Saving North Carolina’s Public Education System

How to Stop Those Who Would Betray North Carolina's Children and Future

This is the first essay in Civic Way’s series on North Carolina’s primary and secondary education system. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving public agencies.

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Education is the foundation for all we do in life, it shapes who we are and what we aspire to be. – Jim Hunt (former four-term governor of North Carolina)

As part of its work on public education in America, Civic Way is taking a closer look at one state—North Carolina. This state, the ninth largest state in the US, was once regarded as one of the most innovative and progressive states in America. In recent years, however, North Carolina has fallen under the spell of legislative extremists (and the legislature’s veto-proof majority).

Instead of governing on behalf of all citizens, the state legislature has catered to extremist donors. Rather than seek input from others, it has passed cookie cutter laws, often without debate or deliberation. Rather than forge good ideas from compromise and consensus, it has used its gerrymandered majorities to force untested laws on an unsuspecting public. Ideology, not the public interest, has been their touchstone.

To illustrate, the state’s new budget includes big right-wing treats like large tax cuts and universal private school vouchers. It also includes many partisan provisions written behind closed doors. Banning COVID-19 vaccination mandates. Raising the retirement age for supreme court justices (to maintain the GOP majority until 2028). Gutting public records laws and seizing the right to destroy public documents (consistent with its accountability defiance strategy).

This approach is particularly true in public education where the legislature has turned its back on decades of bipartisan consensus and progress. Our series shines a light on North Carolina’s radical, ill-conceived campaign to dismantle public education. Not only to sound an alarm for North Carolinians, but to those in other states where such policies are under serious consideration (or have already been enacted).

America become a great nation in large part because it invested in free, quality public schools. It built a public education system across 50 states for two reasons—to prepare young workers for a competitive economy and to produce thoughtful citizens for self-governance. For over two decades, leaders from both parties—from Bill Clinton to George Bush—worked together to improve our public education system.

Now is not the time to dismantle that system. Now is the time to strengthen it.