North Carolina’s most notorious antisemite is willing to do whatever it takes to become our next governor. So in the wake of last month’s Hamas attack, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson pulled out all the stops to show everyone just how much he loves Israel.
Robinson waited until actual NC Governor Roy Cooper left for a trip to Japan to hold an “acting governor” dress-up event where he declared North Carolina’s solidarity with Israel.
This week Robinson took his charade on the road, traveling to Israel with the North Carolina chapter of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group that Donald Trump described as “the largest faith based get out the vote organization in modern American history.”
And that’s exactly what Robinson’s actions over the last month are about–his desire to win votes and become the next governor of North Carolina.
Maya Angelou said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” Since long before he needed votes, Mark Robinson has been showing us exactly who he is.
He’s a man who has repeatedly downplayed the Holocaust, shared antisemitic tropes, and used Yiddish insults to mock Jewish politicians.
In one post, Robinson put quotation marks around the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust, implying the figure was inflated.
In another he referred to discussing Nazis as a waste of time.
And in yet another Robinson called accounts of Jews being taken to concentration camps “hogwash.”
Robinson has called opposition to Donald Trump as a “globalist” conspiracy, employing a term typically used to refer to Jews who are seen as using their elite international connections to weaken Western society–an idea that was at the core of Nazi ideology.
Robinson used antisemitic tropes in a rant against the film Black Panther, which he said was “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by satanic marxist” before employing the well-worn racist stereotype about Jewish people’s desire for money.
At the press conference last month where he dressed up as governor, Robinson was forced to spend most of his time defending his long history of antisemitic rhetoric to deeply skeptical reporters. The Lieutenant Governor said some of his previous comments were “poorly worded” and did not “convey [his] real sentiments.”
That’s hogwash.
Mark Robinson’s real sentiments are the ones he expressed over and over and over before he needed North Carolinians’ votes.
Don’t fall for the okey doke. The last thing North Carolina needs is an antisemite in the governor’s mansion.
At the November 2 meeting of the North Carolina State Board of Education, State Superintendent Catherine Truitt was pressed on her decision to not appeal the controversial approval of American Leadership Academy Monroe.
ALA Monroe will be managed by out-of-state for-profit charter operator Charter One, and Truitt received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in June from representatives of this corporation–shortly after changes in state law gave her authority to appeal approval or denial of charters.
The State Board of Education had previously denied ALA Monroe’s charter on two occasions, voicing concerns about conflicts of interest in the school’s governance, rapid expansion of Charter One into North Carolina without sufficient evidence of academic success, and drawbacks of giving public tax dollars to an out-of-state corporation.
State Board Vice Chair Alan Duncan asked Superintendent Truitt to explain who advised her not to appeal the decision and why she did not consult staff attorneys at the Department of Public Instruction or the State Board of Education.
Truitt refused to disclose which attorneys she had consulted.
State Board Vice Chair Alan Duncan: “…Who was the outside attorney that you apparently relied upon for providing the responses given?”
Superintendent Catherine Truitt: “Our legal counsel, as wonderful as they are, are not experts in charter school law. And I would argue that no one on this board is an expert in charter school law. And so I turned to outside counsel who are experts in charter school law, and I’m happy to have that conversation with you offline.”
You can read the entire background on the Charter One-North Carolina controversy including Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s involvement here.
Representatives of an Arizona-based for-profit charter school operator have been writing campaign checks to North Carolina elected officials who are in positions to guarantee our tax dollars keep flowing their direction.
Both Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson and State Superintendent Catherine Truitt have received thousands from these charter operators in the past few months.
But as we all know, gifts of money often come with expectations.
***
2023 has been a particularly grueling year in North Carolina for fans of public education and democracy.
Heading into this year’s long session, Democrats had held off a Republican supermajority in both chambers of the General Assembly by the thinnest of margins–just one seat in the House.
That all changed in April when Mecklenburg County Representative Tricia Cotham betrayed her donors, volunteers and voters by changing parties just months after being elected as a progressive Democrat.
Cotham’s betrayal guaranteed that, if the GOP voted in lockstep, Republicans could pass any law they wanted to without worrying about a gubernatorial veto.
