This week, North Carolina landed at the bottom of a pretty important list. 

Our state was ranked dead last in its effort to fund public schools. And if that’s not embarrassing enough, we were also ranked second-to-last in per-student funding (in case you’re curious, we came in just ahead of Idaho). 

North Carolina also made news this month for being alone on a list– we’re the only state this year that didn’t pass a full budget. The legislation was due July 1, but Republican leaders still haven’t been able to agree on a deal, leaving the state with a skeleton spending plan that’s created huge funding gaps for education and health care. And unfortunately, it appears that a budget won’t be coming any time soon. 

This means that North Carolina is officially ranked 50th in education funding, and 1st in legislative procrastination. And as you may have guessed, these problems are directly related. 

Legislators have been kicking the can down the road on public school funding for decades. The delay can be traced back to 1994, when five low-income counties sued the state of North Carolina claiming that their students were receiving inadequate funding for public education. In 1997, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled on that case, saying that the state has a constitutional obligation to ensure that all children have access to a “sound basic education”– which requires equitable access to sufficient resources. 

NC Republicans have never been fully on board with Leandro, so much so that they sent the case back to the Supreme Court multiple times. The courts repeatedly affirmed their original ruling, including in 2004, 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2022. In fact, in 2022, the NC Supreme Court explicitly ordered the legislature to spend over $5 billion in order to fully fund our schools. 

Soon after, Republicans reclaimed a majority on the court and quickly blocked any Leandro funding from being spent. They re-heard the case (again!) in 2024. Now, they’re refusing to rule on it, keeping all funding delayed. It’s been over 600 days, and we still have no word from the court.  

The Republican-led Supreme Court seems to be following the lead of Republican legislators. Republicans have held a majority in the North Carolina General Assembly since 2010, and they have consistently failed to fulfill their funding obligation, instead jumping at opportunities to funnel taxpayer dollars to wealthy families and private schools. The five counties that originally sued in 1994– Hoke, Halifax, Robeson, Vance, and Cumberland– all remain among the lowest funded districts in the state. 

We’ve seen years worth of budgets that haven’t prioritized public schools, and now, we’re seeing no budget at all. With no state budget, education funding levels remain stagnant. Teachers are working without raises, schools are operating without sufficient resources, and students are going to schools that are unable to fully meet their needs. 

But in North Carolina, we don’t quit fighting. And education advocates were fighting hard this week. 

Parents and educators held a press conference to raise awareness around the lack of funding for public schools and to draw attention to the unprecedented delay from the state Supreme Court on issuing a final Leandro ruling. 

“There is one word that defines what is happening right now, and I want everyone to remember this word: neglect,” said one educator. “They neglected their needs for books and classrooms. They neglected their need for school counselors and nurses in our buildings. They neglected the need for us to have safe buildings, smaller class sizes and educators who are supported, not exhausted and burnt out.”

One parent explained the impact of underfunding on her 10-year-old daughter. “My daughter didn’t have a teacher for nearly half of this past school year, and before that, she went through most of kindergarten without a teacher. We are still working to close the gaps in her education because of it,” she said.

“The remedy is not a mystery,” she added. “The courts have said they must fund it, but year after year, the General Assembly has refused to comply fully.”

These problems aren’t mysteries– they’re choices. And it’s time for us to finally choose to invest in our students, our educators, our communities, and our future.