RALEIGH (November 27, 2024) – Does North Carolina – once a beacon of the New South – really want to remain a segregated state of the 1950s?
An analysis this month from ProPublica indicates it does.
ProPublica’s study identified 20 private “segregation academies” in North Carolina that were founded in the 1960s and 1970s whose student bodies remain at least 85% white – even in counties that are majority Black.
Those 20 private schools have received more than $20 million in state taxpayer dollars in the form of private school vouchers in the past three years alone.
“None reflected the demographics of their communities,” ProPublic reported. “Few even came close.”
Northeast Academy in Northampton County, near the Virginia border, had an enrollment in 2021-22 that was 99% white in a county that is 40% white. Last year it received $438,500 from the state’s voucher program, almost half its reported tuition revenue.
Lawrence Academy in Bertie County has never reported Black enrollment higher than 3% in a county that is roughly 60% Black. Yet the school received $518,240 in vouchers last year, ProPublica reported.
“That’s half a million dollars I think could be put to better benefit in public schools,” said Bertie County Schools Superintendent Otis Smallwood.
“The share of Black students who have received vouchers in North Carolina has dropped significantly since the program’s launch,” ProPublica reported. “In 2014, more than half the recipients were Black. This school year, the figure is 17%.”
Rodney Pierce, a Black father and public school history teacher, watched Rep. Michael Wray, D-Northampton, vote for expansion of vouchers in the state budgets he supported. Pierce had one white student in his classes last year at Gaston STEM Leadership Academy as white children filled Northeast Academy across the county.
So Pierce challenged Wray, a 10-term incumbent, in a Democratic primary this year. He won by 34 votes. He had no opponent in the general election this month, so come January Pierce will represent his district in the NC House.
“Particularly in the Black community, we care about our public schools,” he told ProPublica.1
The agenda is clear: Use vouchers to return North Carolina’s schools to the segregated schools of the 1950s.
What are white people so afraid of?
It’s the 21st century, North Carolina. Not the 19th. Not the 20th. Get used to it.
1 https://www.propublica.org/article/segregation-academies-school-voucher-money-north-carolina.
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