This drastic move followed the board’s denial on two occasions of a charter for American Leadership Academy in Monroe, a school managed by an well-connected out-of-state company and on whose school board Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s wife happens to hold a seat.
But of course in North Carolina that could never be the end of the story.
Timeline of American Leadership Academy Monroe charter shenanigans:
Spring 2022:
Arizona-based for-profit charter management company Charter One completes a “fast track” application to open a charter school called American Leadership Academy in Monroe, NC in one year rather than the standard two years it normally takes to receive approval.
The ALA Monroe application lists Wyoming attorney Mitchell Schwab as the school’s board chair. The board includes Yolanda Hill, wife of Lieutenant Governor and voting member of the State Board of Education Mark Robinson. Longtime NC charter proponent Gregg Sinders is listed as a point of contact. Unsurprisingly, Charter One is named as the school’s education management organization (EMO).
Yolanda Hill explains on the application that she was specifically recruited by Charter One for participation on the board. That raises an important question: Why would this out-of-state company want Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson’s wife involved? She doesn’t live in Union County where the school will be located, and she has no prior experience serving on a school board.
The ALA Monroe application is officially submitted for review in June 2022.
Background on Charter One:
Charter One was founded by Arizona businessman Glenn Way. Way is a native of Utah and served in that state’s legislature before resigning when his wife took out a protective order against him, alleging he had threatened her life in front of their five children.
Charter One’s current North Carolina schools include Wake Preparatory Academy in Wake Forest, Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy in Huntersville, and American Leadership Academy campuses in Clayton and Wilmington.
Way’s business practices involve purchasing land, building schools on them and then selling them to the American Leadership Academy company where he served as chair. (This very informative post explains exactly how the real estate side of Way’s business model works.) A 2019 Arizona Republic investigation turned up numerous examples of American Leadership Academy paying millions in public dollars to companies owned by Way or his relatives, including a company his son owns that supplies athletic clothing and apparel.
Asked whether the charter industry was an appropriate way to make money, Way responded, “It’s no different than building a Walmart.”
But back to the North Carolina timeline.
December 2022:
The North Carolina State Board of Education denies American Leadership Academy Monroe’s charter. Board members are concerned about giving state money to a for-profit corporation (ALA Monroe would be sending 15% of its state and potentially also federal funding to Charter One). The board is also wary of Charter One’s rapid expansion in NC without sufficient evidence of academic success, as well as ALA Monroe’s proposed governance structure.
So what’s wrong with the governance structure?
Well, it turns out that Mitchell Schwab, who you may recall is listed as the board chair on ALA Monroe’s application, is also an attorney for a law firm that is closely linked with Charter One. Schwab’s LinkedIn page shows he’s been employed by Denali Law since May 2020, first in Arizona where Charter One is headquartered and then in Afton, Wyoming from September 2021 to present, with a specialization in charter school law listed. Schwab is also named as the primary Charter One company official in the NC Secretary of State’s business database.
In a July 2023 interview, Schwab explained that his work for Charter One included expanding the organization into North and South Carolina “along with another attorney.”
Denali is a small firm with just three attorneys listed, including one Michael Way who happens to be Glenn Way’s son. More on Michael later.
January 2023:
American Leadership Academy Monroe’s application for a charter is brought back in early January for reconsideration. As few of the prior concerns have been addressed, the State Board again rejects the application at its January 5 meeting.
On January 19 the John Locke Foundation mouthpiece Carolina Journal publishes an op-ed by Michael Way decrying the State Board’s decision, painting Charter One as the victim of a political agenda and vowing to continue the fight. Presumably Way is referring to both the fight for school choice and the fight for fat stacks of North Carolina taxpayer money.
As an interesting side note, Way’s bio on the op-ed says he, “along with his wife and four children, has grown deep roots and an appreciation for their home in the greater Raleigh area.” Indeed, Wake County property records show that both Michael and his brother Jordan purchased homes in Wake Forest NC in the spring of 2021. However, Michael’s root-measuring skills appear to be somewhat lacking as bothhomes were put up for sale in October 2023, and a Wake Preparatory Academy Facebook post indicates the brothers have moved back to Arizona.
