Our NC Supreme Court is charged with upholding the NC Constitution. In regards to schools, our Constitution requires that every child in NC has access to a sound basic education. This includes a high-quality and well-prepared teacher for every child, a high-quality principal for every school, and enough resources to ensure that every child has equal educational opportunity – including early childhood education, postsecondary pathways, and student supports through counselors, social workers, nurses, and psychologists.
In North Carolina, we have long been a leader in public education. Our state’s founding fathers pursued this vision by chartering the nation’s first public university in 1789. Later in 1868, the right to a free, public education was guaranteed in Article IX of our state constitution.
This bold idea for a system of public schooling persists today. Open to all students, regardless of background, public schools are the education choice for most North Carolina families. Currently, 85% of students in North Carolina attend one of our 2500+ public traditional or charter schools.
Extensive research and rulings in the Leandro Case have unequivocally shown that for decades, the state has not fulfilled its basic constitutional obligation to children across the state. When the NC Supreme Court ruled for the fourth time in the case in November 2022, we thought that after nearly thirty years, students in North Carolina would finally have their basic, fundamental, and constitutional needs met.
Today, the NC Supreme Court, now with a different political majority, is rehearing the case and revisiting its own decision from less than two years ago. The significance of this cannot be overstated; it is highly unusual for any court in the United States to change a ruling issued by those who occupied their seats so recently when other circumstances have not changed.
Our state has benefited from the investment in our public schools in the past — we would not have been able to become a top state in business without it. Public schools are the hearts of our communities, and we must not lose sight of the importance of continued strong investments in public education to ensure all children have the opportunity to succeed.
If you talk with any teacher, principal, superintendent, family, and others engaged in schools, you know that our teachers and principals are underpaid, vacancies are high, and our pipeline has dried up. You will hear that mental health challenges are severe; and we do not have the social workers, counselors, and psychologists that we need to support our students. Our finance and accountability systems do not meet the needs of districts and do not inform instruction for our students. We have not invested in early childhood education so that students are prepared for their K-12 experience. The investments needed are research-based and common sense. And investments in our students and our public schools will have long-term benefits for all of us- for our economy, our society, and our democracy.
Our state has the constitutional obligation to fulfill its responsibility to the children of North Carolina. We must not allow politics to get in the way of doing what is best for our kids.
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