NC Senate committee backs expansion of private school vouchers

On a voice vote with several Democrats opposed, the committee approved Senate Bill 406, which would also eventually invest hundreds of millions of more dollars annually toward private school vouchers.

Gov. Roy Cooper opposes the bill, though a veto could be overriden by the General Assembly's new Republican supermajority.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, would increase pathways out of the state’s public K-12 schools by expanding vouchers and also requiring public schools to allow students to graduate from high school in three years, instead of four. It incentivizes those students to do so with an additional scholarship.

The voucher eligibility expansion would begin during the 2024-25 school year. The proposal now heads to the Senate Rules Committee.

The bill no longer requires students to have to attend a public school prior to applying for the voucher.

Many public speakers in favor of the bill Wednesday said they supported the voucher expansion, noting dissatisfaction with public schooling and the fact that students often need more than what public schools can offer.

“One size does not fit all and in fact one size does not fit most,” said Renee Griffith, principal of Cornerstone Christian Academy in Statesville.

Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Guilford, said lawmakers should invest more in public schools, too, for the same reason.

“Our public schools ought to be able to offer the same education that these parents (are seeking),” Robinson said.

Lee said the voucher program had a waiting list last year.

The bill would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in private school vouchers at the same time a court order has called for the state to spend hundreds of millions more dollars on public schools.

It’s part of the remedial plan in the nearly 30-year lawsuit over whether the state is providing an adequate education, Hoke County Board of Education et. al. v. State of North Carolina, et. al., commonly referred to as “Leandro.”

Republican legislative leaders have called the order unconstitutional and have said they are the only ones who can decide what schools need to provide a constitutionally promised education to North Carolina’s children. They haven’t pointed out any specific expenditures in the order they disagree with but have asserted that private school vouchers — not called for in the order — is a priority for their education spending.

Lee called following the comprehensive remedial plan “laughable” because it was drafted before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cooper supports the remedial plan and has included it in his proposed budget. It calls for nearly $1 billion more in funding next year, mostly for pre-kindergarten, early childhood education and disadvantaged students.

Cooper said the voucher bill would take money out of public schools by reducing their enrollment and that the money won't be enough to attend many private schools.

"They are proposing to take billions of dollars and give it to people making any income to use it for private school vouchers," Cooper said. "This is wrong. It's the wrong use of taxpayer money, and we've got to keep fighting."

The president of the state's largest teachers union issued a statement Wednesday opposing the voucher expansion.

"Rather than expanding a program that by its definition cannot support every student, let’s invest in our public schools so students have safe schools, inviting classrooms, a well-rounded curriculum, class sizes that are small enough for one-on-one attention, and support services such as health care, nutrition, and after-school programs for students who need them," North Carolina Association of Educators President Tamika Walker Kelly said.

Lee is focused more on the school choice aspect of the voucher expansion. Currently, families are stuck with their zip code if they can't afford a private school or get into a public charter school, he said.

"That parent doesn’t have a choice," he said. "What this is intended to do is to restore that."

The bill makes all families eligible for the vouchers, called Opportunity Scholarships, by removing income caps. It replaces the caps with a tiered system of eligibility based on family incomes. For the lowest-income families, they’d be eligible for the full scholarship, which is equal to what the state spent, on average, per student the prior year, up to $7,213 per year as it stands now. For the wealthiest families, they could receive up to 45% of that amount, or $3,246.

The bill would increase the program’s annual funding, now at $191.5 million and scheduled in current law to increase by $15 million a year, by an extra $1.3 billion over the next seven years.

That would start in 2025, with a $160 million increase. By 2032, the state’s Opportunity Scholarship Program would have a budget of more than $500 million a year.

Democrats, as well as the North Carolina Association of Educators, have criticized this program, saying it saps money from public schools. Gov. Roy Cooper has tried to phase it out in several proposed budgets. But the legislature's Republican majority has boosted funding instead, arguing that families deserve more school choice and that the program simply allows state education funding to follow the child.

Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenberg, asked Lee whether he’d be willing to add accountability requirements for private schools that receive the vouchers, such as by requiring them to take state tests to see what academic outcomes the schools are producing.

“This program has been in place for over 10 years, there’s been little to no accountability so far,” Marcus said. “There’s just no other area in law, in our budget, in which we give this many millions in taxpayer dollars without expecting accountability back.”

Lee said he would be willing talk with Marcus about adding accountability requirements in the future, citing an interest in national tests that he also wants public schools to take.

Marcus said she did not want to vote in favor of the bill without accountability measures in place, something she and other Democrats have been asking for for years. She also noted that many private schools still won’t take every student — which public schools are required to do — including students of other faiths or who are LGBTQ.

But Lee said the schools are accountable to parents already, because parents could leave if they didn’t like the private schools.

“Everyone is so focused on the schools and not focused on the children,” he said.

Lee said so many families don’t have a choice about where to send their children to school. He also said the bill is ultimately about changing that.

The bill also seeks to increase early graduations from public high schools by requiring high schools to make them possible and by incentivizing students to graduate early. Students who graduate in three years would be eligible for a scholarship for their first year of college.

The bill would require public high schools to offer a way for students to graduate within only three years, instead of the standard four. To do that, the schools would need to create a course plan that would start in the ninth grade and would not be able to add any graduation requirements on top of the 22 credits the state requires. Currently, many high schools require students to obtain more credits than the state requires. Magnet schools, for example, may require students to take courses in the magnet school’s specialty before graduating.