February and March 2023:
February 8: NC Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is keynote speaker at an “Explore School Choice” event in Arizona organized by Charter One.
Beginning that same day, Robinson receives $24,400 in campaign donations from people employed by Charter One. Remember that in addition to serving as LG, Robinson is a voting member of the State Board of Education and GOP frontrunner to be the state’s next governor, and his wife sits on the boards of three American Leadership Academy charter schools in North Carolina.
Here are the 2023 Charter One Robinson donations to date:
Nathan Hunsaker C1 SE VP Charter One Knightdale, NC 2/8/2023 $5000
William Guttery, CEO Charter One Queen Creek, AZ 2/9/2023 $5000
Robert Plowman, Finance Charter One Gilbert, AZ 2/9/2023 $5000
Michael Way Education Charter One Wake Forest, NC 2/23/2023 $3600
Gregg Sinders, Director Charter One Holly Springs, NC 3/26/2023 $800
Jordan Way Education Charter One Wake Forest, NC 3/28/2023 $5000
You can review Mark Robinson’s 2023 campaign donations for yourself here, retrieved from the NC State Board of Elections website.
(This is not the first time Robinson has received money from Charter One folks. In 2021 he got a total of $8500, the majority of it from Gregg Sinders and $2800 from Michael Way. Coincidentally enough, that same year he headlined a ribbon cutting ceremony for American Leadership Academy Coastal in Wilmington.)
March 2023:
Union County senators Todd Johnson and David Craven file a bill that would force the State Board of Education to approve the charter application of ALA Monroe (Monroe lies in Union County).
A spokesperson for Charter One tells WCNC that the company “worked in conjunction with the board of directors for ALA Monroe and the two lawmakers to make the bill possible.
The bill is sent to the Senate rules committee and never emerges.
April 2023:
Three days after formally switching her party registration from Democrat to Republican, Representative Tricia Cotham files HB 618, a bill which would take away the State Board of Education’s power to approve or deny charter applications and instead give that responsibility to the Charter School Review Board. The Charter School Review Board has 11 voting members–8 appointed by the General Assembly, 2 appointed by the State Board of Education who must be advocates for charter schools and the final member is…wait for it…the Lieutenant Governor (or his designee).
The bill also gives the State Superintendent (currently Republican Catherine Truitt who happens to be running for reelection next year) authority to appeal decisions of the Charter School Review Board within 10 days of the Review Board’s decision.
June 2023:
HB 618 passes the House and the Senate and is ratified on June 28.
Gregg Sinders, Director Charter One Holly Springs, NC 6/29/2023 $6400
Glenn Way Founder Charter One Queen Creek, AZ 6/30/2023 $6400
You read that right: the big guy himself, Charter One founder Glenn Way, donated the maximum possible amount to the political campaign of our state superintendent just two days after a bill making her the only person who could appeal approval of ALA Monroe’s charter is ratified.
You can review Catherine Truitt’s 2023 campaign donations for yourself here, retrieved from the NC State Board of Elections website.
July 2023:
Governor Cooper vetoes HB 618, noting in a statement that the law appears to violate the state constitution:
“The North Carolina Constitution clearly gives the State Board of Education the oversight authority for public schools, including charter schools. This bill is a legislative power grab that turns that responsibility over to a commission of political friends and extremists appointed by Republican legislators, making it more likely that faulty or failing charter schools will be allowed to operate and shortchange their students. Oversight of charter schools should be conducted by education experts not partisan politicians.”
August 2023:
State lawmakers override Cooper’s veto and HB 618 becomes law. Authority in approving or denying charter applications now rests with the Charter School Review Board.
September 2023:
The State Board of Education passes a new policy requiring charter schools to demonstrate their compliance with finance law before receiving state funds.
Under this policy, the Charter School Review Board must submit details about school funding for charter schools seeking initial approval or renewal to the State Board. The State Board will then review those documents before disbursing funds to the schools.
Despite having recused himself from discussion and voting on the American Leadership Academy Monroe matter in December 2022 and January 2023, Mark Robinson does NOT recuse himself this time and votes against the policy.
