North Carolina Supreme Court Overturns Landmark School Funding Case

New Ruling in Leandro Betrays Public School Children by Ending Historic Plan to Provide Constitutionally Adequate Education

In a devastating loss for North Carolina public school children and families, earlier this month the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its own 2022 ruling in the Leandro case (also known as Hoke County Board of Education v. State), which had reinstated a trial court order to adequately fund the state’s chronically under-resourced public schools. The Court’s decision puts an end to the decades-old, landmark Leandro school funding litigation.

In the split decision, the majority of justices ruled that the courts had no authority to hear the matter and voided any rulings in the case issued after 2017. As a result, the plan the State had agreed to implement, infusing billions more into the public school system to pay for essential educational resources and enacting other vital reforms, will now be abandoned.

“Generations of children have been waiting for the State to fulfill the obligation the North Carolina Supreme Court previously acknowledged as paramount: providing a public education that ensures that ‘children are afforded the chance to become contributing, constructive members of society,’” said Education Law Center Senior Attorney Wendy Lecker. “With this callous decision, the Court has erased three decades of painstaking advocacy and delayed the promise of tangible improvement that had seemed firmly within reach.”

“Our schools and early childhood programs are grappling with teacher and staffing shortages while facing threats of funding cuts,” said Matt Ellinwood, Education and Law Project Director at the North Carolina Justice Center. “With an education system that is truly in jeopardy, our children cannot wait any longer for access to basic educational resources.”

Read Education Law Center’s analysis of the over three-decade history of Leandro and the most recent North Carolina Supreme Court ruling.

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Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Communications
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x240