Is Mecklenburg failing our schools? Let’s start with this startling figure
On June 1, Mecklenburg County commissioners will hold a vote on the Fiscal Year 2022 budget. After an informal 6-2 straw vote on the matter, it appears all but certain the county will withhold $56 million in school funds in an effort to force Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools to explain how it will close the achievement gap.
Commissioners who support the move argue CMS isn’t focusing enough on the needs of students of color, that the district’s lack of planning is leading to failure, and that the only remedy is to tie accountability to funding.
Said Commissioner Pat Cotham: “I say today the school board has failed. We are not failing. They have failed.”
It’s interesting that Commissioner Cotham felt compelled to clarify that the county is not failing in this budget process. In fact, what the county’s responsibilities are and whether commissioners are meeting them seems to be a topic that is largely missing from this crucial conversation.
Despite a clear desire on the part of some commissioners to get involved with micromanaging CMS operations, the BOCC does not have an oversight role when it comes to public schools. Instead it is tasked with establishing community priorities, setting tax rates and adopting a budget that will meet those priorities — education chief among them.
The county does provide a significant amount of money to CMS to fill the void left by insufficient state support. However, year in and year out, county funding comes in well below the school district’s request. Over the last 12 budget cycles the shortfall between CMS’s needs and county funding comes to a whopping quarter of a billion dollars.
CMS’s annual budget requests are not some aspirational Christmas wish list; they’re carefully crafted roadmaps to implementing our Strategic Plan. The county’s unwillingness to fully fund Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools every year makes it harder for us to work toward meeting the plan’s goals — goals which align closely with the county commission’s own priorities. That’s a failure.
It’s also important to consider the county’s Organizational Vision — which commissioners are chiefly responsible for carrying out — in the context of this year’s ugly budget process. That vision emphasizes the need for partnerships between government agencies to ensure that they are able to “address and solve community problems.”
Personal attacks on school district leadership and holding vital school resources for ransom does not feel like an attempt at partnership, nor is it an approach that is likely to solve problems we face in our community’s public schools.
The achievement gap in CMS schools is the same gap you’ll find in every major metropolitan school district in the nation. Eliminating it is the core goal of the district’s Strategic Plan 2024, wherein CMS has publicly committed to “close achievement gaps linked to race and poverty” through strategies such as guaranteeing viable curriculum across the district, increasing access to rigorous coursework, and ensuring culturally responsive instruction by teachers who are supported in their development.
Mecklenburg voters must continue to hold our Board of Education accountable for working to improve student outcomes. But we should also demand that county commissioners provide adequate school funding and build good faith partnerships as they were elected to do.
Justin Parmenter is a teacher at Waddell Language Academy in Charlotte.
