SOUTHERN PINES — Republican candidate Michele Morrow and Democratic candidate Maurice “Mo” Green faced off in the final debate between the two candidates for North Carolina state superintendent at Pinecrest High School in Moore County last Monday.
Morrow, a nurse who has homeschooled her five children, ran unsuccessfully for the Wake County School Board in 2022 before beating incumbent State Superintendent Catherine Truitt in the March Republican primary.
Morrow has campaigned on a return to academics over social issues in the classroom, school safety, trimming down the bureaucracy of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and making sure education funding supports students instead of systems. Her candidacy, however, has been controversial due to her attendance at the Jan. 6 breaching of the U.S. Capitol and some past social media posts, including suggesting former President Barack Obama should be executed.
Green is a lawyer and former superintendent of Guilford County Public Schools (2007-16). He also served as general counsel and chief operating officer (2001-05) and then became superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in 2006. He left Guilford County schools for an eight-year term as director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, an organization known for funding left-leaning and progressive causes.
Green has focused his campaign on raising teacher pay and increasing education spending at the state and local levels. He has also opposed the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which gives grants of different amounts based on income level to families to attend private schools. He has also called for a cap on the number of charter schools.
The event — hosted by the nonprofit Public School Forum of North Carolina — was moderated by former state Sen. Leslie Winner and John Hood, president of the John William Pope Foundation.
School safety, school funding and getting schools back on track academically were constant themes in the answers from the candidates, including the efficacy of the Science of Reading.
“It is very clear from the outpouring of interest how important this race is and how important education is to every person in North Carolina,” Morrow said in her opening remarks. “It truly does not matter your race, your religion or your politics. Every person in our state is confirmed that our children are not getting the quality education that they need in order to be successful. I think everyone longs to return to the time when our schools were places of hope and opportunity.”
Green’s opening remarks laid out his vision through three concepts, “experience vision and soul,” describing his experience as the former superintendent of Guilford County schools some eight years ago, as well as a vision of the goal of education being “excellence.”
“Finally, the very soul of public education is on the ballot this November and it is going to take champions of public education to meet this moment,” said Green. He added in closing that, “I do believe that this is an opportunity for us to let someone who can, number one, be sure that we sustain and protect our public school system, but then go much further, execute on a bold vision going forward.”
Morrow and Green held different opinions on how to reduce teacher vacancy rates.
Morrow highlighted how teachers are overburdened, students need to be held accountable for their behavior, and school safety, stating that schools need to be safe for teachers as well, claiming there were 1,500 teachers assaulted on the job last year. Green responded with raising teacher compensation, “compensation related things,” and safe working conditions. He also said Morrow believes in raising teacher pay.
“Certainly, I absolutely believe that we need to pay our teachers more,” Morrow said during rebuttal. “And this is why we need to prioritize all spending to start actually in the classroom with student needs. My opponent likes to talk about fully funding the system. I want to fully fund the students and all of these teachers and the boots on the ground.”
On the subject of reading proficiency, both candidates were asked if they thought the Science of Reading was having an impact and what they might change.
The legislature passed the Excellent Public Schools Act in 2021, which put into law the use of the Science of Reading, which utilizes the phonics-based Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) for reading instruction. In a recent interview, current State Superintendent Catherine Truitt discussed the impact of LETRS as borne out by three years of continued improvement in K-3 grade level proficiency rates.
Green called for more money for teacher professional development and claimed North Carolina’s per pupil funding was below neighboring states at around $11,000. The actual average per pupil figure based on the Department of Public Instruction’s statistical profile data for 2023 is $12,636. Ten years ago, that figure was $8,514.
Morrow backed the Science of Reading approach, and said there needs to be a focus on professional training on practical skills of teaching literacy but also that “we need to be diagnosing things earlier on.”
In a question asking what they see as the role of K12 education to enable students to thrive in the workplace and in the future, both candidates gave an initial standard campaign talking point reply that it was an important part of public education.
