MELISSA PRICE KROMM: Our kids have waited too long for access to the education the N.C. Constitution promises

EDITOR'S NOTE: Melissa Price Kromm is Director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections.

As a mom of three, I’ve seen firsthand how North Carolina has failed our kids. I’ve had to console my son because his favorite teacher left for a better-paying job to support her family. I’ve been told there is only one set of crumbling social studies books for all the students to share across three classrooms.  For weeks on end, my daughter had no Spanish teacher.

These are just a few of the scenarios my children have experienced over the years in North Carolina public schools because of inadequate funding.

It shouldn't be this way. Whether you live in downtown Durham, rural Halifax County, or the suburbs of Charlotte, most North Carolinians can agree -- our kids deserve better.

Our kids deserve books that were published in the last decade. Our kids deserve teachers that aren’t driven out of the profession by pitiful salaries. Our kids deserve school bus drivers and cafeteria workers who earn a living wage.  Our kids deserve school buildings with working air conditioning and safe drinking water.

None of this should be controversial and it shouldn’t be political. Our children’s right to an education is literally in the State Constitution.  The North Carolina Supreme Court defined that right as the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education,” and then in 2004 they went even further, ordering our state’s leaders to increase funding for our kids’ schools.

Seventeen years later, North Carolina’s children are still waiting for action.

Recently a judge finally stepped up and said enough, North Carolina kids have waited too long. Judge David Lee ordered the legislature to stop playing political games and put desperately needed resources into our public education system. But the legislative leadership is defying the judge’s order and refusing to do right by our kids. (A state Court of Appeals panel blocked enforcement of the judge's order and in the 2-1 ruling issued an order late Tuesday saying the judge exceeded his authority.)

It’s not as if the state doesn’t have the resources. North Carolina is sitting on $8 billion in reserves. Judge Lee’s order would redirect less than one-fourth that amount.  Republican legislators are acting like the state budget is their money -- it’s not. It’s our money.  Lawmakers are clinging to the tax dollars that hard-working North Carolinians have contributed, instead of putting those dollars back into our kids’ schools as they have been ordered to do.

Even the recent budget doesn’t fully fund the Leandro education plan set forth by the lawsuit. Once again the legislative leadership has failed our children.

To make matters worse, Republican legislative leaders are now calling Lee “unhinged” and a “rogue judge,” and their political lackeys are threatening to impeach him, simply because they don’t like his decision.

Impeachment would be a gross overreach and a massive threat to judicial independence. We already have two hyperpartisan, political branches of government. We don’t need a third. Judges should follow the law and uphold the constitution.  They shouldn’t be taking instructions from politicians and political operatives, and they shouldn’t be threatened with removal simply for doing their jobs.

Every North Carolinian, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, or independent, should be deeply offended by this attack on fair and impartial courts. North Carolina Republicans are suggesting they can simply ignore judicial orders when they don’t agree with them.

Where does it end? Are N.C. Republicans suggesting that when a judge orders someone to appear in court, they can decline to show up? Are they suggesting domestic violence offenders don’t have to follow court orders to stay away from their victims? T his is a very slippery slope toward chaos in the courts.

Republican lawmakers are trashing the independence of the judicial branch, all to try to score cheap political points, and North Carolina’s kids are the innocent bystanders who are being harmed.

An entire generation of North Carolina children has been born, grown-up, and gone through school since the state Supreme Court demanded they receive the education our Constitution guarantees them. The courts have done their job. It’s time for state legislators to do theirs.

Our kids can’t wait 17 more years.