By Tom Oxholm

RALEIGH (April 16, 2026) – There is a crisis in North Carolina of underfunding our public schools (including Charters). Consider these facts:

•NC is 50th in the country in average per pupil funding from state and local sources (Education Law Center’s December 2025 report).

•Our ~100,000 teachers have the lowest starting pay in the southeastern states at $41,000.

•Our public and private universities and colleges now enroll about 8,000 teacher candidates compared to 14,000 15 years ago, graduating 2,000 teachers per year instead of 3,500.

•For the last several years our public schools began the school year thousands of teachers short of the number needed in the classroom (the #1 factor for success of students). 

•To keep that number from growing, our schools employ ~3,000 international teachers (VISA required) and 5,000 “lateral entry” teachers (e.g. accountants teaching math), most of whom stay only 1 or 2 years.

•Our national proficiency test scores for 4th and 8th graders have been flat for 25+ years at ~30%.

Awake yet?  How about these comparisons:

•Mississippi funds about $1,366 per pupil per year MORE than NC does. For our 1.53 million public school students, that equates to $2 billion per year more in state funding. For that amount we could move up to 44th in the country!

•Virginia funds $3,622 more per student, equating to $5.5 billion … in 37th place. And starting teacher pay is $46,000.

•And South Carolina is at about the national average, $5,505 more per student than North Carolina, which equals $8.4 billion more. And starting teacher pay is $47,000.

•And did you know that our legislated teacher pay scale starting at $41,000 grows to $53,880 for the 15th year … but then there are NO additional raises until 10 years later, topping out at $55,950!

How could that be, you say? We’re #1 or #2 for business every year? Don’t we keep reading about all the companies moving to North Carolina? Do you think our business recruiters mention our public school funding or just brag about our great universities, community colleges, and ~90% high school graduation rates?

Could you run your business like that and keep employees? 70% of business employees don’t go to college – don’t we need them to be prepared when they leave high school?

Public school funding is the largest single expense in our state budget (you know, that thing our legislature didn’t pass last year – the only state that didn’t). It is funded by state revenues: personal income tax, corporate income tax, sales tax, fuel taxes, etc.

Did you know that over the last 15 years our legislature has cut the corporate income tax rate by 71% (from 6.9% to 2%)? And it is legislated to go to 0%, yes ZERO, in 2030!

Did you know that the legislature has cut the personal rate by 48% (7.75% to 3.99% and to 3.49% on 1/1/27)?

When asked about more funding for teachers and schools, legislators reply that we are doing all we can afford.  What a disingenuous answer! But talk about “school choice” and they light up!

We provide over $600 million in tax credits in the form of vouchers for private school tuitions – and 87% of the new recipients in 2024-25 had never had their child in public schools.

Do you think our legislators have made the right decisions for our state’s future?  If not, what are you going to do about it?  The NC Supreme Court just ruled on Leandro – funding is not their role; it is our legislature’s…and they almost never hear from business leaders about the importance of our public schools to our businesses.  All 170 seats in the General Assembly are up for election in November 2026.

WAKE UP!

Tom Oxholm, CPA, is the retired Executive VP of Wake Stone Corporation, former Wake County School Board member and Finance Chair (1999-2003), co-author of “A School District’s Journey to Excellence” (2008 Corwin Press) with Bill McNeal, National Superintendent of the year 2004, and 2023 recipient of Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce A.E. Finley Distinguished Service Award.