Editorial: Legislators need to be honest with N.C. parents, teachers on class-size funding

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018 -- Now, not in late spring, is the time to fully-fund the class size mandate so schools can properly plan and be ready for the next school year. Anything less fails the obligation to provide a quality education for North Carolina's students and disregards the promise to operate government in a business-like way.

Posted 10:00 a.m. Jan 23, 2018 — Updated 3:18 a.m. Jan 24, 2018

CBC Editorial: Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018; Editorial # 8261

The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

It comes as no surprise that North Carolina ranked near the bottom in the Quality Counts 2018: Grading the States” report from Education Week. The state ranked 45th – with a grade of D, in school finance and 40th overall with a grade of C-.

The leaders of the General Assembly, most specifically Rules Committee Chairman Bill Rabon and the junta that run the state Senate, need to come clean with North Carolina parents, public school teachers and administrators.

He is wrong when he says “we’ve already paid for” the mandate to cut classroom size in the lower grades.

An additional $200 million was provided to begin the class size reduction ($42 million in fiscal 2013-14, $42 million in fiscal 2014-15 and $6.8 million in fiscal 2015-17 and the same in the current fiscal year), and that is an estimated $200 million to $300 million short of what is really needed – and that doesn’t cover the cost for hundreds of more classrooms.

Even Senate Education Committee chairman Chad Barefoot admits there’s no additional funding for the mandate for the next school year. He did insist, in an interview on “Education Matters,” that “it is the Senate’s intent to fund program enhancement teachers.”

However, that assurance from Barefoot, a Republican from Franklin County, falls far short of the words emanating from Senate leaders who steadfastly declare that enough has been done. They’re in no rush and show little concern.

Sen. John Alexander, a Wake County Republican who is facing a tough re-election challenge, knows how critical this issue is. He says he’s been getting hundreds of e-mails about adequate school funding. Yet, the Senate’s GOP leadership didn’t hesitate to embarrass Alexander last week.

Just hours after Alexander hinted (along with House Education Committee chairman Craig Horn, R-Union) that the legislature would address the issue in a special March session, Senate leader Phil Berger’s office released a statement from Rabon questioning that assumption. The next day Rabon flatly dismissed it.

Surely he is aware that now, not in late spring, is the time to fully-fund the mandate so schools can properly plan and be ready for the next school year. Anything less is, again, failing the obligation to provide a quality education for North Carolina’s students and disregarding the promise to operate government in a business-like manner.

Legislative leaders need to be honest with the state’s citizens, but more importantly, with themselves. They know they haven’t provided the resources to achieve the classroom-size cuts they’ve ordered. When will they?

November can’t come soon enough.

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