“Money, Honey – we don’t want you!”

A Republican candidate for governor, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson says he would reject federal funding for North Carolina schools.. That’s a popular idea among some conservatives, but it could come with a hefty price tag.

Robinson was asked by an attendee what he could do to fight school bureaucracy at the federal level. He said he’d prefer to see the state opt out of federal education funds.

“If I had my way about it,” Robinson responded, “they’d send the check and I’d say, ‘Oh, no, you can have it. I don’t want your money. Your money comes with too many rotten obligations. We don’t want it.’”

“Honestly, come on. There should be no federal department of education,” Robinson said.

Abolishing the federal department of education is an idea being pushed by some conservatives. It’s one of the plans outlined in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term in the White House.

“They have no business telling a state how to operate the education system, but they do,” Robinson told his supporters. “That’s why we need to cut their money off. That’s why it’s important for us to be fiscally responsible with our education dollars, cut the waste and cut the bureaucracy so that we can do what we need to do without their help.”

Republican state schools superintendent candidate Michele Morrow told WRAL she too would like to get the federal government out of North Carolina schools, saying teachers have complained to her about being “forced to do things” because of federal regulations.

“People need to recognize that the federal government, along with every dollar that they give us, there is an expectation that we are going to push an agenda that comes from them, and that comes with strings,” Morrow said.

Morrow said if she’s elected, her first step will be to “audit” federally funded programs at the Department of Public Instruction to see if they contribute to student achievement. If not, she said she’ll tell federal officials, “Back off. We don’t need your money, and we’re going to do it just as a state.”

Other states have considered turning down federal education funds, including Utah, Oklahoma and Tennessee. But so far, none have gone through with it.

Earlier this year, Tennessee lawmakers issued a report finding that replacing federal funds with state money would limit their ability to make other investments.

It would be a costly move for North Carolina, too.

According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, in the 2023-24 school year, North Carolina received about $1.67 billion dollars in federal support.

* $688 million supported lower-income students and the schools that serve them.

* $531 went to school nutrition programs.

* $380 million served students with special needs.

* $43 million supported career and technical education.

* $33 million funded other programs, including substance abuse and mental health care.

NCDPI spokeswoman Blair Rhoades told WRAL that the nutrition funding, which comes from the USDA, isn’t necessarily tied to education funding, so the state may be able to keep that and reject the rest. But that would still leave a $1.1 billion hole in the state’s education spending – more than this year’s budget surplus.

WRAL asked the Robinson and Morrow campaigns where they would find the money to cover those expenses. Neither campaign answered our question.

In a statement, Robinson spokesman Mike Lonergan said, “Lt. Gov Mark Robinson believes education funding should focus on student achievement and not bloated bureaucracy or extreme political agendas like forcing women and girls to play sports with biological men, as Josh Stein, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are trying to do.”

Biden-administration changes to Title IX regulations – essentially, the administrative interpretation of the federal law based on recent legal cases – don’t address transgender athletes’ eligibility to play school sports. That’s something the Biden administration has said they’ll tackle at a later time. But conservatives argue the new regulations leave too much open to interpretation on whether schools can disallow transgender girls from sharing bathrooms or other facilities with cisgender girls.

Conservatives also dislike the federal government’s emphasis on DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which they describe as “woke.”

Morrow has also blamed the federal education department for discouraging student suspensions, although North Carolina’s suspensions and expulsions have recently increased. Federal special education law places restrictions on discipline for students with disabilities, but those students are still suspended or expelled at some of the highest rates in North Carolina.

Robinson’s Democratic gubernatorial rival Josh Stein called the lieutenant governor “the anti-public education candidate.”

Robinson “has already declared that he would ‘slash’ public education funding in North Carolina, and now he is pledging to forfeit billions of dollars of our own tax money that is used to educate our kids,” Stein said in a statement. “I’m in this race to defend public schools; my opponent just wants to defund them.”

Mo Green, Morrow’s Democratic rival in the DPI superintendent race, also criticized the idea, saying the state’s public schools need more funding for services, not less, especially for lower-income students.

“Robinson and my opponent would support taking millions more of our taxpayer funds and funnel them into private and religious schools for the wealthy,” Green said. “Their goal is to defund public education, and I will never support that.”

The North Carolina Association of Educators provided a response to the plan, adding “Mark Robinson’s plan to turn down federal funding would slash North Carolina public school funding by more than $1 billion per year. It is a callous and irresponsible idea that directly harms students in need. North Carolina must reject this harmful idea that candidates like Robinson are suggesting. Nothing is more important than our children’s future and we need all the help we can get to invest in their success. “

Written by Laura Leslie for WRAL News ~ August 16, 2024