Morrow: Competition best for all forms of education

Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for state schools superintendent, says she wants all school options in grades K-12 — charter, private, homeschool and public — to be the best they can be for children of North Carolina.

“The way I see it is this: In a free market system, what creates the best product at the best price? Healthy competition. Right?” she asked. “That’s why I say all these forms of education need to be the best they can possibly be.

“That’s why I’m doing this (running for state schools superintendent) — because I want public schools to be an absolutely excellent opportunity in every district,” she said.

Morrow was addressing about 35 Republicans attending the Pasquotank Republican Party’s monthly meeting Thursday at First Christian Church in Elizabeth City. Laurie Buckhout, the GOP nominee in the the 1st Congressional District, also spoke at Thursday’s Republican meeting.

Buckhout, who is a retired U.S. Army colonel and Edenton resident, will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis in November for the opportunity to represent the 1st Congressional District.

Before either candidate spoke, local party officials announced that any registered Democrats in the audience were not allowed to attend the meeting and must leave.

Party chairwoman Virginia Wasserberg made the announcement after conferring briefly with party vice chairman Francis Pugh. Audience members who were registered Republicans or who were registered unaffiliated but cast a Republican ballot in the March 5 primary could remain, Wasserberg clarified.

One of the Democrats in the audience was Keith Rivers, head of the Pasquotank Chapter of the NAACP.

“Sir, are you a Democrat?” Wasserberg asked him.

“Oh, yes,” Rivers replied.

Wasserberg told him he needed to leave.

“OK,” said Rivers.

“We’ve talked about party business and you’ve heard a lot of it,” Wasserberg told Rivers.

“Any in the back that we know of?” Wasserberg asked, ensuring there were no more Democrats present.

Rivers and another man who accompanied him left without incident. They were the only two people told to leave the meeting.

Before Rivers left, one person at the meeting asked Wasserberg if any Democrats present could return after the party’s meeting to hear Morrow and Buckhout speak.

“You know what? This is not my party; this is our party,” Wasserberg said, before asking Republicans their thoughts. “So, what’s the general consensus?”

“Closed,” one party member said.

The man who questioned Wasserberg spoke up again.

“I think we should have it open,” he said. “These are candidates in the general election that need to be heard.”

The meeting was ruled closed to Democrats.

Morrow, who is a nurse and homeschool parent, defeated incumbent superintendent Catherine Truitt in last month’s Republican primary. Morrow edged Truitt, who was bidding for a second four-year term, by 4 percentage points, garnering 52.10% of the vote to Truitt’s 47.90%.

“This really was a win from not only Republicans but also from unaffiliated,” Morrow said Thursday. “Across the state, over 65% of the unaffiliated voters actually pulled a Republican ballot this time.”

Morrow will face Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green in the November general election. Green is a former executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and former superintendent of the Guilford County Schools. He defeated fellow Democrats C.R. Katie Eddings and Kenon Crumble in the March Democratic primary, collecting 65.8% of the vote to Eddings’ 24.8% and Crumble’s 9.27%.

Morrow told Pasquotank Republicans that she believes “education is an issue that crosses all race, religion and political lines.” North Carolina’s state constitution promises “that every child in North Carolina will get a sound, basic education,” she said.

“The people of North Carolina do not trust the Democrats to keep the reins of education, that is why they (Democrats) have to resort to fearmongering,” said Morrow, who lives with her family in Wake County. “That’s why they have to resort to character assassination, because what this is is a smoke screen.

“They don’t want us to see that it’s their failed policies, it’s their radical agendas that the people of North Carolina have said no more to,” she said.

Morrow, the mother of five homeschooled children, addressed her qualifications to serve as the state’s top elected official in charge of public education for K-12 students.

“The media wants to say that I’m not qualified because I’m just a nurse and I’m just a homeschool teacher,” she said. “Well, I’m going to tell you something.”

Morrow said she is a product of North Carolina’s public schools and graduated from a high school in Charlotte. She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She said she’s spent the majority of her nursing career working in critical care environments in rural counties across the United States, as well as in some of the poorest communities in Central and South America.

“What did I find when I worked in these rural areas, when I worked in these communities where poverty is such a problem? You know what I found?” she asked. “That it’s the weak educational system that continues this cycle of poverty.”

In the last decade, Morrow and her husband lived for four years in Mexico City, where they served as missionaries.

“We worked with families to try to help them train up their children to be entrepreneurial,” she said.

Morrow said she also has helped other homeschool parents teach their children “when the public schools were failing.”

“I taught biology, chemistry, civics and Spanish to high schoolers,” she said.

Morrow turned her focus to Green, her November opponent. She described him as a “New York City lawyer” with “zero experience teaching.”

“He’s not a teacher,” she said of Green. “He has never been in a classroom. As a matter of fact, Mo Green is a New York City lawyer who used his training to do what? To destroy the very values that we hold so dear in North Carolina.”

According to numerous online sources, Green was born in New York but has lived in and worked in North Carolina for many years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics and a law degree, both from Duke University. After two U.S. judicial clerkships, he worked as an attorney in private practice for the law firm of Smith Helms Mulliss & Moore LLP in Charlotte.

In 2001, Green joined the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as general counsel. In 2006, he was named chief operating officer of the CMS district and later named its deputy superintendent. He served as superintendent of Guilford County Schools from 2008-16 before leaving for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in 2016. He retired from the foundation last year.