By Tom Campbell

The recently passed 131-page Omnibus bill contained additional money to help victims of Hurricane Helene, but that was only a small portion of the bill. It contained dramatic changes to state government which we will discuss at another sitting, but the big headline was the allocation of $463.5 million to provide vouchers to 54,000 school students, doubling the number of children attending private schools.

In attempting to justify this action, Rep. Tricia Cotham, the recently converted Republican disciple said, “We are ensuring that every child has a chance to thrive.” Cotham would have been more accurate in saying that every white child has a chance to thrive.

ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, just released a scathing attack on private schools, focusing on North Carolina. The exposé opened with the statement that the growing numbers of private schools are little more than “segregation academies.” They identified 39 of these private schools, 20 of which have student bodies at least 85 percent white. ProPublica stated that some of them were at least 30 percent whiter than the population in their counties. The 20 on which they focused brought in more than $20 million state dollars just in the past three years.

And the recently passed bill, we’re told, includes $500,000 to market private schools. Public schools get no money to tout their accomplishments.

While we would never suggest this is happening in our state, the formation of and operation of a private school could be a scammer’s dream come true, primarily because there is so little transparency or accountability in order to get public funds.

It is extremely easy to start a private school. An education expert told us that all you have to do is fill out a form, get a routine background check, enroll four students and you’re in business. 

Rules and regulations of private schools are almost non-existent when compared to traditional or “district” k-12 public schools.

It is interesting that three states voted against the institution of or expansion of voucher programs on Nov. 5. In Nebraska, 57 percent of voters partially repealed the state-funded private school scholarship program. In Kentucky, 65 percent voted against amending the state constitution to allow for public funding of private institutions. And in Colorado, voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that said every child has a right to school choice. 

15 reasons to oppose private school vouchers

1. Vouchers divert funding from district schools, funding already insufficient.
2. Private schools can pick and choose who they admit.
3. Private schools do not have to accept or offer help to special-needs children.
4. Private schools do not have to provide transportation to and from school, nor meals, automatically eliminating many students who require one or both.
5. Private schools aren’t required to have licensed teachers.
6. Private schools can choose their own curricula and textbooks.
7. The majority of private schools are owned or sponsored by religious organizations. Religious instruction is mandated in many of them.
8. Private schools are not required to adhere to the legislatively approved school calendar, number of required instruction days nor length of each school day.
9. They lack transparency and accountability, being exempt from most rules and regulations public schools are required to follow.
10. Private schools are required to annually test students to learn how they are performing; however, they can choose what tests they administer and are not required to report student results. Other states are learning that student performance actually declined after students transferred from public schools.
11. Vouchers don’t cover the full cost of tuition. The average cost of private school tuition is $10,442 in North Carolina. Voucher payments are scaled according to family income, but the most a student can receive is $7,468. Families are obligated to make up the difference.
12. Vouchers are being given to students who were already are enrolled in private schools.
13. Vouchers increase segregation. Most private school enrollments are disproportionately white when compared to the community or county in which they are located.
14. If the goal of vouchers is to “ensure every child has a chance to thrive,” there are many children being discriminated against because they don’t live in a county or community where private schools are available. They don’t have school choice.
15. Vouchers to private schools violate a longstanding state policy of giving public funds to private institutions.

North Carolina, like many of our neighbors, has a history of segregation and racism. We have made great strides overcoming our past and integrating everyone into our culture. Vouchers are a thinly veiled effort to return us to those Jim Crow days of segregation and will result in continuing to dismantle district schools until another Leandro lawsuit forces the state to reverse academic discrimination.

Vouchers will not make North Carolina smarter or better.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.