In race for NC superintendent, the issue of reopening schools amid pandemic looms large
Two former classroom teachers hope to lead North Carolina’s public schools. But they have different plans on how to help the state’s 1.5 million public school students.
Jen Mangrum, a Democrat and associate professor at UNC Greensboro’s School of Education, is promising to take on the Republican-led state legislature that she says wants “to dismantle public education.”
Catherine Truitt, a Republican and chancellor of Western Governors University North Carolina, an online university, says she’s running to try to fix a “broken” K-12 education system that is leaving too many children behind.
Both former K-12 classroom teachers hope to replace Mark Johnson, who did not run for re-election, as state superintendent of public instruction.
School reopening
The major concern for parents, students and educators over the past few months has been when to reopen schools for in-person instruction. Some students haven’t had face-to-face classes since North Carolina public schools were closed in mid-March to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Some parents have complained that virtual schooling isn’t working for their children. But some teachers say that it’s still unsafe due to COVID-19 to reopen schools.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has allowed the state’s elementary schools to fully reopen. But he’s left in place restrictions at middle schools and high schools that have resulted in many older students either getting limited or no in-person classes.
Truitt, who was education adviser to former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, says Cooper should have given school districts the option to fully reopen all their schools. Truitt says the continued school closures are causing students to fall further behind academically.
“What we wound up getting is a one-size-fits-all for whether or not a school should be in session, Truitt said at a Sept. 24 candidate forum at Meredith College in Raleigh hosted by Spectrum News. “I would have rather seen that decision left up to local districts.”
Mangrum says school reopening has to be based on what the COVID-19 metrics indicate and whether schools have proper safety measures in place. Mangrum says state lawmakers aren’t providing schools with enough personal protective equipment and other supplies to make teachers feel it’s safe to reopen.
“Educators are afraid,” Mangrum said in a meeting with the editorial boards of The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. “They’re very concerned, and I think they have reason to be.”
Working with Phil Berger
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger isn’t running for state superintendent, but he’s a major figure in the race.
Mangrum’s first try at public office came in 2018 when she unsuccessfully ran against Berger for his Senate seat in Rockingham County.
People in Rockingham County still remember the ads that Mangrum ran attacking Berger’s wife, according to Truitt. Mangrum says she was questioning Berger hiring his wife to work as a paralegal in his Senate office.
Truitt says she has the ability to work with lawmakers to get things done, which she questions whether Mangrum can accomplish.
“It’s never a good idea to attack the person who is holding the purse strings, and at the end of the day, everyone does want what’s best for kids,” Truitt said at the candidate forum. “How we may get there is different, but there has to be mutual respect given at the outset.”
Mangrum says she can also work with Berger and other lawmakers, but she’ll fight them if she feels their actions aren’t supporting public education.
“We need someone in this position who does not behold themselves to Sen. Berger or the General Assembly,” Mangrum said at the forum. “We need someone in this position who will fight.”
School funding
One of the areas the new superintendent will deal with is working with state leaders on how much to fund public schools and where the long-running Leandro school funding lawsuit fits into the puzzle.
The state Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in the Leandro case that North Carolina isn’t following its constitutional obligation to provide students with a sound, basic education. Most recently, the judge assigned to the case signed an order in September approving an eight-year plan to sharply increase state education funding.
GOP lawmakers have been critical of the court order, pointing to how the prior judge says more money isn’t necessarily the answer.
Mangrum says it will take a significant new investment in state money to get North Carolina back to where it was educationally in the 1990s, when racial and economic achievement gaps were narrowed. She charges that GOP lawmakers aren’t complying with the Leandro order because they want to “dismantle public education.”
“I believe that the Republican leadership wants to go to a free market system,” Mangrum told the N&O & Observer editorial boards. “The only way you can go to a free market system is to convince everybody that schools are failing, and if you do that they jump ship and schools fail. I want to see a new North Carolina that invests in public education.”
But Truitt says that it’s “disingenuous at best” to say that lawmakers are dismantling public education when they’re providing more funding than ever. Truitt says she believes more money is needed. But first, she says they need to address why achievement has lagged in the past 20 years under both Democratic and Republican leadership.
“The reason I’m running is because I really believe that the system we have is broken,” Truitt told the N&O and Observer editorial boards. “The system of K-12 public education is broken. It’s not the people. It’s the parameters under which we all must operate from the finance system to HR to school accountability.”
School choice
One of the signature education programs of GOP state lawmakers has been the creation and expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship program. It provides up to $4,200 a year to help low-to-middle-income families pay for tuition at private schools
Mangrum complains that voucher money is going to private schools that lack accountability and that may teach things such as that slavery wasn’t that bad. She says that the money spent on Opportunity Scholarships would be better served on improving public education.
“Public schools were built for the common good,” Mangrum said at the forum. “They’re just not so my child can get ahead. They’re so society will do well. It’s so that we can have informed citizens who can have decent jobs.”
But Truitt says the Opportunity Scholarships give low-income parents the same option as parents of means to provide a good education for their children. She also says that, despite the outcry over the voucher program, it’s less than 1% of the state budget.
“I think the Opportunity Scholarship Program is an opportunity for some families who are low income to escape from neighborhood failing schools that have been failing kids for generations,” Truitt said at the forum. “For regardless of the reason, that parent doesn’t care why the school is failing their child. All they know is that their child is not being served.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 2:47 PM with the headline "In race for NC superintendent, the issue of reopening schools amid pandemic looms large."
