The North Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday overturned its own 2022 decision in the long-running Leandro school funding case, potentially ending the decades-long quest to force the General Assembly to significantly increase school funding.
That decision had ordered the state to fund a multi-billion-dollar plan to improve the state’s school system, after decades’ worth of court rulings had established the state was failing to meet its constitutional obligation to give students a sound, basic education.
The court ruled in a 4-3 decision, with Republican Justice Richard Dietz dissenting alongside the court’s Democratic minority. The court’s 244-page opinion argues the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to rule on the case, and that the problem of resolving a dispute over how much funding certain programs should receive is not the judiciary's place. The justices dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can't be re-filed.
"The people did not vest the judicial branch with the power to resolve policy disputes between the other branches of government or to set education policy. We would be
especially ill-equipped to resolve such questions in any event," the majority wrote in Thursday's ruling. "Judges are not experts on education policy. We cannot account for the various policy alternatives or public opinion. Our consideration of cases is limited to the facts and evidence in the record and the dispassionate application of the law. In short, the judicial branch is not the venue in which to seek education policy reform."
You can read the decision here.
The ruling, however, does not refute the right to a "sound, basic education" that was established in the case's first ruling in 1997.
The court’s decision to rehear the case was controversial in itself. The 2022 decision, which ordered the state to give schools more money, came when Democrats controlled the court. The decision to reconsider came only after the subsequent election flipped the court to a Republican majority.
The decision comes more than two years after the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case — a wait that legal experts said was unusual, if not unprecedented.
The case began in 1994, when five low-wealth school districts sued the state alleging they were inadequately funded.
One of the original plaintiffs and the case's original namesake was Robb Leandro, who was then an eighth grader at Hoke County Schools. Now, he's an attorney at the same firm that would go on to represent the plaintiffs in the case (though he himself did not represent them).
"I'll be frank with you, when I was 14 years old, it was my expectation that upon hearing our claims that the state would immediately look to remedy them," he told WFAE Thursday. "It shocked me that it took so long that, you know, the decisions weren't even made until I was in college, the first one."
Leandro called Thursday's decision "discouraging." But he emphasized that while the court overturned its order to fund a statewide education plan, the case’s finding that all students are entitled to a “sound, basic education” can’t be undone.
“I think today's decision overturns what was probably the best hope for a larger response to this idea that North Carolina is failing to provide a basic education. That is what today does, but it doesn't end the debate," he said. "It didn't extinguish the right. And wherever there's a right, there has to be a remedy. And so, now we just have to move to the next phase.”
He said that next phase could involve individual schools or students could pursue individual cases alleging their Leandro rights had been violated.
Reactions from across the political spectrum came soon after the decision's release. Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said in a statement that the court had slammed the "doors of opportunity" shut for students. He said the court had "simply ignored its own established precedent, enabling the General Assembly to continue to deprive another generation of North Carolina students of the education promised by our Constitution."
The North Carolina Association of Educators, the labor organization representing the state's teachers, said "what the court tries to pass off as a legal technicality is, instead, a moral failure." The NCAE is planning a rally in Raleigh on May 1 to protest funding issues, though this had been planned before Thursday's decision.
Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, whose initial legal challenge on behalf of the General Assembly prompted the 2022 ruling and today's ruling, celebrated the court's decision. He argued that the court is correct: decisions about education funding need to come from the legislature, not the courts.
"For decades, liberal education special interests have improperly tried to hijack North Carolina's constitutional funding process in order to impose their policy preferences via judicial fiat," said Berger, a Republican. "Today's decision confirms that the proper pathway for policymaking is the legislative process."
The Office of the State Controller had also joined the case in order to oppose the order of funds that hadn't been approved by the legislature. This legal challenge started first under Republican Gov. Pat McCrory appointee Linda Combs' tenure, and then continued under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's appointee and current Controller Nels Roseland.
"Today’s order from the NC Supreme Court ensures the Office of the State Controller can continue its work in an orderly, accountable, and sustainable manner," Roseland said in a statement Thursday. "My primary job as State Controller is to ensure that state tax dollars are managed with the utmost accuracy, independence, and professionalism — and only with express authorization from the NC General Assembly."
North Carolina routinely ranks near the bottom of national lists that track per-pupil spending, teacher pay and school funding.
In the wake of the decision, education advocates expressed frustration, but vowed to continue pushing for adequate school funding. Sara Howell, the associate director of policy programs for the Public School Forum of North Carolina, told WFAE the onus now rests on legislators in the General Assembly.
"It has been decades of disinvestment and underfunding of our public schools, and we see that playing out in local school budget fights every day right now on the news," Howell said. "And so the constitutional question at the heart of this remains, right? The courts are out, legislators, it's time for them to step up.”
In a joint statement, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education, noting the decision has no immediate operational impact on the district but voicing concern that "the state of North Carolina does not recognize public education as the foundation of our society."
