class divisions are further weakened.

It’s not just our public school students who stand to lose. Students who leave our public schools to attend a voucher school are also likely to fare worse.

Evaluations of statewide voucher programs have uncovered overwhelmingly large negative academic impacts for voucher recipients. Studies of programs in Washington DC, Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio have all revealed negative academic results for voucher students. In many cases the results have been shockingly bad. Voucher students in Ohio and Louisiana experienced negative outcomes that exceeded the levels of learning loss experienced due to the COVID pandemic.

North Carolina’s voucher students are likely to experience similarly negative academic outcomes. Vouchers don’t allow students from families with low incomes to attend elite private schools with highly-trained teachers, small classrooms, and ivy-covered buildings. North Carolina’s voucher schools are the most unregulated in the country. Unlike most other states, voucher schools in North Carolina don’t have to be accredited. Nor do they have to meet curriculum standards, hire certified teachers, or provide a minimum number of hours or days of instruction. Many of them are small, informal church schools. In 2002, 80 of 503 voucher schools enrolled 25 or fewer students.

The lack of regulation spills into finances, too. Recent analysis has revealed troubling inconsistencies between the number of vouchers a school has received and that school’s reported enrollment. Much of the financial oversight rests on the naive hope that private schools are honest in the data they report to the state.

Proponents will say that this is about expanding choice. But “choice” fails to guarantee that all students have access to good options, as our state constitution requires. One must first ensure that students have access to good schools – those providing the supports and opportunities that allow all students to thrive, regardless of their backgrounds.

Even then, plans like Senate Bill 406/House Bill 823 allow schools to choose their students as much as they allow students to choose their schools. For example, private schools in Iowa have increased their tuition to capture the additional funding the state provided to expand their voucher program. Without tuition controls, well-resourced private schools will remain out of reach for families with low incomes.

The plan’s primary winners are the disproportionately wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools. They would find themselves newly eligible for thousands of dollars per year (from your tax dollars) to do something they were already doing. Such households already have nearly twice the income of the typical North Carolina household. Senate Bill 406/House Bill 823 would simply expand this gap.

Legislators have a responsibility to let their constituents know where they stand on legislation of this magnitude that would triple the size of private school subsidies provided at taxpayer expense at a time when local public schools are being defunded at the state level. Spending should benefit our students, not wealthy families and under-regulated private school operators.