State Board members are reminded by the chair at the outset of each meeting that “it is [their] duty to avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest as we handle the work of the Board” and “to abstain from participating in discussion on the matter and from voting on the matter.”
Voting on a policy that could make it more difficult for the schools your wife helps lead to secure funding constitutes a clear conflict of interest, especially when you’ve recently received nearly $25,000 in campaign contributions from the people who run and profit financially from those schools.
October 2023:
WBTV reports that Lieutenant Governor Robinson failed to disclose on his 2023 ethics filing that his wife now sits on the boards of the three Charter One-managed American Leadership Academy schools. Obviously the law requires that change to be disclosed on the mandatory annual Statement of Economic Interest.
The ALA Monroe charter application lists the landlord of the school’s “build to suit” lease as SH Monroe LLC and the individual landlord as one Scott Brand, with an email address at the domain schooldev.us. SH seems likely to stand for “Schoolhouse,” and Glenn Way’s primary real estate development company is Arizona-based Schoolhouse Development LLC. Schoolhouse Development’s website (schooldev.us) lists Way and Scott Brand as that company’s principals.
Curiously, the same North Carolina LLC database which is housed on the NC Secretary of State’s website shows that Charter One Southeast, LLC had its license to transact business in the state of North Carolina revoked on February 28, 2023 for failure to file an annual report.
It’s unclear how this company can continue to operate in our state without a license.
Unfortunately the saga above seems likely to repeat itself over and over in North Carolina.
Republican state legislators have gerrymandered their way into a stranglehold on power for the foreseeable future. Their policies have created a pathway for their rapacious out-of-state benefactors to sell our families a subpar product while filling their pockets with millions in North Carolina’s public tax dollars.
Contrary to what Charter One founder Glenn Way and, apparently, Mark Robinson, Catherine Truitt and all the other North Carolina elected officials who are facilitating this grift fest in our state believe, public education is not Walmart. It is a constitutional right that can alter our students’ life trajectories and offer them wonderful opportunities if adequately funded.
Regardless of how bleak North Carolina’s current political landscape appears, that’s something worth fighting for.
An attempt by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Moms for Liberty chair to have five books banned from the Ardrey Kell High School media center has failed.
The school’s School Media Advisory Committee determined that all five books will be retained in the media center, and the objecting parent is free to restrict their own child’s access to those titles as permitted by district policy.
Students in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools were not allowed to check out books for the first two weeks of school while the district waited to hear objections. The library pause came in response to Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly passing a “Parents Bill of Rights” law which, among many other things, requires superintendents to create a process for objections and provide parents with access to student library records.
After two weeks with more than 140,000 students at 181 schools having no access to media centers, only five objections were lodged.
According to WSOC, all the objections were filed at one school (Ardrey Kell High School) by the same parent. Unsurprisingly, she also happens to be the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, Brooke Weiss. (Moms for Liberty has embarked on a nation-wide crusade to ban books from school libraries.)
Committee meeting notes requested by Weiss and posted to the CMS public records request page show that, after thoughtful consideration and robust discussion, the committee decided to retain all five books in the Ardrey Kell media center. The committee noted that the objecting parent “may use policy to restrict access for their student by request.”
It’s good to see efforts to restrict other people’s children from having access to high-quality, diverse reading materials fail.
You can read the Ardrey Kell School Media Advisory Committee notes below:
His cardinal sin? Asking Wake County’s district attorney to investigate House Speaker Tim Moore for possible violations of state laws related to an extramarital affair.
Backstory:
In June, Wake County resident Scott Lassiter sued Speaker Moore for alienation of affection. The lawsuit alleged that the infamously randy Speaker Moore had engaged in an extramarital affair with Lassiter’s wife which ultimately led to the end of their marriage.
Lassiter also claimed his wife had told him that others had had group sex with Moore in pursuit of political favors from the powerful Cleveland County lawmaker.
According to the suit, Mr. Lassiter and Speaker Moore met at a Biscuitville to discuss the matter four days later.
