Who is running for state superintendent? Here's what you need to know about each candidate

Whoever wins will serve for the next four years, seeking to help recover learning lost during the Covid-19 pandemic and shifts in how students are taught.

The slowed pace of learning during remote schooling in 2020 and 2021 led to lower standardized test scores. Students have gained some of that learning back, but not all, and federal funding meant to aid the effort is set to end Sept. 30.

North Carolina is also in the middle of a major transition to change how children learn to read to a more research-based method. It’s likely to take several years to fully implement, but officials hope it will result in much higher test scores and literacy rates for students.

Beyond that, issues of school safety, improving outcomes for students with disabilities and improving school infrastructure are top of mind among school leaders, teachers, students and families.

Incumbent Superintendent Catherine Truitt faces a far-right challenger, Michele Morrow, as she seeks reelection. Truitt has worked to change reading instruction in schools to be more research-based and has pushed for better preparing students for the workforce, college or military. Morrow is a homeschool mom who believes schools have become too political. Truitt’s campaign has raised more than $150,000 since 2023, several times the roughly $8,000 Morrow’s campaign has raised.

She touts rising exam scores in kindergarten through third-grade reading as a sign the $50 million reading overhaul she’s helping lead is working.

“The ability to build trust and work with legislators is paramount to success in this role,” Truitt said. “I have a proven track record of working with both the House and the Senate to pass legislation in support of students, many of which received bipartisan support.”

Those include the reading overhaul and a bill that increased penalties for licensed teachers who commit sexual offenses against students and for school personnel who don’t alert authorities about abuse. She pushed for bills that started a pilot program to require career development plans for all middle and high schoolers and a computer science course requirement for all students. Truitt also supported a bill that prevents transgender girls from participating in girls' sports.

Truitt wants to change how schools are graded and overhaul teacher compensation and teacher support and has pitched those ideas to lawmakers. She’s also told lawmakers she plans to pitch an overhaul to math instruction that’s more rooted in research on the way people learn math.

The proposal to overhaul teacher licensure would have drastically raised pay and added more leadership positions for the most effective teachers, but lawmakers did not take up the proposal during the 2023 long session.

She also wants to ask lawmakers to change state law to allow more professionals to be able to give tests for diagnosing learning difficulties. She said not enough school psychologists — who are currently responsible for that — are able to do so, resulting in some students being diagnosed too late to more easily help them.

Truitt created the Office of Learning Recovery and Acceleration in 2021, which studies the best ways to increase student learning, makes recommendations to schools on the most effective ways to spend their money and works with schools directly on plans to improve student learning. The office has provided schools with reports on how far behind each student is. She notes that most states haven’t done as much to help schools overcome learning loss.

“Thanks to our teachers’ and students’ hard work, our state has seen two consecutive years of academic growth since 2021,” Truitt said.

Truitt says the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence schools means it’s critical that children learn how to use it at school and that educators redefine what cheating means in a way that doesn’t shut off all use of artificial intelligence.

Morrow said classrooms and school buses have discipline issues, leading to some turnover. Bus drivers have been in shorter supply in recent years.

“There is not any discipline on the buses, and so they're finding it very difficult to drive,” Morrow said. She supports a bus monitor on every bus, although that’s something lawmakers or school boards would have to provide. She suggested a statewide code of conduct for students. Currently, school boards set those in their local policies.

Morrow said she wants to review curriculum to make sure it’s effective. She wants to ensure students have soft skills, like critical thinking and problem-solving.

Morrow thinks schools have enough money and wouldn’t advocate for more. Instead, she’d cut programs to afford other initiatives. Morrow supports smaller class sizes, although the superintendent doesn’t have the power to increase staffing. She supports higher pay for bus drivers, which is something lawmakers or local school boards would need to provide.

She suggested having internships within schools as a way of providing more personnel in classrooms.

“When we tell the North Carolina populus that we just need more money, what you're essentially saying to every hard-working North Carolinian is we need more of your money to be able to teach our children,” Morrow said. “And I just don't think it's true.”

