2024 election is a battle for the ‘soul of public education’ Mo Green says

Green, the Democratic nominee to lead NC’s public schools, is in a race against Republican Michele Morrow, who has called public schools ‘indoctrination centers’ and advocated for the public execution of Barack Obama and other Democrats. 

When Mo Green took over as superintendent of Guilford County public schools in 2008, there was lots of work to do. The district’s graduation rate was only 70%. 

But, Green, who is now the Democratic nominee to lead all the state’s public schools, had a plan: Add character to the curriculum.

“We started with a vision, and the vision in Guilford County schools was to use a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which was ‘intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education,’” Green told Cardinal & Pine in an interview last month. 

Two years later, the district introduced a new system to recognize students who showed responsibility, respect, courage, integrity, and other traits. Officials implemented a service learning program as well, giving any student who performed 175 hours of service-learning activities or community service a service-learning diploma. This was meant to show students the issues that were directly affecting their communities, and to teach them how “we can be of service to others,” Green said. 

That first year, students in the service program built a house in the community through Habitat for Humanity. 

“I wanted us to be the best school system in the state and beyond,” he said.

The emphasis on service and character won the district national attention. In 2013, Guilford County was one of only three public school districts in the country to be named a “National District of Character.”

Still, Green pushed back a little when asked what he was most proud of in his time in Guilford County. 

“I always struggle with questions that ask for what I feel most proud about in my accomplishments,” Green said. “ I always have to be sure that we correct and be clear that these are not my accomplishments. I happen to be among the folks who were able to do some really incredible things in Guilford County schools.”

When Green left Guilford County Schools in 2018, the graduation rate was nearly 90%.

What is a superintendent of public instruction?

Green is running for North Carolina’s superintendent of public instruction, a role that oversees the funding, performance, and regulation of a public school system that includes 115 school districts and more than 2,500 schools. The superintendent has to meet regularly with educators, the governor, and the media to make sure everyone has what they need and to communicate when they don’t.

But perhaps the most important role of the position is as chief advocate for public schools, especially in a state where Republican state legislators are diverting money from public schools to expand a private school voucher program. 

Green’s opponent is Michele Morrow, a far-right Republican who home schooled her children most of their academic life, has called public schools dens of indoctrination, has implied no one should speak Spanish inside the United States, and once called for the televised public execution of President Barack Obama.

We spoke to Green last month about how he would lead the state’s public schools, his record, and his opponent’s violent rhetoric.

The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Cardinal & Pine: Tell me a little bit about why you decided to run for schools superintendent and why the position itself is so important? 

Green: I decided to run for the position because I was concerned about the direction North Carolina Public Schools were going — deeply concerned about a number of things, including funding of our public schools, and about the way our educators were being treated. I believe that they were being and are being disrespected. I was also concerned about student achievement and believed that it could be substantially improved. I was approached by Governor Roy Cooper about running for the position and after having a conversation with him and with many others, a lot of hand wringing, some prayer, I decided to run. 

A lot of these issues, obviously, have been around for a while, so what did you learn as the superintendent of Guilford County about the difference that leadership can make in fixing some of these problems statewide? 

I certainly think leadership matters, but you have to have folk who are willing to be led in order for there to be substantial changes and improvements. And we were blessed in Guilford County to have a community of individuals who wanted to have a better school system — parents, educators, and even students who all wanted to have a much better school system than was there. Not to say that there weren’t already some really good things happening there, because there were, but it was a chance to maybe take it to a different level. So leadership can set a vision and a direction for an organization and if they surround themselves with other effective individuals, they can actually achieve significant improvement.

What were some of the specific visions you set into Guilford County and what were some of the significant improvements you are most proud of?

I always struggle with questions that ask for what I feel most proud about in my accomplishments. I always have to be sure that we correct and be clear that these are not my accomplishments. I happen to be among the folks who were able to do some really incredible things in Guilford County schools.

I’ll lift up a school that was a high school that had around 40% of the students passing end of course exams and what not, going to over 90%, with a 100% graduation rate. That’s on the academic side. On the character development side, our district was recognized as a state and national district of character [in 2013], one of three in the entire country to be so recognized. 

How then are we defining character?

Respect, responsibility. And there were eight or nine other traits that we were also lifting up to be sure that our students engaged with them and learned how to comport themselves, learned how to interact with each other. In Guilford County schools, we also combined that with focus on service and service learning. And so we really tried to be sure that our students understood their place in the world and how they could make a difference in a positive way.

One of the frequent talking points from many Republicans running for office statewide, including your opponent, Michele Morrow, is that public school teachers are indoctrinating students. So what is your response to the charge that these character building plans and visions that you had in Guilford County and presumably hope to do something similar as state superintendent, are somehow a form of indoctrination? 

This whole idea that public schools are indoctrinating students is a false narrative. Students are taught character traits as soon as they walk in the door in kindergarten, and so the idea that you would not do these things in older grades really doesn’t make any sense. I would also say that in this case, it’s an attempt to change the focus from my opponent and what she has said and done. 

