As students return, NC leaders have failed to replace expiring federal education funds

The traditional calendar year for public schools across North Carolina begins this week. As students return to school, many school districts are faced with the double whammy of expiring federal funds and the failure of state legislators to pass a budget to adequately and equitably fund every child’s access to a sound, basic education.

Public funding improves student outcomes and — when allocated equitably by designing, for example, funding formulas to provide a larger share of funds to those schools with the greatest needs — can make sure every student has access to the education that is their right in North Carolina.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds (ESSER) passed as part of the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan during the pandemic demonstrated the power of public funding over the course of three rounds: first, to address the most pressing public health needs during the pandemic, then to support the safe return to classrooms, and, finally, to address pandemic learning loss and support the mental health of students.

These funds expire at the end of September, and our state leaders have not passed a budget that addresses this funding cliff.

Earlier this year, a report from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities highlighted North Carolina as among 15 states to be hard hit by the failure to replace the one-time funds from the third round of federal funding for education (ESSER III).  This is because these funds were distributed based on a formula that allocates more dollars to districts where there are more students from low-income families. More than half (54 percent) of North Carolina school districts have more than 20 percent of their students living in poverty, and these districts will particularly affected by the failure to replace these federal funds.

North Carolina received $3.6 billion in ESSER III funds after 2021. These dollars provided critical support to meet students’ need for wrap-around services that boost learning and well-being, to raise pay and retain teachers, and to ensure classroom materials were available and up-to-date to support students’ learning.  (You can find out more about specific funding allocations at this Department of Public Instruction site.)

Let’s take just one example of how a child’s classroom experience has benefited from federal funding. These funds made it possible to purchase laptops for students during the pandemic — laptops that have since been integrated into students’ learning experience. In a recent survey by the Department of Public Instruction, 82 of the state’s 115 public school districts reported that there are not resources to replace broken laptops.

The loss of these federal dollars was not addressed by state legislators who left Raleigh earlier this summer without passing a final budget. The result is that tax cuts for the wealthy and profitable corporations and the diversion of public money to private school vouchers for the wealthy will continue even as children’s educational opportunities in every district go unaddressed.

As the map  shows, based on additional analysis by the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, in 13 school districts ESSER III funds represented more than 10 percent of total school district spending based on school year 2020-21.  Across the state, all students will be impacted, but  it is clear that rural and Eastern NC school districts are disproportionately being impacted by the failure to replace the loss of critical funding for the education of children in their community.

Many of these counties are unlikely to have the resources to make up for this loss on their own, and the commitment of the state will be necessary to ensure that where a child grows up does not continue to limit their opportunities for a sound, basic education.