Republicans are abandoning public education

It’s a simple fact: North Carolina Republicans are lavishly funding private school vouchers while underfunding public education. They have even refused the NC Supreme Court order to release millions of dollars to local school districts, as ordered by the Court in the Leandro case. Similarly, they have selected extremist Michelle Morrow as their candidate to oversee public education. Morrow disdains public education, and home schools her own children. She has even advocated the execution of prominent Democrats like Barack Obama and Joe Biden for TREASON, and on January 6, 2021, took her kids to DC to attend this insurrection with her. For a chilling look at her fascist support of Trump and his Big Lie, see the video she made soon after the violent attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

On the other hand, Mo Green, the Democratic running for Superintendent of Public Schools, is justifiably known as a “champion of public education.” Greene has considerable experience in public education, having served as Superintendent of Guilford County Schools and Executive Director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, a nonprofit set up to support community projects throughout the state. As he has said about our upcoming election, “The very soul of public education is on the line.”

Given the views of Republican candidates, that’s undeniably true.

Think about it: State Republicans have chosen Mark Robinson as their candidate for Governor, another extremist who calls teachers “wicked people” and boasts that he will, if elected, “work to keep history, science and a number of other subjects out of the first through fifth grade curricula.” 

Robinson and Morrow, along with their leader Donald Trump, can’t make it any clearer; their goal is the ultimate destruction of public education. Trump even promises to get rid of all school vaccine mandates. What is he wishing for? The return of polio, smallpox, measles and mumps?

The only way to fight this dangerously cynical view of public education and to rescue the benefits deserved by the 77% of NC children who attend public schools is to repudiate GOP efforts to destroy what is so fundamentally American — free public education for all. It’s a critical battle we can win by making sure every Democratic vote counts in November.