What is Leandro – and is there the political will to fund it?
The initial Leandro court case (Leandro v. State of North Carolina, 1997), which is over thirty years old, found that students have a right to a sound, basic education — a right that in some cases was endangered due to insufficient funding. Later legal developments eventually outlined how to fund that state constitutional right to the tune of billions in extra dollars to school districts. More specifically, in 2021, that remedial figure landed at $5.5 billion in additional funds over eight years.
An allocation formula was created to then divide that money between the state’s 115 school systems, with amounts varying. According to EveryChildNC, the original plan would mean close to $52 million for New Hanover County Schools (additionally, early childhood education would receive close to $6 million).
In 2022, the state’s Supreme Court — which, at the time, had a Democratic majority – ordered the General Assembly to release $1.7 billion dollars to cover the first several years of the eight-year plan. However, WFAE reported this February that the overall figure has dropped down to $678 million, since the plan’s implementation has been delayed.
The Leandro case has a tumultuous history. Just four days after the 2022 state Supreme Court ruling, the court flipped to Republican control following the election. The legislature quickly appealed the 2022 decision, with the Republican majority arguing that the courts lack the authority to direct state funding.
The state’s highest court has broad discretion over whether to hear appeals, and typically declines to revisit past decisions unless there have been changes to the underlying facts of the case. But the court agreed to rehear Leandro, and finally heard arguments last year — but they’ve yet to issue a ruling about whether they can make the General Assembly release the funds.
The current political environment, with Republican control of the General Assembly and state Supreme Court, has called into question whether there will ever be full funding for the Leandro plan, which was created by education researchers at West Ed, the Learning Policy Institute, and NC State University’s Friday Institute.
A local education activist speaks out, asks NHC school board to sign resolution
Rebecca Trammel, the leader of the public awareness campaign #IAmLeandro, was asking the NHCS board to sign a resolution, brought forward by Democratic member Tim Merrick, in support of the funding release.
But after a four-hour meeting, the board ran out of time to address the resolution — much to Trammel’s frustration.
“We came ready, we had speeches, we had our T-shirts on, and people wearing ‘I Am Leandro’ name tags to say that we are here in solidarity to support the resolution, and we waited until they shut the doors, and they never talked about it,” she said.
Trammel was disappointed that even though the board discussed things like the lack of funding for preschool and school nurses — they didn’t make it to the discussion of Leandro, which she sees as a main solution to solve their financial woes.
“Most every single thing that they [the school board] were talking about could be addressed with a Leandro Comprehensive Remedial Plan [...], so I am less interested in talking about problems when we have solutions in front of us,” she said.
Trammel said the plan outlines funding for things like staff positions, raises, professional development, students who are at-risk, and preschool.
The resolution also includes some fairly stark statistics compiled by MyFutureNC. For example, according to the data, only 31% of North Carolina students in grades 3-8 earned a college-and-career ready score on the end-of-grade reading exam. For math, it's 37%. For New Hanover County students, these scores are higher: for reading, it’s at 37%, and for math, it’s 47%.
While the Leandro funding isn’t necessarily guaranteed through the court or the legislature, the NHCS school board is scheduling the discussion of the resolution at the agenda review at the end of the month.
Addressing the private school voucher program?
In the proposed NHCS Leandro resolution, there is a line that states that public school funding should not be “undermined by expanding private school voucher programs,” which might cause reluctance on the part of the Republican controlled school board, whose conservative members have largely supported school choice and vouchers.
Trammel said the board could take that section out if they wanted and maintained that ‘IAmLeandro’ has not openly attacked the Opportunity Scholarship program. But she did say, “to fund private school vouchers at the expense of public schools is like choosing not to pay your rent or mortgage and go to Disney World.”
Related: Deep Dive: Private school vouchers in New Hanover County
Republican member David Perry said on the 2024 campaign trail that he supported a funding model where the money follows the student, which is similar to the current voucher model; conversely, his Democratic colleagues Merrick and Judy Justice, who also won in 2024, said they wanted this funding to stop.
State legislators who serve the Cape Fear region, with the exception of Democratic Representative Deb Butler, have voted to support the voucher expansion.
Within the context of the 2024-2025 state budget, Butler brought up funding for the Leandro Plan.
