North Carolina has long been a national leader in school choice. One of the primary programs that enables parents to choose the school that is the best fit for their child is the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offers scholarship money to families of all incomes.

This week on Family Policy Matters, host Traci DeVette Griggs welcomes Mike Long, President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, to discuss the Opportunity Scholarship and how families can take advantage of this valuable resource.

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Family Policy Matters
Opening Doors for School Choice in North Carolina (with Mike Long)

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. North Carolina has long been a national leader in providing school choice to families. Lawmakers kept that momentum going in 2024 with a historic expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program that will provide scholarships to an additional 54,000 North Carolina students. Mike Long is President of Parents for Educational Freedom, which is, according to them, a nonprofit organization that advocates for quality educational options through parental school choice. Mike joins us today to discuss what this expansion means for North Carolina families and what you need to know to take advantage of this program. Mike Long, welcome back to Family Policy Matters.

MIKE LONG: Thank you, Traci, always good to be with you.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: For anyone who may not have heard what is North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship?

MIKE LONG: Very simple. The Opportunity Scholarship Program was created by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013, basically appropriating scholarships that are awarded to families based on their household income, and it can be used to pay the required tuition and fees to attend an eligible private school that would best meet the needs of those families’ children, as far as their education is concerned. So been around for over 10 years now, and grown and grown and grown over the years due to the popularity of the program.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So, tell us about what happened. Something pretty amazing happened this past year regarding this.

MIKE LONG: Well, the legislature expanded the eligibility to invest in students from families of all household income levels ranging from 100% of the federal poverty guidelines for free and reduced lunch and up from there. So right now, it’s divided into four tiers as far as household income is concerned. Tier one, if a family makes less than $55,000 a year, they would be eligible for a scholarship of $7,500. Tier two is an income of $56,000, to $115,000 a year. That family’s child could receive a scholarship of $6,700. Tier three $116,000 to $259,000, that child would receive $4,500 in a scholarship. And tier four is any family income above $260,000, and that family’s child would receive $3,300 in a scholarship. So, it’s tiered based on income, and it’s still focusing on more lower income families. But the idea was, all of these families are taxpayers, all of these families understand the educational needs of their children, and all of them, therefore, should receive some sort of scholarship if they do indeed feel that a private school works better for their child. And so that’s why it’s tiered the way that it is.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Does this scholarship put those private schools in the grasp of especially these lower income families.

MIKE LONG: Well, yeah, one of the biggest things that I’ve seen, and being a former head of school myself for years, many of these schools are looking for ways to diversify their student population. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, factor in preventing them from doing that was always economics. There are plenty of students out there that can qualify, the only thing that prevented them from getting into that particular school was the fact that they were unable to pay the tuition. That’s no longer the case now, and so this is actually helping diversify student populations in private schools. But the main thing is, parents know what’s best for their child’s education, and if the current zip coded school, let’s just say traditional public school, that they’re assigned to is not meeting that need, now they have the economic freedom to choose a school that would indeed meet that need. And so that’s why it works so well for families throughout the entire state.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: There are a new 54,000 North Carolina students in the program. So, what does that bring our total to?

MIKE LONG: Over 80,000 students. Right now, over 37,000 students currently use the Opportunity Scholarship, and now there’ll be 50,000 with this expansion, there’ll be 50,000 more being awarded to use that this year. So that’s just over 80,000 students that will benefit from the Opportunity Scholarship, and that brings North Carolina’s scholarship program to somewhere between the third or fourth largest in the country, as far as enrollment is concerned and school choice. So, North Carolina is a national leader in the school choice movement, which is real education reform in our state that works well for all.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So that’s an incredible increase. Are you surprised? Were you surprised? Are you ecstatic? Do you want more? What’s your reaction?

MIKE LONG: I’m not at all surprised due to the popularity of the program. When you look at any survey or poll done of North Carolina families that support school choice, it’s always around 70%. That is incredible, and it doesn’t surprise me, because, you know, in today in the world of phones and apps and all of that, those things are choices, and families are very aware of the amount of choices they have. You know, just look at their smartphone, how many apps are on those phones. I mean, those apps are choices. And so, when it comes down to their children’s education, for the government to say, because you’re a taxpayer, you’re going to have to go to this particular school in your area that is assigned to you no matter what. That doesn’t bode well with most families today that are so accustomed to so many choices, and so now, when parents know what’s best for their children when it comes to their education, the only thing that was holding them back from making the best choice for that child was economics, as I said. So now that that frees them as taxpayers, the money is now following their child, not the system. Parents are able to make better choices that improves their children’s education. So that is a real win for North Carolina children in their education is concerned.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: So, I did read that the legislature actually cleared the waiting list. I mean, that was the idea. So, everyone who applied last year received a scholarship. Is that correct?

MIKE LONG: That is correct. Everyone who applied last year, and like I said, there were over 72,000 families. These were new applicants. Remember, there were about 30,000 on the program before this year. Now, over 72,000 families applied for this, and so at first, the legislature did not appropriate enough funding to accommodate that many. They were just overwhelmed by the popularity of this and the amount of families that applied for this, and that’s why they met again this fall, to be able to deliver on what they said they would do for these families, and that was to create this extra expansion in providing funding so that that wait list could be cleared. And so that’s what they did. That’s what’s been accomplished, and that’s why this has been a great banner year for school choice in North Carolina.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: And of course, the Governor vetoed that, so they had to overcome that veto as well, right?

