This interview was originally published on News from the States.

After more than a full year of delay at the legislature, North Carolina finally has a new state budget and as is almost always the case, what the new budget does and doesn’t do for public education is among the matters receiving the most attention.

The good news is that a lot of teachers will get some decent raises this fall. Unfortunately, the bad news is that those raises don’t apply to all teachers or school personnel. What’s more, thanks to inflation and the rising cost of health insurance premiums, most teachers remain stuck in the mud financially or even worse off than they were just a couple of years ago.

So, what should we make of this situation? Are lawmakers making encouraging strides in lifting up our public schools or is the new budget just the latest in a series of inadequate measures. Newsline caught up with the veteran executive editor of the nonprofit group Public Ed Works, David Rice, to learn more.

Intro:
Read and hear more about important news, events, and public policy debates at ncnewsline.com. This is News and Views. 

Rob Schofield:
Welcome to News and Views. I’m your host, Rob Schofield. Well, after more than a full year of delay at the legislature, North Carolina finally has a new state budget, and as is almost always the case, what the new budget does and doesn’t do for public education is among the matters receiving the most attention. The good news is that a lot of teachers will get some decent raises. Unfortunately, the bad news is that those raises don’t apply to all teachers or school personnel. What’s more, thanks to inflation and the rising cost of health insurance premiums, most teachers remain stuck in the mud financially, or even worse off than they were just a couple of years ago. So, what should we make of this situation? Are lawmakers making encouraging strides in lifting up our public schools, or is the new budget just the latest in a series of inadequate measures? Earlier this week, I caught up with the veteran executive editor of the nonprofit group Public Ed Works, David Rice, to learn more. Well, David Rice, welcome back to News and Views. Good to have you back with us.

David Rice:
Great to be here.

Rob Schofield:
So, my goodness, for a long time now, Public Ed Works has been putting some billboards up around the state that said, “Pay the dadgum teachers.” So we have a new state budget. Maybe makes a few moves in that direction, but you think perhaps it’s according to an article I recently read at Public Ed Works: A start, not a finish. Talk to us about the good, the bad, the missing in this new budget when it comes to our education system.

David Rice:
That could take a while, but so did this budget.

Rob Schofield:
Yeah, to say the least.

David Rice:
Yeah, for starters, it was a year overdue. I really don’t think the legislature had an excuse to delay this for a year while teachers and state employees were facing ever increasing prices that we’ve all faced. You know the the budget gave teachers an average raise of 8% and you know it was appreciated. It was welcome, but it was a year overdue, and it sounds generous, but for senior teachers in particular, those with 15 to 24 years’ experience, they got an average raise of about five and a half percent since October 2023, which was the last time our legislature adopted a budget, inflation has been around 9%. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was 8.92%. So you know these raises didn’t really even keep up with inflation. Yet, like I said, they were appreciated because we’ve dug ourselves into a deep hole in North Carolina. I mean, our average teacher pay ranks 46th. Our funding effort, which is the percentage of our economy or of our GDP that we devote to K-12 education, ranks 50th. Now I know we rank near the top in business conditions, but those those two rankings can’t coexist for very long. So, as Tony Rand used to say-

Rob Schofield:
former state senator-

David Rice:
That’s right. The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, quit digging. We appear to have stopped digging, but we’ve got a long way to go. So, I think the way to view this budget is, as you said, you know, it’s a start toward repairing our education system, but it’s not a finish.

Rob Schofield:
I wrote a column the other day that it felt sort of like the downpours we’ve gotten recently in the rain. The drought’s still going on. We haven’t solved the drought. We haven’t filled up the pool, but you know, it’s good to get a downpour, and we’ll take it, but it’s it hasn’t solved the problem. We’ve got a long way to go. 

David Rice:
Yeah, good analogy.

Rob Schofield:
We’ll see if we get any more rain next year.

David Rice:
You know, and you know, state employees, community college instructors, university instructors got a 3% raise, so that definitely doesn’t keep up with inflation, and we’ve got to recover there as well.

Rob Schofield
:Above and beyond inflation, we know we can like quantify how much like it’s costing to buy to be a member of the state employees’ health plan. That’s going up as well. Basically, barely keeping people above water. What about vouchers? This has, of course, been a long time bone of contention. It’s been a priority of the conservative majority in the General Assembly to keep expanding private school vouchers. Obviously, that’s going to continue. We do have a provision in there that says that the schools that accept vouchers can, they’re going to have to administer standardized tests, but they don’t have to share what the results of those tests are with anybody. So I wonder if you think that’s just a minor fig leaf over an issue that remains outstanding.

David Rice:
Vouchers drain money from the state budget that could otherwise go to public schools. It’s pretty much that simple. Now the backers of vouchers will say that some of the savings they reap from paying vouchers that don’t cover the full cost of attendance are returned to the schools. But there’s no question that it is competing with the public schools, and the vast majority of our children still go to public schools. So, you know, whom are you rewarding, and the removal in 2023 in that last budget of any income caps on who can get vouchers, I mean, it’s Katy bar the door now.

Rob Schofield:
Yeah, our wealthiest families getting a subsidy from the state to send their kids to expensive private schools is what it boils down to, and taxpayers have very little idea of what’s actually going on in those schools. It all remains a mystery. It’s interesting. 

David Rice:
It’s hard work to be a citizen these days.

Rob Schofield:
You mentioned higher education and our instructors there. We did have money. It looks in the budget for enrollment growth. Is that right? In both the UNC system and community colleges, I take it. I guess that’s yes. They’re a sharp stick in the eye.

David Rice:
They’re both funded in arrears based on the previous year’s enrollment. So, you know, we did an interview with Lee Roberts at UNC a couple months ago, where he talked about how neither the freshman class nor the sophomore class this year had received money for an increasing number of students, and they’re trying to raise their enrollment by 5,000 students over 10 years. 

