This election season, The 9th Street Journal is sitting down with candidates to chat about their priorities — over frozen pops.
Our reporter Storey Wertheimer spoke recently with Maurice “Mo” Green, a Democrat from Greensboro, who faces Republican Michele Morrow in the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Storey Wertheimer, The 9th Street Journal: A lot of voters going into this election may not have really strong feelings about who they want to be their state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Why should voters care about this race?
Mo Green: So first of all, I think it’s important to understand what the position is.
The state Superintendent of Public Instruction really has two major roles, to be the chief administrative officer for public schools for the state of North Carolina and to be the chief advocacy officer for North Carolina’s public schools.
You oversee 2,500-plus schools and provide guidance to those schools, which [serve] about 1.4 million students. You administer a budget of about $11 billion annually. And right now, around 84-85% of the children who are eligible to attend school are in our public schools. So the vast majority of our students are in public schools.
This position is called upon to share lots of information and data to various stakeholders, for example, the governor and the General Assembly, and to advocate on behalf of public schools as to what the needs are and how they can be best addressed.
Then why should people care about this position?
The vast majority of our children who are school-age are in our public schools. It is the chief economic engine for continuing to move our state forward.
So you want to have, I believe, a very strong public school system. And I think it’s important to have a strong person in a leadership role to help guide and lead our schools as well.
9th Street: What’s one reason that you would and one reason that you wouldn’t vote for your opponent?
Mo Green: There are things that are in her platform on paper that I could say, “Gosh, I could probably sign up on that.” Things like increasing the focus on early literacy skills or focusing on a sound basic education.
But the reality is that what’s on paper doesn’t match up with what she has said. I have a real struggle with saying I’m going to agree to something when I know what she has revealed as her true character.
She’s talked about our public schools in ways that I think are truly disparaging. She’s called them cesspools of evil, lies and deception, and [said that] our teachers are groomers.
She’s also done things that I think get to the core of who she is. She took her own children to the attempted insurrection on January 6. She comes back from that insurrection where people literally have lost their lives, puts herself on camera and says, “President Trump, you’re in office two more weeks. How about you set aside the United States Constitution?”
This is a person who’s called for the executions of many, including President Biden and Governor Cooper, and even the public execution on pay-per-view of President Barack Obama. [She] has repeated all kinds of QAnon conspiracy theories. [She] has suggested that we should abolish the North Carolina State Board of Public Education — a North Carolina constitutionally established body.
[She] said that it’s not the role of public schools to provide meals to feed our students or provide counseling for our students. And I could go on and on.
But you begin to see that, at least for me, what’s on paper doesn’t match up with what she has said and done.
9th Street: What do you think has been the most important change in the North Carolina school system in the past 10 years, and why?
Mo Green: I think it’s probably the level of funding that has spiraled downward in North Carolina public schools, and that a lot of the dollars that could be going into our public schools are now going into other options for educating our students.
When I talk about other options, I’m certainly talking about the increase in things like charter schools, but those are public schools, right? But I’m also talking about the taxpayer-funded private school voucher program, which started off with a very small amount of dollars that were going to serve low-income families to now, where it’s literally hundreds of millions of dollars.
And now these dollars can go to any family, [including] the wealthiest of the wealthy. A wealthy person could already have their child in private school, clearly can afford it, and can now get this opportunity.
And so that, I think, has been the big change. You think about $463 million — which will turn into, I’m told, $5 billion or more in the next 10 years — the dramatic impact that could have on increasing resources for our public schools and for our students in public schools.
9th Street: If you’re elected, what is the first thing that you would do?
Mo Green: The first thing I’m going to do is probably say, “Wow, I won. Isn’t that the most amazing thing?” It’ll be a humbling experience. I’ve never run for this kind of office before, and so to think that the majority of North Carolinians want to have me as their next state superintendent would be humbling.
The way that I operate is to start with a vision for our public schools and then figure out how to execute on that vision. The vision for our public schools will be, to utilize a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education.” And [I would] combine it with a focus on excellence.
That was the vision that I utilized when I was superintendent of Guilford County Schools for seven and a half years. It’s the third-largest district in the state and serves around 70,000 students. I found, when we did that, people embraced it, and the results were pretty remarkable.
Academic achievement levels went up. Graduation rates went up pretty dramatically. The number of students taking and passing college-level courses went up. And the district also was recognized as a National District of Character.
Six pillars are important for us to turn that vision into a reality. Those pillars include investing more money into our public schools, revering our educators and paying them more, engaging our parents and community in the work, providing safe and secure learning environments for our students, preparing our students for whatever their tomorrow might be, and celebrating the good in public education.
There’s a brand for me that’s called “Mo wants to know,” which is, I listen, learn, and then lead. And so that’s the way we’ll start to operate from day one.
9th Street: What would you say to voters who are currently dissatisfied with the state of public schools in North Carolina and think that the system demands radical change?
Mo Green: There are definitely things that need to be reformed in our public schools. No question about that. And some of those reforms require substantial additional money.
North Carolina public schools have been woefully underfunded for many years. And so then it becomes very, very challenging to make the kind of improvements that we know need to be made, for example, with student achievement.
Context may be important.
North Carolina is 48th in the country with regards to the amount that it puts into our public schools. Nationally, [it’s] about $16,000 per child. Virginia is at about $14,000 per student. South Carolina’s over $15,000 per student.
North Carolina’s at a little over $11,000 per student. That is dramatic when you’re talking about 1.4 million students.
Now even as I say all that, I do believe that there are things that we must do with the resources that we currently have.
9th Street: What’s a recent book you’ve read and what’s something that stuck out about it to you?
Mo Green: So many books come to mind but ione that sticks out at the moment is “[The] 1619 [Project]” by Nikole Hannah-Jones. What stuck out to me was, it would be real easy for African Americans to say, “I don’t want to be part of this country,” given all of the challenges and terrible things that have happened to African Americans over centuries in this country.
But what came through to me was that even with all of those challenges, it’s almost this desire to have America live into what it says it is, and to want to be part of that. And I found myself saying “That’s who I am.”
As an African American, I recognize issues and challenges, and I’m not happy about them, but rather than walking away, I want to be part of helping America live into its ideals.
Above: Photos by Kulsoom Rizavi — The 9th Street Journal
