Gov. Cooper Highlights Republican Legislators Plan to Pour Millions of Taxpayer Dollars into Private Schools while Abandoning Public Schools

I’m here today because we’ve been informed that after a long summer of failing to pass a budget and doing nothing on the taxpayer dime, the Republican leadership is finally bringing the legislature back on Monday to take a vote. The new school year has begun and the needs of our public schools have never been clearer.

So they’re finally going to pass a budget, right? No.

So they’re finally going to give public school teachers and state employees the raises they deserve, right? No.

So they’re finally going to tackle the child care crisis, right? No.

Apparently they’re coming back to take hundreds of millions of taxpayer money out of the public schools to give it to private school vouchers for the wealthiest North Carolinians.

This is devastating for education across the board and we have evidence from other states to prove it.

Studies show private school vouchers do not improve student performance.

Instead, they rob public schools of badly needed funding. They also cause significant budget problems for states that have fallen into the private school voucher trap.

They mostly benefit people who already have children in private school and many of these private schools are simply raising tuition in anticipation of the vouchers.

Rural counties will be hurt the most. Most of the private schools getting this taxpayer money are in urban areas. More than a quarter of our rural counties have just one or even no private schools in the voucher program. But nearly half of all private schools in the program are in 10 urban counties.

Meanwhile, our public schools struggle to hire teachers, bus drivers and other critical staff. The loss of good teachers has dramatically increased over the past two years, and our public schools are regularly dealing with thousands of teacher vacancies. That’s a problem we can easily solve, but Republicans who control the purse strings refuse.

We understand the bill to be voted on next week will fully fund private school voucher expansion. That means a total of $625 million in new funding just this year will go to taxpayer-funded private school vouchers. To give you some perspective, $625 million is more than enough to fully fund the 8.5% public school teacher pay raise and $1500 retention bonus I proposed in my budget with a lot left over for other critical needs.

Private school vouchers have been a disaster in other states. Let’s use this money for public schools instead. When you give wealthy people yet another tax break with these vouchers it’s extremely difficult to get a future legislature to ever take it away. That means $4 billion less for our public schools over the next decade.

I urge parents, educators and people who care about public schools to go to governor.nc.gov to see exactly how badly your specific local schools are going to be hurt in just the short run. The long-term effects of this program will lead to a crisis.

Let me be clear, I’m not against private schools and parents making that choice. Many of them meet the needs of students and families.

But I am against taking taxpayer money out of the public schools and giving it to private schools when our public schools already have so many needs.

Unfortunately, Republicans in this legislature are choking the life out of our public schools and their constituents need to tell them to stop it. They invest $5,000 less per student than the national average. They are falling behind nationally in teacher pay, dropping in the most recent rankings to 38th. They refuse to properly pay veteran teachers or teachers with master’s degrees. One study shows that North Carolina ranks second to last in the country in how much of our Gross State Product we invest in public education.

Despite the lack of funding, our public schools continue to shine. More than 84% of North Carolina’s school-aged children still attend public schools and parents are overwhelmingly satisfied with that choice. And for good reason. Our public schools are doing amazing things. Last year, public school students earned 325,000 workforce credentials, and our public schools have more nationally board certified teachers than any other state in the country. The success of our families and our workforce relies on strong public schools. Private school vouchers will destroy that goal.

There is no doubt legislators are feeling the heat for this bad plan — and they should — from their public school teachers, parents, students, school board members and business leaders- not to mention county commissioners who are going to be stuck holding the bag when state funding is reduced.

But after a summer of lavish vacations, reported federal criminal investigations and legislators resigning to become lobbyists, they’re now totally caving in to the for-profit private school industry. That is unacceptable for North Carolina.

I urge every North Carolinian to tell their legislators to vote against this harmful expansion of private school vouchers. Our students, families and communities deserve better.