Election season offers us a great opportunity. The opportunity to weigh in on and decide a direction for our country, state, and local communities. If we hope to see our values prioritized by the people in decision-making positions, we must participate. Elected officials at the national, state, and local levels are tasked with creating numerous policies that impact our day-to-day lives, including education policies. From the allocation of school funding to decisions on teacher pay and school safety measures, the outcomes of these elections will be felt throughout our local public schools and by educators and students each day.
On the state level, some of the largest impacts elections have on education relate to school funding. Under North Carolina’s school finance system, it is the state’s responsibility to fund instructional expenses, such as personnel, while county governments are responsible for the cost of capital expenses, such as buildings and maintenance.
In 2023 we ranked 48th in the country on per-student spending and 49th on funding effort. We are near the bottom in the actual dollars we invest as a state and the amount we spend on education as a percent of our GDP. This is the result of decades of disinvestment in our public schools, and it affects our students and their future.
Teachers are the number one school-related factor affecting student outcomes, but currently, one-third of our teachers make below the livable wage. This year we ranked 38th in average teacher pay and 42nd in starting teacher pay. Addressing this is vital to fixing the ongoing teacher vacancy issue our state has experienced. Many teachers have been left with no option but to leave their community to teach elsewhere or the profession altogether to support themselves or their own families.
Prioritizing local public schools would also allow us to better address school safety and mental health issues being faced by our children. Schools throughout North Carolina have had to deal with a lack of support staff and facilities issues, both of which can seriously hinder efforts to create positive learning environments. The recent devastation in Western North Carolina has also served as a reminder that schools are essential community hubs.
Our children need more funding. Instead, the current General Assembly has implemented policies, including the expansion of the Opportunity Scholarships program, that divert public taxpayer dollars from public schools to private schools across the state. Our public schools are already underfunded. Additional funding loss will lead to cuts for engineering and technology programs as well as the arts, trade classes, and athletics.
In September 2023 North Carolina became the ninth state to offer universal tax-funded private school vouchers. Following this expansion, even North Carolina’s wealthiest families are eligible to receive money to send their children to private schools, regardless of whether those children have ever attended public school. With this decision, state lawmakers are choosing to send hundreds of millions of dollars per year to private schools that can practice discriminatory admissions policies.
Additionally, through this program, private schools can take taxpayer dollars with no responsibility. Over the next decade, billions of our public dollars will be diverted from public schools to these private schools via vouchers despite them having hardly any accountability, meaning there are minimal standards for curriculums and monitoring student performance.
In recent years we have had billions of dollars in surplus that were not invested in public education. We often talk about the changes we’d like to see in our communities or what must be protected to maintain our communities, but elections give us a chance to act. This is your opportunity to ensure that the people making decisions at the local, state, and federal levels align with your values and what you believe is important for your students, educators, schools, and community.
You can learn more about this year’s candidates for the North Carolina General Assembly at ncforum.org/candidatesurvey.
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