Republican legislators are focused this Session on further eroding public education in North Carolina. The latest effort is a massive expansion of the state’s voucher program. North Carolinians deserve to know the facts about how this would affect education in our state. 

Officials from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, headed by Republican Superintendent Catherine Truitt, explained this week that “the overwhelming amount of funds that this goes towards is people currently at the private schools already.” This program will largely help to bankroll -- with public money -- students who are already enrolled in private schools, and who have never been in public schools.

These are essential facts about the program that North Carolinians should understand:

• Fact: Nonpublic schools receiving voucher funding DO NOT have to administer any state-level standardized tests. 

• Fact: Nonpublic schools would be held to different standards than public schools. 

• Fact: Nonpublic schools have fewer mechanisms for accountability than public schools. 

• Fact: Nonpublic school teachers DO NOT have to be licensed or otherwise display competency to teach.

• Fact: Many nonpublic schools are able to discriminate against potential enrollees on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and religion.

• Fact: Any religious private schools that do not receive federal funding are able to discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, religion and physical or mental disability. 

“North Carolina used to be a leader in public education. Now, instead of providing the support that public schools, teachers and students need, the state is on the verge of directing taxpayer money to the richest North Carolinians so they can subsidize the cost of private schools,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said. “We should be addressing the urgent needs of our state’s public schools, as our state constitution instructs us to do.”