The North Carolina Constitution guarantees residents’ rights to a free public education, stating “The General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.”
The public school system has been under attack in recent years, as conservatives across the country have continued to claim these institutions are working to “indoctrinate” their children. Various “concerned parent’’ advocates and groups like Moms for Liberty argue public schools teach their kids “woke” concepts like Critical Race Theory. More than ever, these groups have been targeting LGBTQ+ topics and diversity training (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or DEI), claiming those things don’t belong in classrooms. Because of this, conservatives have called for the defunding of public schools in favor of vouchers for private or charter schools, also known as school choice.
One of those conservatives is running for the State Superintendent of Public Schools in North Carolina: Michele Morrow, a former nurse turned homeschool teacher who has become the face of a movement to defund North Carolina public schools.
Morrow is a new name in the North Carolina political scene — she won the Republican nomination in March against incumbent Caroline Truitt in an unexpected upset. Prior to securing the nomination, Morrow was relatively unknown in North Carolina, but in the days following, unsettling information about her came to light.
Ranging from social media posts calling for the public executions of former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden to misinformation regarding the public education system, Morrow has begun to face criticism not only from “liberal snowflakes,” but also from people within her own party.
North Carolina’s public education system is facing a critical moment, and if it continues to go in the direction it has been, students in public schools will suffer.
The fight for equal opportunities for all North Carolina students
In order to understand the importance of this race for state superintendent, it’s crucial to know the context of the current state of affairs for North Carolina’s public K-12 schools.
Public schools in North Carolina have been heavily debated for decades — in fact, in 1994, parents from five lower income, rural counties (Cumberland, Halifax, Hoke, Robeson, and Vance) sued the state. These parents claimed their children’s schools weren’t receiving the same level of attention or enough funding to ensure their students had the same opportunities as more affluent school districts.
This ruling — known more commonly as Leandro — affirmed inequitable and inadequate school funding access to a sound, basic public education, and this right was denied disproportionately to students of color and those from financially challenged families. Some of the resources students across the state lack include access to technology, adequate school facilities, school nurses and guidance counselors, career training and advanced placement courses.
There has been a plan created (known as the Leandro Plan or the Comprehensive Remedial Plan) to help address these issues, and in 2022 the state Supreme Court said the legislature must fund years two and three of the Comprehensive Remedial Plan. But shortly after that ruling, the North Carolina Supreme Court went from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority, who then overturned the 2022 ruling.
In the two years following, conservative politicians in North Carolina have moved to support increasing public funding for charter school and private school vouchers rather than prioritizing funding the public education system. In fact, just last year the state passed a bill allowing for charter schools — a public school run by a private company or entity — to receive county building funds, giving charter schools a dedicated funding stream for the first time in state history.
Critics of this law claim this funding funnel for charter schools takes away money from traditional public schools, and as a result, lower income school districts are being impacted negatively.
Michele Morrow and her mission to dismantle the public school system
Morrow was born in upstate New York, where she spent most of her childhood until she moved to Charlotte as a sophomore in high school. She received her Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Nursing from UNC-Chapel Hill and went on to work for hospitals and ICUs in Texas after marrying her husband, Stuart. They had five children, who she homeschooled and sent to private schools for most of their lives. Prior to running for State Superintendent, Morrow unsuccessfully ran for the Wake County Board of Education after becoming involved in the “parental rights” movement. Morrow taught homeschooled children, specifically high school-aged children, in subjects including biology, chemistry, Spanish and civics.
The homeschool parent is seeking to oversee the state’s entire public education system — a system she has called a hub for “indoctrination centers” and “socialism centers.” Her campaign website has a three pillar plan to address scholastics, safety and spending in schools, but each point in her plan demonizes public education. Under the first section labeled “Scholastics,” Morrow targets curriculum regarding racially-aware and queer history, using buzz phrases including “teaching children racially divisive and sexually explicit content.”
Morrow also claimed schools thrive best when they are “fueled by a fiscally conservative, free-market, and competitive environment.” She provided a very vague plan, stating she would “identify, decrease or terminate wasteful programs at the state level, and end contracts with organizations that cannot demonstrate a direct, consistent, positive impact on student success and staff retention.” What Morrow fails to do is define what programs would demonstrate a direct, consistent, positive impact on student success and staff retention. Without a clear guide as to what a good program or contract looks like, it’s left for the open interpretation of whoever holds the office.
In a campaign speech made in February, Morrow called for the state’s legislature to add a constitutional amendment to abolish the state’s Board of Education, which is responsible for creating policies and procedures for public schools in the state. By getting rid of the board, the state’s education agenda would be under the control of the superintendent and the state legislature, which currently is led by Republicans.
“I’d like to see a constitutional amendment to get rid of the state Board of Education,” she said. “If the superintendent is elected and works under the legislature – knowing that they’re accountable to the legislature to oversee the DPI and to oversee and have impact into the superintendents in the 115 districts, I think we would be so much better off because you don’t have all these extra people right in mix.”
This isn’t even the most absurd suggestion by Morrow — four years ago, she took to Twitter to openly call for a televised execution of former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” she wrote in a tweet from May 2020, responding to someone who said they should send Obama to prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”
The call for executing public officials didn’t end there — according to reporting from CNN, between 2019 and 2021, Morrow called for many “traitors” to receive some kind of punishment, including Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, North Carolina’s own Governor Roy Cooper, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Morrow has continued to avoid questions regarding if she still stands by these comments, and, in fact, she’s discounted these tweets as nothing more than “the dysfunctional media trying to create ‘gotcha moments’ out of old comments taken out of context, made in jest, or never made in the first place.”
The North Carolina GOP was approached by WNCN in Raleigh and was asked if the party supported Morrow after her social media comments were publicized. They declined to comment all together and did not give Morrow their public support.
Morrow isn’t the answer
It’s clear based on the information available, Morrow isn’t the best choice for North Carolina or its students. She has consistently called for the end of the state’s public education system — the exact system she claims to respect and wants to run.
Under the “Safety” pillar of Morrow’s three-pillar plan, she says “fear of violence and fear of harassment is robbing too many children of their right to receive a sound basic education.” What Morrow fails to recognize is part of the reason students fear being harassed and don’t want to go to school is because of the hateful rhetoric she and other Republicans have used to dehumanize queer students and students of color. Their words enable the hate these students experience day in and day out, both inside and outside of the classroom.
It’s not the increase in violence in schools that’s preventing students from having a basic, sound education — it’s the continual defunding of public schools at the hands of the Republican-majority legislature and the state superintendent. One thing is clear: with Morrow, there will not be a brighter tomorrow for North Carolina’s most vulnerable students.
I just wanted to say that for anyone out there who thinks teachers have time or energy to indoctrinate students they have no idea how schools operate. It’s all we can do to cram all the state standards in every day so that students can be ready for EOG’s and other state testing. That’s if we can get through the lessons because we frequently have to pause to correct behavior. We do not have time to push out any additional information that would indoctrinate students in any way. Plus most of us would not want to do that anyway because we believe students and families should have an opportunity to believe what they want. Instead of getting information from outside perspectives or district leaders maybe the public should sit down and be able to have a candid conversation with teachers without the teachers being reprimanded for being honest. This would provide a level of transparency that parents need!