Morrow doesn’t support the use of artificial intelligence in education and says she doesn’t support replacing teachers with artificial intelligence. She said children spend too much time on screens and doesn’t support schools providing every student with a laptop or similar device, which most schools now do.

Morrow thinks the Department of Health and Human Services should address children’s mental health issues off of school property, rather than schools inviting health providers on campus.

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Three people are running for the Democratic nomination: Kenon Crumble, Katie Eddings and Maurice Green. All have worked in education before. Crumble is an assistant principal, Eddings is a teacher, and Green is a former superintendent of Guilford County Schools. Green leads the fundraising race, raising more than $200,000, several times what Eddings and Crumble have raised, according to state reports.

If elected, he says he’d work with the General Assembly on getting higher teacher salaries and expanding pre-kindergarten access. Crumble thinks higher pay is essential to attracting top talent and further improving the quality of education for children.

He said teachers and bus drivers don’t feel respected and that raising pay can help change that.

Crumble wants to do more to improve school safety. That includes ensuring school broadband networks can handle security cameras, he said. Infrastructure is critical.

But school employees also need to form quality relationships with students and tackle bullying issues, he says. Teachers need to be better trained to implement accommodations specific in special education students' individualized education programs.

Schools should partner with outside organizations to ensure children have enough food, clean clothing and a safe way to get to school, he says.

Crumble wants to review middle school curriculum, which he thinks isn’t adequately preparing enough students for high school math and science, based on state test scores.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Crumble said North Carolina needs to teach teachers how to use it and make programs available to teachers on detecting when student work is AI-generated. Students also need to learn how to use it in academically productive ways.

“I bring a perspective that is different from any other person who’s running for this office,” Eddings said.

Eddings, who has two children in public schools, says she would urge lawmakers to pass reforms such as expansions in programming and staffing for early childhood education, pre-kindergarten, students with disabilities, English learners and academically and intellectually gifted students, among other endeavors.

To address teacher and bus driver shortages, she says she’d push for competitive pay.

“No teacher should have to go and find another job,” she said.

Part of addressing the shortage is also promoting the profession to young people.

“It breaks my heart that kids see it as a great job and a great profession but it’s not financially feasible for them,” she said.

Eddings would also push for manageable class sizes. That would also help students who need extra attention.

She believes schools need to provide teachers with the tools to recognize how students might be using artificial intelligence to complete their coursework.

Eddings believes relationships with families and community organizations are critical to ensuring students’ needs in and out of school are addressed. At a bigger level, the state superintendent can work with groups that are already driven toward feeding children who lack sufficient food at home.

Relationships are also critical toward school safety, Eddings said. School employees not only need to know their buildings’ layouts in great detail, she said, they also need to know every student and have conversations with them.

The former Guilford County Schools superintendent — who was also a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools deputy superintendent and chief operating officer — has spent most of his life in North Carolina, where his children attended public schools.

“It's important to have someone in that role who has experience managing complex organizations, and leading them to levels of success,” Green said.

He believes it’s essential to revere public school employees, tailor services to students’ needs, engage parents and community members in schools, ensure a safe learning environment and remind people of the good things that are happening in schools.

Green wants to urge the General Assembly to provide more funding for schools, but he said he has experience aligning existing resources with top priorities. While schools need more money, they should also work with community partners, including churches, to address students’ non-academic needs, such as providing meals or clothing, he said

Green thinks funding is part of what’s causing teacher and bus driver shortages. He said education leaders need to focus on making sure those employees feel respected.

“There is diminishing respect for educators,” Green said. “... Why as an individual, would I want to go into a profession where folks don't respect me?”

He also believes education for children with disabilities could be improved with additional counselors, social workers, school psychologists and nurses. But he also said schools need to make sure they aren’t over-identifying students for special education and providing them with the wrong education. He noted that students of color are disproportionately identified for special education. On the flip side, students of color are disproportionately underidentified for academically and intellectually gifted programming.

Additional support staff would also help reduce bullying and violence in schools, he said. Schools need more professionals who are trained to protect students, including resource officers, he added.

Green thinks schools should use artificial intelligence, but cautiously. Schools should emphasize the ethics of using artificial intelligence as a part of students’ character education.