Edward B. Fiske was the education editor of the New York Times and editor of the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Helen F. Ladd is a nationally prominent economist of education and professor emeritus at Duke University. They are married, a power couple of American education. This article appeared on the website of WRAL in North Carolina.
Forty years ago this spring a national commission charged with evaluating the quality of American education issued a blistering report entitled “A Nation at Risk.” It cited a “rising tide of mediocrity” in the country’s schools and declared that the country’s failure to provide high quality education “threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”
North Carolina leaders took this warning to heart. They began investing heavily in public education and even became a model for other states in areas such as early childhood education. Significantly, the state was making progress toward fulfilling its obligation under the North Carolina Constitution to provide a sound, basic education for all students.
The situation started to change, however, in 2012 when Republicans came to power and began an assault on public education that continues to this day.
When it comes to public education, North Carolina is now “A State at Risk.”
The Republican assault has taken multiple forms, starting with inadequate funding. North Carolina now ranks 50th in the country in school funding effort and 48th in overall funding. Despite widespread teacher shortages, the Republicans have kept teacher salaries low — $12,000 below the national average – and they have failed to provide adequate funding for the additional support staff that schools need.
In addition, they have permitted significant growth in the number of charter schools. Such schools divert much-needed funds from traditional public schools and make it difficult for local boards of education to operate coherent education systems.
The Republican-controlled Legislature is currently working hard to weaken public education by politicizing the process. Pending legislation would regulate how history and racism are taught, give a commission appointed mainly by lawmakers the job of recommending standards in K-12 subjects, and transfer authority to create new charter schools from the State Board of Education to a board appointed by the General Assembly.
The problem is about to get even worse. The Legislature is now poised to expand the earlier Opportunity Scholarship program, which had provided public funds for low income children to attend private schools, into a much larger universal voucher program that would make all children eligible regardless of family income – at an estimated cost of more than $2 billion over the next 10 years.
Given that private schools are operated by private entities typically with no public oversight and no obligation to serve all children, why in the world would it ever make sense to use taxpayer dollars to support private schools?
A common argument has been that voucher systems raise achievement levels of the children who used them. While some early studies of small scale means-tested voucher programs in places like Milwaukee showed small achievement gains in some cases, recent studies of larger voucher programs in places such as Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana consistently show large declines in average achievement — often because of the low quality of the private schools that accept vouchers.
Supporters also argue that vouchers provide more schooling options for children and that having more choices is a good thing. But in the context of education policy that need not be the case. Americans support public education – and make schooling mandatory – not only for the benefits it generates for individual children but also for collective benefits such as the creation of capable workers and informed citizens. What matters is the quality of education for all the state’s children.
An expanded voucher program would lead to a substantial outflow of funds from traditional public schools to privately operated schools, with the potential for a significant loss in the quality of our public schools, and subsequent vitality in the state’s economy.
A strong public education system – from elementary and secondary schools to the nation’s first public university, the University of North Carolina – has long been pivotal to our state’s cultural, political and economic success. We must stop the current assaults on public education and reaffirm our commitment to one of North Carolina’s great strengths.
Back in 1983 when the education system of the nation was “at risk,” President Ronald Reagan – who had earlier been lukewarm in his support of public education — took the warning seriously and began touring the country to talk about the problem. His successors from both parties then took up the cause and continued to make the case that a strong public education system is essential for a vibrant economy, and importantly, to make the policy changes needed to strengthen it.
Let’s hope that our current Republican leaders in this state can muster the wisdom and courage to follow the example of President Reagan and other leaders from both parties in pushing for strong public education. In the absence of such wisdom, we will indeed continue to be “A State at Risk.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As you know, A Nation at Risk was a fraudulent piece of statistical horse*** in the first place. It was the catalyst for 40 years of relentlessly bad policy and practice. While agreeing with the thrust of this piece, the reference to A Nation at Risk shows how durable this myth has been.
AMEN! Yes, A Nation at Risk IS INDEED FRAUDULENT.
It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. It’s one of the most sick pieces of propaganda ever.
Re “Supporters also argue that vouchers provide more schooling options for children and that having more choices is a good thing.” Really? Why don’t “factoids/truthinesses” such as this get challenged? If you go to any supermarket, you will find, for example, dozens of different brands and styles of mayonnaise. Does having all of these choices make anything better? Do you really have the time to evaluate those choices or the ability? Having more choices is not an obvious good. It is an obvious complication.
If you have twelve schools you could send your child to, will you actually evaluate each one? Where do you get the information necessary to make a decision? I would argue that have fewer choices may be better because then you can focus your attention on making those choices better for you.
“Choice” in itself may be good or bad. In the free market, choice is dominant, and that’s okay. But we don’t have a choice when it comes to public services. Everyone in the community relies on the same police department, the same fire department, the same public beaches and parks. If you are very rich, you can hire your own private security, but you can’t have your own private Highway. What we are seeing now is a carefully crafted plan to privatize and monetize a public service that is typically better than the charters and low-quality private schools that take vouchers.
D’accord! (As usual!)
In 2012, I left North Carolina to work in Alabama (Yeah, out of the frying pan into hell…) I had significantly more positive experiences in my thirty years there, because even If I disagreed with the means to improve schools, I believed everyone from the school house to the statehouse wanted to improve. That is no longer the case. I would conclude with the current radical leadership in the General Assembly that they simply want to promote ignorance to keep power, but I’m not sure that they are smart enough to undertake that strategy. The mission statement for the Charlotte -Mecklenburg Schools was too become the best integrated district in the country, but Raleigh has bludgeoned that to submission…I recently had a conversation with someone who works at a century old elite private school in Chattanooga, Tn. She stated that they have no intention of accepting voucher money, because their clientele do not want to be beholden to outside regulations that come with state money. Therefore, the inequality of educational opportunity will be even more profound as less affluent families attend private schools that are less successful. The caste system in this country will soon make India envious.
Elite private schools don’t take voucher kids. Typically, they have no empty seats. The voucher is a fraction of their tuition. They don’t want low-performing kids who require tutoring. The schools that take vouchers are overwhelmingly religious schools. In Florida, most voucher schools are religious schools and most are uncertified and unregulated.
Yes, another government subsidy that violates the First Amendment…
The Trump Supreme Court believes that freedom of religion means that the state must pay tuition to attend religious schools, because failing to do so means you are being discriminated against due to your religion. The Court ignores the “no establishment of religion” part of the First Amendnent, which for more than two centuries meant that government should not pay for religion.
Also, most of the FL voucher schools are unaccredited which may have a negative impact on students seeking higher education.
North Carolina is beyond risk at this point. It’s a failed state. Democracy is in turmoil there. Fascism reigns. My sister who works as a public school teacher librarian there sends me videos of speeches by her local school board members touting Nazis and antisemitism.