Last week’s newsletter focused on major education-related provisions in the 2026 Appropriations Act, including salary increases, advanced teaching roles, and release time for religious instruction. This week’s newsletter dives into some of the provisions that we didn’t cover last week. In addition to typical budget items that involve funding, the 634-page budget contains plenty of policy provisions from separate bills that didn’t advance during the short session. (Page numbers indicate where the item appears in the budget.)
A budget win for children across the state is the decision to use federal Child Care and Development Block Grant funds to raise reimbursement rates for childcare providers to the 2023 market rate and to establish a reimbursement floor at the 2021 recommended market rate. This means childcare providers who serve children through the subsidy program (which helps low-income parents afford licensed child care) will be paid at rates much closer to the actual cost of providing childcare. Better pay means childcare centers will be more likely to stay open and working parents will have licensed options for their children’s care. (p. 256)
The budget seeks to increase the number of professionally licensed teachers by removing examination requirements for teachers whose students have had positive growth scores in two of the previous three years. It also allows teachers from other states or countries to receive a professional license in North Carolina if they were in good standing in previous teaching employment and have at least three years of experience. (p. 103-4)
The budget keeps the 13% funding cap for students with disabilities even though data show that the majority of districts exceed 13% identified students (see map). By maintaining the 13% cap, the state forces districts with more than 13% students with disabilities to make up funding shortfalls and delay other needed expenditures such as HVAC repair. Federal legislation requires public schools to provide appropriate services for students with disabilities. (p. 173)
The budget keeps Opportunity Scholarship (OS) voucher appropriations from previous legislation in place, which means the program got its scheduled $50M annual increase, raising the appropriation to $705M in 2026-27.
The ESA+ voucher program (for students with disabilities) received an additional $17.6M base appropriation starting in 2027-28, which brings the annual base appropriation to $95M with a $1M increase each following year. (p. 245)
In a very minor win for voucher accountability, voucher-accepting private schools must now certify annually that they administered a nationally standardized test (of their choice) to students in grades 3 and higher. The schools must also retain test records for at least 4 years. Every year, NCSEAA must audit 4% of the schools to verify test administration and records. (p. 243)
With over $800M going to North Carolina’s two voucher programs annually, taxpayers should expect more accountability from the program.
Huge sections of SB 1006 K-12 Innovation and Transformation Act made it into the budget despite receiving very little discussion in the Senate and never being sent to the House. Some provisions certainly merit more discussion than they have received to date.
For example, the budget establishes the “North Carolina Competency-Based Education Innovation Grant and Network Program for the 2026-27 through 2029-30 school years. The purpose of the program is to provide funding and support to schools and districts to support the transition to competency-based education (CBE) models.” One of the program objectives is to “expand CBE across North Carolina.” (p.107) A program that could potentially change the essential structure of schooling in the state should have had input from the full Senate, the House, and the public before being passed in a budget bill.
The TeachReadyNC Program also came from SB 1006. It is an effort to “increase the number of professionally licensed teachers in the State and improve teacher competency, student outcomes, and teacher retention,” by creating a teacher apprentice program recognized by the US Department of Labor. The program would allow apprentices to earn salaries higher than a teacher assistant’s salary while working with a licensed teacher and being enrolled in an Educator Preparation Program. (p.123)
The budget repealed the Future Teachers of North Carolina Program, which was developed to encourage high school juniors and seniors to consider the teaching profession.
Personalized learning technology was a winner in the budget as funds were allocated for schools to purchase Khanmigo ($2.5 million/year recurring) and MagicSchool for grades 6-12 ($2.5 million/year recurring). Khan Academy also receives $500,000 for the Lighthouse Math Project to help two high schools in Wake County create a gateway college math course using Khanmigo. (p. 106-110)
The After-school Robotics Grant Program got a $2 million (nonrecurring) boost to provide grants of up to $15,000 to work with a partner organization to provide instruction and materials purchases for high school robotics teams. (p. 132)
The budget also changed the Healthy Living Standard Course of Study to specify items to be included under instruction on student mental and emotional health (e.g., mental health awareness, common mental health conditions, and help-seeking strategies) and require an expedited revision for K-12 standards so implementation starts in 2028-29. (p. 169)
A few years ago, lawmakers added a computer science course as a graduation requirement for all public high school students. The 2026 Appropriations Act delays full implementation to allow students to graduate in 2026-27 if they could not meet the computer science requirement because an approved course was not available to them.
Lawmakers return to Raleigh on July 27 to resume work on non-budget items.
Specific dollar amounts for items contained in the 2026 Appropriations Act are found in the Joint Conference Committee Report (Money Report).