RALEIGH (September 8, 2022) – Lawyers butted heads before the NC Supreme Court last week over whether the court can order $785 million in spending to meet the state’s constitutional promise to North Carolina students.1 After 28 years of lawyers arguing, it’s long past time for the state to pony up. Beyond the dollars, the… READ MORE
What will it take?
RALEIGH (September 8, 2022) – High-stakes arguments are underway – as they have been for 28 years – in the Leandro case about funding for basic education in our state. What is it about the NC General Assembly that compels our legislators to ignore the educational needs of our most valuable assets: Our children? Our… READ MORE
4,400 invisible teachers
RALEIGH (September 1, 2022) – More than 1.3 million students started the public school year in North Carolina this week. Yet more than 4,400 teachers who should have been at the front of those children’s classes weren’t there, because school officials couldn’t fill the vacancies. And 3,600 more teachers across the state still aren’t fully… READ MORE
Will the NC Chamber walk the walk?
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK (August 11, 2022) – There were lots of nice words at the NC Chamber’s annual Education and the Workforce Conference last week – lots of great ideas shared. Which made it that much more difficult to square with the Chamber’s actions the week before. First, though, some of those ideas: Durham Tech… READ MORE
NC business leaders: Fund the Leandro plan
(August 4, 2022) RALEIGH – More than 50 North Carolina business leaders asked the NC Supreme Court last week to uphold a lower court’s order last fall directing state officials to transfer more than $700 million to improve the state’s public schools. The “friend of the court” brief1 is part of the 28-year-old Leandro case… READ MORE
A pay cut
RALEIGH (July 6, 2022) – With the 2022-23 budget they unveiled and adopted last week, state legislators simply aren’t taking care of their people – our people. The state has a $6.5 billion revenue surplus this year. Let that sink in: $6,524,141,444.00.1 Yet this state continues to systematically underfund public education. By one estimate, the… READ MORE
$6.2B NC surplus: Make education a priority again
RALEIGH (May 18, 2022) – As the NC General Assembly reconvenes today with a $6.2 billion state budget surplus, it’s time to make education a priority again in North Carolina. Officials announced last week that the state will take in $4.24 billion more than projected in the budget year that ends June 30 – a… READ MORE
Our hopes for 2022
RALEIGH (January 6, 2022) – North Carolina heaved a collective sigh of relief in 2021 with approval of the first state budget in three years. But enormous issues remain to be resolved in 2022. We hope, of course, that we at least reach sufficient herd immunity and vaccines for North Carolinians to live with the… READ MORE
Leandro: A quarter-century of bickering
RALEIGH (November 15, 2021) – Robb Leandro was an 8th-grader at West Hoke Middle School in 1994, when the lawsuit over funding for poor North Carolina school districts that bears his name was filed. Twenty-seven years later, he’s 42 years old, with a family and children of his own, and practices law in Raleigh.1 Burley… READ MORE