Stark contrast in NC superintendent candidates in experience, attitudes toward public schools

After the November election, North Carolina will have a new State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

It’s a position that has the power to influence policies, curriculum and budgets for public schools, and the candidates couldn’t be more different.

Democrat Mo Green is a former superintendent and has spent over a decade working in two of the state’s largest public school districts. His opponent, Republican candidate Michele Morrow, is a homeschooler who believes public schools, as they’re currently run, are dangerous for kids.

S.O.S. 

Educators across North Carolina participated in an online webinar last month to discuss the state superintendent race. The event was called “Save Our Schools,” or S.O.S. and hosted by the group ProgressNCAction. 

They kicked off the meeting by playing video clips of Morrow attending the riots at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“We are here to take back America," Morrow says marching toward The Ellipse. "We are here to stop the steal, and we are here to ensure that the United States never becomes a communist country.”

This video is one of many social media posts that have resurfaced since Morrow began campaigning for public office. She first ran for a seat on the Wake County Board of Education in 2022. The man she lost to, Tyler Swanson, was on the video call. 

“I know where I was on January 6, 2021. It was not at the nation's capitol," Swanson said. "It was, in fact, in my classroom, teaching juniors English 3.”

Swanson went on to recount some of the other things Morrow has said, like calling public schools “indoctrination centers” and teachers “groomers.”

Morrow has gained national attention for her comments, including posts calling for the public execution of prominent Democrats like former President Barack Obama. 

She did not respond to WFDD’s multiple requests for interviews. But during a virtual town hall she hosted in October, she said her statements had been “hyperbolic” and “facetious.” 

“While I am responsible and apologize that those things the wording was not good. I have to say, it is not me that is continuing to put this rhetoric in front of people," Morrow said. "It is my opponent, and it is the media and our children should be protected from that.”

Morrow received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1993. A few years later, she went to Mexico with the Evangelical Free Church Mission, where she met her husband. They went on to work and live at a Christian camp in Colorado, homeschooling their children. 

Morrow says when she and her family returned to North Carolina ten years ago, she’d intended to put her kids back in public schools but didn’t. 

“What I was hearing about what was happening in the middle schools that they were going to be attending at that time, I just did not feel comfortable putting them in that situation, until I started investigating," Morrow said. "And that's really why I started going to school board meetings, and I started being involved. And what I was seeing was very disturbing.”

On her campaign website, Morrow names privacy in girls’ bathrooms, girls’ safety in sports and protecting children from “gender manipulation,” as some of the issues most important to her. Recently, she’s spread false claims online that the plus sign in LGBTQ+ stands for pedophilia. 

At a candidate forum in Forsyth County, Morrow was asked to explain how she would defend the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“I do not believe that there are any laws on the books right now that are restricting people's God-given inalienable rights from pursuing their career goals, or whoever they want to choose to be friends with, or where they want to live," Morrow said. 

The state legislature passed multiple laws last year banning transgender women from participating in school sports teams that align with their gender and doing away with gender-affirming care for minors. Research shows access to that care greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of the trans and nonbinary youth who receive it.

Two approaches to public school funding

Aside from the issues Morrow sees related to LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools, she says her top priority will be cutting funding for any position, contract or program she deems unnecessary. She’s cited things like social-emotional learning tools and Chromebooks for non-high school students. 

“Any contract that is more toward a political or a social or a medical focus is going to be looked at getting rid of that, because I do not believe that we should be replacing all of the community services within our schools," she said. 

With budget cuts, she says there would be room to increase pay for teachers. The issue according to Morrow isn’t a lack of funding for public education, but how it’s being spent. 

“I can tell you right now, we could drop a million dollars into every first-grade classroom, and our students would not be able to read and they won't be able to count it," Morrow said. 

According to a 2023 report from the Education Law Center, North Carolina spends about $5,000 less in per-pupil funding than the national average. It’s ranked 48th in the country for that metric. 

And when it comes to how much of a state’s Gross Domestic Product is spent on education, NC is second to last. In an interview with WFDD, Democratic candidate Mo Green said he wants to change those statistics. 

“And so trying to help our General Assembly and others understand then, what's the impact of that when we don't have the kind of funding that we need to provide the kind of services we need," Green said. 

In addition to raising per-pupil funding, Green says he’d like to advocate for the legislature to increase beginning teacher pay to somewhere between $55,000 and $60,000. 

Green has spent more than a decade working in public education though that wasn’t the trajectory he started on. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics, and a law degree from Duke University. 

He completed two judicial clerkships and worked in a private practice before becoming General Counsel for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in 2001. He went on to serve as the district’s chief operating officer and deputy superintendent. 

Green was also the superintendent of Guilford County Schools for more than seven years after that, where he successfully sued the state legislature for requiring teachers to relinquish their tenure rights. 

He left in 2016 for his most recent role— executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. When he retired last year, he decided to run for office.

“I had lots of concerns about the direction of our public schools in North Carolina, particularly related to funding and the level of, I would say, disrespect shown to educators across our state," Green said. "You know some of the language and things that are used to describe our educators and the public education system.”

Green says working in the second and third largest school districts in the state taught him a lot about management, furthering student achievement, as well as how complex educational organizations like school districts are. 

'Soul of public education' on the ballot

While Morrow is campaigning on a host of issues she sees happening within the school system, Green’s pillars include revering teachers and celebrating the good in public education. He says his leadership style comes from his mother, who was a special education teacher. 

“Part of what you hear in the way that I think about things, is, for example, special education teachers celebrate incremental improvements. Set the bar a little bit higher," Green said. "Know what the overall goal is, and we're going to celebrate along the way.” 

In a strategic plan shared on his campaign website, Green says he’d like to increase access to pre-K, enhance early literacy efforts, and improve mental health services for students. He’s also focused on retaining educators with programs related to housing support and professional development.

Along the campaign trail, Green frequently tells people that the soul of public education is on the ballot in this race precisely because of the kinds of comments Morrow has made about public schools and the teachers inside of them. 

“That kind of rhetoric gets us away from appreciation of our schools and school system, not that there isn't need for improvement. I certainly believe that there is," Green said. "But I believe one has to do it from a vantage point of, let's be sure that we celebrate the good and then build on that.”

The North Carolina Association of Educators has endorsed Green for the job. 

Joanna Pendleton is the president of the local chapter in Guilford County. She’s also a librarian and a parent of three kids in public schools. During the S.O.S. webinar, she spoke about the importance of the state superintendent race. 

“People sometimes say that politics has no place in public schools. I get where they're coming from, but the truth is, our public schools function or don't based on politics," Pendleton said. "Our kids get what they need or don't based on politics. Political leaders and decisions impact our daily lives in school buildings.”

In-person early voting in North Carolina ends at 3 p.m. on Nov. 2. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.