“We have a court opinion that says we are not fulfilling our responsibilities to North Carolina's children. The Leandro decision is very detailed about where our shortcomings are. Why, if we have the resources, why haven't we done that? [...], it defies logic,” she said.
The Education Law Center released a December 2024 report showing North Carolina ranked 48th among states in funding level and 49th in funding effort, spending $4,868 less per student than the national average. However, it did rank 12th in providing more funding to school districts with higher rates of student poverty.
Last year, the legislature sent $432 million to private schools across the state. They have already budgeted $600 million for this upcoming school year — and $655 million for 2026-2027.
Making the case for putting more money into public education
Republican Senator Michael Lee, who chairs the Senate appropriations and education committees, has said that the legislature should base school funding on “inputs” and “outputs,” meaning that they should look at outcomes before deciding to increase the amount of funding going into public education.
Trammel said this thinking is akin to saying, “I’m not going to invest in the stock market this year, but I'm expecting an amazing year. Yeah, you reap what you sow.”
According to Lee, this paradigm also shows if certain educational outcomes are going relatively well, then they don’t need additional funding. Lee has also been vocal in the past that certain parts of the Leandro Plan had already been funded.
Back in 2021, Lee told WHQR that year’s budget included “a lot of the key metrics that the court advanced with the first five or seven standards, you'll see a lot of that actually weaved within this budget. It may not have been exactly the way a third-party consultant wanted to do it. But in some instances it is, but in other instances, it's where we have crafted something in North Carolina that works for North Carolina.”
Fast forward to the campaign trail in 2024, Lee said the state is still sufficiently funding public education — and that families deserve to have access to private school funding when their public school isn’t serving them. He also said he wanted New Hanover County to match the state’s contribution to the school system, having it equal at 45%, 45% — and the federal government picking up the rest. The state currently picks up about 61% of its operating budget.
Prior Leandro plan conversations with state and local leaders
At a January turnaround task force meeting, NHCS Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes responded to member Jane Morrow, who is the executive director of New Hanover Smart Start, about lobbying for the Leandro funds for this upcoming budget cycle. Morrow was advising that more local leaders needed to step up to advocate for the plan.
“I have the least amount of influence and momentum on things like the Leandro case. [...] So it's like, where do I have the most ability to impact and help our children? It's really working with our county commissioners, because I don't have near the amount of influence anywhere else,” Barnes said.
Kris Nordstrom is a senior policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center. Earlier this year, he said the state has a lot more capacity to fund public education and they’re choosing not to.
“The Leandro case is not about how to have the best school system in the country. It's to have the bare minimum of what our constitution promises students. And we are far, far away from that goal,” he said.
Elizabeth Nelson, who is a former NHCS teacher and now works for the North Carolina Federation of Teachers, had hoped earlier in this year’s budget negotiations that Leandro could have been included.
“We would love to see those millions and millions of dollars put back into our schools and make sure that we're supporting those schools for the future as well,” she said.
When it comes time for budget negotiations, the House, Senate, and the governor all come up with their proposals. While both the House and Senate have both been controlled by Republicans for some time, they don’t always agree — and often clash over budget priorities. Right now, the House and Senate have passed a mini-budget, but still don’t have an overall spending package to send to the governor’s desk. However, once they do, they have nearly a veto-proof majority to overrule Democratic Governor Josh Stein if he objects (notably, North Carolina is one of only a few states that doesn’t grant some form of line-item veto).
But on the campaign trail for the governor’s office last year, Stein spoke about how much his Attorney General’s office had negotiated, along with former Governor Roy Cooper, with the plaintiffs in the Leandro case to fund the remedial plan.
“And we strongly supported it, and the legislature has refused to fund it. So you can talk about things like Leandro or you can just talk about the fact that the legislature is woefully underfunding education,” Stein said.
Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said in 2022 that the remedial Leandro plan is part of NCAE’s budget request each year.
“This would guarantee substantial funding to school districts across the state to provide equity and resources for students, both rural and urban, so that students and schools got what they needed. [...] The reason that our public schools are in dire straits right now is a dismal policy decision by our legislature,” Walker Kelly said.
Even for this budget cycle, Democratic Representative Julie von Haefen has filed a bill to fully fund the plan. Butler is a co-sponsor, but the bill went to committee and died. This is the sixth year that Von Haefan has filed the legislation.
