See who failed our kids
The Education Law Center recently released their report on School Funding across the nation. Twelve states received an F grade for their school funding level in the latest Making the Grade 2021 report on school funding. And guess what, North Carolina is one of them. The NC State Board of Education has failed our kids. By a lot. As a social entrepreneur serving the often underserved and an educator of all people young and old, I would have hoped that our public schools were receiving at least the national average of funding. Unfortunately, we are 30% below the national average of $15,114 per student in NC. That’s 47th out of 51 states. Gulp … Sounds a lot like Charlotte’s dead last ranking for upward mobility for children born into poverty in this our Queen City, based on the 2014 Harvard survey.
Moving on to the Funding Effort measurement criteria, it’s another solid F. North Carolina makes a lower than normal contribution to education, relative to our states GDP.
It really is no wonder that our teachers are up in arms about coping after returning to school following a long stint of remote learning during the year that was 2020 and finding the going tough. There are a host of issues of course, but funding schools certainly is an priority item that needs to be addressed it seems, especially when qualified and experienced teachers are leaving the profession faster than we can find their teaching replacements. A recent scorecard of student performance in our local CMS school district indicates that all race groups college and career readiness scores have dropped by about 15%, on account of the ongoing disruptions that are caused by the pandemic. What investment is needed to address just the social and emotional impacts of remote learning and the drop off in instruction time that was the result of schools being shutted?
If you are like me and believe that (quote) “fair and equitable school funding is the basic building block of a well resourced and successful education system”, we have a long way to go in North Carolina. Let’s give our educators the resources and development tools they need to lift our children out of the doldrums, support teachers with professional development and give our students every conceivable opportunity to reach college and in fact be ready to join the workforce prepared and proud of their education.
Brent Morris
November 2021
https://edlawcenter.org/research/making-the-grade-2021-stateprofiles.html
