Episode 249: 2025 Long Session

On this episode we’re joined by members of the North Carolina General Assembly to discuss the upcoming legislative long session and which education issues we can expect to hear more about in the coming months.

Guests:
Representative Lindsay Prather, Buncombe County
Senator Jay Chaudhuri, Wake County

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to Education Matters, presented by the Public School Forum of North Carolina. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Ann Wolfe. In today's episode, we're joined by members of the North Carolina General Assembly to discuss the upcoming legislative long session and which education issues we can expect to hear more about in the coming months. We are very pleased to be joined by Senator Jay Chowdry of Wake County and Representative Lindsey Prather of Buncombe County. We are so pleased to be joined by Representative Lindsay Prather of Buncombe County. Welcome, Representative Prather. Thank you for having me. We'd love to start by having you tell us about the General Assembly's role as it relates to public schools in North Carolina and specifically your role as it relates to public schools.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So quick background, I'm currently serving in my second term in the North Carolina legislature. And uh prior to that, I was a uh public school teacher here in Buncombe County. Uh I taught multiple things, including civics. Um I have a lot of experience talking about the role of the legislature. Um I'm also outside of my current role in the legislature, I work part-time at a public university as well. So I um am, you know, very much entrenched in public education in North Carolina, and it is certainly a top priority for me. It is also a huge part of what the legislature in in North Carolina does. Um it all starts with our North Carolina state constitution. Uh, we are one of only a handful of states in the country that, you know, originally in our state constitution put the right to an education. Um, and so that's where it comes back to. That is where our power is derived. Um, all power in government has to come from somewhere. And so the power to run a public school system for the North Carolina legislature comes from our state constitution. So it's not just the power, but the duty, right? The obligation to provide for a free and uniform system of public schools. You know, not only is it does it need to be free for students, um, there also needs to be a uniform system. And so no matter where you live in North Carolina, you are supposed to be getting the same support from the legislature for your education. Um, you know, again, whether you're in the coast or the mountains, rural or urban. Uh, and so that that's where that comes from. When you look at the kind of the pie chart of um of the budget, where we spend our state money, your state money, taxpayer money, um, that goes to the legislature and then gets dispersed. Education is the single largest chunk of that money. Um and so, you know, and that's that's fairly standard across the states. Um, we know that states are in charge of education as opposed to the federal government. So it's common for states to have a lot of their budget taken up by education. Um, the problem when it comes to North Carolina is when you dig in a little bit deeper to the actual numbers. So, yes, we we put a lot of money into education. Yes, a lot of our budget goes towards education, but we are ranked um, I believe, last, if not 49th, in the country for school funding effort, uh, meaning how much we could be putting into our school system versus how much we're actually putting into it. So that's a quick little background of um the legislature's role in public education personally. So I am one of 120 state representatives. Uh, there are also 50 state senators. So anything that gets passed in the legislature has to pass through both houses. Um, so I'm one of 120 in in um the house side. And uh I do serve on some education committees. So most legislation that comes through the legislature has to go through a committee first. Uh and I do serve on the universities committee, the community colleges committee, and the education appropriations committee. So kind of the the subcommittee um figuring out how much money we should be giving to our schools. So I I do play a play a role in that.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Well, thank you so much. I mean, how lucky are we to get this from a civics teacher? So I think that's amazing. Um, as you look at this long session, um, what is your top education issue? Funding.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Um, and I I know, you know, it sounds it sounds simple, it sounds shallow possibly, um, but you there's no way that you could have lived in North Carolina for more than two weeks without knowing that that we need to do a better job of funding our schools. Um now, of course, when we talk about that, it's not just teacher pay, right? It's resources, it's support, it's the other adults in the building, it's supportive staff, it's transportation and bus drivers. I mean, there's a whole lot of things that go into that. Um, but you know, all you got to do is look at the Leandro court case to know that that we are not putting the money into our system that we need to put into it. Now, it's very easy for people to say, well, you can't just throw money at a problem. Well, A, we haven't tried that yet. So let's maybe just try throwing money at the schools. But B, um, you know, we we have very clear directives uh and we have very clear examples through previous court cases of where funding is not at the level that it should be. So let's get it to the level that it needs to be, and then we can talk about maybe what's surplus and what isn't.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Well, thank you so much. And are you hearing similar things from your community members on what they're hoping for uh this session?