The NC Senate kicked off the short session by highlighting a key spending priority for the leadership: expanding funding for private school vouchers. Senator Marcus posed the question, “Can you justify welfare for the wealthiest?” to Senator Lee during the Senate Appropriations Committee discussion of House Bill 823/S406 on Wednesday.
Senator Lee, one of the bill’s sponsors, had just explained the rationale for doubling funding for private school vouchers: everyone who applied should receive one. Current funding left the wealthiest applicants (55% of total applicants) on the waitlist and likely without vouchers this year.
Senator Marcus pointed out that 23% of the applicants on the waitlist had annual incomes above $260,000/year and most already sent their children to private school. She questioned whether state funds should be spent on adopting an expense that families were already covering. (Note that the latest date from the U.S. Census Bureau lists median family income in N.C. at $67,481/year.)
Senator Marcus outlined a number of better uses for the $248 million that SB 406 added to the voucher fund for 2024-25. Just $197 million would clear the current waitlist for NC pre-K (a nationally recognized program targeted to low-income families), and $200 million would provide child-care subsidy grants. This would enable working families access to quality daycare for their children so they could go to work knowing their children are safe. The money could also go toward increasing salaries for public school teachers.
Senator Gladys Robinson pointed out that for many years lawmakers have shortchanged public schools. Now the same lawmakers say families need alternatives to failing schools, but they are not taking responsibility for the failing public schools. She stated, “Where the public schools are failing, we are failing them.”
Senator Robinson also raised questions about the lack of accountability for how tax dollars are spent, eliciting from Senator Lee a common talking point of pro-voucher lawmakers: parents should be the judge of school quality. Lee did note that last year’s voucher expansion included a provision that requires all voucher-receiving students and public school students to take a common nationally standardized test to enable some measure of accountability. (See our February 3 newsletter for more detail.)
Also contained in the voucher bill are future funding increases, which would bring 2025-26 funding up to $625 million, growing to $800 million/year by 2031.
Committee members also questioned the fairness of voucher expansion when the majority of funds would flow to urban areas where most voucher-accepting private schools are located. Sixteen counties have zero voucher-accepting private schools, while fourteen others have only one. The map below shows the disparity; Wake and Mecklenburg counties have the majority of voucher-receiving schools.
The percentage of private schools in a county that accepts vouchers ranges from 0% in some counties (e.g., Yadkin) to 100% in others (e.g., Vance).
Access our interactive map to scroll over counties to see the number of voucher-accepting private schools in each.
Tax dollars spent on vouchers could instead be spent on much-needed services in rural areas.
In the far west corner of North Carolina, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Macon, and Swain counties together have 5 voucher-accepting private schools. All of them are religious schools.
In Eastern North Carolina, Camden, Edgecombe, Gates, Hyde, Perquimans, Tyrell, and Washington counties have zero voucher-accepting schools. Bertie, Chowan, Hertford, Northampton, and Warren have either 1 or 2 each. Taken together, there are a total of seven voucher-accepting private schools in the 12-county region. Five of the seven schools are religious.
In 92 N.C. counties, the public school system is one of the top three employers. Sending tax dollars to private schools instead of fully funding public schools may have a profound negative impact on local economies.
Although voucher expansion is often promoted as providing more choices for families, the reality in North Carolina is that shifting funds from public schools to the private sector reduces choice. Well-documented cases of discriminatory admissions policies in private schools and the lack of available schools (especially for non-religious education) further highlight the lack of true choice available through vouchers.
Educational leaders from across the state have been advocating against vouchers because of the harm they will cause to their communities and schools. As expansion continues, more education and business leaders from communities across the state should contact legislators to end this harmful practice.
The bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee along party lines and was fast-tracked to the full Senate by leader Phil Berger. The bill passed along party lines to include nearly $500 million additional dollars for vouchers over two years. (See the vote HERE) These funding additions will be carried into future funding years, taking critical funding away from public schools.
Contact your legislators to ask them to address all of the pressing needs of our state and NOT expand private school subsidies for wealthy families!