Did you miss this interview of the Dem nominee for NC's state superintendent?
Maurice "Mo"Green sat down with FOX 8 earlier this month. See what he had to say.
Did you miss this interview on FOX 8 of the Democratice nominee for NC's state superintendent?
Well, if you did, I’ve got the goods.
Fox 8 senior political reporter Bob Buckley, who hosts the show “Swing State,” interviewed Green on March 17.
There were plenty of interesting bits in this interview, but the long-running Leandro funding case was barely touched on.
Here’s the video (below) and the transcript. The transcript is not perfect but it’s pretty accurate. I’ll offer some thoughts after readers get a chance to check those two items out.
Key parts to watch for include contradictory statements on school choice and the Parents’ Bill of Rights. Here are those nuggets to look for:
“… we ought to not continue the expansion, but actually slow down, maybe even having a short term moratorium on charter schools…”
“For me, yes, there would be a cap put back on [charter schools] …”
“I believe that parents should make whatever decision they feel is right for their child.”
“ The issue that I would certainly lift up then is with regards to, you know, these schools like traditional private schools or other sort of institutions is the public dollars need to remain in our public schools.”
“I actually start off in a different place with regards to the parents Bill of Rights, the actual descriptor of it itself has this suggestion that parents need to have some sort of Bill of Rights in order to effectively engage with our public school system. Let's stop right there. Our public school systems want to and do engage with our parents quite effectively and, you know, certainly we want parents to feel empowered in that system, but they I don't believe need to have a….this suggestion of a Bill of Rights.”
Ok, some thoughts.
Green talks about “woefully underfunding” the state’s public schools yet the host doesn’t ask him what level of funding he’d like to see. In fact, this is something that is never asked: how much is enough?
Education funding in the state budget is the largest allotment each year.
According to the General Assembly’s Fiscal Research Division (FRD), “Education was $16.479 billion or 59.1% of the 2023 Net General Fund budget.”
State spending on education in the budget has only increased over the last decade.
FRD also notes that, “"The largest investment within the Education section of the 2023 Appropriations Act are the salary and benefit increases for education personnel which are described in preceding sections.”
You can pluck the salary details out of this analysis by FRD, which includes
”More than $2.4 billion in salary and benefit increases for State employees, retirees, and State-supported local employees over the biennium,” and increasing starting teacher pay to $39,000 in FY 2023-24, a 5.4% increase over the FY 2022-23schedule and to $41,000 in FY 2024-25, an additional 5.1% increase.”
Green also complained the state’s per pupil spending was behind other states, and mentioning a report (that he did not actually name) claiming we’re near the bottom of all states (38th) in that area.
This is a long-standing topic that is notoriously misrepresented.
Rankings of education spending of various types is often sourced from Teacher union the National Education Association’s (NEA) when it comes to attacking education funding in NC.
This is likely where the "NC ranks 38th" line in Green’s interview came from, however, the NEA rankings are problematic for two reasons: One, they do not take into account local supplemental funding and two, they are not adjusted for cost of living.
Per FRD, per pupil spending has continually risen in North Carolina, going from an average $5,361 in 2011-12 to an average $7,426 in 2021-22.
Per pupil spending is even higher now and varies wildly by district due to local supplemental funding differences as one can see from the FRD graphic below.
Per the NC Statistical Profile, NC's overall average per pupil expenditures (PPE) with child nutrition included for 2022-23 was around $12,636. Hyde County's was the number one in the state at over $27,212. Union County was last out of the 115 districts with over $10,863.
Green’s citation of the "report" that NC is at the bottom could also be referring to the annual census report on school finances, which draws its data from 2021-22 sources. Or, he could also be referencing this report by Reason Foundation claiming NC education spending has not increased, which, as the data discussed in this article, shows is demonstrably wrong.
Let's also not forget that NC saw an avalanche of money to the tune of $9.4 billion through multiple rounds of federal COVID funding. A lot of that money was used for teacher bonuses and is now going away.
Let's go back to the large portion of the education budget that ends up in salaries and benefits.
Per the Department of Public Instruction, the 2022-23 expenditures by districts, salaries were over $6.683 billion (64.32%) and benefits came in at over $2.983 billion (28.71%)
On the enrollment decline, education data group BEST NC had this to say in its Aug. 2023 Facts & Figures:
Overall enrollment in K-12 traditional public schools decreased by 3.8% between 2017-18 and 2022-23, with 95 of 115 districts experiencing a decline.
Between 2016-17 and 2021-22, the number of charter school students increased by 43% and the number of homeschool students increased by 26%. In 2021-22, charter and homeschool students represented 7% and 9% of the total K-12 student population, respectively
The source BEST NC uses is the NEA.
Further down in BEST NC's report, we see the federal funds blended into the per pupil calculations as well as adjusting for inflation. However, cost of living is not included.
Green claimed that as a country the U.S. "woefully" underfunds schools yet all data shows the opposite. Education spending has only increased, and has skyrocketed with administrative bloat in the past two decades.
I was glad to see the host touch on the fact that increased per pupil or education spending overall does not guarantee positive student outcomes.
Washington, D.C. is a shining example of that.
For example, in 2021, D.C. spent $23,828 per student yet their state assessment and proficiency scores were abysmal. Yes, this was the year after the pandemic closures, but students in other states performed better for less funding, including NC.
Where increased spending has been seen to make a difference is when that spending is targeted: on rural and lower-income students. In other words, it's not how much money you spend but where and how you spend it.