North Carolina Democrat Governor Declares State of Emergency Over…School Choice
Cooper’s hyperbole makes me believe North Carolina will end if parents and children get school choice, you guys.
North Carolina Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper has thrown a hissy fit because the state’s legislation is about to pass a school choice bill.
Cooper, who sent his children to private school, declared a state emergency over Senate Bill 406, “Choose Your School, Choose Your Future.”
The bill “income requirements for any student to apply for a scholarship covering up to 45% of tuition at a school of his choice.”
Yes, this is totes an emergency. You have to love the hyperbole and scare tactics (sarcasm):
Their private school voucher scheme will pour your tax money into private schools that are unaccountable to the public and can decide which students they want to keep out. They want to expand private school vouchers so that anyone — even a millionaire — can get taxpayer money for their children’s private academy tuition. When kids leave public schools for private school, the public schools lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
And while they hand out private school vouchers to millionaires, they also want to give them large tax breaks, too. This drops an atomic bomb on public education by shrinking the state’s budget by almost 20%.
Public school superintendents are telling me they’ll likely have to cut schools to the bone — eliminate early college, AP and gifted courses, art, music, sports — if the legislature keeps draining funds to pay for private schools and those massive tax breaks.
Yeah, okay, bro. Show us the evidence that the schools would have to cut those programs.
Cooper offered no ideas on how to fix the public school system. These people think throwing money at the problem will automatically fix it.
No. You need to plan and spend the money wisely. Besides, the cost per child is nowhere near the amount the state paid per child in 2021:
In 2021, North Carolina spent $10,791 a year per student.
State Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, said at a press conference that the average expected award per student under SB 406 would be $5,600 annually—almost half of what North Carolina already pays per student.
North Carolina ranks 29th in the country. Not good, but not bad. So-so.
But North Carolina will end if school choice happens, you guys:
What doesn’t work is taking away funding, and using partisan politics to fool parents who care deeply about their children’s future. Not satisfied just to starve public education, the Republicans in the legislature also want to bring their political culture wars into the classrooms.
If they get their way, our State Board of Education will be replaced by political hacks who can dictate what is taught — and not taught — in our public schools. North Carolina schools need rigorous science, reading and math classes, not more politicians policing our children’s curriculum with book bans, elimination of science courses and more.
The GOP legislature is planning to choke the life out of public education, and you need to know what’s happening. Watch Gov. Cooper's special address on public education. pic.twitter.com/QVkXpLhDu2
— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) May 22, 2023
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Comments
Impeach and remove him if he causes a Constitutional crisis with this crap
The governator, there seems to miss a subtle distinctio — no matter how paniced about his future he may be, from losing a policy disagreement, it’s only an emergency to his political career, not the whole state. The state doesn’t need him that badly.
One wonders if The Coalition of The Opportunistically Indignant could still function while maintaining in their minds simultaneously the notions both that this would be abuse of authority while many things they dislike are not.
(*) From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s essay “The Crack-Up” in Esquire:
“…a general observation—the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
Remember the good old days when governors were just tyrannically locking people in their homes and forcing their churches to close because of a relatively minor virus? Remember when people complained about the exercise of extra-constitutional powers and the tyrants claimed it was warranted because it was about public health and the people should just shut up, sit down, and comply? Now we have a governor throwing a tantrum, filling his diaper, and declaring a state of emergency because a bill got passed, according to their state constitution, and he doesn’t like it.
Maybe he should be removed from office for abuse of power, and his successor can tell the teachers unions to pound sand…naaahhh.
No need. He’s a lame duck, he term-limits out this election cycle.
For which NC must thank God.
Ah, so he’s plumping his resume for a cabinet position, then.
I don’t think either Big Ron or Big Don would consider Cooper for a Cabinet slotOr are you being pessimisiic?
He’s a Democrat, so he has the cheater’s loyalty card advantage.
Lol
I loved my public school education, minus the things I couldn’t do because I was a “girl” bs, long time ago
But it was solid, high standards. I couldn’t believe what happened to public schools
It’s what has happened to our society, culture….
It’s so sad
In a just world, this politico should be arrested and imprisoned for his egregious and aggressive attack against the 1st amendment rights of home schooling parents.
