This is more tinkering with details. The fundamental problem is having government involved in the education business. Seperation of School and State is the ultimate solution.
You have it backwards. It is the huge government contracts awarded to universities that have enabled the past several Democrat administrations to advance a progressive political agenda in the universities, including schools of education that, in turn, supply our marxist teachers to grade schools. The NC government is trying to free the students from Federal tyranny. But to truly separate government from education would require denying Federal research grants in medicine, physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. for the benefit of society at large and the defense of our country. It's a conundrum.
The real problem is the the government has been interpreting "separation of church and state" to mean that government can impose itself on society and change social behavior to suit governmentatl aims. This is the great usurpation that has turned this nation inside out and has enabled marxist tyranny, emating from the universities and their schools of law and journalism. State after state, for just one example, voted through legislatures or referenda against gay marriage, by overwhelming majorities. Yet a single judge in the Federal courts of every state where this happened declared the will of the people unconstitutional. The destruction of society, family, marriage, decency, churches, morality and now constitutional freedoms, has been incrementally accomplished from the Federal bench since the 1940s.