It was a point made last year in June when the Guilford County Commissioners passed a budget and also a point made at the commissioners meeting at the board’s Thursday, June 6, 2024, meeting as well – a meeting where the commissioners heard from a lot of school system advocates that Guilford County Schools is underfunded.
The message from the commissioners was this: Don’t look at us. We are doing all we can. It is the State of North Carolina that needs to step up and help fund the schools.
Guilford County Schools, like school systems across the state, get funding from three main sources: the county, the state and the federal government. Last year, Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston asked the cities and the towns across the county to start contributing money for schools, but that ask seems to be going nowhere. They hope the new request to the state will go somewhere.
At the June 6 meeting during the board’s public hearing on the manager’s fiscal 2024-2025 budget, Commissioner Mary Beth Murphy read aloud the board’s united plea to state legislators requesting increased state funding for schools.
Murphy, a teacher in the Guilford County school system, read the statement to a packed meeting room and an audience at home watching via television and livestreams.
“Since 2021, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners has made historic investments in public education by increasing local funding for K-12 schools by more than $115 million in just three budget cycles,” she read. “The manager’s proposed budget for FY24-25 would bring that investment up to $140 million, a 50 percent increase over 4 years…Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the NC General Assembly. As costs to operate schools rise, and the needs of learners require additional investment, the NCGA [NC General Assembly] continues to fail to meet its responsibility to provide a sound education to all children.”
Murphy went on to point out that the state government has a constitutional mandate to fund the schools and the failure of the state to adequately do so has put local governments like Guilford County “in an impossible position.”
The county, Murphy noted, has a mandate to build and maintain school buildings, but the county also has a multitude of other responsibilities – such as providing a Sheriff’s Office, Foster Care programs, Medicaid Expansion services, Emergency Services and lots of other essential services with constantly rising costs.
Murphy also pointed out that the resolution was bipartisan since it was a unanimous statement from the board.
“The shortfall in education funding left by the state has dire implications for both our students and County services,” she read to the highly supportive audience in the commissioners’ meeting room.
The unified message from the Guilford County Board of Commissioners said the solution is crystal clear: The NC General Assembly must start providing sufficient funding to help meet the increasing costs of education in the state’s public schools.
The resolution also called on commissioners in other counties across the state to join Guilford County in this mission and adopt similar resolutions.
“North Carolina ranks very low in terms of state funding for public schools.” Murphy read. “According to the Education Law Center’s ‘Making the Grade’ report, North Carolina ranks 50th in school funding effort and 48th in overall funding level. The state’s funding effort, which measures the percentage of state GDP allocated to education, is significantly below the national average. North Carolina’s per-pupil funding level is $10,791, which is $4,655 below the national average (Education NC) (Daily Tar Heel). This inadequate funding has led to numerous challenges, including insufficient staffing, outdated technology, and a greater burden on local governments to address the deficiencies.”
NC already has the lowest corporate income tax rate in the country at 2.5% but the plan is to reduce to zero for some absurd reason. But as typical for conservatives, they love to cut taxes while but not actually fix the issues requiring the funding in the first place. Public education is a great example where the State is happy to cut funding even though we have one of the worst public education systems in the US. Guess we know who conservative really care about. North Carolina ranked 35th in student success, 44th in school quality and 38th in student safety.
Some will say funding isn’t the problem. I don’t disagree. But fix the problem before you cut funding if you really care about education for those that can’t afford private education.
Chris, your comment “But as typical for conservatives, they love to cut taxes while but not actually fix the issues requiring the funding in the first place.” invites the riposte: “But as is typical for liberals, they love to increase taxes while not actually fixing the issues allegedly requiring the funding.” Both left and right (and regrettably, both major parties) pontificate on problems that appeal to their respective bases, but instead of fixing them, blame and shame the other side for their mutual failures to achieve results. Confirmation biases may be diametrically opposed on hot button issues, but the attendant spin expressed is mostly invariant…
How much of that $10,791 per pupil is actually spent on educating students? And what about the same question for comparative state school systems? Similarly, how does student performance on standardized tests compare across states? Do the states with the highest levels of student performance spend the highest amounts per pupil? If so, how much of their total spend goes toward actually educating students? If not, why not? What evidence is being offered that spending more per pupil results in better student performance? How do charter schools compare? If Murphy wants to argue statistics to blame someone else, maybe she ought to spend some time researching these questions. If the answers favor her argument, she would improve her credibility from presenting them. If not, perhaps that may be why she does not present them.
It’s never their fault, is it?
Where is the mandate that the government funded schools actually educate our children? Look at the lack of progress our students have made.
I feel no sympathy for the School System until better accountability is provided.
I think education is a foundational necessity and should be funded; this should be the purview of the government. No argument there, however I would think that government should strive to make the funding predicated by tangible results. If I should go to, say, a Starbucks® (perish the thought), and order Largo Mocha Latte and get a half a cup of black coffee, I’m rightfully going to be more than a little disappointed.
Unfortunately, we’ve been paying for that latte and all we’ve gotten so for is a stingy cup of bitter dregs. It should be incumbent on our leaders to make increased funding of schools contingent on noticeable increases in student performance.
Wanting more yet the kids are still not at level for reading or math. Show some results!
Over the last several years, public education has become a “move them along” with their peers process. . .even if they can’t spell, do math, etc. . .”it’s for the children” as they say. No teacher wants to “fail” a student, or keep them back as we did when I was in grade school in the 1950s. Why? Because school administrators and members of the commission won’t stand for keeping students behind their peers, even if they can’t spell or do simple match. When they graduate, or pushed thru school to get rid of them, they have a hard time in the employment line. And students now get “way” more higher grades than the 1950s-60s, if nothing more than to reward everyone, even if they can’t read.
Yes, private schools cost more, but they teach and hold the students and parents accountable. Sadly, public education amounts to get them to 18 and get them out.
Lots of finger pointing on both sides, but the fact is…BOTH the county and the state are seriously underfunding education in NC and the only people that lose is the child AND the rest of us. The student that doesn’t get the education he deserves because of the people in control AND the people that are stuck living in a society where children and their education wasn’t valued. The county needs to seriously step up…but the state does too and one shouldn’t wait for the other.
Here’s a novel idea;
Create a statewide lottery game that will promise to fund the entire state education system!!
Doing so will bring untold millions of dollars into state coffers while instilling a gambling addiction into the citizenry that was not there before. Within a few years it may even lead to citizens placing legal sports bets from their phones!
Won’t that be a great solution to our problems!?
Rush Limbaugh once said the answer to getting educational spending under control was to go through and ask each person in the school how their job DIRECTLY impacts the education of the children. If they don’t, give them their walking papers effective immediately.
We need to go back to the basics of education. The 3Rs, shop, home economics, and health.
1. Back to the basics
2. Abolish the federal Department of Education
3. Return responsibility of educating of our children to at minimum the State level, but preferably the local level with heavy parent input.