This is the very person who has called for the execution of President Barack Obama. So when we talk about character in Guilford County schools, these would be the sorts of things we need to be sure our kids are not doing. When you disagree with someone, that doesn’t mean that you should then call for their execution. We should find ways of engaging with each other so that we can learn about and grow together. You may never fully agree with someone, but you can respect that person.

There is a stark difference between the two of us. I have nothing against someone who homeschools their children, but I believe in our public schools as opposed to someone who calls them socialist centers and indoctrination centers. And then my wife and I had two children, blessed to have two children. We were blessed to be able to make choices about where we sent out children, we sent ’em to our public schools and they delivered.

The very soul of public education is on the ballot and that it’s going to take champions of public education to meet this moment.

The General Assembly, of course, controls public school funding and is behind the effort to take even more money from public schools and pour them into private school vouchers. So since you won’t be able to address that lack of funding, which is a big part of the issues facing public schools, what as superintendent would you be able to do to tackle the problem from another angle? 

The state superintendent of public instruction has two major roles. One is to be a chief administrative officer, and the other is to be what I call the chief advocacy officer. So it would be critically important that this role be one to lift up the concern with taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.

These are taxpayer dollars that are being used to send children to private schools, and there is now no cap on the income that one can have before being able to be eligible to receive a voucher. So you’re talking about a situation where someone who’s wealthy can afford to send their child to a private school, already has their child in a private school, can now get a voucher. 

Are there things that I can do outside of being that chief advocacy officer? Absolutely. You can work with the state Board of Education and with the schools and school districts to find more effective and efficient ways to utilize the dollars that you do have. 

What is the message to the parents who don’t want to take their kids out of the public school system, but feel trapped in a school that isn’t meeting their particular kids’ needs or, because of underfunding, is falling short in their view in a lot of different ways?

We certainly are in a situation where it is incumbent on parents and community members to vocalize concerns and need for reforms and improvement and to go to places like the General Assembly and say: ‘We believe in public schools, you need to fund our public schools such that the public school educators can do the work that they have been trained to do and are capable of doing, rather than splintering those dollars to other locations, including to things like unproven private schools.’

I know parents are incredibly busy and have many, many things to do, but I do believe that they also have a voice and a voice that they need to utilize in helping our public schools. That voice can show up in who they vote for because the people who show up in the General Assembly are a reflection of who folks, including parents, actually vote for. And so having more public school champions in our public schools in our General Assembly can make a huge difference.

Your work to improve Guilford County took place over eight years. Progress can take a long time, even when everyone is working together and working hard, so what do you say to public school parents whose students will be graduated before any long term fixes can take root?

I very much appreciate that we have got to do some significant work to improve outcomes for our children. And I recognize that we don’t have time to wait. Our parents don’t have time to wait seven or eight years for those turnarounds to happen.

So if you look at then what I did in Guilford County Schools and say, maybe this is part of how we need to think about what we should do statewide, I did a number of complete turnarounds in our public schools, and by complete turnarounds, I mean, while respecting the educators that were in the building essentially said, ‘we’re going to start all the way over.’ 

And so new principal, new assistant principal, new teachers, new cafeteria workers, new custodians, all the way through to begin to turn around an entire school. And I think that that’s something that we have to be willing to do if we’re going to have the kind of outcomes that we need to have for our students. And so you take, for example, [one school] had 25% of the students performing on grade level, on end of grade exams. I mean, it literally turned around in a year, and then in two years, was in the seventies. So it does not have to take that long if we are willing to do significant work and make really hard but important decisions that focus on the students, not the adults.

The other big thing for schools is teacher pay, which again, I know that’s tied into the school funding, which comes from the General Assembly, not the superintendent’s office. But what can the superintendent do, short of being able to give raises and master’s degree stipends, to prevent North Carolina teachers from leaving the state for higher pay elsewhere, or to address the shortages of bus drivers, counselors, nurses, and other vital staff in public schools?

Obviously the thing that I would be focused on is advocating for additional resources so that we can pay teachers more, pay educators more, recruit more folks into the education profession. We’ve also got to focus on things like working conditions. We’ve got to focus on leadership in school buildings because those make dramatic differences as to who is willing to stay and work under certain situations. So we can look at the existing resources and see if we can reallocate them so that some of the responsibilities that we’re placing on folks can be lessened or removed. 

In Guilford County Schools, we launched a strategic plan right at the start of the great recession.

And many folks said, ‘you should not be moving forward.’ Every district was returning money to the state to be sure that the state budget was balanced, but I said, ‘we’re not going to do that.’ We have to be sure that we set the expectation high and that people will rise to it and we’ll try to find resources elsewhere. There are many organizations and individuals who are willing to provide additional resources to support our students. We also applied for and were successful in getting federal grant dollars, significant dollars, into our school system.

So I think that’s part of the answer to the puzzle as well, is let’s not just sit on our hands.

What are you thinking about most as you campaign and as the election gets closer and closer?

We ought to have the highest expectations for our students and for our public schools. And so part of what I’ve been grappling with in a world where there is a negativity around public schools, how are we going to elevate the conversation so that we can focus on becoming the very best school system in the entire country.