At the Biscuitville Summit, Moore allegedly admitted the affair and asked Lassiter if there was anything [Moore] could do for Lassiter, “implying that he could use the power he held as Speaker in some way to benefit Plaintiff.”
Last month Representative Everitt sent a letter to Wake County District Attorney Lorin Freeman pointing out that Jamie Lassiter had received salary raises of more than 50% in her state job while she was having the affair with Moore, increases which far exceeded the average raises received by state employees who didn’t have affairs with Moore.
Everitt’s letter noted Moore’s alleged use of the people’s money for personal sexual gratification and asked Freeman to investigate for possible criminal violations including bribery, embezzlement, and misconduct in public office.
Freeman declined to open an investigation, but Biscuitville Moore had to have the last laugh.
So while Everitt waited in the House chamber to vote on a terrible budget guaranteed passage by the General Assembly’s stolen supermajority, his belongings were boxed and moved to a janitorial supply closet in the basement of the legislature. For added inconvenience, his legislative assistant’s office was kept on a separate floor.
Moore then sent Everitt this taunting letter explaining the change:
Moore’s letter uses a disagreement Everitt had with a fellow Democrat as pretext for the punitive office move. It’s a missive that sounds as if it were written by an unusually articulate junior high bully, filled with not-so-subtle references to what Moore appears to perceive as Everitt’s lack of manliness.
While Moore’s lack of professionalism and basic maturity might surprise outsiders, few North Caroliians would expect anything else from the House Speaker.
Educators returning to work in Union County Public Schools for the 2023-24 school year are being required to agree to a handful of specific policies including one stating that they won’t cause any student to feel “discomfort” during discussions about race or gender while at school.
The policy was initially enacted by the county’s far-right school board in 2021, the year extremist groups across the United States carried out their manufactured CRT hysteria campaign.
Union County Public Schools’ efforts to ensure staff are adhering to mandated restrictions on discussions of race and gender comes just months after a student flying a Confederate flag at Porter Ridge High School led one parent to lament “We just want to make sure that our children are safe. Nobody wants to go to school and feel unsafe. I’m not even at the school and it makes me feel unsafe.”
(In contrast with reality, a district spokesperson said the flag didn’t cause a disruption or safety concerns. The spokesperson added that no policies prohibit the flying of flags on school property. On a related note, Union County’s school board banned pride flags from classrooms this past May.)
To be clear, if there’s any county that could benefit from honest conversations about race and systemic oppression it’s Union County, North Carolina.
UC is the proud home of former US Senator Jesse Helms, who once said in a campaign ad “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?”
Yet the right-wing school board’s policy which employees are being forced to swear allegiance to is all about ensuring that white people don’t feel bad about racism and that honest conversations about our history of racial oppression and how current systems still disproportionately benefit white people are less likely to happen in schools.
Union County’s policy is all about whitewashing our students’ education and perpetuating a harmful status quo, and it amounts to indoctrination.
The same year Union County’s school board passed its white comfort policy, North Carolina’s controversial Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson launched his “F.A.C.T.S. task force” to collect evidence of what Robinson said was rampant indoctrination by the state’s educators.
Robinson’s F.A.C.T.S. site asks for examples of “…indoctrination according to a political agenda or ideology, whether through assigned work, teacher comments, or a hostile classroom environment.”
North Carolina’s most polarizing politician may be attempting something of an image reboot as he sets his sights on the governor’s mansion.
Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson has been both reviled by those on the left and celebrated by fringe elements on the right for his extreme views, including regular doses of anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic rhetoric.
Now that Robinson has declared his candidacy for governor in the 2024 election, there are signs that the firebrand who once referred to homosexuality as “filth” may be trying to soften his public image in an effort to attract more mainstream votes.
Over the past week Robinson’s Twitter account has been doing its damndest to portray future-governor Mark Robinson as a reasonable, regular guy who just wants to bake some nice cookies and do great things for North Carolina.
Last week news also broke that Robinson would not be attending August’s ReAwaken America event in Las Vegas.
ReAwaken America is a traveling conspiracy theory exposition and political rally led by Donald Trump’s former national security advisor General Michael Flynn and an Oklahoma podcaster named Clay Clark who is currently facing a defamation suit over claims he made about Dominion Voting Systems and the 2020 presidential election.
