Progressive or regressive? Democrats debate Education Savings Accounts
North Carolina policymakers debate education savings accounts.
A group of 20 law professors is asking the state’s highest court to uphold previous court orders that could force the state to spend hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars on education. The group filed a motion Wednesday to submit a friend-of-the-court brief in a 30-year-old lawsuit commonly referred to as Leandro.
State legislative leaders hope the North Carolina Supreme Court's earliest decisions in a long-running education funding dispute will guide its upcoming actions.
Plaintiffs in North Carolina’s long-running Leandro education funding lawsuit have asked the state Supreme Court to reject the latest petition from state legislative leaders. Top lawmakers are asking the court to take another look at Leandro.
Top leaders of North Carolina’s General Assembly have filed their official request for the state Supreme Court to take another look at the 29-year-old Leandro education funding lawsuit. A judge has ordered $677 million in new education spending tied to a Leandro plan.
Lawyers for North Carolina’s top legislative leaders have signaled that they will seek a new state Supreme Court review of the long-running Leandro education funding case. A footnote in a court filing Friday mentions lawmakers' plan to ask the high court to bypass the state Appeals Court in the latest Leandro dispute.
The judge overseeing North Carolina’s long-running Leandro education funding case says the state must spend an additional $677 million to cover items in a court-endorsed plan. That number matches a figure Gov. Roy Cooper’s state budget office produced in December 2022.
State legislative leaders want the new judge in the Leandro lawsuit to cut the case’s outstanding education spending obligation to $377 million. That’s $300 million less than other parties in the case have recommended.
The N.C. Supreme Court is ordering state government officials to transfer what is likely to be hundreds of millions of dollars out of the state’s treasury to fund a court-ordered education plan. In a 4-3 party-line vote, the court’s Democratic justices overruled Republican colleagues and rejected Republican lawmakers’ arguments in the long-running Leandro case. GOP lawmakers had argued that a forced money transfer would violate the state constitution’s separation of powers.
A short conversation could hold the key to a dispute over hundreds of millions of dollars in education spending.
Dr. Terry Stoops, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation, discusses North Carolina’s Leandro education funding case with Mitch Kokai. Leandro returns to the N.C. Supreme Court on Aug. 31 for oral arguments.
Self-proclaimed “recognized leaders in the North Carolina business community” are jumping into the Leandro school funding debate. They filed paperwork Wednesday in the N.C. Supreme Court to support plaintiffs seeking court-ordered education funding.