NC shorts education spending, report says

Jan. 28—GUILFORD COUNTY — North Carolina ranks among the worst in the nation for its spending on public schools, and it ranks dead last in how that spending compares to its economic output, according to a recent report.

The one area where North Carolina ranked relatively high in the "Making the Grade" report from the Education Law Center, an education advocacy group, was in its distribution of funding to school districts with high concentrations of poverty, such as Guilford County.

The report warns that school districts across the country have used COVID-19 relief funding the past two years to address structural deficits caused by chronic underfunding, but when that funding runs out the inequities that existed before the pandemic will reassert themselves.

"Students in districts segregated by poverty and race will continue to be deprived of the same opportunities for school success as their peers in more affluent communities," the report says. "It is also likely that critical supports for low-income students paid for with federal dollars, such as extended learning opportunities, intensive tutoring, and greater access to mental health services, will fade away along with the masks and hand sanitizer."

Guilford County Schools has garnered national attention for some of its efforts undertaken with pandemic relief funds, including its tutoring program and learning hubs, but GCS officials also have spoken about the need to find new funding for those efforts after the relief money is gone.

In fact, school districts have faced this problem before — following the Great Recession, which struck in 2008, the report says.

"During the Great Recession, states used federal stimulus dollars to prop up their education budgets. When those federal funds ran out, states were left with large budget holes. In many cases, states resorted to massive state aid cuts that disproportionately affected high-poverty districts. Many states took years to return to pre-Recession levels of investment, and some still have not," the report says.

The report gives North Carolina an F for its overall funding. Out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, North Carolina's per pupil spending of $10,791 in 2020 ranked 48th, $4,655 below the national average of $15,446 per pupil.

In 2008, North Carolina ranked 46th. Since then it has swapped places with Mississippi, a state long maligned for its poor educational performance.

When adjusted for inflation, North Carolina's 2008 spending was equivalent to $12,078 per pupil in 2020 dollars, which means the state's effective spending actually dropped 10% from 2008 to 2020, the report says.

North Carolina also rated an F grade on its "funding effort," a comparison of the percentage of each state's gross domestic product that is allocated to the public schools.

But the state not only garnered an F, it ranked last.

Since 2008 the state's GDP has increased 45% but overall funding has increased only 13%, the report says.

On the bright side, the state ranked 19th for the fairness in distribution of education funding, with high-poverty districts getting about 5% more per pupil from combined state and local funding than other districts.

That was just barely enough for North Carolina to be rated as having somewhat progressive funding.

It also was an improvement from 2008, when North Carolina's funding was regressive, with high-poverty districts getting 8% less per pupil than other districts.

Regressive funding often is marked by a high reliance on local property taxes to fund education because high-income districts have higher property values, and low-income districts not only have lower property values but higher levels of social problems that translate to young students who are less prepared when they begin school.