NC gets an F on its efforts to fund public schools
Published June 10, 2015
by Lindsay Wagner, NC Policy Watch, June 10, 2015.
National reports notes wide resource disparities
Two national reports released this week find that North Carolina is failing to adequately fund its public schools, mirroring a years-long trend of state disinvestment in public education.
In documenting the massive resource disparities in public schools nationwide, reports issued by the Education Law Center (ELC) and the Leadership Conference Education Fund gave North Carolina an F for how much money it spends on public education relative to its gross state product.
“Compared to other states, North Carolina has a pretty good fiscal capacity for spending—but it isn’t spending its money on public schools,” said Molly Hunter, director of the ELC’s Education Justice program, noting that the Tar Heel state was very last in terms of the ‘effort’ it put into school funding.
North Carolina had made significant gains in per pupil spending levels up until 2010, thanks in part to federal stimulus dollars that were designed to help mitigate the negative fiscal impact of the Great Recession.
But beginning in 2010, when the state’s school funding levels peaked at $10,015 per pupil — just below the national average — North Carolina began taking a nose dive, erasing all gains made between 2007 and 2010, according to the reports released Monday.
By 2012, per pupil funding levels had fallen to $7,235 — the fourth lowest in the country.
North Carolina seemed to fare better when the reports’ authors looked at whether the state’s funding distribution mechanism is fair.
In measuring whether a state provides more or less funding to schools based on their poverty concentration, with the latter described as ‘regressive,’ the state earned a B.
That’s a big jump up from the Fs that North Carolina once garnered in this category during the 2000s — but that B grade only comes as a result of the state’s recent move to slash funding for the wealthy districts and keeping funding levels for poorer areas stagnant.
The news comes as no surprise to Winston Salem-Forsyth Schools’ longtime budget director, Kerry Crutchfield.
“When I came here 34 years ago, North Carolina was spending 48 percent of its budget on K-12 education, and now it’s spending 39 percent,” said Crutchfield. “That does give an indication that priorities have changed for one reason or another when it comes to the state’s budget.”
Recent raises come at a high cost to the classroom
Moving the needle in a positive direction when it comes to school funding is not a trend that has been playing out in North Carolina.
“At a time when other businesses are recovering from the economic recession and are steadily reinvesting in their work, North Carolina has failed to reinvest in its schools,” said Jim Merrill, Wake County Schools Superintendent, this time last year.
Looking back to 2013, state lawmakers passed a budget that spent $500 million less on public education than in 2008. They introduced a raft of public school spending cuts that at the time resulted in no raises for teachers who hadn’t seen a pay bump in years, larger class sizes, fewer teacher assistants, little support for instructional supplies or professional development, and the beginning of the end for the highly praised North Carolina Teaching Fellows program.
Teachers also said goodbye to tenure and supplemental pay for advanced degrees.
Since then, not a whole lot has changed in terms of public school resources. Teachers finally got a significant raise in 2014 after seven years of almost nothing — but at a high cost to the classroom, and veteran teachers saw very small pay bumps.
Funding for teacher assistants took yet another huge hit last year in order to pay for the teacher raises, which largely benefited new teachers, and classroom supplies—especially textbooks—continued to languish.
“We’ve lost 50 percent of our teacher assistants during the past several years,” said Winston Salem-Forsyth’s Crutchfield. “Eighty percent of our textbook funding is gone.”
NaShonda Cooke, a fifth grade teacher at Eno Valley Elementary School in Durham, says her students are lucky if they even have textbooks at all.
“If we do have them, they are very outdated,” said Cooke.
Cooke reports that the very basic supplies and materials are hard to come by in her school. Paper, pencils, even desks for students to sit at are scarce. Teachers typically pay out of their pocket all year long to make sure their kids have the opportunity to learn.
“I used to be able to say to future colleagues coming into the classroom, ‘you’re making the right decision, you’ll have support you need in this work,’” said Cooke, who used to work regularly with NC Teaching Fellows who were studying to become teachers in North Carolina.
When Cooke moved to North Carolina from Pennsylvania 16 years ago to work as a teacher, she says she felt supported. The state helped her obtain her National Board certification and a master’s degree. And she said students had more resources to succeed in the classroom.
“But all of that has grinded to a halt,” said Cooke.
Teachers are reportedly leaving North Carolina in higher numbers for much better pay in neighboring states and enrollment in teacher preparation programs at the state’s univeristy system is down 27 percent between 2010 and 2014.
“It breaks my heart,” said Cooke, who has stopped counting the number of colleagues who have left North Carolina for Maryland, Houston and other locales. “They didn’t have a choice but to relocate to other states.”
The reports released this week note that North Carolina ranks fourth from the bottom in the nation in wage competitiveness.
Proposed House budget boosts education dollars, Senate poised to scale back spending
House lawmakers released a draft 2015-17 budget last month that includes modest pay raises for all teachers and a patchwork of funding initiatives aimed at improving leadership and instruction.
But not included was any kind large funding increase that would truly change how students would be able to fare inside the classroom when it comes to the supports they need to succeed.
“The proposed House budget does not go far enough to ensure every child will receive a quality education in North Carolina,” said North Carolina Association of Educators’ president Rodney Ellis in a statement released in response to the House’s budget. “If we are serious about every child’s future, we must provide students with modern textbooks and technology, more one-one-one attention, and a quality educator in every classroom.”
