Debate: Morrow pitches outside ideas, Green touts experience

(The Center Square) – Republican Michele Morrow and Democrat Mo Green hashed out differences on North Carolina public schools’ school safety, curriculum, parental rights, school choice and teacher pay on the debate stage Tuesday evening.

Ultimately, the candidates for superintendent of public instruction disagreed repeatedly even to include honesty on what the other has said. While that in and of itself was not unusual for political campaigns, voters do have the usual dilemma – or perhaps easy choice – of deciding where candidates can be held accountable for proposals and the good of the state’s 1.5 million schoolchildren.

“We can make the public school system be the best in the nation, and an example for everyone else to follow,” Morrow told the audience of more than 100 in the auditorium of the East Carolina Heart Institute on the campus of ECU Health in Greenville. “It’s going to take someone who is not entrenched in the current system. It’s going to take somebody with outside ideas. It’s going to take someone who is willing to stand up, and to say things, and to speak truth to power. And that’s who I am.”

The Hometown Debate Series 2024 segment will air on Spectrum’s statewide news network Sunday at 11:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. Debates for commissioner of labor and state treasurer are also scheduled by the nonpartisan North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership.

Afterward in exclusive interviews with The Center Square, each candidate said their campaigns were going well. Polling shows a close race. Green used the opportunity to bash Morrow’s character; she said his ideas on education spending support bureaucracy and not students.

Green, 56 when he decided to run, opened the evening with his vision and borrowed on Martin Luther King’s words when the late civil rights leader said, “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

“It’s what we did in Guilford County,” Green, the former superintendent there, said of a focus on character.

On most every answer or rebuttal, he opted toward the slightest chance to swerve into a character debate consistent with the campaign he says he chose to run immediately after the primary. The last question before final statements was related to “discourse in the way candidates present themselves,” such as in social media and on a debate stage.

Green said he preferred civil discourse and continued in the same breath, “However, and I said this after the primary, and found out about my opponent, this is different.”

He accused Morrow, who unseated incumbent Catherine Truitt in the primary, of “intolerant remarks about everybody she talks about” and took the chance for the first time in the evening to bring Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson into the conversation. His campaign for governor was torpedoed by CNN reporting last Thursday.

Morrow countered, “Students are suffering, and I have not been a part of the system that created this. My opponent is entrenched in it.”

She said students are being assaulted, groomed and “can’t do math or read at grade level. They know our teachers are leaving in droves because they’re being assaulted on the job.”

On school safety, neither candidate was against school resource officers; they differed on how many, Morrow for two to a school, Green for not every school. Morrow pointed to “lack of discipline and respect in the classroom” as a root cause; Green was asked and defended his time working for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, an organization associated with liberal activist organizations.

Green said he couldn’t speak to “every instance” but best he knows “critical race theory is not taught in our schools. That is a suggestion that is misguided.” Morrow said it was evident three years ago in online teacher training and is called “culturally responsible teaching now. It’s telling children to identify as an oppressor or a victim.”

On money in education, Green wanted more for public schools and called the popular Opportunity Scholarship program “a taxpayer voucher scheme.” Morrow chuckled at his use of scheme and referred to the 115 school districts of the state’s 10.8 million population getting money from taxpayers without school-age children.

Morrow is not against teachers, bus drivers or cafeteria workers getting more money, same as Green. But whereas the Democrat is opposed to school choice, she said programs “15, 20 and 30 years old” need to be audited for return on investment.

“Does money matter? It matters more how you’re spending,” Morrow said.

Green said, in referring to places to save, “The private school voucher program would be a great place to start.”

Morrow concluded, “I have spent the last six years fighting for everyone’s right to a quality education, for medical freedom. I have experience in talking and working with people on both sides of the aisle in order to try to protect our freedom, in order to try to give our students the best education possible. And really the decision is going to be up to you. You can choose Morrow for change, or Mo of the same.”

Green had the mic last and gave parting shots to Morrow’s character.

He also said, “I’m the first, I’m told, nontraditional superintendent of a school district in the state of North Carolina. I brought to bear lots of issues, and lots of experience, respecting however and in fact revering our educators to try and lift them up and move them forward.

“There actually is one person who has walked the walk, who has improved student outcomes, raised graduation rates, and the district recognized as a national district of character.”