Before We Try to Fix Public Education, We Have to Understand It

Written By Caroline Klein

Today’s Guest Blogger is Jason Fife, a Durham-based public education advocate.

A Durham, NC snapshot — and the start of a 15-week series on how public schools actually work

Public education matters deeply to me.

Professionally, my work focuses on helping more people access higher education and the social and economic mobility that can come with it. But over time, that work has made something increasingly clear to me: the higher education pipeline begins long before students ever apply to college.

Public education is where that journey really starts.

In my community, many families know me through advocacy connected to my son’s elementary school. I also serve with the Durham Council of PTAs and was recently named to the legislative steering committee for Durham Public Schools.

If you’ve followed my writing here on Medium, you know education has been a recurring theme. But so has something else: the importance of connection — and the risks that come with division.

Lately, those divisions have been showing up close to home in conversations among families trying to make sense of school policy, enrollment pressures, facilities issues, and district decisions that affect our children’s schools.

What I’ve realized in those conversations is this:

Many of the disagreements people have about public education stem from a simple problem — most of us don’t actually understand how the system works.

And that’s not anyone’s fault.

School funding, governance, and policy are complicated. The system was built across layers of government and law, and most families only encounter it when something goes wrong.

But if we want to advocate effectively — or even understand the tradeoffs districts are facing — we have to start with the basics.

So for the next 15 weeks, I’m going to publish a short series here on Medium.

Each post will unpack one part of how public education works — especially in North Carolina, but with comparisons to other states where helpful.

We’ll cover things like:

  • How schools are funded in North Carolina

  • What the state government actually pays for

  • What county governments are responsible for

  • What school boards can and cannot control

  • Why school districts depend on county commissioners

  • The Leandro case and the constitutional right to education in NC

  • Why funding looks different from state to state

  • And how policy decisions ripple through local school systems

But before diving into all of that, I want to start with a snapshot of where things stand today.

And to do that, we’ll look at a recent meeting here in Durham.

A Meeting That Explains a Lot

Earlier this week, the Durham Public Schools Board of Education (BOE) and the Durham County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) held a joint meeting.

These meetings are public and recorded. They are often long and dense — not exactly casual viewing — but they offer one of the clearest windows into how local education decisions are actually made.

You can watch the meeting here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/WpP8uYo70ss?si=COMDLXUmPzYWJAXL

The primary topic of discussion was the district’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).

In simple terms, the Capital Improvement Plan is a long-range facilities strategy. It looks roughly ten years ahead and tries to answer questions like:

  • Which schools need major repairs?

  • Which buildings are aging beyond practical use?

  • Where might new schools eventually be needed?

  • What happens to buildings that become vacant when schools move?

  • How should the district manage enrollment shifts across schools?

Facilities planning includes everything from HVAC replacements to major renovations to decisions about closing, repurposing, or demolishing buildings.

Even on its own, that kind of planning is complex.

But layered on top of that discussion was something that affects almost every decision the district makes:

Money.

Caroline Klein