HOKE COUNTY, N.C. — A recent local school finance study shows a major funding disparity in schools between North Carolina's wealthiest counties and our more rural ones.

What You Need To Know

  • A local school finance study found local funding disparities between wealthier and poorer N.C. counties

  • Orange County spends $376 more per student that the seven lowest spending counties combined

  • Schools in rural counties can see the impact of a lack of funds in classrooms

  • Low-wealth school districts have a hard time keeping teachers because they can’t compete with higher salary offers

The study by the Public School Forum of North Carolina tracks public education spending across the state's 100 counties for more than 30 years.

In the 2021-22 school year, the 10 highest-spending counties spent more than four times the amount of money per child than the 10 lowest-spending counties. This is despite the fact that the 10 poorest counties tax themselves at a higher rate to keep up with school costs.

Heather Jackson has been a teacher at Hawk Eye Elementary School in Hoke County for six years.

“It has its own challenges,” Jackson said. “But the children are amazing. They are truly the reason why we are here, why I am here, why I come to work every day.”

She’s found her happy place teaching fifth-grade English language arts. Her students all have the school supplies they need, but Jackson often has to use her own money to make sure her kids are taken care of.

“A child is not going to come out and say, you know, my mom couldn't afford that…” Jackson said. “But when a child is given a notebook, it's like a sigh of relief. OK, I've got what I need to be present in class, or I've got a pen so I can be successful now.”

Jackson says they make do with what they have, but teaching in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina brings a lot of challenges. Hoke County has one of the lowest tax bases in the state. That means that its local school funding is often much less than wealthier, more populated counties despite taxing at a higher rate.

“Children need a lot more in our county, and they deserve it,” Jackson said. “But we're stretched thin with not much to use. So, you know, they get what they can get from us. But there would always be more if we had more people.”

The school’s principal and superintendent said students in Hoke County often need more, but the schools don’t have the funding to pour into them like other districts. To truly solve the problem, they say the whole formula needs to change to divvy out the funds more equally.

“It pulls at my heartstrings,” Jackson said. “Because these children, they deserve that chance to get those opportunities that students in other areas would automatically have.”

The study shows Orange County spends the most in our state. In the 2021-22 school year, the county spent $376 more per student that the seven lowest-spending counties combined. Those counties are Caswell, Graham, Greene, Duplin, Hoke, Robeson and Swain. The state supports these poorer counties, but school leaders say it doesn’t quite make up for what they need.

Those disparities also affect teachers in the state.

Low-wealth school districts have a harder time getting and keeping experienced teachers because they can’t compete with higher salary offers. In the 2021-22 school year, Wake County schools offered its teachers a locally funded salary supplement of more than $8,000. In nearby Greene County, teachers received a locally funded supplement of $1,000.

The Public School Forum, founded in 1986, is a nonpartisan group that studies education issues and advocates for public education.