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yes, absolutely. And unfortunately, this is an incredibly relevant topic right now in Buncombe County. We're having this conversation on Wednesday. Last night, Tuesday, Buncombe County Commissioners had their regular commissioner meeting and announced that they are going to have to um reduce the budgets of multiple departments in the county. Um, but that includes our school districts. Uh, and so our school districts are are gonna be budgeted for about four million less next year than they were last year. And as you know, and you know, I've been banging this drum. It is because of the failure of the state legislature to fund our school system at the level that they should be funding it, that the burden is now on county governments. County governments should not have to be filling such a large gap. The state legislature is at fault for the gaps that these county governments are having to be creative and having to fill.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Thank you so much. And as we wrap up, I would love to get your advice if a community member is passionate about a specific issue, but isn't quite sure if it's on the General Assembly's radar or what they can do to get it there.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Absolutely. Yes. So uh there are a couple of things that you can do. Um so constituents can reach out to your individual representative or senator. Um and if you Google, um, if you go to ncleg.gov and go to find my representative, they can you type in your address and they'll tell you who it is if you don't know. Um you can also, I think people really underutilize the committee structure when they're looking at who to reach out to. So again, particularly earlier on in the term, we're just about to start. So these next couple months, bills are gonna be going through committees before they get to the full floor. Um, so if it doesn't make it through that committee, maybe your representative or senator is never even gonna get a chance to vote on it. So citizens can actually go onto the legislative website and you can sign up for email notifications of when a committee is going to meet and what bills that committee is going to discuss. So if you have a particular issue that you're passionate about and if it's education, go to the education committee. And there's multiple education committees, so whether it's K-12 or universities or community colleges or appropriations, which again just means funding, um, you can go to that committee and the website and you can sign up to get the email notifications. So that's a great way to do it. Um, there are public comment opportunities available, but oftentimes we don't know when that's going to come up until very last minute. And so, of course, that's intentional, but that gives us less time to let our constituents know of what's happening and give you time to come down to Raleigh. Um, but reaching out to the people that are on that committee. So even if it's not your representative, right? If if you live on the coast and I'm not your representative, but I'm on a committee that you care about, email me. I want to know what you think because I'm gonna have an opportunity to vote on that before anybody else. I also want to give people just a heads up of a couple things that we expect to come up this session when it comes to education. Um, so we um school calendar flexibility, of course. Um, for folks that aren't aware, this is an issue that's come up many times over the last couple decades, um, essentially giving school districts the power to create their own calendar as opposed to having to start a particular date and end a particular date, which is currently mandated by the state. Um, that's all because of the tourism industry. Um the North Carolina House is all for it. We um want calendar flexibility. Most school districts have requested calendar flexibility. So we passed it last year and then it just died in the Senate. So if you care very much about calendar flexibility, email Phil Berger and let him know that this is important to you. Other things we think are gonna come up, we're absolutely gonna file again a bill to establish accountability measures for private schools. We need to do better preparing um the folks that want to go into teaching. So our teacher prep programs at our uh universities and colleges. Um we need to have a big conversation about the school funding model overall and whether it's really serving our students. Um, and then um restoring master's pay as well. I am serving in in Buncombe County. Um we are, you know, obviously we are still going through hurricane recovery and we will for probably the next decade. Um there are, you know, we are still facing all of the same issues that we faced before the hurricane when it comes to school funding. Um there are a lot of private schools and and charter schools in this area that really make it difficult for to be able to support our public schools and to really get the community effort behind our public schools. And so um we're gonna continue fighting for our public schools, but um we're, you know, we're we're struggling a little bit here in Bunkham. So we really need to make sure that the legislature is providing us those hurricane relief funds as quickly as possible so that we'll free up other county funds to help support our schools.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Well, thank you so much for all you do and all of your service and just for helping to make sure that we all understand the role that everybody can play in terms of what we want our General Assembly to do. And we're just so grateful that you're in your role. So thank you so much, Representative Frater.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Absolutely. Oh, and come visit Asheville when the weather gets warm.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Perfect. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll continue our discussion after the break.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Great to be with you, Marianne.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

