Sunday marks the two-year anniversary of the state Supreme Court’s controversial rehearing of the landmark Leandro case—and today, 729 days later, there’s still no ruling.
The silence from the Republican-led court speaks volumes to public school advocates who have long contended that the state has failed to live up to its obligation to provide children “a sound, basic education.”
The Leandro case dates back to 1994, when five low-wealth school districts—Hoke, Cumberland, Halifax, Robeson, and Vance counties—sued the state contending the education funding system failed to provide them with the revenue necessary to offer teacher pay, school facilities, and resources that were competitive with wealthier counties.
In the three decades that the case has been wending through the courts, rulings affirmed a child’s fundamental state constitutional right to an adequate, equitable education and a judge-ordered $5.8 billion remedial plan to ensure that. The state Supreme Court, under a Democratic majority, ruled in 2022 that the state must abide by that comprehensive plan. But Republicans took the majority on the bench later that year and took the unusual step of agreeing to rehear the case.
On Thursday, Every Child NC, a statewide coalition of organizations, parents, teachers, and students interested in ensuring equitable investments in public education, and ProgressNC, a non-profit that supports similar issues, met with reporters outside the State Legislative Building to highlight the passing of a second year without a Leandro ruling.
Bryan Proffitt, a high school history teacher and vice president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, an advocacy organization, shared his joy of working with high school students for more than two decades.
“I can also tell you thousands of stories of public school workers who have left the job that they love,” Proffitt added. “The teacher who finally quit after coming up a few hundred dollars short at the end of every month. The bus driver who walked away after advocating for her kids and being told that no more resources for the safety of students with disabilities were available. The principal who couldn’t keep her best and brightest staff because constant shortages left them with huge classes and health problems.”
In the last two years, Proffitt said, the state’s public education system has lost 19,262 teachers to other jobs. Currently, he added, there are 7,000 teaching vacancies. These jobs go unfilled as lawmakers have cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, he added.
On average, state Supreme Court cases are decided within six months of the hearing, according to the state Department of Justice.
There’s nothing in state law, though, to compel a decision. The next batch of Supreme Court rulings aren’t scheduled to be released until March 20.
“What we need to know is whether we’re going to be a state of laws, a state that honors its constitution, or whether a Supreme Court is going to act in a partisan manner to allow the General Assembly to be the ones to decide whether or not constitutional rights mean anything in North Carolina,” said Kris Nordstrom, a senior policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center, a left-leaning research and advocacy organization.