RALEIGH, N.C. — State officials have launched an audit into a quickly growing school voucher program, which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
The Opportunity Scholarship voucher program helps North Carolina families pay for private education.
This past school year, the program served over 100,000 students across the state and cost more than $588 million in taxpayer money.
Students across every county in the state are part of the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program. Over 700 schools are registered to receive program funds.
It was created in 2013 to make private education more affordable for lower-income families. Then, a couple of years ago, it became available to everyone. The amount a student receives depends on their family’s income — ranging from $3,574 to $7,942.
Heather Koons, director of research and communications for Public Schools First North Carolina, says the program is a misuse of public dollars.
“It’s especially problematic because the private schools do not have to accept the public,” Koons said. “So they get to pick and choose the students that they want to teach. So it’s really not parental choice, it’s school choice.”
Mike Long, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, says schools are not one size fits all.
“The concept here is that education dollars follow the child, not the system,” Long said. “And it’s extremely popular, thus the growth of it so rapidly here.”
The number of students in the program increased by over 80,000 from the 2022 to 2023 school year to this past school year.
Both Koons and Long welcome the audit into the quickly growing program.
“If they really look closely, I believe they’re going to find a lot of examples of where there’s waste, fraud and abuse in the system — particularly abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Koons said.
“Private schools really taking advantage of this funding stream from the state to increase their tuition, to use the money to expand their school buildings, to require people to apply for the scholarship regardless of whether the family has a need or even wants to apply for it,” she said.
“I think it’s important to ensure that those resources are safeguarded, that they’re administered properly and responsibly, and that they’re positioned for long-term success so that students can continue to benefit for years to come,” Long said.
“I’m not foreseeing any kind (of) problem and that could be surprising because we are talking about $600 million right now and so I think it’s excellent that the state auditor would like to make sure that those dollars are being used properly,” he said.
Spectrum News 1 received a statement from State Auditor Dave Boliek, which states, “The mission of the State Auditor’s Office is to provide oversight and accountability of entities receiving public funds, and the Opportunity Scholarship Program falls under that category. This is a relatively new program that receives significant appropriations to provide families with expanded educational options. It’s advantageous to families, students and North Carolinians that we evaluate initiatives like the Opportunity Scholarship Program to ensure they are delivering on intent.”
The State Auditor’s Office hopes to have the audit completed by the fall.
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Madison Thomas
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