Questions continue to surround the future of North Carolina’s academic pre-kindergarten program, formerly known as More At Four. Based on a Wake County judge’s rulings, the governor and General Assembly have clashed over funding for that program. Dr. Terry Stoops, John Locke Foundation director of education studies, discussed the issue with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Martinez: Why is a judge at the center of a controversy over pre-kindergarten services?
Stoops: This goes back to court case called Leandro. Leandro was a court case that was brought on by some low-income counties who at first claimed that they didn’t have the money that they needed to have a successful school system, but later on said, “Well, the constitution guarantees an adequate level of service, and we don’t think that’s being provided.” So they took it to the judge, a series of court cases, and the court is now overseeing that Leandro decision. Judge Manning is the judge that is overseeing it. He’s a Superior Court judge in Wake County.
Martinez: We had a budget fight here in North Carolina over the last few months. The budget is … law. The governor actually vetoed it; the legislature overturned it. And pre-kindergarten services were part of that budget. So why did Gov. Perdue then issue this executive order essentially saying, “What you did in the budget isn’t what you need to do?”
Stoops: Well, it’s because these same counties that first sued the state came back, and they wanted to bring this before Judge Manning again, and so Judge Manning heard from both sides — the state and these low-income counties, for the most part — about whether the budget was adequate, whether it met the constitutional guarantee of a free, adequate education in North Carolina. And Judge Manning issued an order that said the legislature cannot create any barriers to pre-K entry.
In other words, they can’t have any limits to pre-K entry for “at-risk” pre-kindergarten kids. So essentially he was saying that the budget — that part of the budget — was unconstitutional, not consistent with the Leandro case, and Gov. Perdue was simply following that up by saying, “Listen to Judge Manning, legislators.”
Martinez: So the governor uses the judge’s order. The governor then says to the legislature, “Hey, I don’t like what’s in the budget, and the judge says you’re going to have to do something different, so go do something different.” So then the legislators say, “Hey, Judge Manning, clarify what you meant.” Judge Manning responded. What did he say?
Stoops: Well, he responded by saying, “What was in my initial order is what you need to do.” There was very little clarification, which is what the legislators asked for in this follow-up.
Martinez: That’s the odd thing about it. Are we any closer to an actual definition of what it is that the legislature would be required to do, according to the judge?
Stoops: Absolutely not. Here’s an example of one of the things that needs to be clarified — what qualifies as an “at-risk” student? If we have to provide pre-kindergarten services for all “at-risk” students, it would make sense that we actually had a definition of what “at risk” means. I think that’s one of the things that the legislators wanted to clarify.
And unfortunately, there was no clarification, and there was no definition offered of that, or what is meant by a barrier to pre-K entry. What is a barrier? Is it a family barrier? Is it an income barrier? So, you know, we still have many questions, and the legislators, rightfully so, have filed an appeal because they still don’t quite know what the order commands them to do.
Martinez: These services — who actually has access to them? Terry, when I think about pre-kindergarten, I know people who have young kids and they actually go pay for their kids to have some sort of a pre-K service — part babysitting, part education. So who is it that gets state-funded services?
Stoops: Well, these are mostly low-income parents, but a case can be made that an “at-risk” student could also be a student [who] has a disability or a student [who] has English-as-a-second-language needs. So those two categories could be considered “at-risk” students. But typically, what we mean when we say “at-risk” is low-income students. These are students that perhaps receive a free or reduced-price lunch at their school, and these are the students that I know Judge Manning is probably thinking of when he says “at risk.”
But it is very likely that these other groups could make a case that they are also under the “at-risk” label, meaning that tens of thousands more students would qualify for pre-K services, paid for by the state, under Judge Manning’s order.
Martinez: Essentially, isn’t that sort of what happened early on in this whole Leandro case in which Judge Manning got involved in the first place? It started out with low-income counties saying, “We need assistance. We aren’t being served.” And then other counties wanted to get in.
Stoops: That’s right. And the Leandro case started as what was called an equity case. An equity case basically means that some counties are claiming that they don’t receive the amount of money needed to compete with the other counties around them. And it became an adequacy case. Is the education adequate? Is the service being offered, regardless of how much money is being put into the system, meeting the needs of the students? And the judges decided that in some cases no, in some cases yes.
But this has been going on for a decade now. We have been under the foot of Leandro, and we’re sort of at the mercy of Judge Manning, who is the sole judge overseeing this case and will continue to do so with no end in sight.
Martinez: Well, what is the end game then? Do we have any indication even from the judge himself as to what it is that he’s trying to get to that will bring this case to a close?
Stoops: I don’t think we’ll ever bring this case to a close unless a higher court decides to bring it to a close. What happened was, this case was ruled on by the [North Carolina] Supreme Court. But what they did was, they remanded it back to a trial court, which essentially is a way of saying they kept it alive. By remanding it, it means it’s still in the court system, and it’s still under their oversight. So, by doing this, they kept it alive indefinitely, and until there’s radical action in the judicial system to get rid of this case, then Judge Manning will continue issuing edicts and threats to the legislature, the governor, and whoever else he chooses to.
Martinez: After all of this back and forth recently, do we have any sense at all what the legislature is going to be required to do?
Stoops: We don’t have much of a sense because, first of all, there are differing accounts of how much additional money would be required to give pre-K services to all “at-risk” kids. Some estimates are as low as $100 million, some as high as $300 million, on top of what we already spend on pre-K [that] would be required to meet this population of tens of thousands of students that Judge Manning believes should be receiving pre-kindergarten services.
Martinez: Are these education services, Terry, or is this babysitting?
Stoops: Well, it varies on really the quality of the facility giving the services. But there is an idea here that Judge Manning is basing all of this on — that if you’re an “at-risk” kid and you’re receiving pre-kindergarten services, then somehow that will make you ready for kindergarten and be a successful student into elementary, middle, and high school.
The evidence seems to show that, even if an “at-risk” kid receives pre-kindergarten services, the benefits that those services have provided those kids will fade out by middle school. So he is assuming that these services will be of lasting benefit for low-income kids, but, unfortunately, the evidence doesn’t bear that out.