Education event draws state leaders, leading candidates to Raleigh

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the North Carolina Republican Party nominee for governor in November, embraced a very different and unusually subdued tone on Tuesday as he outlined his priorities for public schools at the Public School Forum of North Carolina’s 10th annual “Eggs and Issues” breakfast.

Approximately 400 attendees, including educators, politicians, and community leaders from across the state, gathered for the breakfast at Raleigh’s  McKimmon Center.

Both Robinson and current Attorney General and Democratic nominee Josh Stein spoke at the event, calling for increased pay for teachers.

During his speech, Robinson, who has regularly come under fire from Democrats and some Republicans for several combative and controversial attacks on public education, as well as a long series of homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic statements, struck a distinctly different and surprisingly traditional pose. Instead of lifting up the conservative culture war agenda, Robinson said his top public education priorities include a focus on the basics such as reading, writing and math, improving treatment of teachers, and ensuring children are career ready when they graduate.

“We have got to treat our teachers better,” said Robinson. “Now, notice what I said, I didn’t say pay better, that’s definitely a priority — to pay them better.”

Robinson said that treating teachers better doesn’t start with increasing pay. “It starts with giving them the respect that they deserve and the protection that they need in the classroom.”

But when asked to elaborate on what it means to treat teachers better, Robinson said “It definitely starts with the pay. We’ve got to pay our teachers better, we’ve got to come up with some ways we can reduce waste on one hand, and not take that money and shift it to anything else.

“I think we should also take our budget and look at it and whatever we could cut, we should cut it and not move it to somewhere else but move it directly to teacher pay make that list of priorities that we need for increases inside that budget.”

He did not address the fact that current teacher salaries have been set by his fellow Republicans in the General Assembly over the objections of Gov. Roy Cooper and Democrats, who have repeatedly sought bigger educator raises and higher school funding.

Both candidates were asked the same questions.

Stein appeared via a pre-recorded video interview because his office was holding its annual Peace Officers Memorial Day Ceremony on Tuesday morning.

Stein also called for higher teacher pay, as well as bringing back extra pay for teachers with master’s degrees, and hiring more counselors and social workers to help with student behavior.

“We are woefully underfunding school counselors, school nurses, and social workers,” Stein said. “That means the kids and the challenges they face, which are real, are unfairly burdening our schoolteachers…so that they’re having to deal with behavioral issues rather than educate.”

Former Guilford County schools superintendent and current Democratic nominee for state superintendent Mo Green was also among the officials and candidates in attendance at the event, but Green’s opponent Republican Michele Morrow declined an invitation to attend. Like Robinson, Morrow has risen to prominence in the GOP by championing an aggressive culture war agenda that is highly critical of traditional public schools.

During remarks she delivered, current state Superintendent Catherine Truitt appeared to take a dig at Morrow, who defeated her in the March GOP primary, when she encouraged voters to back candidates who “actively engage” and refrain from employing “buzzwords” like critical race theory.

“I hope we can rally behind education leaders who take time to show up and share their vision independent of buzzwords,” she said. “Our students deserve that. Our teachers and administrators deserve that. Let’s be sure that we support a person who is going to do that.”

“Talk about the issues warranting attention outside of buzzwords like indoctrination, Leandro, Critical race theory, social-emotional learning and fake cat litter boxes,” Truitt said. Morrow has come under fire for past social media posts in which she supported executing prominent Democratic officials and called public schools “socialist indoctrination centers.”

Democratic state Senator Lisa Grafstein, however, pushed back against Truitt’s characterization of “Leandro” — the name of a 30-year-old lawsuit that aims to improve funding for the state’s public schools — as a buzzword. She said funding the Leandro plan is the basic bare minimum for education in North Carolina.

For its part, the host Public School Forum called on state leaders to act and reverse the decades of “disinvestment” in North Carolina public schools.

“Our top education issues reflect what the Forum sees as the most pressing issues facing North Carolina’s public education system,” said Public School Forum Sr. Director of Policy & Research Dr. Lauren Fox. “Disinvestment in public education has led us to be one of the country’s least-funded public education systems. For the future of our students and the state as a whole, we must act now to provide students with effective educators and the necessary resources to be successful.”

The event also included remarks from Cooper in which he repeated many of the themes he emphasized during a Monday press conference that was highly critical of Republican legislators’ plans to expand the state’s private school voucher program.

“It is truly remarkable to see the success of our public schools given a lack of funding. And here’s the tough part, but also the good part: the money is there. It is there to invest in our public schools without raising taxes,” said the governor. “The future of our state goes to class in a public school. We have to invest in that future”