Judge Hobgood issues written order enjoining voucher scheme

Judge Hobgood issued an order yesterday afternoon putting into effect his prior ruling enjoining North Carolina's private school voucher scheme.

Patterson Harkavy's Burton Craige, attorney for the plaintiffs, explained, “Judge Hobgood enforced the plain language of the North Carolina Constitution. Public funds for education must be used ‘exclusively’ for establishing and maintaining a uniform system of free public schools. Judge Hobgood recognizes that ‘exclusively’ means exclusively.”

Judge Hobgood's order likewise found that the specific manner in which the voucher scheme was financed violated the North Carolina Constitution. The voucher scheme would have diverted $10 million from public schools to private schools, and would have required local school districts to return already allotted public funds to the state in order to fund private school students' tuition.

Alice Hart, lead plaintiff, commented, “The 25 plaintiffs are gratified by today’s decision. It would have been a terrible mistake to divert public funds to private schools when we urgently need to devote our attention to all of our children in our public schools, raise the pay for our teachers and provide more resources to our classrooms.”

The order prevents the State from taking any further steps to implement the program, stating that "Defendants are ENJOINED until further order of this Court from implementing the challenged legislation, including the acceptance of additional voucher applications, the processing of voucher applications, the selection of voucher recipients, and the expenditure or disbursement of any public funds in furtherance of the challenged legislation."

Click here for the full text of Judge Hobgood's opinion. Click here for an article by the North Carolina Association of Educators further discussing the order.