Still and again and again, I will keep shouting this from the rooftops: If you or I egregiously and aggressively deprived another person their civil rights, the state AG or federal DOJ would see us in prison, or personally fined into bankruptcy.
A politico’s oath of office to defend the LAW OF THE LAND either means something, or this experiment in self-governance is just toilet paper.
Until there is punishment and pain for these crimes, it’s all just **clown world**
“In a just world, this politico should be arrested and imprisoned for his egregious and aggressive attack against the 1st amendment rights of home schooling parents.”
Specifically, what attack is this? Doesn’t Cooper have the right to make a political speech as Governor?
If you are going to sit on rooftops, howl at the moon instead. Your family will be less embarrassed that way, and you can collect the shoes the neighbors throw at you.
Cooper took an oath of office to abide by and defend the federal and state constitutions. He has a “right to make a speech” promising to violate it, after which the legislature has the right to impose the consequences of his making it.
Still no specifics on what crime Cooper is committing.
Kiss, kiss.
You wish.
Is that even legal?
The state legislature passing legislation that you do not agree with is not an emergency!
Can’t they impeach this clown?
Term limits will get him out. Is this guy a RINO?
He’s a Democrat. Most of the NC legislature and most other statewide officials are not.
What’s illegal about making a speech? Cooper has cleverly designed a trap. He’s made a speech, called it a declaration, and thereby stirred up the GOP. This speech is not a Declaration of Emergency under NC law, Such a Declaration must be in the form of an Executive Order following NC Law. You can read the law here:
https://www.ncleg.Gov/Sessions/2021/Bills/House/PDF/H264v5.pdf
This can’t be legal. You can’t just declare an emergency because you’re not getting your way in the legislative process.
He should be impeached and removed. Legislature needs to pass a new law defining what isn’t an emergency. Courts of course need to step in and smack the governor.
He didn’t declare an official state of emergency because the legislature taking action you don’t like isn’t one. He said it’s a state of emergency which is just shouting at the clouds during a press conference
How is it legal to force people with good credit to pay for house loans of people with bad credit?
We are imploding with insanity
There are no laws, they just make them up as they go
It’s gotten to a terrifying point
We are living in a lawless society
Cooper said it’s a state of emergency not that he is declaring one and that is an important distinction.
I love a hack like this guy holding a press conference declaring what a disaster it will be for parents to be able to send their kids where they want when he sent his to private schools.
The only disaster will be for the teachers unions and their loss of indoctrination time. This is the real reason for the hysteria.
more importantly for the teachers union
fewer students … fewer classes .. schools close or merged …. loss of jobs …
NC has a “not a union” teacher’s union because it’s a Right to Work state (meaning that you aren’t required to belong to a union to get a job). That said, they are just as unionists as the “real” unions.
True.
Why would the average taxpayer care if the states budget shrinks 20%? That sounds like a good thing.
If you can’t educate kids with over $10,000 a year, then you’re doing it wrongly. At pretty much any scale.
Plus the simple math shows how much hyperbole is being used. If they spend $10,791 and $5,600 of that would follow the student to an alternative program then $5,192 remains in the system. That’s a lot of $ to go towards debt service/bonds, maintenance of physical plant and equipment.
Bottom line is this is an issue of power and control. The d/prog and their big ED allies fear competition with funding b/c it decreases their power, control and influence.
There is probably a fair amount of corruption, too.
Some of that remaining money will go away, however, when their enrollment declines.
Yeah, that’s the point, The budget won’t contain the “ghost” student’s tare indefinitely.
Arizona’s school=choice law has actually improved the state’s finances because they are giving the alternative school (or homeschool) way less per student than they would be paying for that student in the public school system. And that missing graft is why the teacher unions are spitting nails.
They are used to keeping it all with parochial schools.
It will be interesting to see the extent to which NC’s Dem gov candidate, Josh Stein, parrots this hysteria.
Be interesting to see how Mark Robinson beats Cooper over the head with this since he has been all over schools since elected
Several years ago, Wake County NC asked for $20 million in additional funding, due to an expected increase in new student enrollment. They saw an increase of a total of 20 new students. Tell me there isn’t waste.
There is tremendous waste. Most of which never sees a classroom.