Clark and Flynn have been traveling around the country (since shortly after Trump pardoned Flynn for lying to the FBI) providing space for QAnon conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers such as Alex Jones and Robert F Kennedy, Jr to infect people with their bonkers ideas.
Last month Clark breathlessly tweeted that Mark Robinson would be attending ReAwaken America in August in Las Vegas.
A poster for the event featured Mark Robinson’s smiling face front and center.
But recently the poster was updated to say that Robinson had merely been invited, and Robinson’s communications director explained he would no longer be attending the event.
No doubt Mark Robinson would like for voters to believe that he’s not a guy who belongs on stage with the likes of Alex Jones. But the two actually have a lot in common.
Jones recently declared bankruptcy after being ordered to pay almost $1.5 billion in damages to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre. Jones had falsely and repeatedly claimed on his InfoWars website and talk show that the 2012 murders of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School did not actually occur.
Robinson knows a thing or two about denying school shootings and disparaging shooting victims.
In 2018 Robinson posted an image of Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg with the words “Media Hogg” and a series of laughing emojis. In comments on the post Robinson indicated he thought Hogg was an actor.
Mark Robinson would love to hoodwink North Carolina voters into thinking he’s a reasonable, moderate politician who will do great things for our state.
Sunday’s New York Times deep dive into Mecklenburg County Representative Tricia Cotham’s shocking decision to switch parties and give North Carolina Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the state legislature contained few bombshells on the now-infamous legislator’s controversial move.
For the most part, the Times rehashed details many North Carolinians already know:
➢ That Cotham was recruited by Republicans to run for a second stint in the legislature after several years away
➢ That Cotham spent the years between her first and second stretches as an elected official working as a education-focused lobbyist, developing close relationships with Republicans and a passion for school privatization
➢ That when Cotham filed to run in 2022 it surprised many Democrats–and her silent treatment of others in the caucus and of organizations like Planned Parenthood raised concerns before the election
➢ That Cotham was angry that Democrats “treated her as a newcomer when she returned to the House, inviting her to freshman orientation and offering her a mentor”
➢ That no evidence has surfaced to support Cotham’s contention that she was a victim of bullying by fellow Democratic legislators
➢ That the legislator was envious of attention that other Democrats received from the party and upset that she “did not get the gratitude or spotlight that she felt she deserved”
However, some details about Cotham’s political fundraising stood out to me.
Cotham was elected to a very blue seat, knocking off her Republican opponent by almost 20%. Interestingly, the New York Times identifies some of the biggest donors to her campaign for the Democratic House seat as having given almost exclusively to Republicans.
The Times also noted at least one donor, Ann Newman, as having requested and received a refund for a $250 contribution she made to Cotham’s 2022 campaign.
According to transparencyusa.org, Cotham took in nearly $82,000 in contributions for the 2022 general election. While there were apparently some Republicans donating to what they hoped would be a Trojan Horse candidate, the majority of those donors were local Democrats who expected that Cotham would represent their interests after they helped her win her seat.
That’s what a representative is supposed to do, right?
Not only did Cotham NOT represent those interests, her decision to switch parties singlehandedly gifted a veto-proof supermajority to North Carolina Republicans, meaning Governor Cooper can no longer stop terrible policy from becoming law.
Cotham has also gone out of her way to lend support to efforts to restrict women’s health care and divert funding for public schools to private schools and charters.
If you’re among the donors that Cotham hoodwinked, you can request a refund by email or phone at the contact information provided on Cotham’s General Assembly page:
As North Carolinians wait for state legislators to wrap up their vacations and pass an overdue state budget, details on what to expect are beginning to emerge.
According to House Speaker Tim Moore, proposed expansion of the state’s controversial school voucher program “will be part of the final budget agreement.”
Assuming no major changes to voucher bills filed earlier this session, the legislation will triple funding for school vouchers as well as eliminating income eligibility requirements so that any student in the state–regardless of financial need–may use public money to attend private schools.
