When state lawmakers first opened the door to school vouchers in North Carolina, they billed them as quote “opportunity scholarships,” and assured us that their only goal was to help low-income kids escape failing public schools.

Today, more than a decade later, it’s clearer than ever that that explanation was simply part of a deceptive shell game.

As a damning new report from the group Public Schools First highlights, the excuse that vouchers were all about helping poor kids has long been abandoned – along with all income limits on the program — and today vouchers are fully exposed for what they always were: a scheme to undermine public education and have taxpayers fund private schools.

Confirmation of this can be seen in the report’s finding that the state’s private schools (many of which are exclusive and discriminate) have raised their tuition to mirror the subsidy provided by vouchers.

The bottom line: The destructive impact of vouchers on public education in our state continues to be of a magnitude that’s matched only by the blatant dishonesty of the proponents who ushered them in.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.