The legislature’s expansion of private-school vouchers fulfills a nearly 70-year-old dream of North Carolina’s far-right.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954, ultra-conservatives here have wanted to replace integrated public schools with all-white private schools.

Leading the charge back then were avowed segregationists I. Beverly Lake (pictured) and Tom Ellis.

Lake proposed repealing the constitution’s mandate that the state operate public schools. Instead, the state could finance private schools.

Lake later served on the state Supreme Court. His son, I. Beverly Lake Jr., would become chief justice. Both Lakes ran for governor, but – fortunately – lost. Terry Sanford beat Lake Sr. in 1960, and Jim Hunt beat Lake Jr. in 1980.

Tom Ellis, who would become Jesse Helms’ political mastermind, said in 1956, “the public schools of North Carolina had served their purposes, they were through and we had just as well start looking for another means of educating the children of North Carolina.”

White children, he meant.

Lake and Ellis would be proud of the Republicans running the legislature today, who are shifting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually to private school vouchers.

But they won’t invest hundreds of millions of dollars needed to properly educate 1.5 million children in public schools.

They should be honest: They want public schools – they call them “government schools” – to fail.

In 2024 – 70 years after the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision – that should be a defining election issue in North Carolina.