Education

Chris Bishopp thinks education needs to be reprioritized in North Carolina. That conviction is rooted in the same thing that defined a career that included seven years as a Navy officer and 31 years as a federal air traffic controller: showing up for the people who depend on him. 

He calls public schools “the great equalizer.” A child's access to a quality education shouldn't be limited by zip code or family income. By that measure, North Carolina is falling short: the state ranks last in the country in school funding effort and near the bottom in per-pupil funding, while taxpayer-funded private school vouchers are on the rise. Chris wants to fund public schools properly and stop growing the subsidy that competes with them for the same tax dollars.

Chris will work to increase per-pupil funding and to fully fund state-mandated programs such as services for students with special needs that already cost schools more than the state currently provides. He opposes letting the corporate income tax rate fall any further toward zero, and opposes further cuts to individual income tax rates, arguing that the state can't keep cutting its own revenue while ranking near the bottom of the country in school funding. He also supports a universal school breakfast and lunch program, so no Cabarrus County student goes hungry at school because of a parent's income or because federal SNAP cuts made it harder to put food on the table at home.

Chris wants to fix the state's teacher pay scale, which currently flattens out between years 15 and 24 with no step increases, so veteran teachers stop getting raises exactly when the state needs them to stay. He will call for restoring master's pay for teachers with advanced degrees and restoring retiree health benefits for new teachers, both cut in recent years. Chris also wants to address the shortage of support staff in Cabarrus County schools, like nurses, counselors, psychologists, social workers, speech therapists, and nutritionists, from two directions: evaluating and raising their pay, since low pay is one reason those positions go unfilled, and fully funding enough positions to meet nationally recommended staffing ratios, to avoid leaving classroom teachers covering gaps they aren't trained for. 

Chris is opposed to any public money going to private schools. He has called for the Opportunity Scholarship program to be significantly cut back or repealed. It was built to give lower-income families a choice if their local public school wasn't meeting their child's needs, but a 2023 expansion removed the income limits, and Chris says it has become a way to divert hundreds of millions of public dollars to families who could already afford private school. Chris also supports a permanent moratorium on new for-profit charter schools, and at least a temporary moratorium on new non-profit charter schools, until the state's traditional public schools are fully funded. To the extent that the state does continue to fund some form of the Opportunity Scholarship program and charter schools, Chris wants every school that accepts taxpayer money held to the same academic and financial reporting standards North Carolina already requires of its public schools.

Enrollment in Cabarrus County's school system is growing at a rate that is outpacing state support. Chris will call on the state to fund new school capacity so that growing districts like Cabarrus County aren't stuck with overcrowded classrooms. He supports the Education Bonds on the ballot in Cabarrus County because General Obligation bonds are the cheapest method of borrowing. Other methods to finance school construction would cost more and result in higher taxes. He also wants to expand career and technical education partnerships that connect students directly to the skilled trades and workforce needs that are growing in the county, to help ensure that a Cabarrus County diploma leads to college, a skilled trade, or military service, whichever path a student chooses.

Every one of these commitments points back to the same principle: the opportunity for a quality education should be available to all students in Cabarrus County, regardless of zip code or income, and government funding should be allocated to prioritize that opportunity.