Rob Schofield:
Wow! Wow! 

David Rice:
So it’s irresponsible, but they did come through with about 150 — million for enrollment growth in the universities, so that helped recover that. But again, you know, there were larger class sizes. There were other things that you know, and not just Chapel Hill, but the entire university system had to confront with more students. Which, by the way, is an anomaly, because birth rates declined during the Great Recession. Most every other public university in the country is confronting declining enrollment, and here we are growing it, and yet we’re not funding it.

Rob Schofield
:I saw there was a bit of additional funding for the community college systems presidents’ compensation. They got a new search for a new system president. Is that something? I guess a step forward. Does it mean we might attract a high quality president? 

David Rice:
It can’t hurt, but you know there has been something of a revolving door at the community college system, and I don’t really understand why. But it’s an important element. Again, if we’re going to maintain a number one, or number two as of last week, ranking in business climate, I mean, Jet Zero is coming to Piedmont Triad International Airport, and they need both Guilford and Forsyth Tech to crank out skilled workers. 

Rob Schofield:
We’re talking with David Rice, who’s the executive editor at Public Ed Works. There’s a new essay at PublicEdWorks.org. You should check it out. It’s entitled “A Start, Not a Finish, and that’s sort of the characterization of the state budget bill that’s been enacted recently that we’re talking about. Another issue that you treated in that essay, David, is the the issue of just taxes. North Carolina has been cutting taxes and cutting taxes for a long time. Overall, state investment in public services and structures is down over the last 15 years, something like a third. I mean, we’ve we are spending a lot less of our economy on things like education than we used to. Taxes, I guess, again, you could say maybe this is a small step in the right direction. We’re not going to cut them quite as fast as had been planned, but they’re still, it’s not like we’re going to be bringing in the cash that we need to really enhance services.

David Rice:
Yeah, the state house deserves credit for slowing the Senate’s incessant urge to keep cutting taxes, and economists have warned ‘you guys are looking at a deficit in out years,’ and the House seems to be taking those warnings more seriously than the Senate has.

Rob Schofield:
We should say that’s the House Republican leadership under Speaker Hall and the Senate Republican leadership. Probably some Democrats in both bodies would be dissenting from that approach of continuing to cut income taxes, particularly corporate income tax. Another issue you talked about: we’re going to have a new children’s hospital in Apex. Talk to us about that. How’d that come about, and why? I guess that’s something we need.

David Rice:
That is a huge project. It’s like a $3 billion hospital that’s projected to create 8,000 jobs. It was a favorite of Senate Leader Phil Berger’s, and the House has questioned it, and they came to a compromise and basically contributed another $100 million toward it, and there were 300 and some million in 2023. We did an interview with Christy Page, the CEO of UNC Health, where she discussed it, and this is a joint effort, believe it or not, between UNC and Duke. She said we compete, you know, on the basketball court, but you could tell how important this is because of our collaboration here. But there are specialty treatments that 1,000s of young patients, children, have to go out of state to get, and she just thinks you know that shouldn’t be the case. They shouldn’t have to do that.

Rob Schofield:
Certainly hope that can fill a hole, at least for some kids. Yeah,

David Rice:
I’ve been a type one diabetic for 55 years and made just about every mistake you can make and live to talk about it. But when I was a teenager, I got to shake the hand of Charles Best, one of the two Canadian researchers who discovered insulin in 1922,

Rob Schofield:
Holy mackerel!

David Rice:
And at the time, you know, I was like 14 or 15, and you know, he was an old man with white hair and a white coat. But I walked back up the steps in that auditorium, and my mother was there crying, and that resonated. That — that stuck with me.

Rob Schofield:
You know, there’ll be a lot of parents who will be hoping and praying that this hospital can provide similar results for them and their children. I guess one final question as we come to the end of our time with David Rice. This is Senator Phil Berger’s, I guess, final budget. Right, he’s lost his primary. He will be out as Senate President after almost more than a decade and a half in the slot. He has really championed pretty much behind the scenes closed door budgeting. Any hope for maybe a slightly, more a different, or more open process in the new year, or is that just too early to to predict what will happen in 2027?

David Rice:
I think it’s too early, but you know, there’s always hope that it would be more open, and you know that it would be a more transparent process.

Rob Schofield:
Maybe even openly negotiated with the governor and the minority party. My goodness, what what a concept that would be!

David Rice:
It’s it’s not always like you learn in civics class if you had civics at all.

Rob Schofield:
As we come to the end of our time with David Rice, you can tell David is a veteran journalist. Obviously, he’s done, he’s had a remarkable career in journalism, and now in leading this education organization for the last several years. David is coming to the end of his time leading Public Ed Works, but that he’s really built from nothing. David, it’s been a pleasure talking to you and working with you. Any final thoughts right now as you as you look forward on public education in North Carolina and what you hope the future might hold?

David Rice:
I hope that North Carolina voters connect the dots and make those connections between the budget they read about in July and you know what they see a year and a half later in their public schools, and it’s that’s a long reach for a lot of people, but you know, you really need first to read, and second to do a little math to say what does this mean for my school, my children, and my community.

Rob Schofield:
We appreciate the important role Public Ed Works has played in helping a lot of people understand what’s going on these budgets and deciphering them and making them and putting them into plain English, we know the organization will continue to do that. You’ll probably still be contributing to it, as I understand. And we wish you all the best. It’s been a pleasure having you on News and Views. So take care. Keep up the good work.

David Rice:
All right, I’m off to my 401 COW plan in the Shenandoah Valley.

Rob Schofield:
Coming up next, more details about the budget bill and what’s been happening at the legislature in a chat with one of the Triangle’s most experienced legislators. Don’t go away.