Cooper rejects education measure, issuing third veto in three days

Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday issued his third veto in as many days, rejecting changes to an elementary school reading program.

Posted 9:15 p.m. Aug 23, 2019 — Updated 10:11 p.m. Aug 23, 2019

Matthew Burns

, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper on Friday issued his third veto in as many days, rejecting changes to an elementary school reading program.

The state implemented the Read to Achieve program six years ago to get students reading at grade level by the end of the third grade, but it wasn't implemented consistently from one school district to the next.

The state has put more than $150 million into the program to date, and a study last year by North Carolina State University found no gains for the first year of students involved.

Senate Bill 438, dubbed the Excellent Public Schools Act of 2019, was designed to modify the program for better results, including adding Individual Reading Plans for students testing below grade level to identify and focus instruction on areas where they're having difficulty. The legislation also called for the state to get more involved in planning local summer reading camps for students struggling to read.

"Teaching children to read well is a critical goal for their future success, but recent evaluations show that Read to Achieve is ineffective and costly," Cooper said in his veto message. "This legislation tries to put a Band-Aid on a program where implementation has clearly failed."

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Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger has championed Read to Achieve since it was first adopted, and he said the veto was targeted at him.

"The Governor’s own administration helped write this bill because helping kids learn to read wasn’t a partisan issue – until now. The real reason Governor Cooper blocked this early childhood reading program is because of the name of the bill sponsor: Phil Berger," Berger, R-Rockingham, said in a statement.

Cooper and Berger have frequently clashed over the years, and they are currently locked in a battle over the $24 billion budget and whether the state should offer taxpayer-funded health coverage to hundreds of thousands of low-income adults.

"Blocking a kids reading program written in part by his own appointees is a clear failure of leadership from Governor Cooper and another black eye for an administration floundering in its attempt to govern our state," Berger said.

Berger's office noted that the ineffective program Cooper criticized continues as is with his veto, while Cooper's office said the money going to Read to Achieve could be better spent on teachers directly.

Battle over school testing company for NC students heats up

Cooper also conflated a separate educational dispute with Read to Achieve in his veto message: "A contract dispute over the assessment tool adds to uncertainty for educators and parents."

Istation won a multimillion-dollar contract this year to test North Carolina K-3 students' reading skills, but a competitor that had the contract previously has challenged the award.

Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson's decision to choose Istation prompted some educators and Senate Democrats to call for an investigation and a review of the procurement process. The state Department of Information Technology put the contract on hold this week to conduct a review.

On Wednesday, Cooper vetoed legislation that would have required sheriffs to honor detainers issued by federal immigration officials for people in county jails. On Thursday, he vetoed proposed changes to state billboard regulations.

Cooper has now issued 35 vetoes since taking office in January 2017. Lawmakers have overridden 23 of them.

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