She presented herself with a huge smile, her words crisp and her gaze confident as she looked across the high school auditorium of prospective voters. In bedazzled shoes, a bright red dress, and a blonde blowout, she stood assured like a pageant queen.
Friends and family donning T-shirts with the words “Make Education Great Again” sat in the front rows. They were eager to hear Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for North Carolina superintendent of public instruction, make the case that her lack of experience in public education is just what North Carolina students need.
“I think one of my greatest qualifications is I have no experience in a failing system,” she said in the October 14 debate at a high school in Pinehurst.
Her Democratic opponent, Mo Green, is a former district superintendent. Morrow boasts her 10 years of teaching high school science, Spanish, and civics. But she has never taught in a public school — only in homeschooling co-ops.
She’s also never won an election. Morrow sought a district school board seat in 2022 but lost the bid by more than 20 percentage points to a school educator. But now, the 53-year-old is running a competitive campaign to oversee an $11 billion budget and the education of 1.5 million students in one of the worst states for teacher pay.
Polling shows Morrow is leading Green by 1 percentage point.
Morrow is just the latest example of Republicans across the country, both appointed and elected, opposing the public school systems they intend to manage. Her campaign against Green marks the first partisan state education race in the country in which the Republican candidate has no background working in public education.
Jonathan Collins, an assistant professor of political science and education at Columbia University, said the nation is currently experiencing an “unprecedented moment” in which candidates with no history in public schools are seeking positions traditionally held by education professionals. It mirrors Donald Trump’s rise to presidency, signaling to prospective candidates that applicable political experience is not necessary for government leadership.
“It’s hard to not see this as a derivative of the Donald Trump effect,” he said.
To Morrow, her inexperience is an advantage.
“I am not beholden to a bureaucratic system that is robbing from our students and staff,” she said in an October 27 online town hall.
An Outsider Candidate
Morrow began delving into politics after she and her husband, Stuart Morrow, spent six years as missionaries in Mexico City. Upon returning to Texas in the early 2000s, the UNC-Chapel Hill graduate and registered nurse advocated against immigration policies she felt were too lax — arguing that weak border enforcement was enticing immigrants to enter the U.S. and thus separating Mexican families.
She sent her five children to public schools, where her daughter struggled in the system with a learning disability. “So I thought, I’m just gonna homeschool her for a year,” she said in an interview with The Intercept.
When the family moved back to North Carolina 10 years ago, Morrow had “every intention” of putting her children back in public schools, until she said parents warned her of the “violence, crime, and drugs” present in the system.
Morrow taught in Christian homeschool co-ops, which she calls “parent-led micro schools,” for nearly a decade. She has stopped homeschooling, since only one of her children is still in secondary education and now attends a private school.
Before launching her political career, Morrow drew attention on social media through her personal X account, which is now dormant.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad,” Morrow tweeted about former President Barack Obama in 2020. “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”
The comment caught Obama’s attention, who responded earlier this month during Harris-Walz rally in Charlotte.“I have friends who are conservatives, friends who are Republicans, we can have differences on issues,” he said to the crowd. “But we can’t have somebody saying just crazy stuff running your school system, purchasing textbooks, allocating resources for your kids.”
Morrow also referred to President Joe Biden as a traitor and referenced QAnon slogans from 2020 to 2021.
In 2022, Morrow ran for the North Carolina District 9 School Board Seat, which oversees 26 public schools just west of Raleigh. She said she heard stories of administrators giving insulin shots to diabetic students and became concerned about inappropriate medical policies in schools.
During the race, she made headlines for saying teachers should be allowed to exercise their Second Amendment right to conceal-carry a firearm within schools.
Her husband was accused of tampering with her opponent’s road signs. Police were called out, but no arrests were made.
Morrow lost that race by 20 percentage points.
“Bureaucratic Bloat”
But two years later, Morrow is back on the campaign trail. Her platform to lead over 2,500 schools and more than 115,000 educators and administrators as the superintendent of public instruction centers around embracing American exceptionalism and eliminating “bureaucratic bloat.”
Morrow beat moderate State Superintendent Catherine Truitt in the Republican primary in March, in what many have labeled a surprising, major upset. She defeated the incumbent with 52 percent of the vote, even though Truitt raised almost $300,000 more.
Morrow claims that she has “no special interest group donations” and no political party endorsements. She’s well behind on fundraising for the general election, having raised around $225,000 — trailing behind her opponent’s $1 million war chest.
Campaign finance records show one of her top private donors is Robert Luddy, the founder of a charter school system with 13 locations across three states called Thales Academy, contributing more than $12,000. Morrow has said that charter schools raise the bar for traditional public schools and supports school vouchers that provide scholarships for students seeking private or charter education.
