Governor Decries Unconstitutional Budget

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Governor Beverly Perdue.  

 

By Moe White

In a telephone interview on July 21, Gov. Beverly Perdue discussed North Carolina’s schools in light of the annual No Child Left Behind ratings and a recent legal ruling by Judge Orr that the 2011-12 budget passed by the state legislature unconstitutionally shortchanges children under the Leandro precedent.

“The Leandro Case” was a suit filed in 1994 on behalf of families from five low-wealth North Carolina counties who argued that because their school districts were unable to raise adequate funding, the state was falling short of its constitutional duty to provide equal education to all students. Judge Howard Manning of the NC Supreme Court, who got the case in 1999, ruled that the state had not been providing “a sound, basic education” to students in these low-wealth counties, guaranteed to every student according to the NC Constitution. The Court ruled that although equal quality of education is guaranteed, equal funding is not; however, in the ensuing years many low-wealth counties have received extra funding from the state.

 


Governor Perdue explained that the Constitutional right to education includes at-risk four-year-olds, which led to the establishment and funding of North Carolina’s acclaimed More At Four program. “Under Judge Manning’s ruling,” the governor noted, “any child has the right to a sound, basic education, and any school or district or county with poorly performing schools got extra state money.”

That ruling was cited this summer by Judge Robert Orr in a challenge to the de-funding of education in the 2011-12 budget, which became law when the legislature overrode the governor’s veto. The budget, the first passed by a Republican-controlled legislature in 140 years, severely cut funding for education, including slashing money for Pre-K education by 20 percent. It also imposed a co-payment on parents of up to 10 percent of their income and moved the program from the Department of Public Education to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Judge Orr said today that any child coming to the school house has the right to a free education. Ninety percent of these children are in the free lunch program and their families cannot afford to pay these fees,” Gov. Perdue said. That is the law of the land, but until and unless the legislature re-funds education as required by the court, she is looking into ways to encourage churches, community groups, and other organizations to sponsor 167,000 students.

“Even in wealthy districts there are pockets of inadequate educational opportunity, but the language of the new law opens academic pre-school only to 20 percent of needy children. I’m a former primary school teacher myself,” the governor said, “and you can tell in six or eight weeks if a child is at grade level or not.”

She said it was also easy to discern who has come through early education programs, whether state-funded like More At Four or private kindergarten. “Children who have an early childhood education experience are more likely to be academic leaders,” she asserted.

She also noted the absurdity of moving an educational program out of the education department. “Eight positions were transferred from the public school system to HHS to cover this academic program. You have something that was working very well where it was, and there’s simply no rhyme or reason for moving [More at Four] to Health and Human Services,” she said.

The governor also discussed the recent release of Adequate Yearly Progress reports for Asheville City Schools (see related article). Like numerous school administrators, she emphasized that individual schools and entire districts have made substantial, measurable progress, but that standards also rise year to year. Even if a school makes a 10-percent or 15-percent improvement in student performance, it might still fall behind the goals set by No Child Left Behind, if the goals increase by that amount or more.

Earlier in 2011 Gov. Perdue used the authority of her office to issue an Executive Order to continue paying unemployment benefits after the legislature refused to change the formula to conform to that used by the federal government to calculate benefits and eligibility. On Aug. 10 she ordered DHHS to enroll all children who are eligible for the renamed More at Four program (now NC Pre-K), and to maintain the program’s standards and eliminate all admission barriers to at-risk preschool children. The number enrolled could roughly double in the new school year.

“It is absolutely essential that this program remain an academic Pre-K program,” said Gov. Perdue. “These children are far more likely to succeed in a career or college down the road.”

Now that the issue has been ruled on by the court, the next step is up to state legislators. If they don’t act to correct the funding disparities, the petitioners can—and probably will—petition Judge Orr for a further ruling to require budget changes.