Previewing major N.C. education changes for 2023

Big money, big reforms will put competing philosophies on education improvement to the test

The North Carolina public education debate is actually fairly simple to boil down. Everyone agrees that too few children are succeeding academically and that the state’s K-12 schools need to improve. The difference is in how to address the problem.

The left believes that the solution is simply more money. Increase funding, and schools will improve. The right believes that the public education system itself is fundamentally flawed, and no amount of money will fix them without significant reforms.

Both sides will be put to the test in 2023.

Over the past year, large school districts across the state have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government through COVID relief funds and President Biden’s inflationary American Rescue Plan. It’s so much money, in fact, that school districts have struggled to figure out what to do with it all.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Wake County Public Schools and other large N.C. school districts have all made after-school tutoring pr…