Families with disabled children would be eligible for up to $6,000 in tax credits each year to offset costs of attending nonpublic schools under legislation approved by a House committee Tuesday.
Aside from charter-school legislation pending in a joint conference committee, the tax-credit bill would be the most substantial piece of school-choice legislation debated in the General Assembly this year. The measure also has garnered intense opposition from public-school teacher groups, claiming the tax credit would be detrimental to public education and harm special-needs students.
“Our main concern is this legislation will lead to the erosion of the current enrollment in public schools, and thereby decrease state fund and, ultimately, the absolutely essential public support of our public schools,” said Bill McNeal, executive director of the N.C. Association of School Administrators and a past superintendent of the Wake County Public School System.
Sponsors disagree, saying the measure is a win-win for all involved, including local public school districts that reap cost savings from having fewer students in the classroom. It would allow low-income families with special-needs children the opportunity to send their kids to a school better suited to their challenges, they say.
“The parents of these children benefit, and obviously the children benefit,” said House Majority Leader Paul “Skip” Stam, R-Wake, the primary sponsor of House Bill 344, Tax Credits for Children with Disabilities.
After an hour-long debate, the measure passed the House Education Committee in a 26-17 vote Tuesday morning. The bill now goes to the House Finance Committee.
To qualify for the credit, students must have attended a public school for the two preceding semesters. In mid-2016, that requirement would be scaled back to one semester.
Legislative staff say that more than 158,000 students would be eligible under the proposed law, about 11 percent of the total school-age population.
The tax credits would have a net drain of $14.4 million during their first year in effect, but save the state around $10 million per year afterward, according to a fiscal note included with the bill. The credits would save local school districts about the same on an annual basis.
The state savings would go to a special-needs education account in the Department of Public Instruction.
“This is the kind of program we need, not to overthrow the public school system, but to complement it,” said Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina.
But McNeal cast the effort as a thinly veiled attempt to push an anti-public school agenda. “No matter how firmly the supporters of this bill say it’s not about vouchers, we believe that you can’t separate this proposal from the school-choice movement that is seeking to get established in North Carolina,” he said.
H.B. 344 is similar to another bill sponsored by Stam that would reward lower income families who opt out of the public school system with up to $3,500 in tax credits.
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.