Public Education Policy Statement
As adopted by NCACC Board of Directors on Dec. 15, 2010

Introduction

The Association believes that every child should have equal access to a sound basic education designed to prepare students for successful living, work and good citizenship in a modern society. Recognizing that the responsibility for public education in our country is that of the states, the Association believes that adequate state resources must ensure a sound basic education for all North Carolina children. We believe that improved public education is imperative to the future of North Carolina's citizens, and we encourage the state to place higher priority on increased support for the necessary improvements to compete in an increasingly global and technologically complex business environment.

The Association supports a continued federal role in the funding of educational services. The Association further believes that citizen control of public schools is essential to guarantee continued widespread understanding and support for this major responsibility of government: the education of its people. The Association acknowledges and accepts the traditional responsibility of boards of county commissioners to provide adequate facilities in which to meet our students' need for a sound basic education.

Clarifying State and County Financial Responsibility

The Association recognizes the importance of new approaches to education in the effort to improve our public schools. New classroom technologies and such innovations as the NC Virtual Public School, Early College High Schools, alternative schools, and charter schools are intended to introduce greater choice into the state's public education system. When the General Assembly authorizes changes to introduce greater choice and/or improve education, these changes and flexibilities should be equally available to all existing public schools.

The Association will support efforts by state policy makers that, in the view of county commissioners, will lead to substantive improvements in the state-supported basic elementary and secondary education programs available to the children of North Carolina. Elementary and secondary public education should be a clear priority to ensure that North Carolina citizens are well served by our schools.

The state should define and support an adequate sound basic education in all local school systems and appropriate adequate operating funds to fully fund its education initiatives with revenue that is earmarked to pay the costs of those initiatives. The state should fund programs that continue to engage young people, provide individualized options that eliminate arbitrary barriers and provide students a range of opportunities through which they can gain the credentials, skills and education they need to function in the modern economy of the 21st century.

The division of responsibility between the state and counties for financing public school needs, which was established by the General Assembly in 1933, became blurred during the years that followed. The Association supports efforts to clarify state and county responsibility through legislation that reflects and recognizes the following realities:

• the rightful guarantee of equal access to high quality basic education opportunities for every child in North Carolina;
• the limitation of county government revenue sources and the need for additional sources of revenue at the county level;
• the impacts of changing technologies on basic educational needs and the job market in the future;
• the impact of changes in the state-supported education program on the facility needs of local school systems;
• the need, if county governments are to remain responsible for school facility needs, for county commissioners to have the authority to assure that funds appropriated to meet these needs are used accordingly; and
• the problems experienced by counties, particularly suburban counties in areas surrounding metropolitan areas, in which growth in school population is not matched by growth in county revenue.

Further, the Association believes that county commissioners together with the state must be diligent in carrying out their financing responsibility for school facilities. Adequate capital financing arrangements will necessitate strong attention to long-range financial planning. School building needs of necessity must be considered in the context of all facilities that commissioners are required to finance.

County Commissioners and Local Boards

Especially in the area of attaining sufficient state financing for a quality basic education, commissioners and local school board members can be more effective by acting cooperatively to promote improvements in public education.

Joint cooperative action between boards of county commissioners and local school boards is essential to the successful delivery of excellent public education. The free exchange of information and ideas among the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, the North Carolina School Boards Association and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is likewise necessary to promote understanding of the variety and complexity of issues related to public education.

The Association strongly urges the General Assembly to support counties in their efforts to fund no more than one school system per county in order to better utilize school facilities and financial resources. Taxation for local support of public education should be vested exclusively with boards of county commissioners.

Community Colleges

North Carolina's community colleges are critical components of the state's integrated efforts to prepare youth and adults for constructive participation in a constantly changing economy. The NCACC recognizes the counties' statutory responsibility to provide financial support for plant operations, maintenance and capital construction, but also supports additional state funds to help counties address construction needs due to increased enrollments and aging facilities. To meet North Carolina's changing workforce demands, the NCACC supports increased state funding to train and retrain both young students and adult citizens.