Today, Governor Roy Cooper visited Haw River Elementary School in Alamance County to emphasize the dangerous impacts of extreme legislation proposed by Republican legislators that would fail early learners, their families and businesses by failing to fund early childhood education and critical child care programs.
“Republican legislators are threatening North Carolina’s historic economic growth by failing to invest in child care and early childhood education – an area where a lack of teachers is already causing a strain for many families,” said Governor Cooper. “Instead of handing huge tax breaks to the wealthy and major corporations, the legislature should invest in early learners and child care to set students on the path to success, allow parents to go to work and help businesses find and keep employees.”
In May, the NC Chamber Foundation released the results of a survey that found more than 80% of North Carolina voters say the lack of child care is a problem that will not solve itself and that improving quality and making child care more affordable is a good use of taxpayer money. Further, 87% say taking action to ensure more working families have access to affordable, quality child care should be an important priority for North Carolina this year.
To ensure North Carolina’s early childhood care and education system can serve as many students as possible, Governor Cooper proposed $1.5 billion in new funding to support childcare and early childhood education needs across the state. As part of that investment, the Governor’s budget includes:
- $500 million for childcare stabilization grants to help maintain access to affordable early childhood education
- $200 million to increase childcare subsidy rates in rural and lower wealth communities
- Nearly $200 million in recurring funding over the biennium for the NC Pre-K program
The Senate budget fails early learners, their families and businesses by providing no state funding for child care stabilization grants or the expansion of Smart Start or NC Pre-K.
The House budget proposes only minimal funds to increase the childcare subsidy rate ($24 million beginning in FY2024-25) and for Smart Start ($10 million total for the biennium), a fraction of what's needed to meet North Carolina’s child care needs.
In addition to siphoning money out of public schools, Republicans are also proposing large tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that will reduce total state funding by almost 20% and cause long-term cuts to the classroom.
In a special address earlier this week, Governor Cooper outlined sweeping legislation in the NC General Assembly that would choke the life out of public education. These extreme bills would cause public schools to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through the expansion of private school vouchers, exacerbate the state’s teacher shortage and bring political culture wars into the classrooms.
Haw River Elementary is a Title I school that offers Pre-K for children ages 3-5 in Alamance County. Haw River Elementary has also implemented a “Leader in Me” initiative to help teachers develop student leadership skills. Proposed Republican plans offer no much-needed funding increases for pre-K programs like the one at Haw River Elementary.
The Governor is calling on North Carolinians to visit governor.nc.gov to learn more and contact their legislators to ask them to protect public schools.
Watch the Governor’s address.
Read the Governor’s full remarks.
Learn more about North Carolina’s public education emergency.
###