MIKE LONG: You know, unfortunately, that’s been a real issue. It’s why it’s taking so long for those, and let’s just say, first of all, Parents for Educational Freedom is a non-partisan organization. But as the governor said, this is a Republican program, because it is Republican leadership in the legislature that founded this program, initiated it, expanded it, and has done everything about it. While this governor, Governor Cooper, and now even incoming Governor Stein, has been vehemently against the Opportunity Scholarship. Cooper said he believed that it was an expense that needs to stop in our state. Stein has been saying all along the campaign trail when he was running for governor, that he, too, believes that it needs to be pulled back, that it’s taking money away from the public schools, when in reality, it’s not taking it away from them at all. I’ve been at the helm of Parents for Educational Freedom now for six years, and when I started, there was 1.5 million students in the public schools of North Carolina. Today, there’s 1.3 million. So, what that says is over 200,000 families have chosen to find other educational opportunities for their children, while the funding for public schools has increased year after year after year. So, there’s no way this has been taking money away from the public schools. If anything, they have been getting more money serving fewer students, so all of that should be improving. So, the argument of taking money away from the public schools simply makes no sense at all. If anything, it’s made it better for the public schools as far as their funding is concerned.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Do we have reason to expect that anyone who applies for the scholarship in the next year would also be getting some money out of that.

MIKE LONG: There is a certain limitation. Right now, it’s about a $600 million program, and so if more families, as they learn about it and find a school that best meets their needs, and that’s what Parents for Educational Freedom does, we help them find the school that best meet their children’s needs. If more and more of them come on board, there may be a necessity for more funding. Now, automatically, the funding increases $15 million a year, expecting additional growth, but there’s a lot of growth that can still take place, and now more and more schools are starting in different areas. We’re trying to work in encouraging more private schools and charter schools and home schools to come about in more of the rural areas of North Carolina where there may not be as many, the Opportunity Scholarship now provides that tuition for families and in more rural communities to be able to go to a private school if there is one that’s there. So, we’re seeing just a massive amount of growth of all kinds of different schools, and that benefits everybody, that benefits all children. So, we’re very encouraged by that.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: When you say that it benefits all children, explain what you mean by that. Why does that help the public schools, say, children who are in public schools to have a lot of school choice?

MIKE LONG: Traci, the bottom line is, when it comes to a child’s education, one size does not fit all. One size does not fit all. And when I say, it benefits all children. If a family has their child in their assigned public school, and that child is flourishing there, fantastic. And we support and want to see everything to continue to improve for that child’s education so forth. But the bottom line is, as I said, over 200,000 families have chosen to move on to a different type of education for their child. It could be private school, charter school, virtual school, home school, all kinds of different opportunities. So that’s what works well for their children, and that’s why I say it works great for all. I think what we need to do is, if we really want to improve, let’s say, the traditional public schools, we need to be asking the question, why are so many of these families leaving the public school system? Why are they leaving? And once you start looking at the answers to the question of why they are leaving, and you start addressing those reasons, perhaps you could improve in those areas so they won’t want to leave anymore. So that’s what I mean by improves all, a level of healthy competition only improves all schools, and that’s what we advocate. So, we would love to see the dialog change a little bit, not about money being taken away from the public schools, when that is indeed not the case. But why are so many families leaving the public schools? Address those questions and improve those areas, and then you’ve done nothing but improve public schools in and of themselves.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: Okay, so tell us if you had a parent or a grandparent who says, I really want to take advantage of this. What are the steps? What are some deadlines that they need to meet to get in on it?

MIKE LONG: One of the things that they need to do is they need to apply. They need to apply for scholarships. So, if they were already awarded an Opportunity Scholarship for the 24-25 school year, including receiving an award this month, you need to be ready to renew that scholarship beginning February of 2025. Now this needs to be completed by April 15th of 2025, so that’s for those already on the scholarship. Now, for new applicants, this includes any student not using an Opportunity Scholarship, that’s including siblings of current recipients, the application will open early in 2025 here’s what we suggest families to do. They need to go on our website, PEFNC.org, that’s Parents for Educational Freedom of North Carolina.org PEFNC.org, or go to SchoolChoiceNorthCarolina.com that’s another website that we have to sign up to receive the most updated information about the application opening the scholarship amounts, the income guidelines for the award tiers when all that comes available. On that website, that’s where families can get connected with our parent liaison team, who will help families through the application process and helps them find a school that best fits their child’s needs. So, we encourage you to go to those websites right now so you can get all the latest information and guidance to be able to apply, whether you’re already on the program or if you would like to be a first-time applicant to the program.

TRACI DEVETTE GRIGGS: All right. Mike, as always, thank you so much for your excellent work. Mike Long, President of Parents for Educational Freedom, thanks for being with us today on Family Policy Matters.

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