North Carolina Democrat Governor Declares State of Emergency Over…School Choice

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.

 

Tags: Education, North Carolina, school choice

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