Michele Morrow is the Republican candidate for North Carolina Superintendent of Schools. Perhaps not surprisingly, Morrow is no fan of wokeness in public education. She’s mistaken about important things when it comes to public schools and holds the party-consistent posture that too much education is a bad thing. Morrow makes it sound like schools are making no headway at all, yet in the next breath you can hear her launch into an alternate tirade about how schools are “indoctrinating” children.[1]
The irony here is that she’s toeing the party line when she claims that public education is too political. She insists that the focus should be on “CTE” (Career and Technical Education). She says, “CTE allows kids to do something beyond book work. It prepares them for careers they are passionate about, whether it’s mechanics, police work, cosmetology, or nursing.”[2] But not intellectual, or artist, or philosopher. That shit’s a waste of brainpower.
Morrow claims to acknowledge that teachers have concerns about salaries and discipline, but when she talks about solutions, she asserts that teachers are leaving because “they don’t have the time to teach and lack support in handling classroom discipline.”[3] For her, it’s all about consistent disciplinary standards and administrative support for orderly classrooms. She makes little mention of salaries, which have never kept pace with the needs of North Carolina school personnel.
Her attention to classroom discipline, along with her focus on parental involvement, are classic conservative dog whistles. The former is a veiled reference to poor children (Black and Hispanic non-nazis) who come from disadvantaged homes and less-than-desirable neighborhoods. Seems that kids who grow up experiencing a lot of anger and futility and disapproval tend to act out. Go figure. Perhaps they’re not getting enough church.
The latter trope, “parental involvement,” is a slight against parents who are often working multiple jobs, or single parents, or indigent parents – people who unreasonably expect their schools to know something about maintaining safety and discipline and education without them – the parents – having to drop whatever they’re doing and come sit in the principal’s office to get lectured about little Betty’s bad behavior. When people like Morrow talk about “parental involvement,” they’re talking about people like Morrow – middle-to-upper class mostly-white people with time and energy to invest in harassing already-harried school personnel.
We could go on about Morrow’s policy notions all day, but mainly they’re just a rehash of Republican policies in general. What’s equally important to note is MAGA Morrow’s alignment with the far-right wing of the GOP.
Here’s a video of her from January 6, 2021, calling for a military coup to re-install Donald Trump as President (for life, presumably): CNN.com. You’ll notice that Morrow politely asks the former President to “put the Constitution aside.” Indeed, Morrow would have the powers-that-be to put the Constitution aside from time to time, to coincide with her call for the executions of Barack Obama and N.C. Governor Roy Cooper, among, one supposes, others.[4]
Morrow is competing with Democratic candidate Mo Green for the Superintendent’s post. A few days ago, in a post on Xwitter (only suckers use Truth Social) Morrow complained about Green’s endorsement from Equality North Carolina, a human rights group. According to Morrow, Equality NC champions LGBTQ+ in its mission statement, and that the “+” refers to pedophiles.[5] Well, fine, except for two things: One, Equality NC doesn’t mention “LGBTQ+” in its mission statement, and Two, the “+” does not refer to pedophiles. Equality NC does not endorse pedophilia, just for the record.
Green’s campaign condemned Morrow’s comments and said she’s “unfit to lead our public schools.”
To say the least.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/08/19/michele-morrow-nc-superintendent-maga-republican/74783669007/
[2] https://chathamjournal.com/2024/06/10/the-future-of-learning-michele-morrows-plan-to-revitalize-public-education-in-nc/
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article291025830.html
[5] https://www.wral.com/story/nc-education-candidate-michele-morrow-falsely-says-the-plus-in-lgbtq-includes-support-for-pedophilia/21629064/
“Unfit” to lead North Carolina schools seems… perhaps too mild. Rather like saying, “this person, a convicted arsonist, may be ill suited for work at the munitions plant.”.
Unfortunately this witch would only hasten what this god-awful legislature has already done with their damn vouchers. In case you can’t tell, I’m no fan but a huge fan of a good PUBLIC education that the taxpayer is paying for. Vouchers are a sick way of turning those tax dollars into junk and lousy education dollars. There is not one worthy republican candidate on this year’s ballot and may not be for quite some time. As Don Trump, Jr said so clearly, “This is NOT your republican party any more”. If one believes that yet is still a republican, what does that make one then?