Update, Nov. 20, 2024: The North Carolina legislature has voted to override the governor’s veto of funding for 54,000 children on the school voucher waitlist. The move could more than double the number of students receiving private school vouchers and send more money to segregation academies. In her speech opposing the move, Democratic Sen. Natasha Marcus pointed to ProPublica’s reporting about voucher funds going to those vastly white academies: “It’s not just their history. It is still their present.”
Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs, a ProPublica analysis found.
In North Carolina alone, we identified 39 of these likely “segregation academies” that are still operating and that have received voucher money. Of these, 20 schools reported student bodies that were at least 85% white in a 2021-22 federal survey of private schools, the most recent data available.
Those 20 academies, all founded in the 1960s and 1970s, brought in more than $20 million from the state in the past three years alone. None reflected the demographics of their communities. Few even came close.
Northeast Academy, a small Christian school in rural Northampton County on the Virginia border, is among them. As of the 2021-22 survey, the school’s enrollment was 99% white in a county that runs about 40% white.
