By Amy Cockerham
Public Ed Works

RALEIGH (August 14, 2025) – As students head back to the classroom, we’re diving deeper into the struggles educators are dealing with in our state.

Over the next several weeks, we will publish a series of articles to address how legislative actions – and inaction – in North Carolina over the past few decades have contributed to harm in our public schools.

Our findings show North Carolina is underinvesting in public education, and it’s causing problems in the classroom and beyond.

To start with, fewer high school graduates are heading to college. The latest state report shows in 2015, 66% enrolled. In 2024, only 59% enrolled.

ACT performance is down. In 2015, 59.7% of students scored at or above the minimum composite requirement. In 2024, only 40.2% met the minimum.

THAT’S JUST the tip of the iceberg.

Kris Nordstrom is a Senior Policy Analyst with the North Carolina Justice Center. He spends time researching education in the state.

“Our public schools have been chronically underfunded,” Nordstrom said. “Unconstitutionally underfunded.”

North Carolina ranks 49th in funding effort, or the amount spent on public education as a percentage of the state’s economy.

It all dates back to the Leandro case, a lawsuit filed in 1994 that argues low-wealth and some urban counties don’t have enough money to provide an equal education for their children. Twice, the NC Supreme Court ruled that the state should ensure all students a sound, basic education. However, the case is still being debated.

Low teacher pay is an increasing concern. The latest report from the National Education Association ranks North Carolina 43rd in the U.S. for average teacher salary.

Flash back to 25 years ago. Based on a table by the American Federation of Teachers, the average teacher salary in 1999-2000 in North Carolina was $39,404, which ranked around 22nd in the nation.

So how have we gotten here?

During the 2008 recession, state lawmakers froze teacher salaries at their 2008-09 levels, and Nordstrom said we haven’t kept up since then in salary or overall spending.

“What was different in North Carolina is as our economy recovered, North Carolina did not increase, meaningfully increase, investment in public schools,” Nordstrom said. “We cut taxes for wealthy North Carolinians and corporations. So, that’s what’s driven down our school funding level.”

Instead, our legislators are choosing to take money that could be invested in public schools and put it into a voucher program established in 2013 called “Opportunity Scholarships.”

The program uses taxpayer dollars to help pay private school tuition for families often wealthy enough already to attend and pay for it themselves.

By 2031-32, more than $500 million a year, or $5 billion in total, will be allocated to vouchers.

EVEN MORE DISMAL, tax cuts are reducing the pool of money we have to devote to   education.

Corporate tax rates have been reduced from a 6.9% rate in 2012 to 2.3% today and are slated to drop to 0%.

This comes as our state is falling behind in important educational programs that benefit low-income families, like NC Pre-K, a pre-school program for 4-year-olds.

Public Schools First NC’s report shows children who attend Pre-K usually earn better grades in school, are more likely to graduate high school and college and stay out of prison.

NC Pre-K had capacity to enroll 27,928 children in 2023-24— 27,928 were enrolled, but that’s only 57% of 49,000 4-year-olds eligible to participate.

“We’ve seen a lot of the business community call on [the General Assembly] for more investment in Pre-K,” said Nordstrom. “For some reason, this General Assembly still fails to act.”

Sara Howell is the Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Associate Director of Policy & Research. She said more funding from lawmakers is the key to seeing success in public schools.

“There’s plenty of research that shows that adequate, equitable school funding leads to improved academic outcomes, especially in districts that have greater need,” Howell said. “So you see improved test scores, more years of completed schooling, higher adult earnings, like you name it. 

“The research is there. It’s just a question of us rising to meet the occasion.”

Meanwhile, low pay and lack of resources, among other issues, are driving teachers away from the profession.

About 800 fewer people completed educator preparation programs in 2024 than in the prior year, an 18% decline, data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shows.

“We were speaking with a superintendent for a research setting not too long ago who said that, ‘You know, 10 years ago we’d have 30,15 teachers competing; for this kindergarten teaching spot, and now I’m lucky if I get two,” Howell said. 

“It’s across the board. People are feeling the strain.”