20 years ago, our rural elementary school used to be taught in four separate small structures (a repurposed tavern complex), each building one classroom with two or three grades combined. Our youngest’s graduating class was eight students.
Then suddenly the school needed to be improved because a huge new gated community was going to be built just off our scenic highway. We immediately grew a 20,000sf school with a big gym, an outdoor sports complex, and high-speed fiber connections (only two tiny areas of town have even low-speed DSL, and there is no cable anywhere). Don’t ask me how much it cost. In typical leftist fashion, they kept putting the project up to public vote year after year until they finally won once.
Of course, the new development fell through. Most grades are still running about 10-15 kids. At 24, our grandson’s class will be the largest in school history (if they all make it).
As a resident of NC, it is delightful to see him flailing away as the Republican-dominated legislature continues to over ride his vetos.
Elections have consequences (sometime).
As a resident I’m also delighted to see the lame duck flailing about with a republican super majority. I especially liked the part where he whined about millionaires getting tax breaks to send their kids to private school when he is a millionaire who sent his kid to private school while getting tax breaks for a solar farm on land he owns with his brother the next county over
“private schools that are unaccountable to the public and can decide which students they want to keep out.”
I’m sold. I don’t want the schools my kids go to to be accountable to the public. I want them to be accountable to ME. And I’m all for keeping out the gang bangers, wanna-be thugs and bullies that cause disruptions and chaos.
“Public school superintendents are telling me they’ll likely have to cut schools to the bone — eliminate early college, AP and gifted courses, art, music, sports”
Notice what’s missing from that list? Administrators, administrative assistants, secretaries, bureaucrats. Those are what have driven the costs of education through the roof, not teachers and classes. Heck, many teachers pay a goodly amount of the expenses for their classes out of their own pockets. So where is that $10k+ per student per year going? It supports the bureaucracy.
A huge expense is buying canned curricula.
Your translation skills are excellent!
Heck, many teachers pay a goodly amount of the expenses for their classes out of their own pockets. So where is that $10k+ per student per year going? It supports the bureaucracy
May daughter was a teacher and she used almost all recycled items for her class that the school had. She said a lot of teachers were lazy or wasteful. They had these centers in each school with tons of stuff the teachers could have for free, yet my daughter was one of the only ones using its service.,
My wife is a teacher in NC and I am a staunch supporter of vouchers, which has caused not a few discussions. She said something that makes a lot of sense though. The idea is the money follows the child, but what happens a lot is the parents pull the kids from public schools to put them into charter schools (which are also taxpayer funded). The kid is a behavioral or academic problem (which is why the kid was failing in public school) so the charter boots him/her back to the public school…meanwhile, the money stays with the charter school because that’s where the kid was registered at the beginning of the session. The answer she came up with was, if the private/charter/home school takes the money they have to keep the child through the entire paid session and cannot boot them back to the public school system.
Lots of talk about how the private/home schools are better, but one of the reasons this is so is they can pick their clientele and the public schools cannot. If you are a behavior or academic problem at a private/charter school, out you go. Since the public schools are forced to take everyone, they get the problem children, both behaviorally and academically, which adds to the problem.
Most of the problem children come from an environment where education is not valued, and so the children do not value it either. The kids who do value an education, regardless of their environment (some of them realize it’s a way out of the hole), will do well no matter where they are.
Kids/families who value an education will NOT do well if their public school classrooms contain thugs who make it impossible for the teacher to teach. 50+ years ago in NY City they had “600” schools where the “emotionally disturbed and socially maladjusted children” were sent, so everyone else could have a positive learning experience. Not any more.
Yes. I taught at the “premier” private school in these parts for a while. The teachers were subpar and the admin was subpar, but the kids were pretty excellent (academically). They maintain standards solely by admissions.
That doesn’t make it a bad idea to send a kid there, because the disruptions aren’t present.
“Since the public schools are forced to take everyone”
They are forced to take everyone, but not forced to keep everyone…that’s a decision they make. That’s part of the problem. My son is a teacher in the same urban high school he graduated from 20 years ago.
When they have disciplinary issues with kids in their classes, they are NEVER supported by administration. A kid would pretty much have to kill someone to get expelled. He was assaulted by a student back when he was still a Middle School teacher and he had to press charges in the legal system to get anything done…the school ignored it. I was shocked they didn’t fire him for pressing charges.
