Step back for schools
Published July 25, 2015
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, July 25, 2015.
In 1997, the N.C. Supreme Court unanimously delivered its landmark Leandro ruling that declared the state has an obligation to offer every child a “sound, basic education.”
In a 4-3 decision Thursday, the court regrettably took a big step back from that principle, finding that the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program is constitutional.
The program, enacted two years ago by the legislature, provides vouchers worth up to $4,200 for qualified children to attend participating private schools. Unlike public schools subject to Leandro standards, the private schools are held to virtually no standards. Essentially, the court’s ruling Thursday allows the state to evade Leandro requirements by funneling public money to private schools.
Reasonable questions are how much money and with what impact to the public schools? The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Mark Martin, doesn’t set any limits.
The court rejected claims by individual plaintiffs, including several Greensboro residents and former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Michael Ward, that state education funds must be used for “establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools,” in the language of the state constitution. The majority chose to give a narrow reading to Article IX, Section 6, which spells out specific funding streams — such as “the net proceeds of all sales of the swamp lands belonging to the State” — that must be applied to public schools. The legislature is not barred from using other funds, including general revenues, to support “alternative educational initiatives,” it said.
It noted that the voucher plan doesn’t create “an alternative system of publicly funded private schools” but only “modest scholarships to lower-income students.”
The scholarships are “modest” now; the students included are from low-income families; and the total amount spent is only a few million dollars. But the program is subject to unlimited expansion in all respects. There is apparently no legal barrier to spending more for private education than for public schools.
The program “effectively undermines the support the legislature is constitutionally obligated to provide to the public school system,” Justice Cheri Beasley wrote in a dissenting opinion. In her own dissent, joined by Beasley and Justice Sam J. Ervin IV, Justice Robin Hudson conceded that the state does not hold private schools to the same standards as public schools. “However, a large gap opens between Leandro-required standards and no standards at all, which is what we have here. When taxpayer money is used, the total absence of standards cannot be constitutional.”
Most of the schools receiving state money under the program have religious affiliations. Taxpayers have no choice about their tax dollars supporting Christian, Jewish or Islamic education. Students don’t have to be taught in English, teachers don’t have to be certified, schools don’t have to be accredited. Hudson observed that, compared to similar programs in other states, North Carolina’s is the least stringent.
Chief Justice Martin took pains to point out that “the wisdom of the legislation is a question for the General Assembly,” not the court. It is indeed unwise. North Carolina should strengthen public education and let private individuals pay for private schools.
July 25, 2015 at 10:41 am
Tom Hauck says:
Thank you for an interesting editorial which was mostly negative against the Scholarship or Voucher program.
The editorial's three main objections seemed to be that the schools, chosen by the parents, 1)will drain money from the public schools, 2) "have virtually no standards" and 3)most of the schools have religious affiliations.
Just to put things in perspective --1) each $4,200 scholarship/voucher is to a poor child and $4,200 is less than half the cost of the average public school. 2) I would be ashamed to talk about the "standards" in the public schools since the latest results have continued the historical statewide trend of 30% fewer Black children passing their tests than White children. 3) Parents are choosing the schools and teaching a bit of religion along with the educational subjects is not a bad from the parents perspective.
July 25, 2015 at 1:13 pm
bruce stanley says:
Competition makes all participants better! Why is the print media, including the Greensboro News & Record, almost exclusively leftist?
July 25, 2015 at 1:44 pm
Richard L Bunce says:
The private schools are held to the highest standard by the parents of the child who decide to send their child to the private school using the Education Voucher. Government education bureaucrats have demonstrated for decades their inability to educate too many children, especially children from low income households, in their traditional government schools. Relatively wealthy parents have real choice, means tested Education parents give the rest of the parents choice as well. There is a reason there are always more parents applying for vouchers than there are vouchers available.
The religious school argument is a canard... significant Federal and State tax dollars are spent in religious education systems at the preschool and post secondary levels already.
