The Surry County Senior Democrats welcomed candidate for state superintendent Maurice ‘Mo’ Green to Dobson Tuesday to speak about the race and his view of public education.
He painted a stark contrast between his vision for public education and that of his Republican opponent Michelle Morrow, whom he never mentioned by name.
Greene warned, “The very soul of public education is on the ballot in November. The foundation of public education is being dismantled brick by precious brick.”
Before his remarks he worked the room end to end shaking hands and was greeted by a lot of friendly faces who were retirees from public education. He implored them to get into the fight, “It is going to take those who are champions of public education to meet this moment.”
Green stated that he believes in the public school system in this state and is more than concerned with recent decision to use taxpayer money to fund private school vouchers.
“I have nothing against private schools… but when you start talking about using taxpayer funds to allow a child to go to private school and on top of that, you say the wealthiest of the wealthy can take advantage of government assistance all of the sudden you have an issue, particularly when we already find that our public schools are woefully underfunded,” he said.
Green feels it is time for a new direction for public education and he said he would utilize the same vision for the state schools that he employed as the former superintendent of Guilford County Schools. He cited a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. as a guidepost, “Intelligence plus character is the goal of a true education.”
“My belief is when children only see excellence, they will rise to the occasion and that is the vision I have laid out. Our children deserve nothing less than the absolute best… and if you elect me, if you want to ride the Mo Green train you need to know that I am going for the best, the top, nothing less,” he said.
To get there is going to take full funding of public schools he said. “When we find ourselves at over $5,000 per child less than the national average in per pupil expenditures and recognize there are 1.3 million students — you can do the math, this is real money. Six point five billion dollars just to get to the national average but can you imagine what could be done in this state if we invest fully in our children and their tomorrows?”
“Secondly, we must revere educators,” Green said. His mother knocked it into his head at an early age that teachers deserve respect, and he extrapolated that notion to encompass the total ecosystem of professionals that surround public education from the cafeteria to the bus line. “They all have a part to play in the education of our youth.”
“Mom said you will respect your teachers and so little ole’ Mo took from that that this must be serious work and so I began to understand that this is a noble profession and one that must be lifted up,” he recounted.
Revere is the best word to describe, he said, how critically important educators are, “And so revere means a lot of things, but it absolutely includes paying our educators substantially more.”
To achieve the best results for students will also require educators to “lift up the importance of character,” he said. He noted the great diversity of students across the state before again invoking the King quote and added, “I am not the one that would call things like Islam is evil, say Democrats are the work of the devil, or that would call for the public pay per view execution of Barack Obama.”
“Sit with me a moment and understand that we cannot have this person over our children,” Green said of Morrow.
“Across this state there are so many people who want to say how negative, how terrible, things are in our schools. Leading always with, ‘They are in need of desperate improvement.’ Now, I don’t want you to think that I am naïve, I know there is work to be done,” he explained.
When he arrived to lead Guilford County schools after more than seven years as counsel for Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, and later the deputy superintendent there, he said the writing was on the wall. Under the accountability standards of that time, that district had most low performing school in North Carolina.
It took time but Guilford County turned that around he said, “It was because of our educators, students, parents, and the community and this concept of celebrating the good in public education that all those low performing schools were no longer low performing, graduation rates went up, kids taking college level course and passing went up, and we had more kids taking career and technical paths.”
On primary night he was humbled when more than 400,000 people voted for him and when he started to look into his opponent, he was shocked. “In those moments that’s when it came to me that the soul of public education is on the ballot. This is bigger than Mo Green, this is about our children,” he said.
“I have nothing against homeschool,” he said alluding to Morrow who has homeschooled her own kids, “but when you’re talking about running an organization that oversees 2,500 public schools, 1.3 million students, that licenses over 100,000 educators, and administers a budget of $11 billion annually: you might want to have someone with a little experience.”
“Trust me when I tell you I believe in public schools. I am not the one calling them socialist machines or indoctrination centers. I would say if you want to run public schools, if you want to advocate for public schools, perhaps you ought to believe in them.”
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