In her response, Morrow said she will be “fighting to ensure that every junior and senior in North Carolina has the opportunity for an internship or a work study program.”
“I think that this would help to keep many of our young people in the classroom, and they will even understand what the importance is of all the things that they’ve been learning in their core classes,” Morrow said.
Green, in his response, suggested only he had “walked the walk and talked the talk,” before going to describe two STEM schools that were set up while he was the Guilford superintendent. He said we “absolutely” need more students taking career and technical education courses as well as college level classes.
After Green’s response, the gloves came off.
“You know, my opponent would have you believe that he is just now stepping out of the superintendent’s role in Guilford County, but the fact of the matter is that was eight years ago,” said Morrow. She cited the low performance schools and high school crime levels of both Guilford and Mecklenburg County schools where Green had worked.
“I think one of my greatest qualifications is I have no experience in a failing system that chooses to continue to fund failures,” Morrow said. Adding that “bureaucrats like my opponent” have “gotten wealthy and powerful off the backs of our students and teachers.”
Moderators then switched to the topic of the state’s public school funding being below the national average and what the candidates thought the General Assembly needs to do to address it.
Green took aim at the additional funding given to the OSP by the legislature that he said benefits “the wealthiest of the wealthy,” when the state’s public schools are underfunded.
“So the General Assembly, I think, needs to come back to what they are required to do, which is to provide a sound basic education for all of our students in our public schools first,” Green said.
“I absolutely believe that money matters, but I think what matters more is how we’re spending it,” Morrow countered. “As Superintendent, I will do an audit. I will start with the DPI because we have nearly tripled the number of directorships; we have seen people in administrative roles getting 60 and 65% raises when our teachers have gotten the measly 2 or 3% raise.”
In terms of school safety and the use of suspensions, student discipline and a code of conduct were Morrow’s main focus while Green said character development was the way forward.
Morrow said students need to be held accountable and a code of conduct was needed for all schools but that administrators number one job should be to “create a culture of civility and respect and unity and excellence.”
“We must raise our bar of expectation and I truly believe our students will meet that expectation,” Morrow said. “We need to expect greatness and for them to do hard things because life is hard. And I remind you, we are not raising up children; we are raising future adults and we need the leaders, the entrepreneurs, the inventors.”
“Suspension should be part of a comprehensive system for working with our students on various issues related to character and performance in schools,” Green said before going on to say public schools need more counselors and psychologists to accomplish that goal.
“We need to be sure that our we are teaching our students exactly how they should behave and comport themselves and do it in a positive way, not just in a suspension or punitive manner,” Green also said, before agreeing there need to be consequences for bad behavior.
He also said discipline needs to be “equitable” and referred to Black students being suspended at a higher rate than other students as an example of suspension issues.
In her rebuttal time, Morrow said determining punishment shouldn’t be based on skin color and called out Green’s use of “restorative justice” to determine discipline based on the race of the student.
“We cannot allow our students to have different levels of behavioral expectations and it’s time for us to understand that if our students are not safe, if there’s not order in the classroom, that learning is not happening,” said Morrow.
When asked about the use of School Resource Officers (SROs) in schools, Green again referred to a “comprehensive system” and the need for more mental health professionals in schools.
“So this is again part of a comprehensive system of safety,” said Green. “I certainly think that school resources officers and an effective relationship with school resources officers is necessary, however; as part of a comprehensive system. I’d actually start again with being sure that we have the level of mental health professionals working with our students.”
“When I’m superintendent, I’m going to have a statewide student resource officer program so that we can ensure that every school has at least two officers in it,” Morrow said in her response.
She also noted that she had created a school Safety Advisory Council earlier this year to tackle the issue of increasing school safety before hitting Green for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation funding groups that have been pushing for the removal of SROs.
Morrow also took issue with Green’s push for more mental health professionals in schools, saying that, “He believes that our children should be allowed to have counseling sessions and be diagnosed and to talk to doctors without parents’ knowledge.”
Green responded by pointing to his work in CMS where the district had its own law enforcement division.
