“Public Schools First NC” is a parent-led advocacy group that supports that state’s public schools. It reports that Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has proposed significant increases in funding for the public schools. This may be a struggle because the state’s legislature, the General Assembly, is controlled by conservative Republicans who take every opportunity to hurt public schools and help charters and vouchers.
On Wednesday (5/11) Governor Cooper released his recommended budget for 2022-23, Building on Success.
With the legislative short session starting on May 18, Governor Cooper’s budget sets out his priorities for spending updates for the upcoming 2022-2023 budget. He is recommending adjustments to the two-year budget passed last fall to help remedy many of the shortfalls left by the previous budget. These recommendations show a commitment to investing in our children, our educators, and our communities at a level that will truly benefit all North Carolinians.
In the previous budget, much of the education spending was non-recurring. Governor Cooper’s new budget recommendations address this problem clearly: “The constitutional mandate to provide a sound basic education requires stable, recurring funding. The Governor’s FY 2022-23 Recommended Budget uses General Fund and lottery receipts to fully-fund Year Three of the Comprehensive Remedial Plan and the nonrecurring Year Two items not funded in SL 2021-180.”
NC is in a good financial position, with an expected $4.2 billion more in revenue this year and an additional $2 billion more next year than projected. The proposed budget allocates a portion of the surplus but leaves more than $1.5 billion unallocated, which will likely satisfy even the most fiscally conservative legislators.
Included in the new spending are dollars for teachers, teacher preparation, early childhood education, low-performing schools, and pathways to college and career. Here are the details:
- $33.1 M: Develops a skilled educator pipeline and builds educator and principal capacity.
- $370.1M: Provides fair and equitable distribution of financial resources.
- $19.9 M: Supports low-performing schools and districts.
- $89.7 M: Expands access to high-quality early childhood education for children from birth to age five.
- $13 M: Creates a guided pathway from high school to postsecondary education and career opportunities.
Investments in these priorities are expected to have the following impacts:
- Ensure all teachers receive at least a 7.5% raise over the biennium.
- Support up to 535 additional Teaching Fellows with forgivable loans.
- Provide up to 97,500 students with no co-pay, free school meals.
- Increase NC Pre-K reimbursement rates by 19%, and administrative reimbursement rates from 6% to 10%.
- Expand Smart Start services statewide and strengthen the Early Intervention program with increased staffing and professional development.
- Expand the Child Care WAGE$ program statewide to improve pay for early childhood educators.
In the upcoming legislative session, the General Assembly will decide whether or not to adopt Governor Cooper’s budget. We urge you to contact your legislator to express support for this much-needed budget adjustment. NC has the funds; there’s no good reason not to invest in our state’s future.
Don’t Miss This Event!
Thursday, May 19 at 7:00 PM
Donald Cohen, author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back, & Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmet Till & Blood Done Signed My Namediscuss
Make a tax-deductible donation of $50 to support our work (we really appreciate your help!) and we will include a copy of Cohen’s book. Books can be mailed to your home or picked up & signed at the event: Donate Here
Hunt Library, NCSU, Partners Way – Raleigh, NC 27606
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The question is: Will it pass?
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Traditional public schools overall have taken a huge hit in their public reputation. An article in the NY Times gives some reasons why, and the reader comments are even more illuminating. The NYT has admitted that 90+% of their subscribers are Democratic voters, and reading comments on almost all topics is like entering a left-wing echo chamber where there is little difference of opinion. But not on education – much of the liberal readership of the NYT is fed up with the traditional public school establishment. Click on Reader Picks – the top rated comment sums up what most commenters who are parents feel right now.
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Yes, the New York Times seldom reports fairly about public schools. It has a grudge against them. When it writes about charters, it’s a cheerleader.
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and it is a hard reality with many news outlets across the nation: more interest in non-public school options
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I want to point out that over the last 5 years, I have not seen ONE article about “declining enrollment” in a supposedly vaunted charter NYC charter network where huge percentages of students left.
When a charter experienced far more severe declining enrollment than any school in this article, the president of Harvard University spoke at the graduation to celebrate the 26 students who remained when 44% of the 9th grade class was missing! Where did they go? NO ONE CARED.
And no one talked about why those kids were gone.
And the very next year, when nearly HALF the 191 ninth graders in a charter’s entering high school class disappeared, the media CELEBRATED the 98 seniors in that 9th grade class of 191 students who graduated!
There weren’t articles about “declining enrollment”. There were celebrations about how much could be given to the students who remained, even if that was only half of the students.
Yes, the top comments in this article nearly all blame the teachers’ union. And the Dems.
i will repeat my Cassandra warning. If those who traffic in distracting from having genuine, honest discussions of the serious issues we face are not called out but instead are given credibility, it will come back to bite you. In this case, teachers union are an easy scapegoat. First they came for the social justice warriors, then they came for the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” training, then they came for the “CRT”, then they came for the union, then they came for democracy.
If we lived in a different society, and the media and even most of us were not brainwashed into accepting the right wing framing on every issue, this issue of plunging enrollment could be addressed as an OPPORTUNITY! The way it is when the NYT celebrates giving the students that remain in charters – even if it only half of them – the most lavishly funded education ever.
How do you make schools more appealing? Take advantage of declining enrollment. Have SMALL CLASS SIZES. Reclaim the spaces like music rooms, art rooms, computer rooms, auditoriums, libraries, gymnasiums. Fix the failing infrastructure of the school. Bring back music and sports and performing arts.
It’s now the new talking point that public schools are failing, or the public schools are empty, because they are bad and the teachers union’s fault.
I have tried to point out how dangerous all the false narratives of education reformers are. This is their latest one.
How do you get students back in public schools? GIVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WHAT THESE SUPPOSEDLY POPULAR PRIVATE SCHOOLS HAVE. It’s pretty simple. Small class sizes and lots of extras.
And of course, not mentioned is give public schools the right to exclude the kids they don’t want to teach. What happens to those kids? You won’t hear ANY reporter at the NYT mention it because they are absolutely invisible to them!
The NYT is not concerned about the “declining enrollment” in a charter network high school that is awash with tens of millions of dollars in extra funding.
So don’t be concerned about the “declining enrollment” in public schools — just give them the lavish funding they need so that the president of Harvard will celebrate whatever students are left.
How come NYT journalists only consider declining enrollment to be a sign of EXCELLENCE when it comes to charters?
Because the right wing framing has brainwashed all of us.
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