The GOP nominee for NC superintendent is an existential threat to public schools | Opinion

Much has been said about Donald Trump and Mark Robinson’s success in their respective primaries on Tuesday night, and what that means for North Carolina’s future. But the most significant — and shocking — primary result happened in a race a bit further down the ballot.

Incumbent Catherine Truitt lost to far-right challenger Michele Morrow in the Republican primary for state superintendent of public instruction. Truitt received just under 48% of the vote, while Morrow received 52%, according to unofficial results. She was the only incumbent Council of State member to lose their primary, and did so despite outraising her opponent by a significant margin.

The surprise result shows how much of a flashpoint education has become in today’s Republican Party, and adds a new level to the extremism North Carolina voters will see on the statewide ticket in November.

Morrow, who has five homeschooled children, has called public schools “indoctrination centers” and urged people not to send their kids to them, according to WRAL News. She also attended the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and supports policies such as arming teachers.

Morrow believes that schools are pushing “social, political, and sexual agendas” and vows to eradicate “Critical Race Theory and porn” from classrooms, despite the fact that there is no widespread evidence to suggest it’s being taught.

Morrow framed Truitt as a liberal politician trying to “push transgenderism in schools.” Morrow particularly criticized Truitt for being endorsed by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis. Tillis in recent years has come under fire from the Republican base

Truitt was seeking reelection amid a tumultuous time for public education. Even putting culture wars aside, factors such as test scores and pandemic learning loss would put any incumbent superintendent under added scrutiny, regardless of whether they occurred due to circumstances out of her control.

Still, it’s rare for a sitting Council of State member to lose their primary, and the fact that Truitt did underscores how galvanizing an issue like education is among Republican voters. Compare Truitt’s fate to that of Mike Causey, the incumbent commissioner of insurance who openly feuds with Republican legislators and uses his office (and taxpayer dollars) to accommodate friends and political allies. Causey cruised to a primary victory Tuesday night.

Truitt, perhaps sensing displeasure from the GOP base, had taken steps to appease more conservative voters. She publicly embraced the radical expansion of private school vouchers despite promising voters she would not support it before her election in 2020. She weighed in on hot-button culture war issues like transgender participation in youth sports. This election cycle, she sent out mailers bragging about “getting woke politics out of public schools.”

But it wasn’t enough. Truitt is the latest to learn a lesson that the Republican Party writ large has been slow to learn: indulging the most extreme factions of your party will only come back to bite you in the end.

Now, the Republican nominee to guide the public education system in North Carolina is someone whose children have never attended public school in this state. She actively undermines public education, vilifies teachers and makes false and inflammatory statements about what students are supposedly being taught. Make no mistake: the next superintendent of public instruction could be someone who doesn’t believe in public instruction at all.

That such a person would be a nominee for any statewide office is certainly an indictment of today’s Republican Party and the ways in which its leaders have cultivated a constituency that would vote for such a person in the first place. Of course, it’s not an entirely unsurprising addition to a ticket that already includes Donald Trump, Mark Robinson and Dan Bishop. Top to bottom, it’s likely the most extreme Republican ticket in North Carolina history — one that illustrates the culture wars and vitriol that characterize politics today.

Robinson’s securing the GOP nomination for governor will dominate the headlines for the next few days. But Morrow is similar to Robinson in all the worst ways — and in a state where public education is increasingly under attack, the existential threat that her nomination poses to our public schools should sound alarm bells for us all.