Republican lawmakers back $463 million in additional spending on private school vouchers

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The North Carolina Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved a preferred committee substitute of House Bill 823 to add an extra $463.5 million over two years to the state’s controversial private school voucher program.

Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, explained that $248 million of the $463.5 million will help to clear the wait list for this year and that another $215.5 million would fund school vouchers in future years.

Lee and other bill supporters said the money is needed to clear a wait list of more than 55,000 people who want state-funded “Opportunity Scholarships” to send children to private and religious schools.

Sen. Michael Lee (Photo: Screen grab NCGA video stream)

“The first day [of the application period] more applications were received than the entire priority application period in 2023,” Lee said. “It was really amazing.”

The number of families seeking private school vouchers exploded after the Republican-led legislature expanded the school voucher program to make it accessible to the state’s wealthiest families.

The program was created a little more than a decade ago with the stated purpose of helping low-income families escape low performing schools and districts. Now, there are no income restrictions.

Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg, called the additional spending on the voucher program “welfare” for wealthy families whose children already attend private schools. Marcus said top earners make up 23% of parents on the wait list.

“They’re already paying their private school tuition and can afford it quite well, so I think it’s disingenuous to say that they’re somehow waiting on this bill to save them in order to decide if their kids can continue to go to Greensboro Day or Providence Day or the fanciest private schools that money can buy,” Marcus said. “Those kids are already there and I think we know that.”

She noted that every Tier 1 family — lower-income families eligible for the maximum award of $7,468 per child — who applied for school voucher money received it.

Seventy percent of the people on the wait list earn more than $115,000 a year, Marcus said.

She asked why further expanding school vouchers is such a high priority when there are many other unmet needs around education.

Marcus said $197 million would clear the NC Pre-K wait list, $200 million would provide much-needed childcare subsidy grants to working parents or the money for voucher could be used for teacher pay raises.

“Can you justify this welfare to the wealthiest families in some way that makes some sense to the taxpayers of North Carolina?” Marcus asked.

Sen. Natasha Marcus (Photo: Screengrab NCGA video)

Lee responded that he doesn’t consider helping a $115,000, two-income household send children to private school helping the wealthy.

Sen. Amy Galey, R-Alamance, said it’s inappropriate to discuss school vouchers in terms like “welfare.”

“It’s really insulting to people who actually need public assistance to cover those gaps in their lives when they’re having times of trouble,” Galey said.

Galey also took issue with Marcus’ criticism of the GOP’s decision to make wealthy families eligible for private school vouchers.

“They are the taxpayers,” Galey said emphatically. “This is not welfare if it’s actually their own money. They’re the ones who pay the taxes and if you have a high-income earner, a family with over $260,000 in income and if they’re receiving back an opportunity scholarship of around $3,360, I would submit that’s well below the amount of taxes they’re paying into the state of North Carolina and into the public school system.”

Lee noted that the state’s voucher program has had a marketing problem that resulted in millions of dollars going unused.

“It was really hard to get the message out to families that they had the opportunity to send their child to the school of their choice irrespective of income as long as they could get that opportunity scholarship,” Lee said.

This year was different, he said, noting that Gov. Roy Cooper, one of the program’s most vocal critics helped to spark interest in the voucher program while condemning it during visits across the state.

“I have to thank the governor [Roy Cooper],” Lee said. “The governor went around the state telling everybody about Opportunity Scholarships, I mean everybody.”

Cooper has called for a moratorium on school vouchers until the state’s public schools are fully funded.

Under the voucher program, he contends, taxpayer money is spent on private schools that aren’t required to hire licensed teachers, provide meals, transportation or services for the disabled.

“They [private schools] don’t have to tell taxpayers what they teach, how their students perform, which students they will reject or whether students even show up at all,” Cooper said in March during a State Board of Education meeting. “That is a reckless, reckless waste of taxpayer money.”

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