From the Salisbury Post – Dec. 1, 2024 – “In attempting to justify this action, Rep. Tricia Cotham, the recently converted Republican disciple said, ‘We are ensuring that every child has a chance to thrive.’ Cotham would have been more accurate in saying that every white child has a chance to thrive.”

15 Reasons to Oppose Private School Vouchers

1. Vouchers divert funding from district schools, funding already insufficient.

2. Private schools can pick and choose who they admit.

3. Private schools do not have to accept or offer help to special-needs children.

4. Private schools do not have to provide transportation to and from school, nor meals, automatically eliminating many students who require one or both.

5. Private schools aren’t required to have licensed teachers.

6. Private schools can choose their own curricula and textbooks.

7. The majority of private schools are owned or sponsored by religious organizations. Religious instruction is mandated in many of them.

8. Private schools are not required to adhere to the legislatively approved school calendar, number of required instruction days nor length of each school day.

9. They lack transparency and accountability, being exempt from most rules and regulations public schools are required to follow.

10. Private schools are required to annually test students to learn how they are performing; however, they can choose what tests they administer and are not required to report student results. Other states are learning that student performance actually declined after students transferred from public schools.

11. Vouchers don’t cover the full cost of tuition. The average cost of private school tuition is $10,442 in North Carolina. Voucher payments are scaled according to family income, but the most a student can receive is $7,468. Families are obligated to make up the difference.

12. Vouchers are being given to students who were already are enrolled in private schools.

13. Vouchers increase segregation. Most private school enrollments are disproportionately white when compared to the community or county in which they are located.

14. If the goal of vouchers is to “ensure every child has a chance to thrive,” there are many children being discriminated against because they don’t live in a county or community where private schools are available. They don’t have school choice.

15. Vouchers to private schools violate a longstanding state policy of giving public funds to private institutions.

Read the entire article at: https://www.salisburypost.com/2024/12/01/tom-campbell-public-dollars-directed-to-segregation-academies/