March 6, 2023/Media

NCDP Chair On North Carolina Supreme Court Decision To Block Leandro Funds

North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton released the following statement: 

“Nearly 30 years after the original filing in Leandro v. State of North Carolina that recognized the state constitutional right for every student to have access to a sound basic education, our schools have bottomed out under Republican rule in the legislature. This reversal further hurts our classrooms and gives legislators the green light to continue to starve public education.

“There is no excuse for billions of dollars to sit in the state coffers while North Carolina families suffer from teacher shortages and under-resourced schools, our youth deal with a mental health crisis, and our underpaid educators work overtime to prepare their students for the future. When our families, students, and teachers have the resources they need, North Carolina will have an education system we can be proud of – it’s past time the legislature fully funds this plan.”

This decision reverses the State Supreme Court’s ruling last November –  the only difference now being the partisan make-up of our courts and the continued desire from Republicans to defund public schools. As Justice Earls writes in her dissent: “If our Court cannot or will not enforce state constitutional rights, those rights do not exist, the constitution is not worth the paper it is written on, and our oath as judicial officer to uphold the constitution is a meaningless charade.”