NC shortchanges its children - on purpose

By Emma Battle
Public Ed Works

Are North Carolina’s neighborhood public schools failing our children — or are we failing to support our neighborhood public schools?

A recent Elon University poll suggests many North Carolinians believe traditional public schools are not serving students well. That frustration is real, and it should be taken seriously. But too often, the blame lands on the wrong people: Local school boards, principals, and teachers. That misplaced blame is convenient for state legislators.

Lawmakers try to avoid accountability for their failure to meet one of the clearest obligations in North Carolina law: Adequately funding neighborhood public schools. The NC Constitution assigns that responsibility squarely to the General Assembly.

The Constitution requires that every child in North Carolina, regardless of ZIP code or county wealth, has access to a “sound, basic education.” That mandate is not being met — not because educators are failing, but because lawmakers are failing to fully support the schools our communities depend on.

Let’s connect the dots.

While many North Carolinians were being distracted by manufactured culture-war controversies — bathroom panic, “wokeness,” and other divisive talking points — state lawmakers were making budget decisions that quietly but profoundly harmed children across this state. They systematically diverted billions of dollars away from children and neighborhood schools to finance massive tax cuts.

Since 2010, lawmakers have pursued an aggressive agenda to cut the corporate income tax from 6.9% to zero. That money did not disappear. It had to come from somewhere.

The cuts came primarily from public education and health care, including Medicaid, and we are living with the consequences:

•Persistent teacher shortages

•Larger class sizes

•Declining student outcomes

•Struggling rural schools

•And rural hospitals closing.

Over the past decade, the state share of public education funding slipped from 68% in 2015 to 66% in 2024–25. That shift equals $1.3 billion per year NOT INVESTED by the state in public schools.

That figure is roughly the same amount North Carolina now gives away annually in corporate tax cuts.

Coincidence? No.

Taxes fund neighborhood public schools. When public education is the largest item in the state budget, and when lawmakers insist on cutting taxes, the money must be taken from somewhere. In North Carolina, it has been taken from children.

That missing $1.3 billion could eliminate the statewide teacher shortage and still provide raises of more than $13,000 per teacher every year. Instead, classrooms are under-resourced while corporations receive tax breaks.

Some will ask: What about the Education Lottery? Wasn’t that supposed to help? 

When legislators approved the lottery in 2005, state law required that 35% of lottery proceeds support public education. Today, that share has fallen to about 16%.

In 2025 alone, North Carolinians spent $6.586 billion on lottery tickets. Had lawmakers honored the original commitment, $2.305 billion would have gone to public schools. Instead, only $1.053 billion did — effectively diverting another $1.25 billion per year away from children.

That money could have stabilized struggling neighborhood schools, improved school safety through counselors and resource officers, reduced class sizes, or helped finally meet the constitutional requirements of the Leandro school-funding case.

Instead, it was redirected elsewhere.

Private school voucher programs continue to expand, even as neighborhood public schools — which serve the vast majority of North Carolina’s children — are asked to do more with less.

North Carolina now ranks 50th out of 50 states in public education funding effort. Not because we lack resources or economic growth, but because lawmakers have chosen to prioritize tax cuts over children.

Decades of underfunding public education is not abstract policy. It is a deliberate choice with real consequences — depriving children of opportunity, weakening communities, and eroding our state’s future.

North Carolina’s children deserve better. And the choices that created this crisis were deliberate — which means they can also be undone.

But only if we demand it.