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 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."
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.
You can read the decision here.
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."
North Carolina routinely ranks near the bottom of national lists that track per-pupil spending, teacher pay and school funding.
This story will be updated.
