State board questions voucher reinvestment, new diversity law

Board members questioned a budget provision that steers millions in savings from the Opportunity Scholarship Program toward education spending, plus a new law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in K-12 public schools.

Voucher savings under scrutiny

The sharpest exchange came over the budget’s treatment of Opportunity Scholarship savings. Lawmakers pegged the amount at $35.7 million – the Education Department’s calculation of what the state saved over two years when students left public schools using vouchers worth less than the state would have spent educating them.

The funds are earmarked in three ways: $17 million in one-time $1,750 bonuses for locally and federally funded school nutrition and custodial workers, $13.8 million for middle-school literacy training, and $10 million to the North Carolina Collaboratory to purchase and adapt another state’s K-8 math curriculum.

Board Vice Chairman Alan Duncan questioned whether more than $30 million of that total represents new money for public schools at all.

“That would appear to be supplanting the refund in order to fund other things that would otherwise be the responsibility of the Legislature,” Duncan said.

The Collaboratory allocation drew particular scrutiny. Only about $5 million of the $10 million is needed to complete the $35.7 million total, and the Collaboratory – a research organization created by the General Assembly – is housed at the University of North Carolina, not the Department of Public Instruction.

“While the money is not going to the public schools, I guess what they purchase would be available to public schools, depending on how that develops,” said Geoff Coltrane, senior director of government affairs and strategy at the Education Department. He presented the budget review.

Asked who would administer whatever curriculum the Collaboratory selects, Coltrane called it “an open question in my mind.”

The reinvestment pledge dates to the 2023 budget law that removed the voucher program’s income cap. In that law, lawmakers declared their intent to return any savings from public-school transfers to public schools. A Department of Public Instruction report presented to the board in May found the two-year savings totaled $35.75 million – and that none of it had been paid into the Public School Reinvestment Fund the law envisioned.

School-choice advocates say the mechanism proves a point they have long argued: Because most vouchers are worth less than the state spends per public-school student, the program saves money rather than draining it.

“The provision underscores how the Opportunity Scholarship Program doesn’t drain funding from the public schools, but can help to strengthen them,” Robert Luebke, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, told Carolina Journal when the budget was released.

Guidance coming

Later in the meeting, first-term Democratic state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green told the board that his department is preparing guidance for school districts on Senate Bill 227, also known as Eliminating "DEI" in Public Education.

It became law June 24 when the House of Representatives completed the Legislature’s override of a gubernatorial veto. DEI is spelled out in the law to mean diversity, equity and inclusion; a number of Republicans, such as U.S. Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina, have since changed the acronym to mean discriminatory equity ideology.

“There are going to be genuine questions about how educators are to apply the law,” Green said, noting that one section restricts instruction on defined “divisive concepts” while another “expressly and appropriately preserves” teaching difficult history, including historical oppression based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and religion.

“Certainly at DPI, we are grappling with the law,” Green added.

As for the compliance timeline, every public school unit must certify to the Education Department by Sept. 1 that it is following the law, and the department must report those certifications to the General Assembly by Jan. 15.

The law prohibits public schools from instruction, professional development and offices promoting 12 defined divisive concepts, such as the belief that one race or sex is inherently superior to another.

Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, has said the bill “is not a ban on teaching history or discussing past injustices,” which is the same distinction Green now says guidance must help schools navigate.

Lawmakers return to Raleigh on July 27 to take up technical corrections and other remaining legislation. The Education Department has not announced a release date for the guidance, and its next report on voucher savings is due to the board next spring, when the question of whether the money reaches public schools will come up again.