Chief of NC schools ousted in primary
Conservative parent critical of ‘radical agendas’ defeats Truitt
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s public schools superintendent won’t return to her position in 2025 after a primary defeat by a challengers who questioned her commitment to social conservatism.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt lost Tuesday’s Republican primary to Michele Morrow, a home-schooling parent and conservative activist who has accused public schools of indoctrinating students with left-leaning views on race and gender.
Truitt, in her first term as schools’ chief, led the Department of Public Instruction during the pandemic and later recovery, and implemented a new legislature-backed plan to improve reading skills in early grades. She had reelection support from dozens in the General Assembly Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis.
But Morrow, a nurse and former Christian missionary, accused Truitt of not being conservative enough. Morrow collected support from rural education leaders.
She also criticized Truitt for seeking to briefly delay the implementation of a new “Parents’ Bill of Rights” so that districts would have more time to create new policies, and for continued low reading and math proficiency rates.
In November, Morrow will take on Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green, a former Guilford County schools superintendent and previous head of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Green won Tuesday’s Democratic primary over two rivals.
Morrow said Wednesday that if elected, she would focus on scholastics over diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and “work to make our schools the safest buildings in our state.”
Republican and unaffiliated voters who picked Morrow “are tired of their taxpayer funds going to push radical agendas in the classroom instead of proven pedagogies,” she said Wednesday in an emailed statement.
While the state superintendent is head of the Department of Public Instruction, statewide school policy is left to the State Board of Education, for which the governor makes the most appointments.
Truitt, whose committee outspent Morrow, was Gov. Pat McCrory’s education adviser and chancellor of Western Governors University in North Carolina.
While the election “did not go the way I had hoped, I’m deeply proud of what we accomplished and I am gratified by the support of educators, parents, school and legislative leaders and so many others from across the state,” Truitt wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. Her term ends at the end of the year.
Morrow participated in the march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest Joe Biden as the 2020 presidential winner, but she said she left the area when ordered by authorities and didn’t enter the building, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.