Before we move on to this week's Locke Notes, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the heaviness of today, the 23rd anniversary of 9/11. Like most of you, the horror and sorrow of that devastating day, and the subsequent toll and grief that war waged on Americans, still feels fresh in many ways. I'd like to share a piece I wrote in reflection of that day. You can read it here:
I don’t know if you remember this, but one of the “More From Locke” stories we recently highlighted noted that education freedom doesn’t stop with legalization. We must be vigilant to ensure that parents have access to schools that best fit their family’s needs, and that our kids get the education they deserve. And, while last week we talked about threats we’ve seen in Utah and here in North Carolina, there’s another one I wanted to make sure you knew about.
It turns out that, due to the General Assembly’s lack of movement on a budget, a bunch of charter schools are going to be hurt.
The Backstory
In 2023, the NC General Assembly passed a budget that set aside $11.5 billion for K-12 education in 2023-2024 and another $11.8 billion for 2024 - 2025
But it also created a new method for funding public district and charter schools: “Funding in arrears”
If you’re wondering what that means, it means schools receive funding based on the previous years enrollment NOT projections for the next year
Yes, those numbers can change and that’s why they created the “ADM Contingency Reserve” to account for schools that educate new students
And that means there is not enough money in the ADM Contingency Reserve
Now the NC Department of Public Instruction (DPI) won’t transfer additional state funding to charter schools that are teaching more of North Carolina’s children
This is important because the News & Observer shows that enrollment in charter schools grew by 5% (while public school declined by 0.4%)
And now that our charter schools aren’t getting the funding they were promised they may have to:
Miss payroll for teachers
Miss lease payments
Incur disciplinary consequences from the DPI for failure to meet their financial obligations
Receive a shorter charter renewal
Scrap plans to build or expand (despite the fact that there is already an 85,000 student waitlist)
Borrow funds at high interest rates so they can meet their obligations
Lay off teachers or other school personnel
Turn away students
If you think that was a lot, it is. But, the legislature’s failure to act and fully fund the ADM is going to put parents and kids in an unfair situation (not to mention the charter school staff). And to add insult to injury, John, the House and Senate already agree on the amount of money to fix this problem ($95 million), they just haven’t gotten around to it. The General Assembly is in session this week, and the Senate accomplished some meaningful work related to Opportunity Scholarships on Monday (read about that here). Now it's the House's turn. Maybe things will start looking up for NC students and schools?
That is a fair question. In 2020 a loophole in NC’s same day voter registration law meant over 1700 ballots were counted in North Carolina from people that were NOT legally registered to vote
These people are “ghost voters”
Thankfully the General Assembly closed this loophole in 2023
Okay… but how did all of that happen?
Alright, this is fairly complicated, and we’d highly recommend you read the whole piece, but basically under NC law you must register to vote 25 days before election day. However, there are several exceptions, one of which is same-day-registration (SDR) during early voting… and in 2020 a loophole in NC law on SDRs forced county election officials to count ballots form people not legally registered to vote
So, what are the implications?
You can get the full breakdown here, but the long and short of it is:
If the county board of elections couldn’t verify your address than your registration would be denied but your absentee vote would be challenged
Here’s the problem, the challenge is an empty threat.
Because ballot challenges during the election can only be based on “individualized evidence”
And returned mail (like what the county does to verify that someone still lives there) doesn’t count as individualized evidence
All of this means that 1.82% of SDR ballots were unverified
But… the General Assembly fixed the problem (over Gov. Cooper’s veto)
The legislature passed SB 747, which not only nixed the ghost voter problem, it also passed a host of other election reforms.
When she spoke at the convention for the American Federation of Teachers last July, Vice President Harris said “God knows we don’t pay you enough”
That made us wonder: “How does NC teacher pay compare to average pay in the private sector?”
According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, average estimated teacher pay in NC for ‘23 - ‘24 is $59,423
Meanwhile, the NC Department of Commerce estimates that the avg. private-sector wage in NC was $65,409
That is almost a $6k difference
However, if you really dig into the data you will see that at the county level average teacher pay exceeded average private-sector wages in all but six counties
In case you’re wondering, those six counties are Forsyth, Durham, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Orange, and Wake
Caveat time…
The best analysis would compare average teacher pay by county with average annualized wage by county
However, those figures aren’t available
Second the figures used are averages, that means some people make more and some make less
Finally, the salary figures for teachers are on a 10 month (not a 12 month) schedule. It is assumed that teachers can and do earn other income
