Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed H.B. 10, the multifaceted bill that fully funds Opportunity Scholarships, requires sheriffs to cooperate with ICE, and includes adjustments to the budget proposal.
Just a day before, Cooper spent most of his time as the keynote speaker Thursday at the Legislative Session of the 151st Annual North Carolina Press Association (NCPA) Convention blasting Opportunity Scholarships, insisting they will hurt public schools.
“That veto can be upheld if enough legislators in both parties tell Republican leaders that they don’t want to vote on a veto override this year,” he said at a press conference Friday.
Cooper noted at the NCPA Convention that he, his children (although at least one had gone to a private school), and more than 84% of the state’s students go to public schools, and as the pillars of the free press need to be safeguarded, so do public schools.
“Unfortunately, those public schools are facing the biggest threat in decades from the legislature that is pillaging taxpayer money from them and using it for private school vouchers that even the wealthiest families can use for children already in private school,” he said. “These hundreds of millions of dollars in vouchers come with no accountability.”
Cooper said that legislators plan to spend $4 billion on school vouchers over the next decade and that rural schools would be hurt the most because there are fewer private schools in those areas.
He also said that many people who criticize public schools haven’t stepped foot into them and know little about them, adding that surveys show that parents are very satisfied with the public schools where they send their children.
Cooper countered that studies from other states show that private school vouchers don’t improve student performance, but claimed there is no way to know that in North Carolina since there are no reporting requirements for private schools that take taxpayer money.
“Not only have for-profit private school lobbyists convinced legislators to fork over your taxpayer money, they don’t want any strings attached,” he said.
“Gov. Cooper has ranted about the alleged unaccountability of private schools during his tenure, but it didn’t prevent him from sending his daughter to one of those schools,” said Donald Bryson, Chief Executive Officer of the John Locke Foundation, who added that private schools are absolutely held accountable.
“Not only are they accountable to the students, parents and families that they serve, but state law shows that they’re clearly accountable to the state,” he said. “Under state law, private schools have to administer nationally-normed tests and make those results available to state government representatives. What part of state government? The Department of Administration, which reports directly to Gov. Cooper. If he doesn’t think they’re accountable its because he isn’t doing his job or isn’t familiar with state law, which is remarkable since he has been in elected office since 1986.”
More than 55,000 students are on the waiting list for Opportunity Scholarships after the program was opened up last year to everyone who already has children in public schools, prompting thousands of families to apply.
“So why would you not apply and go down and pick up a couple of government checks, and often, many of these private school studies have shown that they are just raising the tuition for the amount of the voucher,” he told the press.
Cooper stated that teachers salaries in North Carolina have dropped to 31st across the US and that there are still teacher vacancies across the state, something he said could be easily fixed by taking a year of funding from Opportunity Scholarships and put it in public district schools like his budget proposal asked the legislature to do.
“We could give teachers an 8.5% raise and a $1500 signing bonus, hire more counselors, and teachers’ assistants that are desperately needed, and still have a whole lot of money left over,” he said. “(North Carolina) it has been a top three state for business in the last five years in a row. In two of those years, we were in first place. We won’t continue to be first in the business if we’ve become last in education.”
Despite all of the protesting against private school vouchers, Cooper added that he doesn’t oppose private schools and that parents should continue to have that choice since it does work for so many students. However, he opposes taking taxpayer money from public schools and giving it to vouchers.
Carolina Journal asked Cooper directly during a Q&A session how Opportunity Scholarship funding would affect public schools since it is a separate line item in the budget.
He said that when children move out of public schools, the money goes with them and that the first priority under the state’s constitution is making sure children get a sound basic education. That means investing in public schools, which includes hiring certified teachers, holding them accountable through testing and grading, providing transportation and food, teaching students with special needs, and accepting all children.
“Private schools have to do none of that, and you’re going to take money from the public schools and give it to private schools to do with, we don’t know what, and with it being a separate line item, that doesn’t mean you aren’t taking money directly out of the public schools,” Cooper said. “It also shrinks the pie because now that you are expanding it, you’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars that if you go to fund these things, then it seems like that’s a priority for the legislature, and you’re not going to have any money to raise teacher salaries, you’re not going to have any money to do after school programs, provide more counselors for teacher assistance. There’s only so much money.”
“While Governor Cooper continues to stand opposed to parental school choice calling the Opportunity Scholarship Program a ‘scheme’ we know firsthand that tens of thousands of families in our state have benefited from this program, while we also saw historic demand for the program this year,” Mike Long, President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina said in a press release Friday.
“Our legislature is choosing, through the expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program and Special Needs ESA, to invest in students, while Governor Cooper would rather our state invest in systems. The time to invest in students over systems is now, and we encourage leaders in the General Assembly to override the Governor’s veto of House Bill 10 as soon as possible.”
Incoming Speaker of the House, Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, told CJ that while he couldn’t comment directly on Cooper’s comments since he arrived later in the session, he thinks parents ought to make their own decisions about where their children go to school, pointing to the 55,000 backlog of students waiting on the list.
“I think those results speak for themselves,” he said. “The money that we put towards Opportunity Scholarships is towards education because it’s to help those kids get to the school that their parents want them to go to. I’m proud of the program and glad to continue it.”
When asked about Cooper’s promise to veto it, Hall jokingly said he made that announcement for him last week, so it’s not breaking news. He added that the GA will override his veto sometime shortly, possibly before the election, if not shortly after that, and probably with some Democratic support, making it a bipartisan effort.