NC Supreme Court weighs $785M education plan in latest Leandro case hearing

North Carolina Supreme Court justices questioned attorneys Wednesday over a riddle that’s key to unlocking billions of dollars to fix deficiencies in the state’s public schools: who has the authority to order such a spending plan — and is one needed in the first place?

Lawyers for parents, school boards and legislative leaders argued over whether a court can even order a remedy to the problems it finds.

Lawmakers’ attorneys argued that the court doesn’t have that authority, and that problems with the state’s schools were isolated to one county. Meanwhile, attorneys for parents and school boards say the deficiencies are statewide, that they require billions of dollars to fix, and that the court indeed has the right to order the funding.

“Now the future of the children of North Carolina is in this court’s hands,” Melanie Dubis, an attorney for parents and school boards, told justices presiding over this nuanced piece of the rambling, long-running Leandro education funding lawsuit.

The remedial plan that was borne from the lawsuit calls for $785 million this year, and eventually billions more, toward increased funding for students with disabilities and other disadvantaged students, as well as other education programs and policy changes.

The plan comes from a consent order in 2021, agreed to by plaintiffs in the Leandro case and the state’s executive branch.

Despite the agreement, which was signed by a judge, lawmakers didn’t fund the plan in the months immediately following its approval.

Judge W. David Lee, who previously presided over the case, issued another order in November telling a handful of state executives to cut a check of state surplus funds to do so. A North Carolina Court of Appeals panel halted the order, and the parties in the lawsuit appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court.

How the court rules could determine whether the state’s 1.5 million public schoolchildren see a resolution to this case any time soon. Justices have not issued a timetable for ruling.

The Leandro lawsuit — known for a former plaintiff — was filed against the state in 1994 by five lower-income school boards and families who said they were being denied an adequate education. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that students had been denied the opportunity to access a “sound basic education” and ordered the state to fix that, leaving it up to lawmakers and the governor for the time being.

The so-called Leandro Plan from 2021 calls for at least $5.6 billion in new, annual education spending by 2028, as well as numerous policy changes concerning school improvement and accountability.

The state’s education budget is more than $11 billion.

On Wednesday, Justices heard oral arguments on the appeal for more than an hour and a half. Arguments rehashed months of debate but featured two new things: The first state Supreme Court appearance in the case for the state’s top two legislative leaders and extensive debate brought by those legislators over whether shortcomings in the state’s education system had ever really been proven.

“This is not a contest between those that want to fund education and those that don’t,” Matthew Tilley—a lawyer for state Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, who are intervenors—told justices.

Rather, Tilley said, the state Supreme Court must weigh whether a judge can order lawmakers or others to fix — in a specific way — what the court says they’re failing to do and determine the extent a resolution is necessary. Berger and Moore don’t like the plan, though Democratic lawmakers favor it. Berger and Moore argue only lawmakers have the power to decide how to spend the state’s money.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs and attorneys for the governor and attorney general argued the court must be able to order a resolution.

For years since the state Supreme Court found the state was not providing an adequate education, the state’s legislative and executive branches — including prior governors and attorneys general, including current Gov. Roy Cooper — had not come up with a plan to fix the situation, lawyers for the legislators argued.

More than 400,000 students are now considered “at risk” of not moving up to their next grade level or graduating high school, said Melanie Dubis, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

“Those branches [of government] failed the children,” Dubis said. “... And we submit that the remedy for those children is not 400,000 individual lawsuits to vindicate their individual constitutional rights. The remedy is upholding Judge Lee’s Nov. 10 order.”

Tilley argued the state Supreme Court’s finding, issued in 2004, concerned only Hoke County’s students. That’s where the trial was held and the source of most of the testimony and evidence.

Judge Howard Manning, who wrote the trial court rulings that led to the 2004 state Supreme Court order, explicitly stated in the rulings that the state was failing to provide an adequate education beyond Hoke County and ordered statewide remedies. Rather than conducting numerous trials, Manning and parties presumed Hoke County was a representative of other lower-income counties.

In the 2004 order, the Supreme Court affirmed Manning’s order that the state must reassess the deficiencies that led to Hoke County’s situation. The court also urged the trial court to explore more issues brought up in the lawsuit, including claims made in other counties, and remanded outstanding issues in other counties back to the trial court rather than leave them unaddressed.

Since the 2004, proceedings in the case have concerned whether improvements have been made both in and beyond Hoke County.

Tilley — and Chief Justice Paul Newby and Justice Phil Berger Jr. — challenged lawyers for plaintiffs to provide evidence since 2004 that affirmed the state had failed outside of Hoke County.

“Can you point to some order where it occurred after the trial, where it was the finding that there is in fact a statewide violation of constitutional provision guaranteeing the privilege of a sound basic education?” Newby asked Dubis.

Dubis and Amar Majmundar, an attorney for the state, argued Manning and Lee had asserted that opinion numerous times in various filings, documents and orders to resolve the case. They called Manning’s approach to the case “unconventional,” when pressed for a clearer paper trail.

They also argued that any solution the state provides must be on a statewide basis, because the education system must be “uniform.”

Their arguments focused on the authority of the court system to order resolution.

“They [the lawmakers] will tell you that the trial court was not empowered to enforce the Constitution. … What they will not tell you, however, is why their role as state actors is superior to the fundamental rights of our most valuable resource [children],” Majmundar said. “They will not tell you why their authority preempts the plain text of the constitution. They will not tell you that the state has for even one day met its constitutional obligations in this case. They will not tell you these things because they cannot tell you these things.”

Lawmakers act as though their branch of government has more power than the other two, he said.

Tilley disagreed, going back to his arguments that the 2004 order didn’t apply as plaintiffs and the state argue.

“No one here argues that the trial court is empowered to enforce the constitution,” Tilley said. “But for the trial court to enforce a remedy it must first find a violation, and that has not happened.”

Beyond that, Tilley said, the court doesn’t have to order the one specific remedy that it did. It can order others or take piecemeal approaches to fixing schools, such as removing ineffective principals, Tilley said.

In Leandro education case, a question lingers: Who has final say on funds and fixes?

The plan ordered reworks policies, in addition to increasing funds, making monumental changes to the state’s education system, he noted.

“What happens when the majority of North Carolinians believe that the [Leandro Plan] needs to be changed? Are they to intervene, or are they to go through their legislators?”

Outside the hearing, advocates for the plan held a rally and a prayer vigil, lamenting the years that have passed since the lawsuit was filed.

“It is not a situation where North Carolina residents are asking for a handout,” said Marcus Bass, executive director of Advance Carolina. “It is where we understand the underinvestment in public education has undermined the potential for growth for residents across North Carolina.”

After the hearing, Rev. Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte NAACP, said the state’s adults need to do better.

“We’re talking about children,” she said.

Information for this article was contributed by WRAL investigative reporter Joe Fisher