Pivotal report in NC school funding lawsuit cost $2 million

Money raised from state government, private foundations. Republican senator decries "circus" of "politically allied lawyers."

Posted 8:00 p.m. Nov 3, 2021 — Updated 12:42 a.m. Nov 4, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — The consultant report at the center of a lawsuit that may change how North Carolina pays for public schools cost more than $2 million to produce, with the funding assembled between state agencies and private foundations.

Parts of the much-discussed WestEd Leandro report are nearly two years old, but the cost and who paid for it hadn't been publicly revealed until WRAL News started asking questions.

That report lays out billions in proposed new spending, providing a road map as a Superior Court judge considers forcing the state legislature to spend more on public schools to fulfill the North Carolina constitution's promise of a sound education. The underlying lawsuit in the case is more than a quarter century old.

Gathering details on the report's costs – more than three years after San Francisco based consulting group WestEd and two assisting groups were picked to comb through North Carolina's education system – required calls by WRAL to state officials in multiple departments, attorneys for the school systems suing the state and, ultimately, most of the donating foundations themselves.

Even the chairman of Gov. Roy Cooper's Commission on Access to Sound Basic Education, which was created to review state education spending along with WestEd, told WRAL he didn't know the total cost or how the money was raised.

Others had, or were only willing to share, pieces of the puzzle.

In the end WestEd got $1.52 million, raised from these entities:

The state Department of Health and Human Services put in more than $600,000 in two payments – one totaling $300,000 and the other $304,699.
The state Department of Administration contributed $200,000.
The Goodnight Educational Foundation gave $250,000.
The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation gave $200,000.
The Spencer Foundation gave $118,406.
The Belk Foundation gave $100,000.
The A.J. Fletcher Foundation gave $50,000. This foundation was started by the founder of Capitol Broadcasting Co., which owns WRAL, and Capitol Broadcasting leadership sits on the foundation board.

The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University and the Learning Policy Institute worked with WestEd on the project, and additional money was raised for them. The Gates Foundation kicked in $249,932 for the Friday Institute, and the Spencer Foundation put in another $282,173 for Learning Policy, according to the Governor's Office.

The total cost: About $2.05 million.

DHHS put up the largest share because the agency administers early childhood education programs, according to Cooper spokeswoman Sadie Weiner. The Department of Administration, which oversees state government construction projects and other logistics, "was identified as having funds to contribute, as it was the state's responsibility to fund a portion of the report," Weiner said in an email.

Sen. Deanna Ballard, R-Watauga, a Senate Education committee chair, said the funding breakdown lays bare conflicts of interest in the case, which the legislature's Republican majority has repeatedly criticized as a judicial overreach.

"Consider how absurd this is: The Cooper administration is a ‘defendant’ in this case, yet used state dollars to fund the very plan that their political allies are suing to implement," Ballard said in an emailed statement. "This circus has devolved into a group of politically allied lawyers on both sides of the case convincing an unelected county judge to somehow order into place the governor’s preferred budget plan. It’s a sad mockery of the judicial system."

Judge David Lee, who was elected to the Superior Court bench in Union County before he retired, was appointed to oversee the Leandro case and is using the WestEd report as the basis of his demand that lawmakers increase education funding in the state.

Cooper spokesman Ford Porter responded, saying "all parties should work together" to fulfill the state's duty to students, and that the WestEd plan approved by the court provides "an effective roadmap."

"This case is about the practical opportunities for children to learn in every community in North Carolina, and whether the standards set in the Constitution will be met, even if legislators think they are too high," Porter said in an email.

Suggest A Correction