When he sends kids to the Principle’s office for causing disturbances or disrupting class, they’re back within a few minutes…nothing is done. It gets to the point where he just doesn’t even bother any more because he knows it’s pointless…but that means the kids who want to learn can’t because the class is constantly being disrupted and he has no authority to keep control of his class. If he tried, he’d be the one in trouble.
It’s a shame. He used to love it, but now he’s just biding his time and looking for other opportunities.
I went to public schools and had a great experience and a good education. My kids went to public schools, had a good experience and got a reasonably good education. But things have progressively gotten to the point that I can’t imagine why anyone who actually gives a crap about their kids would subject them to the public schools in their current state.
You might be surprised to learn how hard it is to expel a lid if the parents contest it. There was a kid we expelled no fewer than 5 times and the court kept putting him back in.
In my rural Alabama Community we still have an ‘alternative school’ for kids that are constantly disruptive and distract from learning. In essence it is an in school suspension with classes held at a separate campus.
Everyone is welcome in the mainstream programs but cause disruptions to learning or display lack of respect for authority and you go to the alternative school for the rest of the semester. The.Students have hurdles they have to meet to be allowed back on regular campus at the conclusion of the semester; they have to earn their way back it isn’t just given to them.
The reason that charter schools and private schools and home schools exist is because the public school system has surrendered to the agendas of the teacher’s unions and administrators sympathetic to their politics. Teachers unions are almost universally hard Marxist Left in their worldviews. They are devoutly socialist and the rigors of a solid academic education and a respectful and disciplined learning environment have been abandoned. Why? Because many parents are no more responsible than their children.
Learning is difficult and requires much effort. When they delegate all of the responsibility to the teacher and the school and none of it to the student and themselves, everyone suffers. Schools need more than test standards. They need classroom discipline standards that are strictly enforced. This is nothing new. If you wonder why our nation is lawless, just look at public schools today. They have been teaching it for some time by capitulation.
Marxism is the low way. It abhors excellence, and adores mediocrity. It is an ideology of excuses. It is Envy driven and finds only satisfaction in the tearing down of individual achievers and forcing them into submission to the hateful and indolent collective.
sympathetic to their politics
In accord with their religion. The politics is only a means.
Since the public schools are forced to take everyone
Better said, “Since the public schools want to force everyone into their embrace…”
And it’s Prgressivism that is forcing things like bad students to remain in school and not allowing discipline. If you don’t want the “problem children” disrupting your school, then do something about it – demand the ability to discipline children and to stop the “second chance” malarkey that many thrive on.
Public schools are getting exactly what they’ve demanded: parents handing their kids over to be raised by them.
“The answer she came up with was”
Yeah, that’s just fine tuning a brain-dead bookkeeping rule that allows someone to game the system, not a condemnation of school choice in general.
“If you are a behavior or academic problem at a private/charter school, out you go.”
Well, hooray. This is the same reason I had a car in the city instead of taking public transit. Saddling my kid with the problem kids’ problems is no solution. It simply expands the damage to everybody.
So this clueless fool whines, “ [O]ur State Board of Education will be replaced by political hacks who can dictate what is taught — and not taught — in our public schools.” Would that be like leftist school boards across the country pushing CRT, identity politics, abandonment of grades, and other leftist nonsense; all while insisting parents have no say and saying the Feds should treat protesting parents as domestic terrorists. The Governor is terminally clueless and/or a liar.
He’s projecting, like leftists always do.
The legislature clearly has the votes to strip this character of all his emergency authority and should.
For what reason? He made a speech, no more. He called it a “declaration’ to see if he could trick idiots into thinking he was acting dictatorially.
Seems to have worked.
If he was making a formal declaration, he’d have to do it by Executive Order, according to law. This law:
https://www.ncleg.Gov/Sessions/2021/Bills/House/PDF/H264v5.pdf
have fun reading. Or perhaps that’s asking too much.
Nothing stops the legislature from making a speech called a declaration, either.
We home schooled for a decade. It worked out well for us. Advanced math and sciences, technology, English, Foreign languages, etc.