Multiple Bills in the N.C. State Legislature Would Raise Funding and Lower Eligibility Limits for State-Funded Private School Scholarship Programs

Students attend classes in a NC private school amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Source: Business North Carolina

NC Republicans are trying to increase state funding for vouchers to offset the cost of private K-12 schools, while ignoring funding for public schools. Two bills currently moving through the state legislature, HB 32 and SB 671, are intended to increase funding and eligibility for these vouchers. 

Private school vouchers are a form of state-funded financial aid for K-12 students. In North Carolina, families of low-income students and students with disabilities can apply for private school vouchers. If granted, the vouchers use public funding to offset much of the tuition and fees charged by private schools. 

The practice of funding vouchers comes from the idea of school choice, a practice championed by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who served under the Trump administration. School choice represents a belief held by some families and political representatives that parents should get to choose the quality and ideological character of their child’s education without being burdened by financial limits. That means if the public school district is underfunded or the educational programs are not to parent’s liking, they should get the option to send their children to private school. The school choice argument gained popularity during the pandemic, as parents became frustrated with online K-12 school and, in many cases, turned to private schools for a solution. 

HB-32 and SB 671 conflict in terms of specific execution but are similar in their intended results. HB-32, the “Equity in Opportunity Act,” would increase funding to private school voucher programs, raising the cap on vouchers in the process. SB-671, “Changes to the K-12 Scholarship Programs,” is more extreme than HB-32, and includes a higher increase to voucher caps and expanded eligibility. Under SB-671, the income eligibility maximum will be raised, allowing far more middle-income families to quality for vouchers. 

SB-671’s primary sponsor, Republican Sen. Mike Lee (SD-9), promoting the bill, said “I think the money should follow the child and the parents should be the ones that determine what’s in the best interests of their children.” Representative Dean Arp (RD-69), the primary sponsor of HB-32, expressed similar sentiments, saying, “The state, in its wisdom, has chosen multiple avenues to achieve [universal K-12 education], and I ask you to support this to provide equity to these families.”

But others across the state, including Democratic representatives and proponents of public education, have criticized the bills, saying they divert taxpayer money away from already underfunded public schools. “If we start siphoning off public money to private schools here and there and here and there, we’re going to weaken public schools, and most of the people who look like me are going to be in public schools,” Democratic Rep. Abe Jones (RD-38) said. Jones, a Black man, was expressing concerns that increased funding to private school programs will result in racially segregated classrooms and fewer opportunities for Black students than would be available in a well-funded public school environment. Jones’ concerns have historical precedent — private school vouchers were originally conceived as a way for white families to take their children out of desegregated schools in the 1950s, effectively resegregating on the state’s dime. 

Rev. Suzanne Parker Miller, executive director of Pastors for NC Children, further criticized the bills in her article for NC Policy Watch: “I strongly believe any attempt to move public money into private education is a violation of the moral, ethical and constitutional obligations of our General Assembly. Public schools are a public good, and public funds should only go to public education.” 

Currently, SB-671 has been referred to the Committee On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House after passing in the Senate. HB-32 is in much the same position for the parallel committee of the same name in the Senate. Neither committee has a timeline forcing a vote, so the bills could theoretically remain in these committees indefinitely, but their steady progress through the state legislature up to this point makes that unlikely. Both are close to the vote they need to pass. 

However, Governor Roy Cooper has previously expressed a desire for the opposite plan to happen: slashing private school voucher funding to pave the way for more public school funding instead, and he is unlikely to sign either bill.