an image shows the word "public" becoming the word "private" in front of the word "school" — Photo: Getty Images

Ever since North Carolina legislators established the so-called “Opportunity Scholarships” school voucher program, sponsors and proponents have pitched it as a means of helping low-income students escape struggling public schools.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, a new report from the Department of Public Instruction shows that this was all baloney. The DPI researchers found that just sixty-seven hundred of the state’s eighty-thousand-plus vouchers in the current school year went to students who had attended a North Carolina public school in the prior year.

And while the data for kindergartners

were not yet available, it’s clear that as much as ninety percent or more of new vouchers in 24-25 were for students who have never attended a public school.

In other words, the vast majority of voucher money is going to parents – most of them well-off – who never had any intention of sending their kids to public schools.

The bottom line: School vouchers in our state have nothing to do with quote “opportunity” and everything to do with undermining and privatizing public education. Other explanations are simply false.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.