North Carolina now a school choice leader
In 2013, the school choice movement in North Carolina marked a major win, with the passage of the Opportunity Scholarship program through the state legislature. The program established vouchers for low and moderate income families to attend private schools. The now 12-year-old program has faced and overcome multiple legal challenges, including Hart v. State, where the state Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the program. The majority opinion stated that the General Assembly is not constitutionally required to fund only one system of education. This opinion affirms the right of North Carolina to promote school choice and provide vouchers for private schools.
The program naturally expanded to 25,000 recipients in 2022 and underwent a major expansion in 2023, resulting in over 80,000 recipients in the 2024-2025 school year. EdChoice ranked the Opportunity Scholarship as the 15th largest school choice program in the country before its expansion. Based on the current numbers, the program would be ranked 9th in the nation.
Since the program’s establishment, private school enrollment has increased by more than 30,000, with a notable surge following the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, parents are in the driver’s seat when it comes to their children’s education. But the real win? Parents are happy. In 2018, 97 percent of parents reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their children’s academic progress in the private schools made available to them by the Opportunity Scholarship. Also, with rising crime rates in North Carolina schools, the Opportunity Scholarship provides a way out of crime-ridden schools. Nine-nine percent of parents reported that their child felt “safe” in their new private school. In 2023, applicants came from 99 out of 100 counties, showcasing the program’s statewide reach. The core mission of the NC Opportunity Scholarship: make private education available to the middle class. And it’s working, in the 2022-2023 school year, only 350 awards were given to households reporting income over $100,000. This means nearly 17,000 middle-class kids, like me, were given a chance to pursue a better education.
This program is a prime example of a state taking authority out of federal mandates and promoting parental control. North Carolina is promoting a state-first model for school choice, one without hindrance from the wild fluctuations of education policy in Washington. The program stands as proof that states don’t need to wait for federal permission to innovate.
TheOpportunity Scholarship is about letting parents, not bureaucrats, choose what education their children get. It’s about freedom from Washington’s woke mandates.
Twenty-four states nationwide have a school choice voucher program like North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship. States like Maryland and New Hampshire have recently followed North Carolina’s lead and implemented similar voucher programs. The future of school choice is this: state-led, grassroots change, putting education back in the hands of parents, where it belongs.
Drew DiMeglio is the vice-chair of the North Carolina Teenage Republicans and is a frequent Opinion contributor to the Carolina Journal in Raleigh.
