Decisions about education are some of the most important decisions families and state leaders make. Just as parents consider the many school options available in North Carolina, lawmakers are choosing where to put taxpayer dollars to get the best outcomes for their children. North Carolina families want public schools that prepare their children for well-rounded success.
State leaders in the Legislature have choices about how to allocate taxpayer money. When it comes to public schools, which serve about 85 percent of North Carolina students, recent decisions have resulted in:
State legislators recently voted to enact universal taxpayer-funded private school vouchers, making private school “opportunity scholarships” available to all families, regardless of income or history of public school enrollment. These vouchers were previously only available to low-income families who attended public schools. With this decision, state lawmakers are choosing to send hundreds of millions of dollars per year to private and religious schools that can implement discriminatory admissions policies and do not have to disclose what they teach or how their students perform.
Using data from the state Education Assistance Agency and school websites, the North Carolina Public Schools Forum conducted a study of the 200 schools that received the most taxpayer funding from school vouchers through the Opportunity Scholarship Program in the 2023-2024 school year. It collected information on religious affiliation, curriculum, teacher certification requirements and admissions policies.
The survey results highlight stark differences between public and private schools when it comes to testing accountability, teacher credentialing, and data reporting requirements: Only 8.5% of voucher-receiving private schools report standardized test scores on their websites, while traditional public schools are required to report student grades. And only 2% of private schools require state certification for teachers, while traditional public school teachers must have a bachelor’s degree and licensure.
Private schools decide who to admit. 89% of private schools that receive the most funding through vouchers engage in some form of discrimination in their admissions processes, resulting in a significant percentage of North Carolina students being denied admission. These widespread discriminatory practices manifest in a variety of ways.
- Religious: Of the schools that receive the most vouchers, 90% are religious, and 68% have religious requirements for admission.
- academic: Fifty-nine percent of private schools that receive the most voucher funding have academic requirements. There are no reliable academic performance data for private schools in North Carolina because there are no testing or reporting requirements, but national studies have found that students who receive vouchers often do not perform better, and in fact, much worse, in private schools than in public schools.
- LGBTQ: 41% of the top voucher-recipient schools explicitly exclude LGBTQ students, and many include a clause in their handbooks that reads, “The school reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to deny admission to any applicant who practices or promotes a homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity or who fails to uphold the school’s moral principles.”
- Students with disabilities: Thirty-eight percent of these schools do not enroll students with disabilities, and some specifically note that they “do not provide specialized services as required in public schools.”
As the North Carolina Legislature again considers significantly expanding funding for private school vouchers, it is important that taxpayers understand where their tax dollars are going and who benefits. In the face of calls to increase school choice, we must ask ourselves: Are we really providing quality school choice for North Carolina children and families by providing taxpayer-funded vouchers to schools that implement discriminatory admissions policies and have the weakest accountability and reporting requirements of any state with a universal voucher program in the nation? Or have we expanded school choice?
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Elizabeth Paul is policy and research manager and Dr. Mary Ann Wolf is president and executive director of the North Carolina Public Schools Forum..
