Last week, state lawmakers voted to sign North Carolina up for the new federal school voucher program authorized by President Trump’s sweeping federal budget bill. It sounds simple: individuals can get up to $1,700 in tax credits for donating to nonprofit organizations that offer private school scholarships. But here’s what it really means for our children’s public schools.
When lawmakers passed House Bill 87, they committed North Carolina to a plan that will drain public funding from our classrooms and send it to private schools—most of which are unaccountable to the public and already serve families who can afford tuition.
We’ve seen this play out with our own state voucher program. Most students using those scholarships were already in private school. Last year, fewer than 1 in 10 new users came from public schools.
Meanwhile, our public schools are being asked to do more with less:
- Class sizes are growing, while teachers leave because of low pay.
- Students are learning in buildings with broken heating and cooling systems.
- Many schools don’t have enough counselors, nurses, or reading specialists.
And now, even more funding could be pulled away.
This isn’t about politics. It’s about whether your child has a qualified teacher in the classroom, working technology, and the support they need to thrive. It’s about whether their school can afford to fix a leaking roof—or whether your child has to learn under it.
And for parents in rural communities, this hits even harder. Private school options are few and far between, but these communities will still lose out as resources shift away from local public schools.
We want every child, in every ZIP code, to have access to a strong public education. That starts with fully funding the schools our families rely on—not diverting tax dollars to private institutions with no accountability to the public.
Our state is the strongest when we all have a chance to succeed. The best way to keep our state prosperous is through free, high-quality public schools. Providing quality public schools for all children used to be a nonpartisan issue. Unfortunately, that's not true anymore
