Vouchers can work but accountability lacking

Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, July 26, 2015.

North Carolina's system of public education won't collapse because the state Supreme Court upheld a private-school voucher program.

But the court's 4-3 decision supporting the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship program was still a surprise. Lower courts had rejected it as unconstitutional, and it was widely expected Supreme Court would do the same.

The state constitution plainly states that all funding appropriated for education must be "used exclusively for establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools." The court's four Republican justices saw otherwise.

The majority, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Mark Martin, defined state education spending as a public purpose, even if tax dollars go to a private school.

We can't join the voucher program's critics, though, in concluding that this is the beginning of the end for public education in North Carolina, nor even that the voucher program will seriously damage public schools. The state appropriates nearly $8 billion a year for K-12 education. Even if the state spends the maximum of $4,200 per student on the 4,400 likely to participate in the expanded voucher program this year, that's $18 million, or just over two-tenths of one percent of the state's K-12 budget.

What the program offers is hope and help for low-income, at-risk students who aren't succeeding in the public school system. When the children of upper- or middle-class families find the public schools are failing their children, they can put them in private schools and often see a dramatic academic turnaround. The Opportunity Scholarship program offers that same lifeline to low-income families. A similar program in Florida has demonstrably improved outcomes for at-risk students there. We expect to see the same in North Carolina.

That said, we do have a deep concern about the lack of accountability in the voucher program, an issue raised in Justice Robin Hudson's dissent. "The main constitutional flaw in this program," she wrote, "is that it provides no framework at all for evaluating any of the participating schools' contribution to public purposes; such a huge omission is a constitutional black hole into which the entire program should disappear."

The investment of tax dollars must be accompanied by accountability. The General Assembly needs to remedy that problem. If it does, we expect the voucher program to improve the lot of some students who otherwise might fall into the cracks and never see success.

http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-vouchers-can-work-but-accountability-is-lacking/article_8ba5b5c5-1ee7-5ade-b4e0-9c0e0381953b.html