We'd love to start just by jumping right in on what is your top or are your top issues for this session in education.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah, I think my top issues uh will certainly be the issue that I think that I've continued to fight um for, and that I think uh a lot of members of the General Assembly have continued to fight for, uh, mostly Democrats, but I think Republicans too, and that's making sure that we advocate and fight for uh higher teacher pay. Um starting teacher salaries rank 38th uh in the country, average teacher ranks 42nd um in the country. When you look at the Southeast, we're trailing behind uh Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. And you know, it's it's um it's a little sad for me to see that you know the state of Alabama's starting teacher salaries now at $60,000 uh dollars. So that I think will be continue to be a priority. But you know, aside from that, I think there are some other areas that um I plan to focus on. One is there's been a lot of attention about focusing on restricting cell phones in schools. Uh I've been working with Senator Bergen on this issue for a number of months. Um we were fortunate to have the uh Friday Institute at North Carolina State uh university host a one-day conference looking at both the benefits and harms of technology in school that included cell phones. Uh we have somewhere between eight to eleven states that have done something in this space, and I expect that we will do something as well since we are seeing more and more studies that really look at the impact that uh social media and cell phones have on schools. And lastly, um, from my perspective, uh have a lot of importance on focusing on early childhood education. Uh we've seen with the kind of with kind of the end of the fiscal cliff and the federal pandemic money drying up that we've seen a lot of child care centers uh close. I think that continues to be an issue in Western North Carolina after Helene. Um Senator Berger in his opening statement, uh opening in his state in his speech on the opening day in the Senate, talked about the importance of childcare. I hope that we can continue to do something. I think it's going to require us to reimagine and kind of re-examine the way that we are looking at child care, supporting child care centers today. But it's um it's something that's really important, I think, both for families and as we continue to recruit businesses here in the state.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Well, I know you reference a lot of need for investment in education and early childhood in order to really make sure we're meeting the needs of students and families. And, you know, one of the things that we often look at is also where we fall in terms of funding level in North Carolina. We are 48th when you look at per pupil funding. And that's of course um addressing in you know different costs of living. So we really are only second from the bottom. And then when you look at effort, we're actually 49th. So that's saying how much could we invest versus what we do. Um and I'm just curious what your reaction to is if you think there will be an appetite in the legislature this year to address investing in our public schools.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Uh yeah, look, I think it's a really good question. Um, you know, that report came out in December of last year. Uh, I, you know, I think one of the interesting things is if you read the report from the Education Law Center, they said that North Carolina uh is a missed opportunity because of the underfunding that we see uh both in the classroom and uh with teachers. And you know, the the the one bright spot I think in that report talked about the fact that I when we look at the difference between high poverty and low poverty schools, at least the you know the equity issue between school districts is where we actually rank uh quite well, I think, on dealing on the equity issue. But you know, the bottom line from my perspective is it is an indictment, I think, on the legislature and our inability to continue to underfund um our our schools. I mean, we are we are $5,000 per pupil funding below the national average. Uh, and that's hard to justify, I think, when we continue to uh grow our economy and attract uh more and more companies to come here in North Carolina, but yet we don't seem to be investing at the rate that we should uh with our kids in in public schools.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

During the last session, there was significant increases in the investment in our opportunity scholarship program or vouchers. Um and as you are well aware, those have now become universal vouchers where regardless of income, even if you make half a million dollars a year, you can apply for those and you don't have to have first gone to a public school. Um, and those are tax just for everyone listening, those are tax-funded vouchers, taxpayer funded vouchers going into private schools. One of the things we've heard about, and people from both um parties have said is that there should be an opportunity to increase accountability. And I'm just wondering if you have any specific areas where you'd like to see an increase in accountability or transparency or any other specific thoughts you're hoping we might see this session.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yeah. Um, before I address your question, I mean, I think it's really important to put things in perspective as you uh mentioned with taxpayer-funded vouchers. Uh you know, the idea originally started as a way to try to provide uh funds for low-income uh parents who may not have the opportunity to send their kids to private schools, although, you know, arguably those vouchers would not help pay for full tuition at a private school, or as studies have shown that the the cost will end up being pat will be passed on to st to parents. Um the unfortunate nature of this past uh biennium is that they remove the cap. And I think to your to your question and statement, I mean, whether you're a millionaire or a billionaire now, you can qualify, your children can qualify for a taxpayer-funded voucher, which on its face doesn't seem like the right thing to do for uh families that can afford to send their kids to to private schools. But to you know, to answer your question, I think there are also real issues about accountability uh that have been raised over the last 10 years. Um you know, given given the uh you know now decade-long effort to uh fund private uh taxpayer-funded vouchers. And you know, these schools are schools that are not required to take standard state standardized tests, they don't do background checks on teachers, uh, they don't have to follow um uh state standards and as far as curriculum. And so it's very hard uh to compare apples to apples when we're looking at schools that are receiving taxpayer uh funded vouchers. And the the North Carolina State University Friday Institute that I mentioned earlier, uh I believe has done a study that looked at you know accountability measures at for different states um across the country and you know has ranked North Carolina the worst when it comes to accountability um for for um private school uh schools that receive um taxpayer-funded vouchers. And so I hope that they will continue to be a push for accountability. Um supporters of the program would argue that parents are the greatest accountability measure for these students, but I as a lawmaker and and as a parent, I don't think that is enough.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

