Universal Opportunity Scholarships set to transform N.C. education

Good Saturday morning.
 
If you tune in to the most exciting two minutes in sports this evening, you’ll hear a familiar refrain echoing from the Churchill Downs speakers: “The horses have reached the starting gate: They’re at the post.”
 
So too is a supermajority of state legislators. They’re poised to fundamentally reshape North Carolina’s K-12 education landscape with a dramatic overhaul of the Opportunity Scholarship program.
 
Before us right now, we believe, is the most consequential public policy decision since comprehensive tax reform a decade ago. The usual critics say the measures will end public education as we know it. Proponents agree, and legislators say it will grant more families a choice in their children’s education – Public opinion is firmly on their side.
 
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North Carolina legislators created Opportunity Scholarships in 2013. The program as currently conceived offers grants up to about $6,500 per year to families that earn below a certain income threshold (about $111,000 for a family of four). Families can use the grant to pay tuition at a private school.
 
The program is similar to a federal Pell Grant, which offers taxpayer-funded scholarships used to pay tuition at a private or public college.
 
In 2014, the first year the scholarship program became available, about 1,200 students received one. In 2022-23, the figure eclipsed 25,000.
 
The 20x uptake growth over the past decade suggests high demand for Opportunity Scholarships, and polling data shows the program is popular, enjoying greater than two-to-one support.
 
Over the years, lawmakers gradually increased the income eligibility threshold and grant award for the program.
 
But they’ve been upfront for years about the end goal. “We talk about funding students, not systems,” Senate Leader Phil Berger said in 2021. “What we would like to see is more efforts to make sure that we are funding the students, which is the reason we have an education system to begin with.”
 
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Companion bills in the House and Senate make good on that vision. Called “Choose Your School, Choose Your Future,” the measures make Opportunity Scholarships available to all students regardless of income and they peg the maximum award to state-funded per-pupil public school expenditures, about $7,500 right now. (Higher-income families are only eligible for a portion of the maximum award.)
 
Both Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore are bill sponsors or cosponsors. Even more notable: The legislature’s newest Republican, Rep. Tricia Cotham, sponsored the House bill. With her support, a veto override is a near-certainty.
 
It seems only a matter of time, then, before every student in North Carolina can obtain state funding to attend a private school.
 
It is among the purest manifestations of the “fund students, not systems” mantra. The philosophy envisions an array of K-12 education options available to students, not just one zoned district school. Advocates argue the policy empowers parents to choose which school environment best suits their children, a privilege previously reserved only for those who could afford private school tuition.
 
The proposal represents a major directional change in education policy in that it transfers power away from central education authorities and spreads it among parents. And it’s playing out as public education becomes more of a political flashpoint.
 
School closures infuriated parents, and witnessing certain curricular choices through virtual education infuriated them even more.  Concerns have mounted in some corners as it becomes clear many schools don’t inform parents about mental health developments, like a student presenting in class as a different gender. Racializing education through teacher training programs, class exercises, and history courses has raised even more ire.
 
To be sure, many parents support these developments. But the controversy has led other parents to seek different options for their children, and leaders elected in part by those parents are responding to that political pressure.
 
At bottom, the question is this: Does public education exist primarily to educate individual students, or does it exist primarily to serve a collective purpose as defined by education authorities?
 
North Carolina legislators assert the former: Kids need an education, but what type of education is best is up to their parents. Opponents assert the latter: Public education is more than an individual exercise; it trains the next generation to reflect collective values. The problem with that, of course, is when a lot of people disagree with those collective values.
 
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A policy change as consequential as that under consideration right now of course attracts opposition. We summarize below what we consider the strongest arguments from North Carolina’s loudest Opportunity Scholarship opponent: An N.C. Justice Center employee.
 
Criticism: What public good is served by using taxpayer funds to subsidize the tuition of disproportionately wealthy students who are already enrolled in private school?
 
Response: Though it’s rare to see taxpayer protection become a concern of this group, wealthier families would be eligible for less than half the grant amount as other families. The rationale is really more philosophy than economics, though: If we’re to move towards a model in which public education dollars go to students, then public education dollars ought to go to all students to receive a sound, basic education. 
 
 It’s similar to existing policy for Social Security. Everybody pays into the system, and everybody gets something back. Wealthy taxpayers already pay more into the state’s education coffers, and the proposed bills would see those taxpayers get something back to fund their children’s education, just like everybody else.
 
Criticism: Over 90 percent of voucher students attend religious schools. Of those, more than three quarters use a biblically based curriculum presenting concepts that directly contradict the state’s educational standards.
 
Response: This is a tricky topic. First, some parents may wish for their children to have a religion-centered education. Opportunity Scholarship proponents would argue that parents should ultimately decide what type of curriculum their students should receive, and the state shouldn’t tell them whether or not religion can be a part of that curriculum. Lest we forget, teacher’s union activists fight parents to control what curriculum is best for students.
 
On the legal side, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Maine violated the U.S. Constitution by denying state funds available to every other school simply because the school in question was religious. If the state offers public dollars for private education, the state cannot discriminate against a school because it’s religious.
 
Criticism: How do sponsors think this plan will expand “choice” for families when private schools can continue choosing their students by simply increasing tuition?
 
Response: Policymakers intend to make every private school accessible to every student – just to make more school options available to more students.
 
It’s true that Opportunity Scholarship grants will not cover full tuition at some private schools, just like Pell Grants do not cover full tuition at some private colleges. The beauty of an educational marketplace is that some schools may increase tuition, while other may lower tuition to attract more students. It doesn’t appear that policymakers intend to make every private school accessible to every student – just to make more school options available to more students – and that’s a good thing for North Carolina’s future.