Public Education

2022 Legislative Bulletin: Public Education

The Council is committed to advocating for the creation of equitable school systems in North Carolina. As people of faith, we must keep our elected officials accountable to put children first. Download our legislative bulletin for more scripture, key facts, talking points, and action items.

Episcopal Church
All Our Children

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Our Calling in Education

Presbyterian Church USA
Equity and Quality in Public Education (K-12)

Religious Society of Friends
Friends and Education

United Church of Christ
Justice in Public Education

United Methodist Church
United Methodist Advocates for Public Schools (UMAPS)

NC Voucher Program’s Changing Demographics

The voucher legislation moving through the General Assembly increases funding for North Carolina’s voucher program by hundreds of millions each year and makes all students eligible regardless of income. Both the House and Senate budget documents raise funding levels to reach more than $500 million/year by 2031-32.

Since 2014-15 when the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program first funded private school tuition for NC students, the proportion of Black or African American recipients has steadily dropped while the proportion of white students has grown. In the first year, the program had 51% Black or African American recipients (purple in the chart below) and 27% White recipients (red). By 2022-23, the percentages had reversed and the gap had widened. Black or African American students made up 20% of the voucher recipients while 61% were White.

Hispanic student data has been categorized differently across the years so comparisons are challenging. However, in the years 2014-15 through 2017-18 when Hispanic students were included as a separate race category, they made up 8% to 10% of the voucher students. In the years 2018-19 and beyond, when Hispanic students were counted in a separate ethnicity category, their numbers have grown from 12% to 15% of total voucher recipients.

If the voucher program is expanded to all families regardless of income or public school enrollment, experience from other states suggests that the majority of voucher recipients will be current private school students. This will likely increase the voucher recipient gap even further between white students and all other student groups.

School Voucher Expansion Harms Students & Threatens Public Ed Funding

This webinar provides a brief background on NC’s voucher programs and current bills that dramatically expand eligibility. Joshua Cowen describes his research on voucher programs dating back to the early 2000s, what he and other researchers found, what research has shown since, and what’s happening with vouchers across the country now.