And Senator Chowdhury, as we close here, and just in appreciation for your service to our state, um what gives you hope and continues to inspire you to have this role?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Um you know, I I I you know the the the kids in North Carolina, the kids that go to public school in North Carolina continue to give me hope. Um I get some of that hope as a parent of two kids in uh Wake County public schools. Uh but I have traditionally at the beginning of the school year done a round table with uh from with various students from Wake County, uh public high schools here, and um their outlook of their world, the way they think about the future, uh really gives me um a lot of hope. And so, you know, really the young people who are who are the the the product of our public schools are are the are the people that give me hope.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

What a perfect way to end. Thank you so much for all you do and for being with us today.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Thanks so much, Mary Ann.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

After the break, this week's final word. January marked the beginning of the 2025 long session for the North Carolina General Assembly. As this session begins, we are at a critical point for public education in our state. The newly elected and returning officials have a unique opportunity to shape the future of our schools, students, and educators. This session is a chance to address long-standing challenges, embrace innovative solutions, and build a stronger foundation for North Carolina's local public schools, which serve the vast majority of our children and families. The balance of power in the General Assembly has shifted slightly with the breaking of the Republican supermajority in the House. Republicans still hold majorities in both chambers, but there is an increased chance of and need for collaboration and compromise between the legislature and the governor's office. This dynamic opens the doors for meaningful dialogue on the issues that matter most to North Carolinians, including school funding, teacher pay, and preparing students for life beyond high school. This session, we're expecting to see lawmakers address those issues as they've been at the heart of discussions around public schools in North Carolina for a while now. Last year, our state was once again ranked among the lowest in the country for school funding, at 48th in our funding level. And 49th in funding effort, which is a percentage of our GDP that goes to education. Another ongoing concern has been maintaining our teacher workforce. We know that teachers are the number one school-related factor that influences student outcomes. As neighboring states continue to offer more competitive salaries, we need to make North Carolina an attractive place for aspiring educators while continuing to support the veteran educators who had dedicated their lives to teaching and our students. During this session, we must look ahead to the future of our students. Investments in public schools allow schools to prepare students for life. Crucial to that preparation are safe and welcoming facilities and access to career and technical education programs. Equitably dispersed resources are also vital, which is why as the state continues to increase funding for private school vouchers, we must balance those investments with the needs of our local public schools. The North Carolina Constitution charges the General Assembly with providing a free and uniform system of public schools. This responsibility is more than just a line and a document. It's a mandate to prioritize the well-being of every child in every community. It's a call to ensure that every classroom has the resources it needs, every teacher is supported and valued, and every student has access to a safe and equitable education. One of the most important voices in this process is yours. Whether you're a parent, an educator, or someone who cares about the future of our state, your input matters. We've heard from legislatures who are committed to listening to their communities, and we encourage you to share your perspectives. If there's an issue you're passionate about, don't hesitate to reach out to your elected officials. Your voice can help shape the policies and priorities of this session. As we look ahead, the challenges are undeniable, but so are the opportunities. This long session is a chance to lay the groundwork for a public education system that truly serves all of North Carolina's children, as well as their families and communities. It's a chance to invest in our schools, honor our educators, and prepare our students for successful lives within thriving communities. Let's not waste this opportunity. Thank you for taking time with us to learn and think about education. That's all for today. We'll see you next week.