By Donna King
North Carolina is a story in motion, one that over the last decade has shown what happens when policymakers trust the people, restrain government overreach and put economic opportunity front and center. Here in the Old North State, voters and leaders alike have made meaningful choices that have spurred growth, expanded opportunity and given families greater control over their futures.
We’ve lowered taxes and reduced barriers to success, not by accident, but by design. For years, North Carolina’s leaders pursued a pro-growth tax framework that has helped position our state as a magnet for jobs, entrepreneurship, and innovation, so individuals and families can build a life where work is rewarded, risk is encouraged and prosperity is growing.
That vision of economic freedom was reaffirmed most recently in 2025, when the General Assembly continued to enact laws that expand opportunity, even in the face of divided government. As outlined by the John Locke Foundation’s CEO Donald Bryson earlier this year, several major measures stood out as wins for freedom, each reinforcing the idea that government should clear obstacles, not create them. Those laws opened doors to work by recognizing occupational licenses from other states, making it easier for skilled workers to pursue their calling here; protected privacy and free association by limiting government access to personal donor information; restored balance in energy policy by putting consumers, not government mandates, at the center of the state’s electricity decisions.
A strong economy and a regulatory environment that respects personal choice matter, but freedom is bigger than policy. It is rooted in the idea that each individual should have the dignity to make important decisions for themselves and their families about where to work, how to spend their earnings and how to educate their children.
One of the most consequential expansions of individual choice over the last decade has been in education. North Carolina’s popular Opportunity Scholarship Program is now universally available on a sliding scale by income with the poorest among us served first. Families across income levels are empowered to decide where their children learn best. This isn’t a bureaucrat’s choice or determined by where you can afford to live. It’s a parent’s choice and that makes all the difference. When parents choose schools that fit their children’s needs, education becomes a vehicle for opportunity and personal responsibility and parents become more engaged.
Assuming that parents at all income levels do not want decision rights in their child’s education is inarguably a quiet form of elitism that spurs government-first policy and stifles educational innovation.
But freedom, like students, must be nurtured. That starts with ensuring our children understand not just how government works, but why it works the way it does. As we head into 2026 and the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, we have the opportunity to celebrate the success of the American experiment by bringing more accurate, idea-rich content into North Carolina classrooms. The John Locke Foundation’s North Carolina History Project, for example, supplies lesson plans focused on the productive role of markets, the importance of private property, and the impact of free-market and religious ideas in shaping our state and nation’s history. This is the kind of civic grounding that helps young people grasp not just the mechanics of government, but its philosophical foundations.
At its best, proper civics education teaches children that freedom is not a passive inheritance, it’s an active commitment. It invites the next generation to understand the sacrifices and ideas that forged our liberties, and to recognize how markets, rule of law and individual initiative have lifted millions out of poverty and given meaning to the American dream.
The work of safeguarding liberty is never over. Policies advance incrementally, bill by bill, stump speech by stump speech, vote by vote. Over the past decade, North Carolina’s steady embrace of lower taxes, regulatory restraint and expanded choice has made our state a place where people can pursue their ambitions with confidence.
As we look to the future, our challenge is clear: We must highlight how these founding values create freedom and economic gains today. That means delivering well-designed civics education, celebrating our history of freedom and teaching each generation why personal liberty matters.
If you are among those families blessed with children’s laughter this Christmas and want to make the most of school break, visit the John Locke Foundation website and explore the history curriculum together. It will spur conversations and memories to last a lifetime.
