RALEIGH (June 4, 2025) – I recently read an opinion piece from a noted North Carolina columnist essentially blaming former governor Roy Cooper for the sharp decline in North Carolina student test scores during and after the COVID pandemic. It asserted that Cooper closed North Carolina public schools too soon and left them closed too long.

Not that that Roy Cooper needs support from me, but I disagree with both the tone and opinion of the column.

Return with me to early March 2020, when we first learned about a coronavirus sweeping the world and killing many. We weren’t sure where it started, how it spread, who was most susceptible or how to best protect our populace, but it rapidly became the talk of the nation. We never panicked, but we heard comparisons to the flu epidemic of 1916 and the millions who died as a result. It was scary.

Almost from the get-go those on the right pooh-poohed most every action of Governor Cooper and his administration’s handling of this mysterious health crisis. And it didn’t help that our president tried to deny the epidemic, downplay its seriousness and contradict the wisdom and advice of epidemiologists. Instead, Trump kept coming up with distracting quack solutions.

During much of these months I conducted a weekly half-hour television interview on PBSNC with NC DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen. I got some behind-the-scenes insights into the discussions on the issues considered, decisions made and impacts from COVID-19. I can tell you they were earnest and wide ranging. In all these debates the ultimate consideration was for the safety and protection of all North Carolina citizens. And, as chief executive of our state, Roy Cooper, adopted an approach of caution, neither overreacting nor under. 

Did North Carolina close schools too early? Did we keep them closed too long? Did we poorly execute distance learning attempts to teach our children? Hindsight is 20-20 and it is easy to second guess decisions when you aren’t in charge and responsible for their impact.

Using a baseline of 2019 scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), our students’ test scores dropped sharply during COVID and have not fully recovered. The author of the column tried to draw comparisons between our state and South Carolina and Georgia – states that didn’t close schools as long. Both didn’t drop as much and recovered more rapidly.

But both states had higher death rates than did North Carolina. The author attributed this to the fact that they had lower vaccination rates. He fails to give credit for our higher vaccination rates to that same governor he is blaming.

The whipping boy for these reduced test results isn’t Roy Cooper. IT IS COVID!

But the real question we should be asking is how did our state respond to those lower scores? Did North Carolina go into crisis mode to double down, adding teachers, teacher aides and coaches? Did we provide additional remedial help for students whose scores had fallen? Did we open the “rainy day” state coffers (containing as much as $6 billion) to spend whatever was needed to remedy the problems?  Nope.

The evidence is clear that our legislature, the body ultimately responsible to the people for setting policy, passing laws and being the state’s banker didn’t adopt an “all hands on deck” approach to rectify a problem impacting a generation of our children.  What they did do was double down on their support to provide vouchers to mostly white, mostly wealthy people for their children to go to mostly religious private schools.

Face it. Our legislature has essentially given up on traditional K-12 public schools!

Most of us who proclaim our support for traditional public schools will just as quickly acknowledge that there are big problems facing public education. Some of them are decades-long decisions that need changing, like mainstreaming every child in classrooms. Smart phones and handheld devices are smarter than we are in adapting to new technologies and teaching methods. And pretty much need a re-evaluation of education, especially the role of teachers and techniques for instruction. Besides, today’s student is different from ten or fifteen years ago and educators must adapt to them.

Perhaps the biggest adjustment needed is a reevaluation of decades of rules and regulations, eliminating and revising them as necessary. A wide gap exists between the rules by which traditional school must abide and those of charter and private schools. When your yardstick measuring results has such great disparity there is no way to honestly compare them. Until we make the playing ground level for all we refuse to accept that traditional schools are failures.

It is widely acknowledged that educating our populace, most especially our young children, is the single most important function of state government.

I’m not ready to give up on public education and surveys show many in our state aren’t either.

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965. Contact him at tomcamp@carolinabroadcasting.com.