The logical fallacy of WUNC’s attack on Opportunity Scholarships

On June 5, WUNC published an article with this headline: Report shows most NC voucher recipients already attended private school — here’s why that matters. The N.C. Public Radio station then linked to the article on Facebook, saying, “A new report finds about 90% of Opportunity Scholarship recipients this school year already attended a private school before the program was expanded so even wealthy families could apply.”

These statements invoke the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc, or correlation without causation. The increase in the number of Opportunity Scholarships (OS) granted for 2024-25 had nothing to do with “so even wealthy families could apply.” The overriding reason was that funding was provided so late in the school year that poor or middle-income families did not have the financial means to take advantage of it. They couldn’t gamble on the chance the funding would come through late in the school year. Families who had students in private schools for years without the benefit of OS could finally qualify.

Other errors of fact and faulty reasoning abound. Let me count the ways. The report notes that 8.3% of all OS recipients left a public school for a private school in 2024-25. From that, it concluded that more than 90% did not attend a public school in the prior school year, implying they must have already been in private schools. Not true.

Large numbers of children who obtain OS for private schools start with kindergarten or first grade, having never attended either public or private schools. A majority of those would have signed up for public school because their parents could not afford private school without OS. This would include poor and middle-class families.

The report found the state saved about $10 million on those students (Tier 4 wealthy families) and then notes that in 2024-25, $382 million was spent on 80,470 students. The report leaps to the conclusion, “If the state’s saving $10 million on students who left a public school but spending $382 million for the tuition of students who previously attended a private school, then I don’t see how that could result in net savings.”

What about the child who switched, because of OS, from public to private 10 years ago? The savings to the state were counted once, but the real savings have continued for a decade.

The $10 million savings, from Tier 4 wealthy parents, are not even a tithe of the real savings to the taxpayer. Other savings come, as stated above, from K-1 students who get OS to attend private schools, a majority of whom would otherwise have gone to public schools and lower- and middle-income parents who stayed in private schools when their ability to pay was marginal. Maybe they had just lost a second income for the family.

WUNC does not count the savings to counties that don’t have to provide supplemental money for children they no longer educate. County taxpayers and state taxpayers are the same people.

After failing to recognize these much larger additional savings, WUNC again refers to “the roughly $10 million in state savings.” In my informed opinion, the yearly savings to the state and counties are several hundred million of dollars, almost — but not 100% — covering the cost of the scholarships to the taxpayers.

WUNC concludes with the irrelevant observation that “The most typical OS recipient is a white student in Wake attending a Christian school who had never received a voucher before the income cap was lifted.”

There is so much to unpack here. The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is used once again. It was not the lifting of the income limit that caused more parents to apply for OS. Since Wake is the most populous county, it is no surprise that it has the greatest number of OS students. Wake is not typical. Counties like Cumberland have much higher OS numbers per capita. Yes, a majority of Wake OS goes to white students. But black students in Wake and statewide receive disproportionately more OS. Yes, a majority of OS is awarded to parents at Christian schools because a majority of private school students attend Christian schools. But parents are free to choose secular schools, classical schools, Islamic schools, Catholic schools and an infinite variety of Protestant or nondenominational schools. When opponents like to stir up prejudice against OS, they usually name a couple of the very largest recipients of OS because they are Islamic.

Opportunity Scholarships are a great way for the state to ensure that each student has the opportunity to excel in their education for life. Thankfully, almost all demographic groups in North Carolina support the program.

Paul “Skip” Stam spent 16 years in the State House, the last 10 years as Republican leader and then speaker pro tem.