In effect, that means North Carolinians will now be forced to subsidize the tuition of wealthy students who already attend private school. Republican State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt recently acknowledged that fact, saying the Department of Public Instruction expects most vouchers to be taken by families whose children do not currently attend public schools.
(Side note: Thus far Superintendent Truitt has NOT lived up to her campaign promise to oppose voucher expansion if elected)
Opportunity Scholarship was first implemented in school year 2014-15 and doled out a mere $4.6 million in taxpayer funds that year. School year 2022-23 saw nearly $134 million distributed, the vast majority to private schools. The new legislation would take that figure north of a half a billion dollars a year by school year 2032-33.
You’d think the self-styled party of fiscal responsibility would want to ensure that taxpayers are getting a good return on an investment of more than a half a billion dollars a year.
You’d be wrong.
Republican legislators have created the country’s least accountable voucher system in North Carolina. Not only do voucher-accepting schools have no requirements for teacher licenses, accreditation or standard curriculum, but these schools have no requirement to participate in the state’s end of year testing program. That means we have no way of knowing whether any student who has left a traditional public school for a voucher school is getting better academic outcomes or not.
Republicans’ anything-goes approach to voucher management means abundant opportunities for fraud by unscrupulous, profit-driven actors, and the school privatization space is filled with them.
A recent comparison of student enrollment with voucher funds disbursement by North Carolina Justice Center policy analyst Kris Nordstrom found evidence of private schools claiming more vouchers than they had students, and the State Bureau of Investigation is now investigating the matter. Inquiries to the General Assembly’s most pro-voucher legislators (including former Mecklenburg County’s infamous former Democrat Tricia Cotham) about how they will protect taxpayers from such fraud in the future have been met with cricket noises.
In addition to problems with lack of accountability and potential for fraud, expansion of vouchers means less available funding for the traditional public schools that serve the vast majority of the state’s students. Hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a lot of money to divert away from public schools at a time when those schools are struggling to staff up and to provide students with the resources they need to learn.
The North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management estimates the changes will directly deprive public schools of more than $200 million per year by school year 2026-27. Those cuts will be felt most deeply by the state’s rural districts:
It’s anyone’s guess when the state budget will be presented to the public, although some signs point to next month. That leaves time for you to contact your legislators and express your views on voucher expansion or any other legislative matter that concerns you.
You can find contact information for members of the General Assembly below:
NC House Speaker Tim Moore has some explaining to do.
Moore leads Republicans in North Carolina’s House of Representatives and is second only to Senate Pro Tempore Phil Berger when it comes to political muscle in the state.
WRAL just broke the news that Moore and an unidentified “John Doe” are being sued in Wake County Superior Court over Moore’s alleged extramarital relationship with the wife of a Wake County Public Schools assistant principal.
Scott Lassiter serves as an administrator at Connections Academy Middle School and was on Apex’s Town Council from 2011-2015.
Lassiter’s lawsuit alleges that his wife Jamie Liles Lassiter, who serves as Executive Director of the North Carolina Conference of Clerks of Superior Court, engaged in an extramarital affair with Moore which ultimately led to the end of the Lassiter’s marriage.
The suit claims that when confronted by her husband,
“Mrs. Lassiter tearfully confessed that she had been involved in an extramarital affair with Defendant Tim Moore for more than three years, that she had engaged in sexual activity with Defendant Tim Moore (including group sex with other individuals seeking Defendant Tim Moore’s political favor), and that she feared ending the relationship with Defendant Tim Moore would result in losing her job.”
According to the lawsuit, Mr. Lassiter and Speaker Moore met at a Biscuitville to discuss the matter four days later.
At the Biscuitville meeting, Moore allegedly admitted the affair and asked Lassiter if there was anything [Moore] could do for Lassiter, “implying that he could use the power he held as Speaker in some way to benefit Plaintiff.”
The lawsuit also claims that earlier this month an unidentified man (“John Doe” in the court filing) secretly installed a camera in a tree in Lassiter’s yard pointing at Lassiter’s house “to capture photos and video recordings of Plaintiff without Plaintiff’s consent.”
For his part, Speaker Moore claims the allegations are “baseless” and says he intends to “vigorously defend this action.”
