— Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper wants North Carolina business leaders to speak up for public education funding by telling the Republican-controlled legislature to block additional income tax cuts set to take effect next year.

Cooper gave the challenge Monday at the annual Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh. The conference is focusing on how to expand early childhood education and health care and their connection to a well-trained future workforce.

Only about half of North Carolina's first-graders meet the standard for reading proficiency, and the governor wants more children to have access to pre-kindergarten in the state.

Cooper said state lawmakers have made some moves to increase teacher pay and teacher training, but much remains to be done, and it's not clear whether the state will have the funds to pay for it after a series of tax cuts passed by state lawmakers in recent years.

The business community needs to use its "political capital," he said, to ensure there's enough revenue for PreK, teacher pay raises and community college and university system improvements.

"We need you. We need the business community to say to lawmakers, 'Education is No. 1. Our workforce is No. 1,'" he said.

Cooper also called on state lawmakers to take action quickly to solve the class size cap problem. Cutting class sizes is a great idea if you pay for it, he said, but the state hasn't done that, and local school leaders across the state are having to cut everything else, including PreK, to meet the mandate.