Mo Green, her rival in the general election, is the former superintendent of one the largest school districts in the country — Guilford County Schools — which serves over 70,000 PK-12 students. He has tried to cast her as an extremist by pointing to her social media history.
“This is the person who has called for the public execution of Barack Obama.”
“This is the person who has called for the public execution of Barack Obama,” Green said at a public debate hosted in Pinecrest High School. He criticized her for attending Trump’s rally prior to the January 6 insurrection with some of her children and for saying the plus in LGBTQ+ stands for pedophilia.
She continued to smile as the jabs didn’t appear to phase her. Her personal Twitter account is now deleted, and Facebook has been scrubbed.
In response to a question about her online statements, Morrow wrote in an email to The Intercept: “The only people spewing divisive commentary and ignoring the serious issues we face in public education are the media and my opponent.”
“The media and Mo Green,” she wrote in a second email, “are doing a grave disservice to the people of NC in not discussing educational issues and finding common ground to strengthen our K-12 system.”
Scott Davis/The Daily Reflector via AP
Partisan Politics
Education is an issue that animates the hardcore Republican base, according to Jennifer Berkshire, a lecturer in education studies at Yale whose work explores the intersection of public education and politics. The fight for public education and the way it teaches children has been an issue since the system’s creation, she added.
“These kinds of officials basically play the role of a troll.”
But when that fight moves to social media, politicians can benefit from making inflammatory comments that help them attract attention.
“These kinds of officials basically play the role of a troll — like an online troll,” she said.
“It’s a trend that’s happening in places all over the country,” Collins, the Columbia University professor, observed.
Berkshire categorizes Morrow alongside extreme right-wing education officials like Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters, who is pushing to mandate Bible classes in public schools and Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who has campaigned against critical race theory.
“We’re kind of in a fire and ice moment,” Collins said about education races across the country.
He said the “ice” refers to experienced candidates campaigning on differences in ideological approaches for improving students’ success. The “fire” refers to candidates like Morrow riding on culture wars.
Collins said he wishes the typical voter knew just how much power state education positions have to rewrite curriculum, shift funding, allocate resources, and define student success. “The most powerful source of education policy decision-making happens in your state education office, your state board of education, your state superintendent or commissioner of education,” he said.
Voters’ Voices
Morrow is running an outsider’s campaign, but she is not without establishment support.
She has endorsements from boards of education members across the state, former and current legislators, and co-sheriffs.
Robert Levy, chair of the board of education for Moore County, endorsed Morrow because of her ideas about teaching the basics of education, lowering the profile of the Department of Public Instruction, and returning power to the local boards of education.
Levy acknowledged Morrow’s controversial social media comments but said those remarks don’t apply to the position she is running for. “She has made some statements which are hyperbolic in nature which are oftentimes simply taken out of context, but if you look at her views on education, I believe that they are consistent with how most Republicans feel about education,” he said.
Other supporters include Laura Macklem, a Wake County resident and who co-taught civics with Morrow in homeschooling cohorts. She said she trusts Morrow after witnessing firsthand her patience and attitude toward students. “Michele is a person who cares and her life has basically been about service,” said Macklem.
Critics such as Dr. Steve Ellis, superintendent of Nash County, keep coming back to experience. He likened the job of superintendent to being a firefighter: “I know that if I was going to be a fireman and I didn’t know anything about fighting fires … I don’t know if you’d want me to be on a firetruck on the first day of office and try to figure it out.”
“I just feel like we want somebody who’s at least proven themselves,” Elizabeth Ouzts, an unaffiliated voter from Mecklenburg County said.
“Morrow seems to not have confidence in the teachers of NC and it reflects in her rhetoric unfortunately.”
Some voters question Morrow’s commitment to the very idea of public education, such as Summer Leaks, a high school teacher in Forsyth County.
“Public education is at stake on a national level depending on who wins the election. I want someone who knows what they’re doing and can protect education within our state,” Leaks said. “Morrow seems to not have confidence in the teachers of NC and it reflects in her rhetoric unfortunately.”
Having a candidate with no formal public education experience raises questions as to why more traditionally qualified contenders didn’t enter the race. Salary may be one reason: The North Carolina superintendent’s annual salary is set by state legislature, but district-level superintendent salaries vary based on the size of the school district and experience. The state superintendent makes roughly $146,421 annually, while the highest-paid district superintendent in Mecklenburg County makes roughly $300,000.
Days before the election, roughly 17 percent of likely voters remain undecided on the race to oversee North Carolina public schools, according to multiple polls.
Jeff Spinner-Halev, a political science professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, said Morrow might be “dragged down” by Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate found by CNN to have made numerous offensive comments on porn websites.
Though Morrow has said some offensive comments and received attention, she’s not at the top of the ticket. It’s unclear whether she might be harmed by Robinson, who is polling well below his Democratic rival, or boosted by Trump.
“People are paying attention right now,” Spinner-Halev said.
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