North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoes school choice once again

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has again attempted to stifle school choice in North Carolina by vetoing additional funding the Legislature approved for students waiting for scholarships.

Earlier this month, Republican state legislators announced HB 10 would appropriate nearly $250 million to clear the Opportunity Scholarship waitlist of 55,000 students.

Families of all means are eligible for the program, but scholarship amounts are prorated according to income.

No scholarship exceeds the average state expenditure per public school student, which was $7,213 last year.

Despite HB 10 breezing through the Legislature, it came to a grinding halt at the governor’s desk.

“This bill takes public taxpayer dollars from the public schools and gives it to the private school vouchers that will be used by wealthy families,” Cooper claimed in a press release. “Studies show that private school vouchers do not improve student performance, but we won’t know with North Carolina’s voucher scheme because it has the least accountability in the country.

“This money should be used to improve our public schools by raising teacher pay and investing in public school students. Therefore, I veto the bill.”

Cooper is no friend of the school choice movement, despite sending his own children to a private school that cost tens of thousands of dollars a year.  

In 2023, he vetoed a bill that would have allowed more students to attend charter schools and declared a state of emergency when the Republican-led Legislature overrode another of his school choice vetoes. 

Now, he has declared 2024 the “Year of Public Schools. 

His official website header even warns of a “Public School Emergency.” 

“We need to put a moratorium on destructive private school vouchers until North Carolina’s public schools are fully funded,” it reads. 

However, The John Lock Foundation, a North Carolina-based think tank, fact-checked Cooper’s press release, calling his fearmongering “unoriginal” and “easily refuted.”  

Researchers explain Opportunity Scholarships do not deprive public schools of funds. Instead, they prioritize low-income families, improve academic performance, educational attainment and parental satisfaction.  

While policymakers can bandy back and forth all day about dollars or data, it’s impossible to deny the universal interest. 

This spring, North Carolina received 72,000 applications for the Opportunity Scholarship. And its program for special needs students (ESA+) also grew by 28% from 2023. 

And North Carolina isn’t the only state where families are clamoring for opportunities. 

School choice programs in states such as Utah, Oklahoma and Indiana are overflowing with students.