Budget writer Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Wake) called the overall proposed House budget, which raises current spending by 6.3 percent, “responsible” and in line with population growth and inflation. In addition to teacher raises, the House proposes boosting textbook funds, fully funding increases in school enrollment and restoring funding for driver’s education.
But even as the economy recovers from the recession and revenue figures are looking better than expected, cuts to public school funding have been significant over the past several years and are not made up for with the 2015-17 House budget proposal, says the N.C. Budget & Tax Center’s Tazra Mitchell.
“Teachers will be in a better position to make ends meet,” said Mitchell of the House plan. “But there is still lots on the to-do list for state budget writers when it comes to inside the classroom.”
Next week the Senate is expected to release its own budget proposal — and it’s likely to spend even fewer dollars on public education.
Spending targets released last month suggest that the Senate could propose shelling out $167.7 million less on education next year than what the House proposed in the budget that they passed last month.
“With the Senate plan, we couldn’t rebuild classrooms — there would be no way to meaningfully reduce class sizes, boost professional development that improves students’ learning outcomes, and we couldn’t recoup the 7,000 state-funded teacher assistants we’ve lost since FY2009,” said Mitchell.
While North Carolina continues on a path of disinvestment in public education, equitable and adequate school funding is perhaps more critical than ever now that children from low-income families make up the majority in the United States’ public schools, according to a report released by the Southern Education Foundation earlier this year.
“School funding decisions are one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund. “The evidence from across the country is clear and compelling: Our nation must dramatically change the way that educational resources are distributed so that there is true equity in America’s classrooms.”
According to Durham teacher NaShonda Cooke, North Carolina has a ways to go.
“I’d have to agree with our state’s letter grade,” said Cooke. “F is for failing. F perfectly reflects what’s going on in our classrooms right now.”
June 10, 2015 at 9:24 am
Richard L Bunce says:
We could fund at the washington DC per student level... and like them get even worse performance from the government school systems. Funny how the left only thinks money matters when the government is spending it.
Significantly expand the K-12 education voucher program and actually educate students... and for half the cost.
June 10, 2015 at 7:40 pm
Norm Kelly says:
Seems funny when libs speak.
They always tell us it isn't all about the money.
But when they evaluate government education monopoly, the ONLY thing they ever discuss, point out, whine about, is money.
Libs have NEVER seen enough money spent on the monopoly. Even when the central planners poked their nose into it (again!) with implementing Communist Core by bribing the state to participate, the whine didn't change: not enough money. Teachers aren't leaving the state because they are underpaid, we are often told. Instead the reason we are told teachers are leaving the state is because they don't get paid enough. When comparing teacher pay in NC vs. NY, we are told NC teachers are underpaid because they are so much lower than NY. But which lib has EVER considered actual cost of living when comparing pay? None! And don't expect them to EVER tell the whole story by including all factors in the comparison. Telling the whole story would destroy this whine also!
When it's not always about teacher pay, it comes down to not paying teachers enough.
Confused? You should be confused. It's libs describing the problem. And it's libs telling us what the solution is. Listen to what they say. Then compare what they say today with what they say tomorrow or next week. They WILL contradict themselves. Why? Because they are libs and it's ALWAYS about the money with them!
June 11, 2015 at 9:54 am
Curt Budd says:
I am a teacher. Not a liberal or conservative or whatever other label you want to use. And the FACTS are that quality teachers are leaving this state or the profession because of the "total package"- salary, working conditions, lack of respect, etc. that IS often better in other states. How do I know? I actually TALK to them everyday. Not because of what Fox News or MSNBC or whatever other extremist blog you subscribed to.
Those "whiny" teachers are the people on the front lines trying to make a positive impact on the next generation. What do you do besides complain? Have you ever offered actual solutions? Bunce only has one, vouchers. That's going to solve all of our countries education issues. But at least he offers one even though I disagree with it. What's yours?
I'm going to call you out every time you come on this forum and do nothing but complain about teachers. I've worked and been around other professional environments and I can tell you first hand that I have NEVER seen a collective group work as hard and with as much passion for helping others as the group I work with every day.
June 12, 2015 at 10:14 am
Richard L Bunce says:
That you do not get that vouchers is not the solution is not surprising. Parent choice is the solution. Vouchers create more opportunities for parent choice and there are many other changes that can and should be made that will facilitate parents choice.
June 15, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Curt Budd says:
Nope. Again, the issue is not parent choice. It's that the money flows to private companies that can discriminate, that have no accountability, that have already been shown to be fraught with abuse of funds. Is there waste in the public school system? Yes. Let's address that. Do two wrongs make a right? No.
And the demise of public school performance is GREATLY exaggerated. The scores of every individual demographic have been increasing. The overall scores, when combined together, have remained stagnant because the overall percentage of minority students has greatly increased.
Let private corporations run education and let the market take care of itself, right? Surely, they have the kids best interest at heart and not their own pockets? Just like Wall Street. (Insert sarcasm here). Education is not a commodity. There have already been connections shown linking the charter school movement in NC to the same people in charge of Amway and Blackwater. And those two have such an upstanding record of valuing people over profit. Seriously??
June 16, 2015 at 11:36 am
Richard L Bunce says:
Parents will decide what is best for their child, not government education bureaucrats. The school the parent chooses will respond to the needs of their customers or the customers will find another school. Education is not limited to the 20th Century factory model with agricultural driven schedules and more interest in social engineering than education. Thanks again for acknowledging the government school systems inability to deal with a significant segment of the population.
