Leandro ruling proves Republicans can’t pick and choose when NC’s constitution applies

After 17 years of legislative and executive inaction, a North Carolina judge has ordered the state to turn over the necessary funding to fulfill the state’s constitutional obligation to provide every child with a sound basic education.

At a court hearing Wednesday, Superior Court Judge David Lee said the state must release $1.7 billion to fund the first two years of the Leandro comprehensive remedial plan, which would ensure that at-risk children in low-wealth districts have an equal opportunity to prosper.

The ruling itself is a victory for North Carolina, but it never should have been necessary in the first place. It’s been 24 years since the state Supreme Court established that North Carolina had an constitutional obligation to its students, and 17 years since it ruled that the state was falling short on that obligation. It’s shameful that it’s taken this long for that promise to be fulfilled.

But if you thought this court order would be the end of Republican recalcitrance, think again. Republican lawmakers, who have called Lee “unhinged” and a “rogue judge,” have signaled they will fight the order. They’ve argued that the courts do not have the authority to decide how state money is spent. It’s also unclear whether state finance executives, two of whom are Republicans themselves, will abide by Lee’s order.

“The only rebuttal to this clear precedent is an absurd theory developed by Attorney General Josh Stein, which argues that the Constitution, in 1868, ordered a specific funding level for the education budget in the year 2021, and that only an out-of-state consultancy called WestEd can divine the precise funding level the 1868 Constitution ordered,” House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger said in a joint statement Wednesday, calling the situation a “circus.”

The most galling Republican argument yet on NC education spending

Here’s what we’d like to know: at what point did Republicans decide that upholding the Constitution was optional?

Though they’ll say otherwise, Republicans haven’t done enough to improve public schools. In fact, they only seem to have exacerbated the chronic funding gap between students in high and low-wealth counties that the Leandro ruling was intended to fix. A 2020 report from the Public School Forum of North Carolina found that the ten highest spending counties spent, on average, $2,523 more per student than ten lowest spending counties — the largest gap documented since tracking began in 1987. At the same time, North Carolina ranks a dismal 47th in the nation for cost-adjusted per-pupil spending, and our schools face mounting workforce shortages due in large part to low teacher salaries that fall well short of the national average.

And the most dubious part of it all is that while Republicans seem to acknowledge that the quality of our schools isn’t necessarily where it should be, they’ve contended it’s because “children aren’t being taught properly.”

Republicans say Lee is the one prompting the constitutional crisis, but they have no one to blame but themselves. Despite repeated warnings from the court, the General Assembly refused to fully fund the Leandro remedial plan in the state budget, even as the state currently sits on a multibillion-dollar surplus. And, as Lee pointed out, lawmakers could have submitted their own plan to remedy the situation if they wanted to. They didn’t.

No matter what happens with the Leandro case moving forward, North Carolinians should remember how Republicans openly and repeatedly violated the very document they swore to uphold. How hard they fought against giving students the resources they need to succeed. The lengths they have been willing to go to protest a sensible path forward.

“This case is not about the judge. It is not about the legislators. It is not about the attorneys … this is about these children,” Lee said Wednesday.

Republicans would do well to take note of that and participate in thoughtful funding that improves our public schools for all students.