“That division reported directly to me. We upgraded what we were trying to do in law enforcement, so I absolutely in support of law enforcement having a role,” Green said. “And keeping our schools safe? Now let’s be real clear about who talks about safety. And in this instance, let’s be sure that we look at what her actual rhetoric is. She’s the one that actually calls for people to be executed when she doesn’t believe them.”
Green continued, “This is the person who has called for the public execution of Barack Obama. When you talk about safety, you talk about vulnerable communities, one of those would be our LGBTQ community. The “plus,” she says, now includes pedophilia, which is a false narrative. That community no longer feels safe, and you have someone like that, suggesting that kind of rhetoric well…”
At that point, the crowd on different sides of the auditorium cut off Green’s remarks by both cheering and booing, prompting the moderators to tell the audience not to interrupt.
On charter schools, the candidates were asked what they thought about the flexibility those schools have to operate and how that might be a way to improve public schools.
Charter schools in North Carolina are considered public schools under state law and have the ability to use different curricula, as well as having financial flexibility. Charter schools do not receive capital outlay funding like their traditional counterparts for such things as buildings and transportation, the result being that charters are underfunded by as much as $1,200 per student compared to their traditional counterparts.
“I believe in the free market system,” said Morrow. “ I believe that healthy competition gives you the best product at the best price, and so I see that charter schools have actually raised the bar for us in the traditional public school setting, and we need to be working together.”
Morrow added she wanted to “build bridges” in that area to give students the best option for them.
Green responded the he does believe charter schools play “an important role” and was in favor of them when there was a cap of 100 total schools placed on charters.
“I’m not in favor of the cap being completely removed for charter schools because I do believe that that has limited our ability to hold them accountable,” said Green. He then later touted the creation of two schools in Guilford County when he was superintendent that were modeled after charter schools.
Green also made claims that charter schools might have issues with attendance if they are not providing meals for students or transportation.
State law does not require charters to provide transportation and the state does not give charters funds for that purpose, however; charter schools are required to make sure students have a way to get to school so that it is not a barrier to attendance. The same is true for meals, charter schools must have a meal plan and many charter schools do provide school meals. Also, since charter schools are public schools they are eligible to apply for federal free and reduced lunch programs.
Closing remarks were markedly different, with Morrow choosing to end on a positive set of statements and Green attacking Morrow over her past activism.
Morrow talked about preparing students to be the next leaders and advancing the state economically, that private and public schools have something to teach us on what can be done to bring students back into the public school system and that “teaching is a calling.”
“I truly believe that the direction that we go in education is determining the direction of us as a state, and it’s determining the direction of us as a nation,” said Morrow in closing. “And North Carolina right now is at the heart of this debate.”
“It was in 1978 when Jimmy Carter created the U.S. Department of Education. And do you know that at that time the United States was number two in the world for our public school systems. We look just 45-46 years later and we are 43rd,” said Morrow. “There is no reason in 2024 and 2025 why every student is not equipped for excellence to reach their fullest potential, but we are passing people along; We are choosing to focus on political and social activism rather than academic.”
Green began his closing by reiterating his earlier remarks on “experience, belief and character.”
“There’s going to be, as I said, one person who has walked the walk and one who simply talks to talk,” Green said before summarizing his time in Guilford County Schools and citing increase ACT test participation under his tenure.
Green then implied Morrow as a homeschool parent lacked the same experience and there was no evidence any of her teaching resulted in “positive improvements for any child.” He said he and his wife put their children in public schools because they believed in those schools.
As Green neared the end of his closing statements, he attacked Morrow over her January 6 protesting, resulting in loud booing from half of the audience.
“My opponent, took her own children to the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, comes back from the insurrection and puts her own cell phone video calling for setting aside the US Constitution, calling it the Insurrection Act. This is a person who’s called for the executions of men that she doesn’t believe in,” said Green.
Full video of the debate can be viewed on the Public Schools Forum NC YouTube channel.
